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    2. Ashen-Shugar
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    • Posts 272
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    Best posts made by Ashen-Shugar

    • RE: How much Code is too much Code?

      @mietze said in How much Code is too much Code?:

      @surreality i think for some people the coded stuff /does/ enhance their RP and creativity though. I wouldn’t want to say that someone who enjoys it isn’t being just as creative. I know some of the crisis stuff of RfK drove people nuts but I liked the narrative aspect (it described something of concern/going wrong in your monitored territories), because it allowed me to be super creative in how I narrated back how I would attempt to solve in conjunction with the roll.). Other people would have found it stifling or busywork though.

      The hardest thing I believe with coding systems is to be honest, we really don't have that many real dedicated coders in this micro-industry.

      And those few coders we do have tend to not want to code in mush, but in another language be it ruby, python, or even php/javascript/web.

      This is a failing of a lot of codebases. They tend to gear to a single language system, and MUSH while incredibly powerful for what it is, is an exceptionally esoteric language that requires a special type of insanity to get good at.

      Why I tip my hat at Evennia and Ares who use mainstream languages.

      Why I took pages out of other people's books and empowered RhostMUSH to be coded, optionally, in any language the coder wants, with obvious caveats for interface and/or speed limitations.

      One thing we, as coders, can do for the end user, even if that end user is another coder?

      Empower them. Give them the tools needed to do what they find fun and enjoyable. And make life easier for them to do what they enjoy and want to do.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Sort by last character?
      reverse(sort(reverse(<string>),n,|))
      
      posted in MU Code
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: The Cat Thread

      @Catsmeow said in The Cat Thread:

      Please everyone post more cat pics.

      Thanks

      Pyewacket, our Norwegian Forest Cat.

      Visiting the Breeder

      Picking up from Breeder - 12 Weeks

      Gluttony for Attention - 16 Weeks

      I'm not always adoreable, but when I am... - 17 Weeks

      And finally at 6 months... and 13 lbs...

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • Shout for Help

      I decided to start this topic for a central area where people can reach out for help on their mush.

      This should be centered around those who are having their mushes attacked, find bugs (hardcode or softcode) or just have general questions about the games they're starting and/or supporting that they can't figure out.

      We have a massive power-base of knowledge here. Let's use it.

      Don't be afraid to ask questions. We have some old timers here, myself having mudded since 1989. Some here may be even before my time.

      So, all honest questions welcome!

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: This Is a Terrible February 14th Thread Title

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: How Do I Headwiz?

      Advice for headwiz. Huh. Um... huh.

      I guess it boils down to just a simple philosophy.

      Set rules and guidelines down, set up your ethical and moral obligations that you want for the game upfront, and try your very best not to deviate from it. People loathe change. This includes good change as well as 'bad change'. Try to avoid changing once you have the rules in place. If you do change, make sure it's well documented on what changed. It's to protect yourself more than other people πŸ˜‰

      People will whine regardless of what you do. Never do it to please people, it's a straw man. As mentioned earlier, build a game you want to build. Build a game that you'll enjoy. Build a game that you dream about. Then share that dream with other people.

      If other people come on and find it enjoyable as well. Awesome! You have a game to share.

      If no one comes on and no one finds it enjoyable? Awesome! You have a game that you had an absolute blast designing.

      In the end, setting up a mud is about having fun. If it's no longer fun, you don't do it.

      Wish I could help more, but it's like hunting the white stag. It's a fun chase, and a great hunt, but never expect to bag it and eventually it'll end.

      But man oh man, what a ride.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Quiet Room

      Penn:
      @lock/speech (on location)
      @lock/interact (on player)
      GAG flag (on player)
      @hooking say and pose

      MUX & TM3
      @lock/speech + Auditorium [flag] (on location)
      SLAVE flag (on player)
      @icmd (on location or player)
      REALITY LEVELS
      @hooking say and pose

      Rhost:
      @lock/speech + Auditorium (flag) (on location)
      SLAVE flag (on player)
      FUBAR flag (on player)
      @icmd (on location, player, or zone)
      REALITY LEVELS
      @hooking say and pose

      There's probably a few clever ways I didn't touch, but that's the majority of the ways to lock down a room (or a player in a room) from talking.

      posted in MU Questions & Requests
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Alternative Formats to MU

      @faraday said in Alternative Formats to MU:

      This really doesn't strike me as a problem.

      Evennia is pitched as just a building kit, so you can build whatever you want. I'd say it has the opposite problem, where you have to cobble together building blocks for even basic stuff like finger, bbs, jobs, etc.

      Ares comes with more stuff built-in, but it's designed with a plugin system so you can add/remove things. Of course, if you start stripping things out, now you're getting into the realm of custom coding. You can take out FS3 pretty easily, but now you've got to code up something to replace it - and that's not trivial.

      The problem isn't in the tool, so much, as the experience to use the tool or the time available for the end-point person to spin up on the knowledge to use the tool.

      Ares with the Ruby/rails integration.
      Evennia with the Python/django integration.
      RhostMUSH with the restful(ish) API.
      MOO with its built in language system.
      MUCK with it's FORTH integration.

      All have tools available to do some fairly amazing things both internal and external.

      But it has the base expectation for the end-user who wants to make it happen to be comfortable with the tools to do so.

      We're not there yet.

      And honestly I'm not sure it's our job to get there. The best we can do is provide tools, documentation, examples, and empower the end-user to actually use it. But them to actually use it is not our decision.

      It's theirs.

      And that's the problem πŸ™‚

      posted in Suggestions & Questions
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Forum Game: You Remind Me of the GIF...

      @templari said in Forum Game: You Remind Me of the GIF...:

      @auspice said in Forum Game: You Remind Me of the GIF...:

      So that no one feels pressured on coming up with something for me- first responder is first on the block.

      Did someone say First Responder?

      alt text

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?

      @faraday said in The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?:

      @thatguythere said in The Death Of Telnet: Is It Time To Face The Music?:

      I think a lot of the rancor by myself and others is some of the we must move forward stuff involved a direct repudiation of what we like about the hobby.

      If the thing you like about the hobby is having to type +bbpost Board=Subject/Message then yeah, I can't help you. Keep playing Penn/Tiny I guess.

      But other than that, I don't see how making it easier to do things people are already trying to do is a repudiation of anyone. Nobody in this thread is talking about radically changing the fundamental style of gameplay. Folks already link to their character profile images from +finger or @desc. They already insert image links into room descs. Don't want to see them? Hey, that's a perfectly fine feature request, which is already common in some chat clients.

      @Faraday, that's something that you, @Griatch, myself and others have faced and will continue to face. The evil face of change.

      A larger portion than normal just hear the following:

      So, I have this new feature that changes WOOF WOOF BOW WOW MOO MOO OINK OINK OINK WOOF WOOF WOOF. So what do you all think?

      Anything after the word 'changes' they tend to tune out.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Alternative Formats to MU

      @rnmissionrun said in Alternative Formats to MU:

      I honestly do not think that simply moving from MUSHcode to Python (or Ruby) will make it 'orders of magnitude' easier. Sure, it might help some folks, but IMO if you don't have the aptitude for coding, simply switching languages isn't going to make any difference. The problem is that doing anything non-trivial in /any/ programming language requires real skill. Non-coders probably won't have those skills, or be interested in developing them.

      And this is something we plan to have a unique solution to for RhostMUSH.

      We're in the process of (hopefully) making a fully independent API language processor into the game. This is separate from the Restful(ish) API that we currently have available.

      What the language API will (hopefully) do is allow you to plug in, quite literally, nearly any external programming language (ruby, python, perl, etc) and have it work as if it was a native language plugin (ergo, native C) for all intents and purposes to the mush.

      Meaning, you would have tie-in into the internals of the codebase and be able to interactively use it in your language of choice.

      While we can't make coding any easier, we can empower a user to use the language they know best.

      That's about the best we can do for you πŸ™‚

      posted in Suggestions & Questions
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Comfort Food...

      Got a few comfort foods.

      1. Smoked string cheese.
      2. home made pop overs
      3. home made baklava
      4. home made cinnamon rolls
      5. baked brie

      Though #5 we always have as a holiday treat πŸ˜‰

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Hobby-related Resolutions/Goals for the coming year... ?

      @surreality said in Hobby-related Resolutions/Goals for the coming year... ?:

      @ashen-shugar I am beginning to believe this is how nearly all code is actually created, you realize.

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Alternative Formats to MU

      @rook said in Alternative Formats to MU:

      You're right, but if we're honestly talking about something to replace telnet, I think that our 'core' needs to be broader than 'every game uses this'. It needs to have a full enough list of features that people go 'that looks better', and that's going to include, IMO, logging and conflict resolution.

      Point of order... I am confused by the constant usage of the word 'telnet' in this conversation. Telnet is a protocol, like HTTP or SMTP or SSH. This misunderstanding has clogged a lot of this conversation from a technical perspective.

      I think the better term to be using here would be 'server codebase', which is the application like PennMUSH or RhostMUSH or TinyMUX or AresMUSH that people are logging into. That is what provides the features that you are discussing.

      Not picking on anyone, but please. Unless you are speaking to the specific carrier protocol that people use to log into the server, don't use the word 'telnet'.

      What is being discussed here is design for the server, not the protocol.

      Also? Please don't just say "Whatever Rook", because it is important when you are engaging people from a technical perspective. God help us if @Ashen-Shugar sees this.

      Whatever Rook.

      You deserved that for the Ashen-Shugar comment πŸ˜‰

      For what it's worth, it's again why I made the API in Rhost. Why I'm having people help me in making a completely code-independent API parser into the main engine.

      If people don't want to use telnet, don't.
      If people don't want to use web interfaces, don't.
      If people don't want to log, don't.
      If people want to log everything, go for it.

      Right now, with the existing Restful(like) API, Rhost allows you to interface, connect, query, and push and pull data from the game, without using telnet. Without logging in a player. Without anything more than an active end-point dbref#. And that dbref# can be any data type. Room, exit, object, it just doesn't care.

      You use the a url call (any language that can do a header based url call can use this, any web page, program, command line, graphical application... anything that handles web headers.

      Game developers hear you when you ask for options.
      Game developers hear you when you ask to be able to enable and disable anything you can think of.
      Game developers hear you when you ask for more.

      But the funny thing is?

      All I hear is the people too busy complaining about how something doesn't work to bother discovering the issue has already been resolved in some of the codebases.

      And this is why @Rook didn't want me to see it I guess.

      Meh handwaves do whatever. I'm tired.

      posted in Suggestions & Questions
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.

      @miss-demeanor said in Real World Peeves, Disgruntlement, and Irks.:

      @auspice By no means am I holding myself up as what SHOULD be. Its more to the point that for my job, I arrive and start work before ANYONE ELSE (including supervisors and management) and I am often still there after most everyone else has left. I work 10-12 hour shifts every day in an attempt to keep up with the workload. Now, don't get me wrong... the OT is VERY nice. It allows my family to enjoy slightly more than what we otherwise could. But goddamn am I wiped at the end of the day. I take neither breaks nor a lunch hour at my job. I went to the bathroom yesterday... and was paged over the PA because people were piling up and my supervisor freaked that I wasn't at my desk. This is NOT anything anyone anywhere should be doing.

      That sounds like hell.

      I would likely do this to the people making life difficult...

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • Resetting your #1/God/Admin password

      I have seen on various mushes where resetting the GOD password (or administrative account password) is becoming more and more the norm. Most from people who pass on databases to others to use and manipulate.

      So, I'll cover here the various codebases and how to change the password.

      • TinyMUSH 3 & TinyMUX:

      TinyMUSH 3 nor MUX have no built in tools or mechanisms to change #1's password within the game. However, there are a few ways this can be achieved.

      1. If you have GDB (gnu debugger) in your unix shell, you can attach to the running process and change your password that way. This is not for the weak of heart and you could potentially do irreparable damage to your running game.

      find the process

      $ ps aux|grep mush
      tmuser    17229  0.0  0.0  24712  2816 pts/0    S    11:28   0:00 ./bin/netmush -c netmush.conf -l netmush.log -p netmush.pid -t ./text -b ./bin -d ./data -g netmush.gdbm -k netmush.db.CRASH
      

      attach to the process. In this case PID 17229

      $ gdb -p 17229
      ...
      ...
      lots of text spams here
      ...
      Attaching to process 17229
      Reading symbols from /home/tmuser/TM3/tinymush-3.2/src/netmush...done.
      ...
      lots more text here
      (gdb) call atr_clr(1,5)
      (gdb) quit
      A debugging session is active.
      
              Inferior 1 [process 17229] will be detached.
      
      Quit anyway? (y or n) y
      Detaching from program: /home/tmuser/TM3/tinymush-3.2/src/netmush, process 17229
      

      Note: atr_clr is an internal function to clear an attribute. This is just like if you did in game &myattr foo. Attribute '5' if you check attrs.h (in the src directory) is A_PASS or your password attribute. So you are essentially clearing your password.

      At this point you can connect to #1 without a password. At the connect screen just type:

      co #1
      
      1. (A) Modify the source. This is only useful if you already have a wizard account within the database. If you don't, look at #3 below.
        The file you want to modify is wiz.c (MUX is wiz.cpp) in the src directory. Look for do_newpassword. In that function you will see the line in TinyMUSH3:
              if (God(victim)) {
                      notify_quiet(player, "You cannot change that player's password.");
                      return;
              }
      

      In MUX you will see a line like this:

          if (God(victim))
          {
              bool bCan = true;
              if (God(executor))
      

      You need to comment this out like so:

      /* Commented out
              if (God(victim)) {
                      notify_quiet(player, "You cannot change that player's password.");
                      return;
              }
      */
      

      In MUX you would change it to this:

      /*    if (God(victim)) */
      if ( 0 )
          {
              bool bCan = true;
              if (God(executor))
      

      Then you need to recompile

      $ make clean; make
      

      Now restart your mush in the game (Or ./Startmush or ./Startmux respectively if you shut it down)

      @restart
      

      Now you should be able to change #1's password from any wizard account.

      Make sure you revert your changes at this point or wizards will always be able to newpassword GOD. I don't think you want that πŸ™‚

      So revert your changes:

              if (God(victim)) {
                      notify_quiet(player, "You cannot change that player's password.");
                      return;
              }
      

      Or for MUX change back to:

          if (God(victim))
          {
              bool bCan = true;
              if (God(executor))
      

      Recompile

      $ make clean; make
      

      And restart your mush process from #1

      @restart
      

      You should be good to go now.

      1. (B) Special thanks to @Autumn for reminding me of this most excellent point.

      You may also modify flags.h in both MUX and TinyMUSH to change the dbref# of your GOD character. This requires that you must already know the dbref# of an existing player that you can log into or this method is pointless. Do not assign it to a guest character. Ever.

      In flags.h look for the following line:

      #define GOD ((dbref) 1)
      

      Change the '1' to a dbref# of a player you know the password to, again, non-guest player. So if your player had dbref #12345, you would change the '1' to '12345'. Assuming that the dbref was #12345, it would look like this after editing:

      #define GOD ((dbref) 12345)
      

      At this point you'd recompile the source. Always make sure to make clean:

      $ make clean;make
      

      Once you have, start the mush or reboot the mush and log into the player you have defined as the GOD player. Once you do, newpassword #1 to a new password. In the example below I set it to 'abc123':

      @newpassword #1=abc123
      

      Log into #1 to make sure the password took:

      co #1 abc123
      

      Now you need to revert back your changes. Revert your flags.h changes and recompile.

      #define GOD ((dbref) 1)
      
      $ make clean; make
      

      Now, log restart your mush and you should be good to go.

      1. Modify your flatfile
        This again is not for the faint of heart.
        First, you need to open up your netmush.db.flat file in an editor of your choice. I like vi so I'll use that as an example here. With MUX it will be netmux.flat
      $ vi netmush.db.flat
      

      Go down to the line that starts with !1

      ...
      lots of stuff before this
      ...
      !1
      "Wizard"
      0
      -1
      -1
      -1
      0
      -1
      
      1
      -1
      1000
      4115
      0
      16
      0
      0
      1524934266
      1524934266
      0
      >30
      "Sat Apr 28 11:50:16 2018"
      >49
      "20 20 20 20 20"
      >38
      "20 20 20 20 20"
      >5
      "XXNHc95o0HhAc"
      ...
      lots of stuff after this
      ...
      

      Remember above in step 2 where I showed the numeric value for the password was '5' in attrs.h? Notice the line at the end here that has >5. In the flatfile the > parameter is a declaration that the following numerical value is an attribute. The line after it will be the content of that file. Change this to "". This will make it an empty password. So, change to:

      >5
      ""
      

      If that doesn't work for whatever reason, feel free to change it to the default password of 'potrzebie'. TinyMUSH still uses DES encoding. For reference it was included above, so change it to:

      >5
      "XXNHc95o0HhAc"
      

      Do note for MUX it uses SHA1 password encoding so you need to change it to this instead

      >5
      "$SHA1$X0PG0reTn66s$FxO7KKs/CJ+an2rDWgGO4zpo1co="
      

      Now, the fun part. Loading in your flatfile. Do this from your 'game' directory. Make SURE you have a clean data directory prior to doing this. dbconvert does not like overwriting files and you will hork your database. So my suggestion, move everything to a subdirectory.
      First, make sure your game is shutdown
      Second, move all the files to a subdirectory.

      $ cd data  # assuming you're in the game directory
      $ mkdir storage
      $ mv * storage
      $ cd ..  # to go back to the game directory
      

      Now, let's load up your flatfile. This is assuming your mush flatfile is in your game directory. You will be exeucting this from the game directory. For TinyMUSH you would issue this command:

      $ ./dbconvert -c netmush.conf -d ./data -D netmush.gdbm -X ./data/netmush.gdbm < netmush.db.flat
      

      For TinyMUX you would issue this command, and from the data directory, not the game directory:

      $ ./db_load netmux netmux.flat netmux.db
      

      At this point, you should be good to start your mush back up. For TinyMUSH:

      ./Startmush
      

      For MUX:

      ./Startmux
      
      • PennMUSH:
        Luckily, PennMUSH has tools that allow much easier manipulation of the database so you don't have to do the wiggy ugly shit that you have to do with MUX or TinyMUSH to change the password.

      With Penn, just use the pre-defined password utility to change #1's password. You must first @shutdown your mush prior to issuing this.

      # issue help on the command
      $ ./utils/pwutil --help
      # wipe #1's password
      $ ./utils/pwutil.pl -z --wipe 1 game/data/outdb.gz
      # set #1's password to 'forgetful'
      $ ./utils/pwutil.pl -z --set 1 --password forgetful game/data/outdb.gz
      

      At this point, bring your mush back up:

      ./restart.dst
      

      Andddd, that's it.

      • RhostMUSH
        Rhost, like Penn, has a nice clean way to change #1's password.

      First, if you already have an immortal in the game you can change #1's password within a running game by making a change to your netrhost.conf file and rebooting. Use any editor of your choice, I will show with 'vi'.

      $ vi netrhost.conf
      

      At the bottom right before the line '# this is the last line. This should always be the last line.' add this line so it looks like this:

      newpass_god 1
      # this is the last line.  This should always be the last line.
      

      Now, reboot your mush

      @reboot
      

      At this point you can change #1's password from any immortal.

      But hey, what happens if you don't have an immortal? Also easy:

      newpass_god 777
      # this is the last line.  This should always be the last line.
      

      Now, again, @reboot

      @reboot
      

      At this point, #1's password will be the default password 'Nyctasia'. So just log in with that as a password. It is case sensitive.

      co #1 Nyctasia
      

      Remove the newpass_god line from your netrhost.conf file

      # this is the last line.  This should always be the last line.
      

      And @reboot again to make sure the changes are gone.

      @reboot
      

      Andd, that's it.

      • Evennia:

      The example changes the password to account 'Foo' (which in this case is account#1):

      Quoted from @Griatch. Thanks!

      evennia changepassword Foo
      Password: 
      Password again:
      Password changed successfully for user 'Foo(account#1)'
      
      • AresMUSH:
        https://aresmush.com/tutorials/manage/forgot-headwiz-pw/ (thanks @faraday !)
      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Chat blocking

      @Lithium said:

      Is it possible to at least be able to block someone from chatting with you? I don't need @Cirno spamming my chat box with him cursing me and typing that he's grabbing his cock. That'd be awesome because I'd really just rather not read it at all.

      Thanks.

      He probably still assumes you're a guy.

      posted in Suggestions & Questions
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Christmas...

      @TwoGunBob said in Christmas...:

      She also got a Macross VT-01 Ostrich fighter when I was 13 that I resold awhile back for $1500 when I needed a car quickly. She was happy a toy she got me for Christmas bailed me out of a sticky financial moment.

      This brings tears to my eyes.

      I had the complete GoDaiKin collection (all the main robots as well as all the side-robots/vehicles/etc) before I went off to college. All mint condition, boxed, nicely arranged, and hidden in my closet.

      I came back from college to find nearly every toy, broken, outside, sitting in a sandbox.
      With my 8-12 year old nephews still playing with some.

      My brother's comment was 'well, they're just toys, get over it'.

      I haven't gotten over it. I never will. And yes, the majority of my family are assholes πŸ™‚

      posted in Tastes Less Game'y
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
    • RE: Why did you pick your username?

      @arkandel

      I picked Ashen-Shugar because back in the day with player name character limits having the name 'That Asshole Over There that I hate' just was too long.

      So I settled...

      posted in Mildly Constructive
      Ashen-Shugar
      Ashen-Shugar
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