I'm just going to leave this here.

https://www.fontsquirrel.com

Enjoy this to the fullest.

@faraday said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@surreality But... why listen to them? I mean, the idea that original theme games can't work is demonstrably false. Arx, Firan, Aether, Castle d'Image, Otherspace... some of the most famous and arguably "successful" games in MU* history have had original themes.

These are also games based on generalizations. Aether was: General fantasy from the age of greek mythology. Castle d'Image was: Dimension of doors. Popular games not mentioned have similar generalist approaches, and I'll start with Shangril-La, because why not. (Yes, it has a detailed setting. Had, at least.)

The most famous Mu*s have no solid setting at all. FurryMuck, for instance. Almost any time I find an analysis of the hobby, this game is mentioned. I would describe FurryMuck as a "social", tho, in the way that Shang became, or HellMoo, or Islandia, all IRC channels with far more trappings. And I've had some decent role play on IRC.

Of the games you mentioned, though, you must know more of the setting than I mentioned. I loved (and still love) Aether's character test: Five very simple questions that proved you at least know what kind of game you're asking to play. Aether had a wiki before MediaWiki. Their news files were short and organized. Their newbie help channel actually helped newbies; you would usually walk away knowing how to find an answer next time.

If I had a nickel every time the answer to my question anywhere since Aether was "check the wiki"...

Or worse...

Anyhow, I had this answer in my head before hitting @Sparks' answer, and I also realize that it's quite different and almost opposite. We do both agree that for games based on an existing property a lot is taken for granted, but even original games have to be careful not to fall into that trap. I tried to draw out Aether as having the one thing that many games don't, and while I don't know about Otherspace I don't think any of the other games listed did that very well: Making it easy to get there.

@somasatori said in Wiki/MUX SQL function request:

@Thenomain said in Wiki/MUX SQL function request:

@somasatori said in Wiki/MUX SQL function request:

grimdark Pugmire

You made me a little sad thinking about this.

You could help me with this project Theno.

Only if there are dog scientists that wear chocolate labcoats! (Pun not mine; thank or blame Hey Ash Whatcha Playin'.)

@roz

I know who to go for with all my JavaScript questions now.

@Misadventure

You do the following in order:

• Bask in the warmth that you are a fine purveyor of Chank fonts, because Chank is awesome. I have a flip lighter with his older "robot" logo on it.
• Go to the Snipple page and download it. It's free! Hurrah!
• Check Chank's free font license, because you're checking these things, right?
• Notice the following text:

You may use this font for your own personal website or communications, or for personal design work you might do for a friend, such as a birthday party invite, an indie band cd, a personal website or a personal scrapbooking project.

• Bask some more. Chank has been a very copyright-conscious designer since he's started, decades ago.
• Go to the FontSquirrel web-font conversion page.
• Install the converted web font into a directory your Mediawiki installation can reach, set up the CSS to reach it, and use it with impunity.
• Do some basking for FontSquirrel, too. Turn off your ad-blocker for them. They're not even using trackers. Huh!

@faraday said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@Thenomain said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:

@faraday said in Which canon property/setting would be good for a MU* ?:
Except I think that these challenges are the same challenges faced by using existing IP: How to teach people to play.

To an extent. But having created both original and existing IP games, my personal experience is that it's WAY easier to teach people to play when 80-90% of your player base comes through the door with a basic familiarity with the universe.

And I completely agree, which is why I wanted to note that all the games you noted were pretty generic at its base, and I threw in two of my own. Hell, even Amber, an established IP, can be described as: The rulers of the universe at the only true reality(-ies) of it.

I think that a one-paragraph hook and then about 2 (minimum) to 5 (maximum of my personal attention span) pages to get people into what the game world is about would serve a fantastic start to drawing people in. We should see this more.

Fair Warning: The TinyMUX reality level system has, at last check, issues parsing substitutions, most used of which are %r and %t. From what I can tell, %t is converted to spaces (as usual) and those spaces are parsed in the typcal Mux output so compressed down to one space. %r is parsed but %r%r is reduced to %r.

I found a way around this, coming down to using a global function in the 'other desc' slot. I would have to look up how this worked.

I've coded for reality levels, and it can be a pain; remember to code the OOC discussion system to honor the reality levels!

Some stated "reality levels" such as Dark Metal's Umbra or Haunted Memories' Hedge are actually a different grid. Which is fair because they are an entirely different world.

Works!

THANK YOU ROZ!

@Auspice said in How to use Potato MU Client:

I've been using Atlantis.

As well you should.

@Sparks

@Ghost

I.

Regret.

Nothing.

The best way to create user-side functions in Mu* is via a controlled system. The lazy way, the easy way, is to open @function access to all wizbits, and allow each object to define their own via the @startup attribute. SGP does this, and it's fine.

The more common way is to load the #1 with a @startup that is very picky about where it looks. This is only a little safer because anyone with a wizbit can add to the object and hit @restart anyway, and comes with the added drawback that you may have to call code on a different object without the function residing on that object.

My own "secure" (imply the "???" after that) method is to give a the "@startup on #1" system a list of wizard character dbrefs who are allowed to have objects with functions on them, then scan all their objects for attributes to run with @function. You can make an attribute God Only (#1) if you want to limit who's allowed to own objects that can build user-defined functions, but because there's @chown even that is limited.

You could specifically list the dbrefs/attr on #1 on an attribute that's locked God-Only, then run it via the method mentioned in paragraph two, above. This seems like the only idea that would be secure.

On the whole, expecting True Security out of Mu* is a bit of a mug's game, so pick your favorite method, or methods. I tend to take Mu* code as "you care to hack my pretendy funtime game because ... why?", knowing that I can patch most holes. I've used all but the last idea, which I just came up with now because I wasn't happy if I didn't come up with a true secure option.

@Sunny said in Favicon:

I had no idea what a favicon was until this thread.

You have made me smile for the first time today at your charming innocence.

I know that's a bit mean of me to say, but it's like seeing a puppy discover a mirror, or a student driver swear at being cut off in traffic.

I'll have to check on Mac, since Apple has only recently been harassed to re-add favicons to the tabs. Sometimes people want fun over minimalism, Tim.

Wow.

Sorry for intruding on this discussion. Theatre indeed.

@Ashen-Shugar said in MU Flowchart:

@Bubasti said in MU Flowchart:

I love you guys.

Now I can stare at it for long hours, sipping brandy, and contemplating how I'll never be able to have my own MU.

The key, of course, is to design a mush based on a theme that appeals enough to existing coders to draw them in so they can help you

7th Sea.

Fallout.

The Strange.

Anything @Coin mentions is vaguely interesting. (And a Your Mom joke here, because it’s Coin.)

What are yours, Ashen?

@Hexagon said in What is your preferred method of function creation?:

@Thenomain What method was your intended case for Stat Functions Prototype in GMCCG?

The SGP method of putting all functions on a single object. I am not convinced that was a good idea.

Without a sorting system, or a score-based ignore system, there's no more echo-chamber than a bunch of people posting "+1".

Also, hyperbole win.

@golgoth

Oh fuck me.

I deleted and replaced the folder in the macOS GUI, but didn't re-enter the folder in shell. Starting from scratch, I no longer get the indentation error.

I am getting an error finding PyQT4, but I'm checking out some possible solutions from Stack Overflow. I will post when I find the best Mac install solution for this.

--

edit: Here's the error. I think the Homebrew package sets itself up for Python3, not 2.

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "main.py", line 7, in <module>
    from PyQt4 import QtCore, QtGui
ImportError: No module named PyQt4

--

edit edit: No, the Homebrew package for PyQT4 says it will install for both Python2 and Python3. Will need to dig deeper.

@faraday said in MU Flowchart:

(It also does a multi-pager for some dumb reason that made sense, like, twelve years ago :P)

Because people wanted to be able to respond to a multi-page without having to type out the entire list. Knowing how to fake say/pose/emit is not bad knowledge to have, either, but I can't imagine most people needing it.

--

@Mercutio said in MU Flowchart:

And then you get to Regular Expressions, the ins-and-outs of Command-style vs Functional-style (and their hybrid conventions) and what the pros and cons are for both, inheritance, controls / permissions, SQL interactivity, and the true test... fold()

With luck, someone can go their entire Mu* code career without any of this but inheritance and some limited permissions, which is just a subset of "grab an attribute".

I would rather someone learn how to abstract repetitive code blocks via function calls. And the ins and outs of flags. And come to think of it, a competent coder should be prepared to be a halfway competent builder which means a basic understanding of the various object types and how they interact.

@Ashen-Shugar said in What is out there? Hard and soft codebases of choice.:

like any good mechanic, I can say we still have quite a bit to squeeze out of this baby.

Or electrical engineers.

Or, well, programmers.

I still don't know Django. Installing Evennia, more than just getting the raw code on my computer, is still daunting as hell. I strongly support @faraday's notion that it's a rough toolkit, maybe a framework, and little else.

Compare to, e.g., the Mushlikes, where once installed you can log in, and roll up your sleeves and get immediately to work. Look at nearly every web-based service that you can try for free, too. Sure, none of these may do much, but you can monkey around and build monstrosities on your way to build more complex monstrosities.

They also try to keep the metaphors simple. Here are CONTACTS. You can MESSAGE one. You can MESSAGE many; we call this a CHAT. Here's a PLAYER, here's a ROOM, here's a THING, these are all OBJECTS. You link rooms using EXITS. Before you know it, you have learned some basic hierarchical object-lists.

I'll strongly agree with @WTFE (since he's finally singing my "it's stupid but at least it's easy" tune about Mush) that this might make a programmer grit her teeth, but it's relatable. The way Python and other moderately high level languages are taught is similar.

The Mudlike mentality went the other way. "Oh, you know C and C++, just mess around with the server until it does what you want." Evennia is very much like this. "You don't need to know Django, but run it and do this and this to set it up." Okay, what do I do once it's set up? "The same thing but don't install it." Um, what?

I've seen many "um, what?" moments for people in Mush softcode, and it's the PHP of our hobby. Anyone can code a shitty web board in PHP; it's practically what PHP is for. Hopefully it's a gateway drug to more structured languages which opens things even further.

What I'm getting at here is Evennia has no middle ground. There's no playground for it, no toys, and while it's easier to follow than Mush server code it's still not terribly, oh, what I'd call simple. It's an end-point, by design.

What I'm also getting at here is that Mushlikes have no higher ground. They're getting there; Muck started it, Penn dabbled, Rhost is making a stronger push, but building a web-side interface is... okay, Muck has been able to do that for a decade, but I'm not learning Fortran.

There is no bridge between "just want to do this thing" and "professional-level goals". It seems much more likely that Evennia becomes more accessible to hobby coders, but they haven't reached strongly in that direction yet. Both Mudlikes and Mushlikes are learn-by-word-of-mouth creation platforms. Pick whichever one you want to learn.

That's the complex answer, to the original poster.

@EmmahSue said:

It's a question for the community at large, not just Admin to decide.

You take all the fun out of this, you know.