MUD

[hallsofvallhalla]

So after some crazy times, heavy thinking, and a major epiphany, I have scratch together an idea I feel sound about. It is weird, unusual, and all around different and at first glance sounds terrible but I have read deep into this and thought even deeper and most popular games are "thinking out of the box" games.

I am building a new school MUD. As I have been talking about for some time I have been wanting to bring back MUDs under a new light. I know it can be done and I know they can still be and still are popular. It will be type commands with a graphical interface and map.

I will be using... and bare with me on this one

ASP.NET and C# for the base site while using DBO for the storing of info and Node.js for the server and HTML5 and Javascript for the graphics.

This gives me a blend of security, functionability, and stability. I really need to spend some time with ASP.Net so what better way that to make a game right?

I am looking for someone with a design mind who can help design the game like commands, zones, creatures, equipment, ect.. The framework of the game will be a big part of design. Like how each command will work, what commands we will code, ect.. For instance hacking command will actually result in the player typing in hack commands. Picking a lock will be setting up symbols in order, and just more things like that. I am going really complex with this.

i need someone serious about it who wants to design what MUDs always had. that real world feel that most games today can't give. More than push a button to attack or use a skill or spell.

[Jackolantern]

Sounds very cool! But why ASP.NET? You will have to go ASP.NET MVC if you want any serious custom client-side code, because ASP.NET Web Forms generates far too much client-side code that is out of your control, and its faux-event system is counter-productive to HTML5, real-time applications and custom client-side code in general. But if you are going ASP.NET MVC, what advantages do you get over PHP/MySQL? You are going to have much higher costs for hosting, SQL Server is slower (it is more transaction safe, but that is of little use to a PBBG or MUD), the workflow and general architecture is much more complex and bloated for a project of this type. Plus, if you go Linux hosting for PHP, the node.js side can share the same server and database much more effectively.

The advantages of ASP.NET MVC really don't start to come out until your site becomes a large enterprise-style application, or if it is a large e-commerce site. With many HTML5 applications, the actual server-side web page collection is fairly small and ends up being mostly support for client-side functionality. And that style really doesn't take advantage of ASP.NET MVC.

[hallsofvallhalla]

You are no doubt correct. I guess my general thinking was

1. I am being pressured to learn ASP so I thought it was a good opportunity to build some skills.

2. I assumed there was more security. I guess I know less about it than I do. Lets face it, Hacking PHP and Javascript has gotten crazy. Either one is keeping up with tutorials on how to hack them. I have seen some crazy videos lately showing major holes.

3. I had a design plan in C# already worked out and would have been fun to program it in c#.


Now you have me back on the fence...damn you jack!!!! Damn you to hell!

[Jackolantern]

I can understand wanting to do a project to learn more about it (remember that "ASP" is something totally different from "ASP.NET", though ) and that alone could be worth it. However, another great option in PHP would be CodeIgniter. I really, really think you should check it out, Halls. It is a simple, straight-forward MVC framework, and it really makes future mods or maintenance easy compared to "all in one pot" sites that mix HTML, PHP, CSS and JS all in one file. It also has a nice library to help with all kinds of stuff. It also has great documentation that is in kind of a tutorial form, and it is extremely easy to learn, unlike heavier frameworks like Zend or Symfony.

If you need to learn ASP.NET Web Forms, you would have to do that separately, because it would really not be practical to do a project like this in Web Forms, and ASP.NET MVC is different enough from Web Forms that there really is no advantage to learn one to help with the other. However, if you are needing to learn ASP.NET MVC, then go for it!

Since I feel bad for aggravating the Halls' Disease, I will give this to help you:

1. If you are being pressured to learn ASP.NET Web Forms, just go PHP for this project with CodeIgniter. Web Forms would not work well at all with this project.

2. If you are being pressured to learn ASP.NET MVC, then try this project out with it! You will probably find out quickly that ASP.NET MVC embraces the web and its native languages, whereas Web Forms tries to pretend you aren't writing web code and you are just writing a desktop program. Web Forms were created when few developers knew anything about the web.

That is my best advice!

[hallsofvallhalla]

Well in a weird series of events I may not need to learn ASP.Net as thought. I may be moving positions soon and the focus is around the LAMP stack and JS anyways which I am more familiar with and love. I am siked to make this MUD and to be honest I have no ambition currently to learn ASP.net. I am just not a fan. I have the option of building my Java skills instead and that I don't mind but I am hoping this new opportunity allows for me to get more advanced with JS and its libraries. I am definitely taking your advice and using CodeIgniter.

Well that was a jumbled mess of confusion. Basically I think I am off the hook with ASP.NET. Regardless I am either building this with PHP, HTML5, and JS, or JAVA. I just need to wait for a few events to happen. In the meantime I am working on the framework of the actual game.

Thanks!

[Jackolantern]

I would definitely suggest HTML5 and JS over Java simply because of how complicated writing real-time Java game servers is. Writing one in node.js appears to be about 10% the work since you have to expressly manage and deal with threads (or more modern thread-like abstractions) and socket connections in Java, whereas in node.js the V8 Engine and node basically handle both for you. And that is a huge weight off of your development!