From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/10/98
Time: 8:48:26 PM

Welcome the early stages of what will eventually become a web-based MUD. The basic internal database design is complete (I'm sure many more changes will manifest themselves as time and development goes on.) and now I am begining to flesh out the actual game interface code.

For the beginnings, do not expect much in the way of graphics, I envision a largely text-based interface for the whole thing. Even when it is finished I will probably stay away from a heavily graphical interface as I believe a MUD should be played in the mind, not onscreen. Perhaps things like a 'Monster Catalog' that can be browsed with pictures of the monsters, but while actually playing the game I do not expect pictures onscreen when 'Monster X' attacks. I think that takes away from the game (It definitely would with my artistic skills *snork* :)

At the time I write this, the workings of the game are quite sparse, the only thing you can do is wander from room to room and read the descriptions. The ability to do other things like interaction with various objects, monsters, traps, other player, etc., are yet to be coded. The backend database has support for all this but the interface code is yet to be written. But, this is becoming an addiction for me lately so I expect changes and additions frequently from now on.

Thanks for checking the game out. Suggestions, gameplay observations, bug reports, etc are all greatly appreciated!

- KlomDark

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/11/98
Time: 10:37:03 PM

Comments
Great! Got a LOT accomplished tonight!

Added the code to view any objects in a room, improved the general look of the room display, and fixed a possible bug that would have allowed anyone to move to any room they wanted by typing in their own URL to feed MoveRoom.asp with the room number of their choice. Would have really let sneaky people cheat badly! Now it does a check to make sure the room number passed to the MoveRoom.asp page is reachable via an exit in the room the player is currently in.

Will be adding the ability to take or drop an item. It's almost completed, but it's late and I've got to get to sleep. Should be completed tomorrow as long as I have time.

One thing that occured to me tonight is that I need to code in a way to prevent a player account from being logged in more than once at the same time. The game is currently not playable when someone does not, as the logic of the game falls apart and it becomes impossible to move from room to room. However, it will be best to just check for multiple connections to the same player record.

TTFN!

Klom Dark

(And yes, I am aware that the Search function of this discussion group does not work. I am looking for a solution to that as well.)

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/15/98
Time: 10:02:42 PM

Comments
Tonight was basically spent changing the look and feel of the game interface.

1) I've always enjoyed playing MUDs with the screen set to that of an old monochrome monitor (Black background, green text), so I have changed the display to look more like that.

2) I also realized that the buttons I was using for navigation were not showing up under Netscape. I had already been concerned about screen clutter using the buttons (they take up more screen space than a text hyperlink) so rather than fix the code, I decided to go ahead and stop using them unless absolutely needed.

Comments on the changes are invited.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/16/98
Time: 3:27:22 AM

Comments
I got home from work, planned to do a tiny amount of code changes, and instead ended up adding a lot more functionality to the game than I intended to!

Previously, when you moved from room to room, your character record in the database was not being updated. It now is, so you will find that you start off in the same room you left the game in. The game is also now tracking the number of times you have logged in, as well as the date & time of the last time you moved from room to room.

Have modified the database to allow for 'ownership' of an object by a player, monster or room, as well as allowing an object to be marked as 'in limbo' for garbage collection routines. Will be adding the code to implement that as soon as I have time.

This is really coming along well. I am kinda surprised at how quickly! This is going to be cool! :)

Going to sleep, see ya later.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/16/98
Time: 10:31:44 PM

Comments
Have added support for working with items (such as swords, dead chickens, etc.) to the game. You can now pick up an object (Unless it is a 'fixed' object, in that case it stays with the room. For an example try to pick up any of the 'Amorphous Shape' items which are fixed objects)

Items in a room are shown by the normal RoomDisplay output. The 'Stats' page will show which items you have in your inventory. You can click on any of the items to further interact with that item: Get a more detailed description or drop the object in the room you are in.

Eventually there will also be more options to work with an object, like the ability to give it to another player, but I still have to add the player interaction code before that can happen.

Tomorrow will be an extremely busy day, so doubt there will be any code additions until Wednesday.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/18/98
Time: 11:00:00 AM

Comments
Added code to prevent a way for sneaky people to cheat. Previously in the code for moving from room to room or to get/take an object, if you were to change the value in the "?Room=x" or "?Item=x" then it would be possible to jump to a room that was not connected to the room you are currently in, or to take/drop/steal an object in a different room, owned by a different player, etc. Figure it would make the game much more enjoyable for everyone ('cept cheaters!) if I fixed that potential problem.

The next thing I am going to work on is tools for world construction and administering game play. I need to get these in place before I code in the multi-user and monster combat parts. All this stuff will be behind-the-scenes code so you may not notice any changes for the next few days. I will keep up these notes for people to follow along with however.

BTW, saw the new Star Wars: Episode I (The Dark Menace) preview last night at the theater. All I can say is "I can't wait!!!!!!" Cool cool cool!!!

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/22/98
Time: 10:42:34 PM

Comments
Have the Player Editor code about complete. That will allow the individual player info to be edited if need be. Don't see a whole lot of need for this but there will be some.

Added fields to the Player records to track Gold Pieces as well as the six basic attributes (STR, INT, WIS, DEX, CON, CHR)

Will begin work soon on editor code for Monsters, Room Construction, Objects, and Global variables affecting the entire game world.

Once that is done, I will then work on player interaction (talking, yelling, trading, etc) then code in the combat routines to finally bring the monsters alive! Before that can happen, I also need to code in the money system which will allow purchasing of clothing, weapons, food, etc.

After the combat routines are in place, will code support for magic usage.

Somewhere in here I need to expand the character generation code to allow selection of race, profession, etc.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/23/98
Time: 10:47:42 PM

Comments
OK, the player editor is functionally finished (Could use some cosmetic improvements in the future, but it is functionally good enough.)

Can edit all attributes of a character - Except TimesOn and LastOn fields, I don't see any reason for them to be editable. Don't call me lazy - I wrote the code to edit those as well, then removed it as pointless.

Can also edit the inventory that a character is carrying. Any item can be (1) dropped into any room, (2) placed into "Limbo" (Exists, but not in the physical world), or (3) completely deleted from the database.

Am also considering changing the game interface from a basic "point & click" interface, to a text command line type of interface (A textbox field that you type commands into then press Enter to submit what you have typed.) which would greatly improve the game feel to that much more like a normal MUD. I am not sure yet, anyone have any comments on this? Means a lot more coding to write a command line parser; definitely not that hard to do, wrote my first one when I was 14, so will be able to do it again. Let me know what you think about this idea, please!

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/26/98
Time: 9:50:04 AM

Comments
Have discovered that the game does not display correctly when accessing WebHack from a browser other than Internet Explorer. Netscape seems to be dropping parts of the display, in very unexpected places (Where I am using standard HTML like TABLE or HREF, not any IE-only tags) Opera is displaying all parts of the display correctly, but is not obeying the HTTP header info that tells it not to reload the page from cache memory, which leads to an annoyance of having to click "Reload" when moving from room to room, otherwise the screen displays the previous room info. Lynx has the same problem with not obeying the HTTP Header info. With it, you can either Reload (Ctrl-R) each page or instead of hitting ENTER (Or right-arrow) to select an exit link, use the 'X' (Exclusive) key which tell it to get the new page without checking the cache memory) This is happening because the RoomDisplay.asp page has basically the same URL each time, except for the trailing RoomID=x info, therefore browsers are being stupid and thinking that they have already been there, done that, got the shirt...) I am working on a solution for this (Look like if I go with the command-line based gameplay that I discussed in the previous message, the problem should go away, as it is standard for all browsers to do a non-cached re-request of a page when using a FORM/POST method) I am typing this message using the Lynx browser, so if this message looks strange you'll know why.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 11/26/98
Time: 10:10:21 PM

Comments
Happy Thanksgiving!

After eating way too much today, I got back to working on the code construction for the Object editor. This will allow working with and creation of new objects and object types.

Got quite a bit of it working. Have more to go.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 1/5/99
Time: 3:11:42 PM
Remote Name: 209.220.17.3

Comments
Am in Internet Banking training at Edify in Santa Clara, California. Seems way strange to be accessing my machine in my basement 2000 miles away in Omaha from here. But, that's not that big of a deal these days is it? The sorcery of the Internet! :)

From: Klom Dark
Date: 2/25/99
Time: 3:07:49 PM

Comments
Wow, I've blown this off for too long!

I stupidly blew up the main drive and motherboard on the server and had to rebuild the system before bringing it back online. One good thing out of that is that the web server is now a Pentium 233 instead of the 133 Mhz processor that was on the old motherboard.

I am now getting back into the coding of this game. I had a really difficult time (1) getting myself to sit down and code and (2) coming up with a good method for the combat routines since with HTTP's request/response method, I was not able to continuously update the screen. I am looking into DHTML for a possible solution, what I need is a way to update the screen after it has been drawn, to alert players as quickly as possible to important events such as a monster walking into the room and getting ready to attack. (If anyone's got any suggestions, let me know!)

For now, will have to go with more of a turn-type approach. This will not be time-critical as I would like it to be, but will have to do for now.

I wrote the Room Editor code today, so you will begin to see more than the current five rooms that exist today.

Next will be the object editor, then will follow the custom rooms such as armor and weapons stores, etc. After that I will code the monster and combat routines. Next will come the inter-player coding routines.

Best thing about going to California last month was I found a great book "Active Web Database Programming" which is allowing me to go further than I could with the "Professional Active Server Pages 2.0" book I had before (Which is definitely good in itself for pure ASP coding.) as it focuses more on ASP interaction with ODBC databases.

From: Klom Dark
Date: 3/4/99
Time: 11:17:59 PM

Comments
Version 1.0 of the room editor is finished. (All functionality is in place, but already have ideas for enhancement of what a room can be...) You will notice a few new rooms scattered about the place.

Am now working on the object editor. Have the ability to create new object type definitions. Next I will work on the code to actually create instances of an object based on an object type definition. For example, there is now the ability to define what a sword is (basic description, attack die, rolls, is it magic, etc.) Next I will be able to create multiple instance of that object type. (For example, so that more than one person can have a sword based on the same object definition)

Getting closer to an actually playable game every day now! :)

From: canf0726kt@access.ohio-k12.org
Date: 4/18/99
Time: 6:47:17 PM

Comments
lost...i really dont know what im posting to, but im here and your there so i decided to drop a line. if anything you can take this small moment of your life to wonder why your still reading this. note about the subject heading: i live in an extremely closed minded bubble of working stiffs that drive nice cars and live in large houses for the simple price of time they could be using to enjoy small inexpensive things like smelling flowers and admiring stars, but will never get to because of deadlines and meetings. blah. pop quiz: what are you doing this very moment that will have improved your quality of life by your own standards without regret once the moment has passed? smile. please? it makes me feel wonderful to smile seeing someone smile at me for no reason and then contagiously pass it onto someone else. the advice of a seventeen year old, hopefully worth hearing if im supposed to take the reins of the world with my generation shortly. ;) Katrina.