(formerly hosted on nimud.org) NiMUD: Shared Adventure Game ---------------------------- IMPORTANT: To use this software, you must comply with its license. See docs/COPYING for more information about this. In a nutshell: don't steal our work, it's mean-spirited and disappointing, not to mention illegal. Brought to you by Locke; NiM5 is an advanced multi-user gaming server. It is based on the works of the following softwares, though its source code may not resemble the works of these people, I feel it important to mention the "greats" - who have influenced this work, and which continue to influence artistic representations of other worlds. Z-games such as Zork, Planetfall and Wishbringer, Lurking Fear, creations of Steve Meretsky and others at Infocom. Diku and Merc variant Dikumud I multi-user domains, which have included the specific influences of: Nameless Merc, Locke's first mud, played on a green VAX/VMS terminal, Hidden Worlds a Merc 1.0 with early "building" opportunities, Surreal and Locke's favorite, DuneMUSH (our learning experience), Zebesta, where we met our compatriots and fellow MUDkateers, Kalgen and Zlixlt, well-done-derring-do, Aldara ]I[, where God was in the details with the help of Morgenes, ROM (Rivers of MUD) and our rival Alander aka Russ Taylor, And our neighbors: Armageddon (pre- and post-Morgenes), newly recognized CORE, Valhalla (DikuMUD ][) from whom we learned, and newly noticed variants such as Realms of Despair and a shout-out to ROM-based, Adventurer's Inn. Of course the great works of PennMUSH and TinyMUSH, where once was made FutureMUSH (run by Locke), the archaic knowledge of the DUMs such as CanDUM and others, the LambdaMOOs and the Divination Web aka DivWeb (a MUCK) run by cohorts of Shawn Knight and the Beast 666 (a thelemic/wiccan/occult gathering space once hosted at Carnegie Mellon University). And of course ISCABBS, without whom none of this would be possible. But perhaps you would like to kick it back farther with me for a minute to remember Valhalla BBS, a hack/phrack board in Pittsburgh, on which was White Knight, the infamous, and the RESIST movement, before it became a gay rights movement, back with the hackers and the rumorz of the original Razor Sam Hopkins who now is vice president of a local 'Burgh ISP called Nauticomm. Maybe you remember Telegard and Renegade, but I remember Chat Thing, a notorious late-night hangout at 300 baud, before my account was suspended and we met our match with Trade Wars and Baron Realms. Maybe you can remember the world of dialups, LD dialing ports, BBS lists, x-rated graphics dithered 2 bit and so unrecognizable in 3 colors and a world of Demoscenes by groups called Future Crew and Renaissance www.modarchive.org This is NiMUD a product which is not a whole or a sum of its parts. Introduction ------------ Welcome to NiM5! This server was written by Herb Gilliland; the project began in 1992 and continues to this day. NiM5 was the first to release an open-source multi-user gaming software including such advanced features as OLC; you are free to use this software, but it comes AS IS and WITHOUT any WARRANTY expressed or implied. NiM5 contains hundreds of hours of work and you are benefitting, please keep our credits in your respective documentation. You are encouraged to read the documentation contained in /NiM5/docs for more information on a variety of useful topics related to this software and its functioning, including methods of debugging, extra features not implemented in the standard release, suggestions for development and tips for protecting yourself legally should you decide to release a derived version of this software. I should mention here that I am not a lawyer. Do visit credits.txt for more information on this code's contributers. Requirements ------------ gcc - for compiling binaries from the source, required or, djgpp - at least 4mb of usable stack space - between 12 and 40 megabytes of hard disk for file storage - an open port on your firewall, or if no firewall, an unused IP port - time and dedication - i386 compatible linux or equivalent operating platform, unix or solaris, or cygwin perl - for extensible mail functions and using perlstart, optional mud startup script, not required IMPORTANT: If you want to be _building_ or _coding_ new features, it is best to run on two ports. You cannot operate a development server without duplicating the database. It is recommended you build areas solely on the development port, to retain stability for the players and minimize the number of unscheduled reboots. The mud already crashes enough already without you to intervene with your own reboot requests. Using the supplied scripts, and maintaining a copy of your core database, you will retain stability and the integrity of your data. The /devo/ directory contains a copy of the data present in the /area/ directory, and can be served off the 'hot copy' executable found in ../src/nimud; the "cold copy" is located in the /area/ directory, along with the "live" database. How you manage the /devo/ and /area/ versions is up to you, but keeping two copies eliminates inevitable data corruption when two un-syncronous mud processes attempt to access the same data files. Use /NiM5/devo/publish script to copy the mud db over top of the "live" mud database when the "live" version is shut down. Compiling --------- To compile the code, simply type "./recompile" from within the NiM5 install directory. This script will create a fresh archived backup of the original source code in "/NiM5/backups/1001.backup" directory. You may wish to categorize backups or delete outdate ones. I encourage you to, on occasion, make platform backups of major versions by renaming the backup directories or moving them to some special place, a directory, preferably one that is web-accessible. If you make no changes to the headers (.h files) you can just "./refresh" to compile quickly on older machines. Note: this also calls "./cleanup" NiM5 should properly compile on i386 machines, so if you've got an old computer for a coffee table, please, run a mud with it. Porting ------- Previous versions of NiM5 have been successfully ported to Win32, Solaris, BSD and MacOS X (which runs a version of FreeBSD). It has compiled+run successfully on Debian, Redhat Linux, FreeBSD, Ultrix, AndrewUNIX, and Solaris. This version is actively developed on Debian and SunOS. Unsupported code within the source is still available for Sequent, MIPS and AIX. It has not been compiled or run on a machine of this type for a very long time. The macintosh version may experience some difficulty compiling, if you are a Mac user interested in developing a patch or fix for future versions, you are more than welcome to as we hope to support Macintosh fully in the future. A version of the networking routines which worked fine on the Macintosh port of the socket routines is located at /src/net_macfix.c and is incomplete. Getting Started --------------- BEFORE YOU RUN ANY SCRIPTS MAKE SURE TO EDIT THE $filepath IN EACH OF THEM This is also mentioned in "Install.txt" which contains 4 steps necessary to install the MUD. --To run the mud: From the directory you installed, run "startup" or "startup <port>" Preferred cli/cron command: nohup ./startup <port> & Make sure to not run any other scripts ("package", "recompile" or "cleanup") while the startup script is running for best results. Requires "perl" --To clean up the installation directories: From the directory you installed, run "cleanup" This script removes unwanted .txt files, backs up into backups directory removes .o files, backs up players, areas and source code, clears the log directory clears nohup.out files stores file lists in each backup under file 'manifest.txt' The workflow for using these scripts while developing, maintaining a dev port: cd src <edit files> ./dev or "gdb ../devo/nimud" then in gdb "run 5334" telnet localhost 5334 <test, crash, stack trace, etc, edit, fix, add> cd .. ./refresh (copies files from /area/ to /devo/, updates /area/nimud) telnet localhost <main port> reboot Other scripts: "go <port>" for running a copy in /devo/ as ../src/nimud on port <port> This is the recommended script for developers. Doesn't mess with the executable found in /area -- the main executable. Instead, it uses the hot copy found in /src, and runs it on its own db found in /devo -- this is the recommended method because concurrent versions running on the same database is forbidden in principle. DO NOT RUN MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE MUD ON THE SAME DATABASE FILES. You can run multiple copies on multiple databases only. It is not even preferred to use the same executable, but rather multiple copies. "publish" found in /devo/ -- used to copy development db overtop of live db "backup" automatic core file backups stored in backups/ "package" prepares a public package for distribution including the mud, areas, source code; cleans while preparing "start" executes the public mud executable in /area/ "stop" stops the mud, kills all of your processes, logs you out of your shell account. considered 'last ditch' --dirs manifest: area <- area files and boards devo <- special database used for development testing backups <- gets big bootlog <- just the boot logs cleanup <- cleanup script (See above) docs <- documentation and licensing information docs/imc <- imc2 documentation and licensing information docs/snippets <- uninstalled 'optional' features from Erwin S. Andreason's website log <- log files player <- player files package <- stores the source in NiM5.src.tar.gz recompile <- run only when down refresh <- run only when down src <- source code startup <- startup script export <- directory into which exported html and scripts go lingua <- Perl translation algorithm...works to translate area files nasa <- HEASARC data of stellar masses within 25 parsecs Muddywood's Finest: SPECIAL EDITION NIMUD Home of the Mudcademy Award, the Muddy! NiM5 edition by Locke (herb.gilliland_gmail.com) This is a superior edition of NiMUD. Persistent connectivity: ** The game will attempt to recover connections during crashes and reboots. ** It has a fully featured spell system and scripting language. Mobs=Actors Objs=Props Rooms=Scenes AEDIT now equals ZEDIT ("zone edit") MEDIT=AEDIT ("actor editor") OEDIT=PEDIT ("prop editor") REDIT=SEDIT ("scene editor") MSSP Support ------------ Running a new mud? JOIN THE MSSP NETWORK! http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=forum&f=39 Contact scandum at the TopMudSites.com forums or at the tintin++ project on Sourceforge to add your MUD to the network. See settings in the telopt.c file with respect to your mud's contact information, web URL etc. Supposedly MudBytes.net, MudConnect.com and others are now using the MSSP protocol to crawl MUDs for up to date information about their usage and statistics. NiMUD comes with this functionality installed and will use it to broadcast player, zone and general mud information including contact, web address, your mud's greeting, the server address and many other features. See The Isles on the MSSP page. MSSP Protocol defintion http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp Client for debugging: http://tintin.sourceforge.net/ TinTin++ (Requires using '#config {debug telnet} on' to display MSSP output from a MUD server.) MUD Crawlers supporing MSSP: MudByte's MUD crawler http://www.kiasyn.com/mssp TinTin++ MUD crawler http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp/mudlist.html MSSP Discussion Forum http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=forum&f=39 NiMUD servers supporting MSSP: nimud.divineright.org 5333 New editors: SPEDIT (spell editor, requires specialized scripts see existing spells) SKEDIT (skill editor, for creating and binding new skills) Scripting language: Function list is extensive; not fully documented. Upcoming releases will have added smart documentation features that read comments from the source code. Some parts may be buggy, proceed with caution and use the examples provided. The MUD will export scripts to the /export/ directory TRACE script recorder (use "trace" within the script editor to toggle the feature) Live debugger: login as a secondary immortal character and use the 'debug' command for a full screen live view of script execution on a particular entity Newest functions: breed() - script generated player followers and mounts charge() - payment function for scripted vendors mana() - gem magick spell function Other fixes: Revisions to object system, world mapping system widget Minor cosmetic improvements ("Two of two's bug") Minor fixes to hireling followers and mounts, including save/load - revisions to do_assist, do_mount, do_order Known Issues ------------ This is where we deal with bugs we haven't fixed yet, but are aware of: 1) using hurt() in a script causes NiMUD to access memory unsafely if the target has been killed by the hurt() function. See func_hurt() in functions.c for details; the work around is to use hurt as the last call that talks to the %target% variable in a nimscript. 2) Sometimes while editing an area, the mud hangs and dumps a massive file to disk in place of an area you were editing. We're not sure why this is happening. We've worked around this by providing several safeguards: use a development server and development copy of the database as described in the tag "IMPORTANT" above. If this happens to you, the mud will hang while booting. In this case, copy the .bak version over top of the area that is afflicted. Example: mud hangs while loading interior.zone, copy interior.zone.bak over interior.zone and restart the mud by killing it at the command line. 3) Sometimes scripts that are attached to spells disappear from the db, for an unknown reason. 4) Helps are sometimes disappearing. I believe there used to be a problem with loading or saving helps - perhaps we should investigate.