AFKMud: Alsherok Game Code Release - Version 1.8: December 2006 --------------------------------------------------------------- January 2002: After a little over 4 years of tinkering and such, we've decided to release our work to others. The decision was somewhat spur of the moment, due in part to the overall decrease in player traffic frequenting the mud. We figured that if we were no longer going to have the traffic to sustain regular interest that the code at least should not go to waste. Over the last 6 months or so many of the staff members took to idling on the mud just for the hell of it. Sometimes to the point of being disconnected. After awhile, this led to the nickname AFKMud. The name stuck, and so it was chosen for the name to give the codebase as it is now. We hope you can derive as much enjoyment from this work as we have over the years. Good luck with your mud :) --- Samson, Implementor of Alsherok. Home site for the AFKMud codebase. Homepage: http://www.alsherok.net Licensing --------- See the file 'license.txt' in your afkmud/doc directory. Read, obey. Downloading and installing this code implies your agreement to the terms. It also affords a few fringe benifits you might want to take advantage of. Installation Notes ------------------ There are somethings that you need to be aware of prior to installing the game. Please read this stuff BEFORE you try and run the game. You'll avoid alot of hassle, and we'll be asking if you checked this stuff anyway. Documentation ------------- Documentation on various features of AFKMud can be found in the areadocs directory. For information on area construction, see Area.txt. Adding races and classes are covered by Addrace.txt and Addclass.txt respectively. Overland editing is covered by Newcontinent.txt and RGB.txt. Older SMAUG and Merc documentation can be found in the /doc directory. Most of these older docs have been superceded by newer AFK docs, but there may still be useful elements in them. One that you should most likely read anyway is hacker.txt - it offers some basic thoughts on how to be a mud admin. If anything seems lacking or there is a feature you want to know about that isn't documented here, please let us know. Cygwin Support -------------- Yes, at long last, Cygwin support has come to AFKMud :) Can't guarantee it works under every install, but hey. Tested with Cygwin 1.5.19-4 on Windows XP, with Service Pack 2 installed. Once done, uncomment the WINDOZE define in the Makefile, and comment out the NEED_DL define in the Makefile to compile. FreeBSD Support --------------- This version contains support for FreeBSD and has been tested on version 4.3 Stable using gmake instead of the standard make. If your system does not have gmake, you'll either need to contact your system administrator to get it installed, or figure out how to get it to compile on your own. Comment out the NEED_DL define in the Makefile to compile. OpenBSD Support --------------- This version contains support for OpenBSD using GCC 2.95.3, it has not been tested with OpenBSD using GCC 3.x. This will require the use of gmake, and if you don't have that available, get in touch with your system administrator. Or figure out how to make it compile on your own. Comment out the NEED_DL define, and the EXPORT_SYMBOLS define in the Makefile to compile. CPU, Memory, and Hard Drive Requirements ---------------------------------------- AFKMud is on the large side due to the sheer number of features included. You will need to take this into consideration first, before ever even thinking about where to host it. The following are the minimum resource requirements to run the mud as shipped: CPU: 0.5% average idle use. Measured on an Athlon 1.1Ghz CPU. RAM: 11MB, doesn't matter whether this is physical or virtual. HDD: 29MB - and no, this is NOT a typo. The mud will unpack to a size of 18MB or so. The 26MB figure is what you need AFTER having comopiled the source code. Yes, this is huge. Perhaps even bloated. Blame GCC3. After having tested against GCC 2.9x, it was found that the GCC 3.x object files and binary were coming out considerably larger. The added debugging information it puts in is rather large. First Immortal -------------- A pfile named "Admin" is included, with password "admin". Use this to get your first immortal advanced. Then promptly delete him! The Makefile ------------ The Makefile has some suggestions on what to comment out if you get certain errors during your compile. If you encounter any, refer there to see if there's a fix for it. The usual 'make clean' command will do its usual thing, then proceed to recompile the code. Don't panic, this is normal. If all you want to do is remove the *.o files, use the 'make purge' option instead. Areas ----- The area file format in AFKMud is significantly different from stock Smaug. Over the years, the multitude of different version numbers in our area formats grew into a titanic mess in the code that loaded them. So eventually the ability to read native Smaug areas was lost. A conversion routine was created to allow stock zones to be loaded once more. This can be accomplished one of two ways: 1. Leave your areas and area.lst file alone and try to boot the mud with them as is. Your logs will look like a train wreck, but if you're lucky they'll load and you can then execute a "fold all" command once you've logged in. This would be advisable ASAP after an event of this magnitude. If any of the zones crash the mud, you'll need to take them out of the area.lst file and hold them over for method 2 below. 2. If you come across a stock zone that won't convert and you need to try it again later, or if you decide to load one you've downloaded at some point, drop it into your areaconvert directory and type "areaconvert <filename.are>". If it fails to load, your mud has probably crashed. Examine the logs, core dumps, etc to find out why, correct it, and try again. This functionality allows you to load Smaug 1.02a, 1.4a, SmaugWiz, ResortMUD, Chronicles, Dark Rifts, DOTDII, and SWR areas. Other formats are considered non-standard and will not be supported. Areaconvert cannot load CalareyMUD zones due to format incompatibilities. Keep in mind that you may also need to do some fine tuning once the area is converted - subtle differences in each version may produce unpredictable stats on the areas. Dlsym ----- The code uses dlsym functionality to load the command, skill, spell, and spec_fun tables into memory. If your operating system does not support this, then chances are high you'll have problems. These problems can only be fixed by your system administrator. So contact them first in this case. Overland -------- This code comes with the Overland map system installed. This can be a problem on small accounts with limited memory or hard drive space. It's a resource hog, somewhat. In brief, here's the stats it generates: USER PID %CPU %MEM VSZ RSS TTY STAT START TIME COMMAND alsherok 22051 0.4 1.1 11032 8648 pts/15 SN 04:42 0:01 ../src/smaug 9500 The VSZ indicates this uses approximately 11MB of ram. This is barebones. Keep this in mind for future growth. Alsherok uses up roughly twice this with 9000+ rooms. Don't get yourself screwed by your host because you ignored the resource requirements. IMC2 ---- The code comes with IMC2 support installed. IMC2 is an intermud chat protocol which allows you to communicate with other people on other muds. There is currently only 1 network in operation. The network caters mainly to the Diku community, but some LPMuds have begun to connect. The AFKMud team highly recommends connecting to the network as it is a valuable resource for new and old admins alike. Infomation is available at: http://imc2.intermud.us If your mudhost does not allow outbound connections from your mud you can't use it. An option in the Makefile allows you to disable it from compiling. Intermud-3 ---------- The code comes with the Intermud-3 protocol installed. Intermud-3 is an alternative chat protocol which also allows you to communicate with other people on other muds. It is primarily used by the LPMud community, but Diku muds are making their pressence known. Currently there is only one known public network in operation. Information on connecting to Intermud-3 can be found at http://www.intermud.org/i3 If your mudhost does not allow outbound connections from your mud you can't use it. An option in the Makefile allows you to disable it from compiling. As of AFKMud 1.76, Intermud-3 support is deprecated and will be removed in a future version. Internal Webserver ------------------ The mud has an internal webserver port that allows the mud to serve up some simple HTML content. This requires that your mud be able to bind an additional listening port, which is hard-defined as mudport+1. IE: if your mud is on port 9500, the web server will bind 9501. If your mud host does not allow you to bind additional ports, you will need to disable the webserver. An option in the Makefile allows you to disable it from compiling. Multiple Port Support --------------------- The code now has ways to check which port the mud is running on. This allows for things to behave differently based on which port the game is running on. This requires that some defines be set prior to startup or things will not behave properly. The defines are located in mud.h and are called MAINPORT, BUILDPORT, and CODEPORT. These values MUST be different from each other or the mud will not compile. Change them to fit your hosting situation. These should only be used for additional testing ports and will require an additional password for newly created characters to enter. This password can be set using cset, and ships with the default password of "blocked". Change this ASAP if you intend to use it. This feature is diabled by default in the Makefile. Shell Code ---------- The mud has an internal shell processor that will allow some limited functions to make life easier. It is not recommended that these commands be given to anyone but administrators. Also, some mud hosts may not allow this kind of access, check with them first if you have any doubts. This feature will not be available if Multiport support has been disabled in the Makefile. Command entries will need to be created for this code if the support is activated. Help for this will not be given. Expect to be ignored if you ask, this is dangerous code in the wrong hands and we refuse to be responsible for any damage that could be done. MSP - Mud Sound Protocol ------------------------ MSP has been a feature of this base for some time, but only now is it's potential beginning to be tapped. A small bundle of sound files is now available in afkmud/sounds upon unpacking the archive. MSP is typically only available under Zmud, and further information on the protocol can be found at: http://www.zuggsoft.com/zmud/mspzmud.htm