I am currently running a mud that I've modified from CWG-Suntzu and I am looking at a few new bases, one is called Dawn of Time and the other is AFKMUD which all here should know well.

I have a couple of questions about AFKMUD.

1) Does it have the ability to create spells/skills/races/classes online without the need to hard code everything? This feature is in DoT and looks promising.
2) I'm not a fan of the overland map - is it easy enough to disable?
3) Has anyone written a method that will convert my world files from my current CWG ( it uses Oasis OLC ) to work in afkmud?

Might have some more questions after these are answered - so far from what I see the base looks very promising.

1. Every member of the Smaug Family has this ability.
2. Easy enough. Just don't set up any exits that lead onto the Overland map.
3. Not that I'm aware of.

Which version of the Smaug family on here is still under active development - the afkmud looks promising but I see that the newest release says that no new features will be added.

SmaugFUSS, LoP, SWRFUSS, and SWFotEFUSS are all still actively worked on.

AFKMud Development has ceased.

I'm in charge of keeping SmaugFUSS, SWRFUSS, and SWFotEFUSS up to date, and LoP is Remcon's brainchild. And he's a lot better at keeping on top of things then I am.

1. It does, but even that system is somewhat limited in what it can do. There are a few things that work better as hardcoded spells, such as chain lightning.

2. Already covered - it's not necessary to use it at all. If you want to reduce it's memory footprint to nil, then you'll need to modify the overland.h file to reduce it to a 1x1x1 map grid.

3. I don't think anyone has written a conversion method from any of the various Circle based formats over to AFKMud. Last time I looked at Circle zone files they were still the really old and cryptic format used by the Diku tinyworld system.

And I would consider AFKMud development to be dormant, not completely terminated at this point. It still picks up bugfixes every now and then but no active work is being done with it at this time.

Actually, I was just going to ask if AFK has been keeping up with the bugfixes from SmaugFUSS. I was pondering dusting off some of the SQL stuff I did ages ago and seeing if I could convince the MySQL++ API to work. AFK is a nice place to work from if you want to work with C++ and help exterminate char *'s from the world wherever possible.

As long as you weren't intending to distribute (or can find a way to make Circle's license and Smaug's license work in harmony), you could just rip the loading code from your Circle, and then write conversion routines to manipulate the in-memory data, and then use Smaug's saving code.

Do they all contain a scripting system such as the DG Scripts which are found in Circle?

And which of those you listed have more features? Or can I find a comparison chart somewhere?

I don't think anyone has done a comparison chart or anything yet.

As far as more features that would be AFKMud without a doubt.

DG scripts? I'm not that familiar with Circle so you will have to explain that one lol.

With DG Scripts I can do things such as make mobs block unless you 'bribe' them - or assemble items to create a different item, all sorts of things.

Does Smaug contain this kind of ability? Also, does any of the smaug bases hosted here have multiple currencies such as gold, silver, copper?

Also is it possible to have spell effects that happen at different times, such as a heal spell that heals every 10 seconds, another that heals every 15 seconds, that kinda thing?

Well as far as the DG scripts, at least in how you describe it I don't think so. Granted I'm not caught up with every codebase or all the things they offer. As far as I know the smaug bases don't have multiple currencies. Well the effects thing is a bit iffy depending on what exactly your asking. At least in how your asking, I would have to say no. If you use random programs and have it cast it every so often then yes. Objects can also cast spells on wear/remove. They can also have effects that stay on as long as your wearing the object. But in a way it seems like your wanting a single affect that will do other stuff every so often etc...

DG Scripts are essentially mudprogs, I don't know how good Smaug's prog system is compared to it but I bet you could do much of the same sort of things. With the added prog states and variables that came with 1.8 there's probably not much difference.

All the bases on this site use MudProgs. Which was inspired by DG but is seriously lacking in comparison. And while I've toyed with the idea of porting DG to Smaug, I realized it would be a far better use of my time to embed a scripting language like Lua or Ruby into them. However, as I lack the time, and admittedly the understanding to accomplish embedding a language, It's on the back burner for now.

None of the bases here have multiple currencies, but there is a snippet in the files section to add multiple currencies. And I believe there is one on MudBytes as well. If it's not in one place then it's on the other. I know I've seen it somewhere.

For features, Yes, that would be AFKMud for certain. It's almost entirely using C++, only some of the codebase still const char* instead of std::string. But it has a lot more features, then Smaug. However for a Futuristic/Sci-Fi MUD a SWR or SWFotE is going to be a better bet. However, if you're looking for simplicity, SmaugFUSS takes the cake there. LoP is a little less simple than SmaugFUSS and has more features than Smaug but Remcon is always quick to answer questions, and fix issues found in it.

[Edit:] Oh, and no. None of these support HoT (Heal over Time) spells. Although it might be possible to pull off with the recurring spell flag. It's something I've been meaning to tinker with, but got distracted with the Star Wars MUD my wife wanted to open. And sadly the only DoT (Damage over Time) spell set up is poison, and it was hard coded instead of worked into the OLC Spells system.

In poking at AFK again, I noticed it does appear to have an event system. It would probably be possible to code HoT and DoT spells using that, although dispelling them might require some clever tricks to cancel the pending events. You could also use the same concept to make back-loaded spells, where the spell casting happens over time and gives the target a chance to respond.

I'm currently working on a set of classes that cover database specific client libraries. It is capable of doing INSERTS on PostgreSQL right now, I will post about it once it's a bit more feature-rich. MySQL not that far because I don't have a MySQL server running right now.

Have either of you looked at the SQL module already part of the AFKMud codebase? It doesn't get used for anything other than the separate helpfiles snippet, but it will handle any MySQL query you throw at it, for all the good that would currently do.

The main problem with a lot of other APIs (all the ones I was able to find at the time) is that they're licensed in such a way that would prohibit distribution with the codebase should someone later wish to release one using them.

Yes, I looked at it. But like I said, I don't have a MySQL database and want to use a PostgreSQL. So I thought I'd try to write an API that allows the us of multiple database backends.
I found LGPL code in AFKMud, so I wrote a simple API covering the database specific stuff and placed it under the LGPL. Since it doesn't include stuff from other libraries (Okay, the interface looks quite similar to the one found in Qt), there should be no problems with it.

Yep, I've grown to seriously dislike building queries out using big text strings though. I'm used to being able to bind parameters and loop through data to insert/update/etc. Plus, being able to dump data results directly into structures beats having to pick them apart any day.


Simple solution... don't distribute the library. You don't have the libmysql included, nor zlib, nor libc... Requiring an API library that's publically available and simple to install shouldn't be a show stopper. Of course, that assumes it's optional, or that one makes a specific AFKSQL branch that requires it.

In the case of MySQL++, it's available in source form or as a binary package for RPM systems. Debian also has it as part of their apt system, although it's a bit old (version 2.x, current is 3.0.9).

If you want to look at it: http://tangentsoft.net/mysql++/

Binding is nice, my API can't do data binding currently, and prepare/execute is missing too. Dumping stuff directly into objects... I've seen some stuff about that in libmysql++, but I don't think it is necessary here.

3.09 hit unstable at April 17 2009.
In case anyone is interested, an early version of my API is available here. I'm currently rewriting some parts to make it easier to maintain and use. An example insert of help entries (using two functions from the sql enabled help.cpp) is shown here. Also, I'm using the original C libraries for Postgres and plan to do so with the MySQL backend.

I finished rewriting parts of the API and added the ability to actually retrieve data from the database. Same location like before, tested with exporting and retrieving quotes and help entries.

Sorry for triple-post, but I forgot to add the clone url: git clone git://git.valouch.info/AFKMud.git
For those new with git, switching to the branch in question is done using "git checkout -b db-copy origin/db"