Lima Mudlib
Encyclopedia
The Lima Mudlib
is an LPC
framework for building multi-user role playing games
. It was originally written for the MudOS
game driver by Zachary "Zakk" Girouard, Tim "Beek" Hollebeek, Greg "Deathblade" Stein
, and John "Rust" Viega
. The most recent maintenance work done on it was by "Cratylus", maintainer of lpmuds.net, who has ported it to and bundled it with FluffOS.
When it was first introduced, Lima was revolutionary in its rethinking of user interaction with a text-based multi-player game. Many of its ideas came from the Zork
games of a decade prior. Until Lima, LPMud games relied on a mechanism for command processing that required each programmer to define command processing syntax for the virtual room in which a person stood. If the programmer wanted a player to throw a rock in a room, the programmer had to add the throwing event as well as code for parsing the player's "throw" command. A consequence of this design was that a single game might have 5-10 different variations of the "throw" command with no single source of help.
The syntax quest grew from the old LPMud command processing. Some uncreative programmers would create game quests in which the goal was to guess the proper syntax to an uncommon command. Ultimately, players felt these sorts of quests were nothing more than technical challenges that had nothing to do with gameplay.
Lima created a centralized command parser that defined standard syntaxes for all game commands. The parser would parse user input and determine from the environment a proper object to respond to that input. Programmers only need to create events to process the commands rather than syntax parsers.
The support MUD for Lima was called Lima Bean; it is now defunct. Support is nominally available at the lpmuds.net "Lima Lounge" forum.
A notable Lima-based MUD is Accursed Lands
.
Mudlib
A mudlib, short for mud library, is a library of code forming part of the technical infrastructure of a MUD. Though different varieties of MUD may be considered to have mudlibs, the term is most often used with LPMuds. In an LPMud, the mudlib consists of interpreted code written in the LPC...
is an LPC
LPC programming language
LPC is an object-oriented programming language derived from C and developed originally by Lars Pensjö to facilitate MUD building on LPMuds...
framework for building multi-user role playing games
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
. It was originally written for the MudOS
MudOS
MudOS is a major family of LPMud server software, implementing its own variant of the LPC programming language. It first came into being on February 18, 1992. It pioneered important technical innovations in MUDs, including the network socket support that made InterMUD communications possible and...
game driver by Zachary "Zakk" Girouard, Tim "Beek" Hollebeek, Greg "Deathblade" Stein
Greg Stein
Greg Stein , living in Fairfax, VA, USA, is a programmer, speaker, sometime standards architect, and open-source software advocate, appearing frequently at conferences and in interviews on the topic of open-source software development and use.He is a director of the Apache Software Foundation, and...
, and John "Rust" Viega
John Viega
John Viega is a computer security specialist in the United States.-Books:He is the co-author of a number of books on computer security, including The Myths of Security , Beautiful Security, Building Secure Software , Network Security with OpenSSL , the Secure Programming Cookbook and the 19 Deadly...
. The most recent maintenance work done on it was by "Cratylus", maintainer of lpmuds.net, who has ported it to and bundled it with FluffOS.
When it was first introduced, Lima was revolutionary in its rethinking of user interaction with a text-based multi-player game. Many of its ideas came from the Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...
games of a decade prior. Until Lima, LPMud games relied on a mechanism for command processing that required each programmer to define command processing syntax for the virtual room in which a person stood. If the programmer wanted a player to throw a rock in a room, the programmer had to add the throwing event as well as code for parsing the player's "throw" command. A consequence of this design was that a single game might have 5-10 different variations of the "throw" command with no single source of help.
The syntax quest grew from the old LPMud command processing. Some uncreative programmers would create game quests in which the goal was to guess the proper syntax to an uncommon command. Ultimately, players felt these sorts of quests were nothing more than technical challenges that had nothing to do with gameplay.
Lima created a centralized command parser that defined standard syntaxes for all game commands. The parser would parse user input and determine from the environment a proper object to respond to that input. Programmers only need to create events to process the commands rather than syntax parsers.
The support MUD for Lima was called Lima Bean; it is now defunct. Support is nominally available at the lpmuds.net "Lima Lounge" forum.
A notable Lima-based MUD is Accursed Lands
Accursed Lands
Accursed Lands, abbreviated AL, was a MUD, a text-based online role-playing game, founded in 1996 and operating until 2011. It was an early example of the "Roleplay Intensive MUD", or RPIMUD, style of game.-Setting:...
.