UC MUD Code Planning

Interface and code

• Web based?
• AJAX?
• Rails?
• Ruby?
• Python?

Brainstorming

1. Have defined sections of the page for basic ways to interact with game
   • Room/environment view box
   • Inventory
     • Item view
   • Other characters/NPCs
     • separate from room? or basically like the room is a container and a subwindow that shows what's in the room--items, players, npcs. Things #an go in and out without changing the view of the environment.
   • Combat
   • Conversations
     • Include emotes here? basically, an action window?
     • Split between chat lines/tells/room actions? If we have chat lines/tells
2. Obvious and non-obvious methods of interaction
   • Obvious methods (go north, wield sword, don armor, press button) as clickable links
   • Non-obvious methods not displayed, but given an empty text box to input commands
3. Way to script things?
4. Mobile site?
5. Telnet option
   • Web interface a wrapper around all information given, but with traditional telnet interface of many lines coming at you?
   • Or telnet interface with a text-based browser style? Keep the different windows?

Thread handling

• Each login gets a socket
• Single thread to track actions
• When a socket has an action, it notifies the thread. Thread then goes through all sockets and resolves all actions
• When no action, thread waits for notification

The above list keeps there from being race conditions because there is only one thread and it resolves things one at a time.

Active state

The current state of the MUD can either be kept in the database or on the system in a process (or many processes)

• If on the database, requires a lot of updates/deletes/etc. to the database
• If on the system, a system crash would lose state
• Preference is for the database if it is fast enough
• Additionally, multiple machines can be added with the database as the central point, to handle more players

State changes

Need to elaborate on what states are available to objects in the MUD, including characters.

Database(?)

Fact tables

Every fact table has a non-null primary key (not listed b/c I don't want to have to type "PK" over and over). If a column is a FK link to another table, it will be noted. This may also be modeled by classes and sub-classes on object oriented programming, where "columns" would become variables and actions, methods. I'm setting them up like this because it's how I conceptualize things.

Object tables

Objects and derivative tables

Table	Description	Columns	Notes
Objects	All items start as objects. Objects can use actions. Objects have a capacity that defaults to 0 if unset	creator_id (FK to creators), creation date, mass/weight, capacity
Rooms	Rooms are objects that can contain creatures. Rooms should have an exit as an action.	max_size_id (FK to size), room_description_id	max_size_id limits what size creatures can enter said room. Default to largest available size, or no limitation if null
Creatures	Creatures are objects that can have stats	size_id, race_id (FK to races), name (can be blank), stats, hp/mp/sp (if we're using that)
Characters	Characters are creatures controlled by a player	creature_id, name (unique), player_id, level, player_text	name should be equal to creature.name for creature.creature_id = character.creature_id
Creators	Creators are characters that code the MUD	character_id (FK to characters), creator_class_id (FK to Creator Class), creator_start_date
Players	Players are the link between characters by the same person. The player is probably not a creature	user_id, password (encrypted?), character_sort_order_id	Need a method for changing password, recovering password when forgotten. And possibly an encrypted password history table.
Items	Items are non-creature objects	description, obviousness	Unobvious items will not show up in room until searched for. They will show up in player inventories and bags. Depends on capacity of container and weight of object.
Weapons	Weapons are items that have item_class "wieldable"	item_id, number of hands(limbs) needed, attack power, skill used
Clothing	Items that have item_class "wearable"	item_id, covers_body_part
Armor	Clothing that has the item_class "protection"	clothing_id, defense power	How do we make clothing and armor wearable? Maybe any amount of clothing, but only one piece of "armor" on a given limb?

Action tables

Actions and derivative tables

Table	Description	Columns	Notes
Actions	An action is linked to an object. The action command is called either by the object or by another object interacting with said object	action_command, creator_id, date_created
Exits	Action object X can take to move an object Y contained in X to be contained in object Z instead. Model for putting and taking things out of bags, and moving from one room to another.	Moving_item, starting_object, ending_object
Emotes	An emote is an action that only has the effect of putting a message to the system.
Energy	An energy action changes the value of a energy points of the target, positive or negative	targeted_id, energy_type	Might need a way to put either a number or an algorithm for the amount of change into this field. Also, a single action can have multiple types of energy change (HP/MP/SP) but each one can only go up or down once. So it could increase HP and decrease MP, but not increase MP 10 and decrease MP 5.
Creature actions	Actions that can be taken by a creature
Character actions	Actions that can be taken by a character

Metadata tables

Tables of table information

Table	Description	Columns	Notes
Metadata	Table information	table name, column name, PK_flag, FK_flag, FK_link (FK to metadata_id, self-referential)	Can we have this auto-generate? Based on system tables?
General Rooms	Single source of room description	description columns
Energy Points		energy_point_name, description
Status adjustments	Creature adjustments, temporary or permanent	metadata_id, modificatio
Item personalization	Items that are different from standard according to the player	item_id (FK to items), character_id (FK to characters), new field name, description
Item class	Different kinds of items	item_class_name, item_class_description	see Items for list
Guilds	In-game guild list	guild_name, guild_chat_id
Guild Membership Requirements	skill levels required for creature membership in a guild	guild_id , skill_id, minimum_skill_level
Skills	In-game skill list	skill_name, guild_requirement (null = no guild membership required to learn skill)
Creator Class	Jobs for creators (stackable)	class_name, permissions
Races	creature groups	racial_group_id (FK to racial groups), player_race (bool), elite_player_race (bool), size_id (FK to size)	stat adjustments covered by racial adjustment table?
Racial group	superclass of races	description
Size	different sizes of creatures	size_name, size_order	1=tiny (bug), 2=small (halfling), 3=medium (elf), 4=large (ogre), 5=huge (dragon)
Random monster generation parameters	necessary information for generating random monsters
Areas	areas are groups of rooms used for wandering monster limitations. areas can overlap	area_name, description
Character sort orders	Options for players to sort list of characters	sort column, asc/desc
Features	Features are options for creatures that can be visible in descriptions of those creatures. These are the things that get set to personalize a character upon character creation (and later), but are also valid for NPC creatures	feature_name, feature_description
Languages		language_name, parent_language	may need more than one parent language to mimic proper language "trees"

Dimension tables

Where X and Y are items in different fact tables.

• If X will have at most one of Y, then X should have a foreign key to Y's primary key (noted above)
  • If X will always have one Y, then that foreign key should be constrained to not null
• If X can have many Y, and Y can have many X, then X and Y need a dimension table. Said table should consist of only two items: the primary keys of X and Y

X	Y	This represents ...
Actions	Objects
Areas	Rooms
Characters	Guilds
Characters	Skills
Characters	Spells
Characters	Status adjustments
Character sort order	Player
General room	Room
Items	Item class
Items	Spells
Races	Status Adjustment	Permanent status adjustments per race
Features	Races	Racial options for features
Creatures	Features	Features for a given creature
Areas	Random Monster Generation Parameters
Races	Random Monster Generation Parameters
Racial Group	Sizes
Races	Sizes
Creators	Creator Class

State tables

Tables that keep the current state of the character/player, to be updated frequently. Chances are anything that can be changed should probably be here

• Location - What room is the character in?
  • Inventory - What items is the character holding? Can this be expanded to "what items is the object holding?"--Probably. That way it also covers chests, and in turn, location.
• Experience/Level
• Skill Level/% to next level
• Energy Point Pools
• Spell List
• History tables - history of what?
  • Might just use a database with built-in history/records
• Communication - open issue for privacy.
  • Either everything is logged (and we put up a disclaimer for this) and we have the (restricted) ability to grep through the logs for evidence of real-life crime or inter-player harassment
  • Or we give the player the ability to turn on logging to be sent to us
  • Or should we log all input from a user to be able to recreate bugs?
  • If we do save everything, it has to be seriously restricted and possibly encrypted.

Table brainstorming

1. Everything as an object
   • Rooms are containers
   • Characters and Monsters/NPCs modeled the same, also containers
   • Object table includes very basic information common to all objects. PK/FK link to other tables
2. All actions have common ties
   • Actions include spells and attacks, but also skills, emotes, buying, etc.
   • Any interaction with an object, including yourself. Leveling up is an action.
   • Not all actions can be called directly. Some can only be called by computer/other action. This flag can be one of the common ties
   • Actions PK/FK link to other tables to further define them
   • Are actions also items? Or can items have actions? Or can items have access to a class of actions?
3. Classes of items/actions
   • Clearly defined definitions of items and actions. Adding a new item/action must go into one of these groups. Adding a new class rearranges the DB a bit.
   • Subclasses/Superclasses can be defined to combine/narrow things down. Probably superclasses are more likely, to make things have only one class?

Algorithms

The important bits on getting things to work.

moving around

Moving from room to room requires the player using the exit-action for their current room.

Interaction

• Modeling NPCs as computer-controlled PCs
• Objects with built in calls for actions?
• Characters as special kinds of items?
• Rooms as special kinds of items?

UC_MUD