> First of all.. if you do not know how to program... THEN I WOULD SUGGEST
> YOU FORGET ABOUT TRYING TO CREATE A MUD!!!!!.
This is not a flame, and is not directed at any one in particular. I
have just seen many people make statements like above and I feel that my
experiences qualify me to comment. If you want to flame me, do so
personally or you will prove nothing else that you are a hopeless idiot.
If you actually have an intelligent reply that you believe the list would
benefit from (highly doubtful), by all means reply to the list.
When I started thinking about implementing a mud about a year ago, I had
never seen C in my life. I asked a few dumb questions from a friend who
did not mind, and then bought a C book. I then spent months learning, by
myself mostly, Circle code and C in general. I am by no means a C
expert, but I can easily understand about any code, derive abstract code
from scratch and restructure entire parts of CircleMUD.
To all those tired of newbie questions, from being one once myself, I
would suggest a short simple personal message to them if you have the
time and are feeling nice. Otherwise delete it. The flames sent create
much larger problems then the harmless newbies.
To newbies, I think these tips will be VERY helpful:
1. BUY A BOOK!!! And if you can't afford a book, read the tutorials that
are all over the net.
2. Read the code thoroughly. If there is some code you do not understand,
try cutting and pasting it and rewriting it in english (like '&&' would
be 'and').
3. When you are finally ready to code something for yourself, code by
example. I am not saying to just cut and paste and chage a couple
small things but analyze why each thing is done in a similar piece of
code, and then decide if it is necessary, not necessary, or how it would
need to be altered to work for you.
4. If you _still_ need help you can try looking in man pages, although
sometimes a bit confusing, but excellent for learning how to use
patch or diff or understand the autorun script. IMHO the mailing
list should be the absolute last resort, after you have tried and
tried and tried, and still cannot figure something out.
5. Lastly, be committed. No one wants to play a mud that is half-rate.
If you are not committed to making an excellent game, or not
committed to learning how to do it, I agree you should not even start.
Besides the above information you should learn how to use gdb or another
debugger. When you do need help, a backtrace from a debugger can often be
an invaluable tool in diagnosing a problem. If you mail to the list,
including the backtrace, and the code that seems to be causing the
problem is probably a good idea.
I hope this can be of some aid to someone, and possibly help put an end
to the childishness that often surfaces from the list subscribers.
Sorry for making this so long,
Chris
Final Note To Newbies: Coding is a big part of mud implemnting, as is a
willingness to work with others and your players. Remember though that
areas are a big part of a mud also, maybe bigger than the features. Most
of the people I know immediately quit when they enter the mud in Midgaard.
Not that these areas are bad, but originallity can count for alot when
trying to catch a player's attention.
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| Ensure that you have read the CircleMUD Mailing List FAQ: |
| http://cspo.queensu.ca/~fletcher/Circle/list_faq.html |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : 12/18/00 PST