Exactly One year ago (and ten hours) I embarked on a mission to recreate the wonderful times I had chatting and exploring the MUDS, and MOO's of the early nineties. I was a frequent visitor to Lambda MOO, Jay's House, and a host of other online text only versions of multi-user dungeons. I was a huge fan or Pavel Curtis' MOO code. When I first began learning PHP, I thought the two had a lot in common. I was also a little amazed at the lack of web based multi-user dungeons. I remember the days of having to work a miracle to find (as a measly little undergraduate) a unix server that would allow me to unpack a MUD tarball on it. Given that anyone could run a web page these days, I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to make a Multi-User Dungeon that ran on Drupal?" What a cool concept of allowing anyone to start a MUD very easily and without shell access on a Unix box. I thought that Drupal would be an excellent platform because of its modularity and object based interface. MUD's and MOO's are inheritly based on objects and what better object to make the base than a node? The hook system as well would allow any part of the system to react with any other part of the system and the jquery would make real time events such as chatting, and real time combat easy to do.
I started with Ubercart believe it or not and borrowed their ideas of "classes" to create a room class, an object class, and a character class. These would be the parents. Just like MOO code, I could add properties and even more cool, I could have multiple inheritance in a crude sense by sharing properties using CCK.
What started as a single module, the GOD module, (Gaming on Drupal) has now become a set of seven.
I added a realtime chat system and real time event updates using jquery and the result is a multi-user dungeon set in the post apocalyptic future. Your host is Seine, a computer that has created a virtual wormhole back through the cables of the internet and is inviting you, the user, to help him unravel exactly what it was that brought the end to 'everything'.
At the present time, a beginning world has been created that a good adventurer will conquer it in a few days. The great news is that it's Drupal! Anyone can add to the world and I would love to have people come apply for building permits and see exactly where this crazy thing goes. The options for weapons, monsters, rooms, and items is limitless thanks to flexibility of Drupal
It project is now in Beta and has no real time line. Please, come by, create an account, Uplink to a Replicant and kick a little ass. You can even kick each other's ass. Just be nice doing it. Please let me know what you think, what can be better etc...or if you want to help. A forum is available for all that other stuff.
Looking forward to seeing you online. I go by 'Squelch'.
Comments
Interesting project... I'd
Interesting project... I'd been wondering for a while when someone was going to make an RPG of sorts using Drupal. I like the photos that you've used. Did you take those yourself? I also like the auto-updating statuses from the replicant.
May I make a few suggestions? You want the most people to register and start testing, so it would be good to make that process as quick, painless, and streamlined as possible:
Also, in a post-apocalyptic future where you play as a robot, it seems a little inconsistent to have phrases like "crazy apeshit" and "barfight"... they just don't seem to fight.
Okay, hope this doesn't come across as too critical. Overall a great start!