    An LPC Renaissance

    This is a long article. My time is valuable, and I presume you
    feel the same way about yours. I will therefore begin with a
    summary, then attempt to present my arguments in a structured way
    to make things as brief as possible, while remaining informative.

    There is horrendous and inexcusable bias toward one lib here.
    I am its author, so I hope that, even if you don't forgive
    me this bias, you'll understand it is just pride and not
    disparagement of others.

    Summary:
    * I am working on a way to promote LPmuds.
    * My motivation and reasoning are explained in this article.
    * The conclusion I've reached is that at this point, I need content.
    * This means I need help.
    * I ask for your help, either creating new stuff or donating content.

    Section Index:
    My Motivation
    The Objective
    Progress So Far
    Assessment of Viability
    The Next Step part I
    The Next Step part II

    My Motivation
    -------------

    	Lib coding is my hobby. I really enjoy it, much the
    way a motorcycle freak spends his free time in the garage, or
    like a gardening enthusiast constantly in his yard. My code
    of choice and expertise is LPC.

    	It is more fun (for me) to have a hobby shared by
    many people than a hobby shared by few. With more LPC coders
    out there ideas and projects can be shared, and this is
    a fun and cool thing.

    The Objective
    -------------

    	I want to lure more people into using LPmud. The
    more people use it, the more they will see how great it is
    and either they will create their own LPmuds, or join
    existing ones. Either way, the continued growth of an LPmud
    community can build momentum toward a critical mass, where
    a self-sustaining chain-reaction of continual adoption and
    innovation can happen without relying on a couple of "movers
    and shakers" to make things go.

    	This objective satisfies my intent, which is to have
    more fun in my hobby, by having more people participate in it.

    Progress So Far
    ---------------

    	I've sucessfully revived an old LP mudlib called
    Dead Souls. It's been thoroughly debugged, updated, and
    brought in line with the expectations of modern builders. I
    don't feel any shame in saying it is, hands down, the best
    LP mudlib you can download today. There are some thirty or
    so development muds currently up and using Dead Souls.

    	I've partnered with Tacitus in promoting a site
    called LPUniversity, which uses forums and a different
    mudlib to advance the cause of LP.

    Assessment of Viability (where I explain muds are not dead)
    -----------------------

    	Probably the first objection any LP old-timer will
    have is "what's the point? There are no more mudders."

    	From the perspective of the typical LP mud, this
    probably seems like a clincher. Over the years, LP muds have
    seen a decline in their playerbase, and one by one many
    of the old LP muds have quietly winked out of existence. The
    gjs router is loaded with moribund muds that barely breathe
    one or two players a day, if that many. Muds, it seems,
    are dead.

    	This, however, is not so. That dust-covered old
    LP geezer is mistaken. There is a strong and vibrant mudding
    community out there. More than a thousand muds, certainly
    thousands of players, with new ones every day. There is
    a thriving mud landscape out there that the LP dinos don't
    know about because they're in the old rut of seeing only
    as far as their intermud network.

    	A couple of URL's should be a wakeup call. First,
    take a look at http://www.topmudsites.com and scroll down
    to the mud list. Connect to any of the top 10, or top 20, or
    top 40, and tell me that mudding is dead. Consider also that
    not only does the "top" list there go to 100, some of these
    are *commercial* muds. People *pay* to be players.

    	"A few fools a community does not make," you might
    say. Poke at a different site. Go to http://mudconnector.com/mud_listings.html
    and connect to a few of the muds listed there. There's life
    in muds, baby. Just because your mud is stagnant doesn't
    mean everyone else has a foot in the grave.

    	What you are seeing is that LP muds have given up.
    Like Detroit in the 80's. No innovation, no keeping up with
    the market. Of course the LP intermud is a graveyard. The
    world passed us by. Diku, once in ascendance, is now supreme.

    	But it doesn't have to stay that way.

    	LP muds are fabulously flexible and easy to learn
    compared to the most popular types of muds out there. The mud
    scene is largely composed of Diku and its derivatives, not
    because of technical superiority or ease of use, but because
    the fragmented LP community forgot to keep innovating.

    	The Diku muds have a dramatic advantage: since all
    are written in C, for the most part anything written in one
    will work on any other. There are vast repositories of
    "snippets" that Diku admins consult...and by plugging this
    here and that there, they can have a playable mud with
    dozens of areas in a day. Or less.

    	Their disadvantage is that to do really fancy stuff,
    they need someone highly skilled in C. As you know, that is
    not so for LP muds. Just a fair knowledge of LPC is needed,
    and this is an order of magnitude (at least) easier than
    becoming mud-code proficient with C.

    	Dead Souls 2 has been specifically designed to
    compete with Diku. It is super easy to install, and it has
    an "On-Line Creation" system that lets you bypass line
    editing when creating rooms, npc's, objects, etc. The big
    stumbling block for beginners, the ed line editor, is now
    just a minor inconvenience, if anything. It's heavily
    documented, and I've gone as far as setting up a newbie-
    friendly I3 router to support new adopters. It even comes
    with a Windows version.

    	DS2 is poised to be the killer app that swings mass
    interest back to LP, and this renaissance of LP adoption
    is what I seek, to foster new development and innovation.

    The Next Step, part I
    ---------------------

    	Why do people write/run muds? If they just did it
    for the technical pleasure, they'd just never open. The
    majority of mud admins out there do what they do because
    it's fun to run a game (or at least, they thought it would
    be) and a game without players is, well, not much of a
    game.

    	A mud's success is most often measured in its
    playerbase. Therefore, I have to consider this in my
    LP Renaissance project. If people decide on an LP codebase,
    or specifically DS2 as a lib, it's not usually because they
    like me personally, or because the box it came in has a
    cool dragon on it. My personality is insufferable, and there is
    no box. The reason people would adopt is that they think they can
    make a successful mud with it, and this most often means
    lots of players.

    	My job, then, is to convince potential adopters that
    players will come. So, what do players want? Good gameplay,
    fun challenges, interesting areas. In short, players are
    here to be entertained.

    	However, the stock Dead Souls 2.1 mud doesn't have
    much in the way of areas. There are a few sample domains,
    sure, and this is enough to demonstrate the basics of what
    Dead Souls can do. But to really sell Dead Souls as a viable
    option, it needs knock-em-dead areas. Areas that, when a
    curious potential adopter installs and logs into their
    test DS mud, makes them go "WOW!".

    	*That* is what sells a codebase. *That* is what can
    make or break a lib. I am deeply proud of the work I've
    done under the hood, but I do not fool myself about my
    level of creativity or imagination. I'm smart enough to
    know that I am great at lib work, but mediocre at content
    creation.

    	And I've worked too hard on Dead Souls to resign
    myself to mediocrity in one of its most vital aspects: gameplay.

    	To move forward, DS2 needs fun, exciting, *thrilling*,
    stock areas. The current defaults are "just fine". They show
    you how to do things, and things work properly. But that isn't
    enough. When someone tries out DS2, I don't want them to say
    "gee that was easy to install, and everything works properly."

    	I want them to say "This is GREAT!".

    	I therefore ask for your help. If you are a good
    builder, please join my effort. It's your contribution of an
    inspiring, exciting area for Dead Souls that will greatly
    enhance its appeal and adoption.

    	In contributing to a Dead Souls area, you will be
    ensuring that your work will live on, beyond just one mud.
    Rather than have your work locked away in a single mud, and
    hoping that mud doesn't fail, you can be sure that thousands
    of people enjoy how you've expressed your creativity.

    The Next Step, part II
    ----------------------

    	This second part is closely related to the previous
    issue. Let's assume that Dead Souls 2 is the vanguard of an
    LP renaissance, and what is good for it is good for LP in
    general (obviously this is tortured logic, but please humor me).

    	As wonderful as DS2 is, its Achille's heel is content.
    Content, content, content. It isn't enough that DS2 is
    technically superior in any way to any other lib. This advantage
    is meaningless if people aren't attracted to it in the
    first place. And the attraction for adopters is players. And
    the attraction for players is content.

    	The request I'm about to make may well be unprecedented
    in its bald, shameless effrontery. If you've read this far, though,
    you can probably tell I've lost a lot of those normal behaviors
    people associate with prudence.

    	The request? I want your mud.

    	Now, don't get me wrong, if you've got players and they
    have fun and you run a game, I ask nothing of you. Ignore what
    I said.

    	But there are a few out there that I'm speaking to. The
    ones who can't really explain why their mud is still open, since
    they haven't seen a serious player in months or years. The ones
    that actually closed a mud, and maybe have a backup burned onto
    CD, probably never to be played again.

    	You know who you are. Your content is great, and was once
    enjoyed gratefully by many people, but now rather than collect
    players, it collects dust. You're either flirting with closing
    it, or closed it already.

    	I ask this of you: if nobody is gaining benefit from
    that work, if all it will do is go to Old Mud Heaven...give it
    to me.

    	What I want to do is build a showcase mud. I want to
    provide potential adopters an example of what a Dead Souls mud
    can be...with players and active creators and everything. I
    don't just need content for the default Dead Souls distribution,
    I also need content to run a Dead Souls Showcase that attracts the
    kind of attention and energy that can make it an engine of
    progress for LP.

    	I resurrected Dead Souls. Download it and see for yourself
    how much effort and dedication went into it. You'll know I have
    the skill and insane determination it takes to convert your
    code, and make your mud breathe again.

    	Obviously you will admin your content, if you want. And
    the Intellectual Property is yours...you wrote it, you have
    copyright.

    	What I want is not to take credit for anything. What I
    want is to have a towering beacon of LPC goodness that can
    call to new adopters, and serve as a source of potential
    players and creators for the Old Guard.

    	Don't just say "Sounds neat. Hope it works." Help
    me. I need your contribution. I can't do all this on my own.

    - Crat
    cratylus@comcast.net

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