Flame – BBS and MUD
ucc.asn.au55 points by shakna 4 days ago
55 points by shakna 4 days ago
This is obviously a MUD and not really the same thing, but I can't help think of Citadel BBSes after reading the description.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citadel_(software)
Funny this is maintained by folks at UW. The PNW had quite a robust BBS scene back in the 80s. Not exactly surprising that tech flourished with such inclement weather.
Maybe obvious to others, but on MacOS I had to `brew install telnet` since it was not installed by default and then `telnet flame.ucc.gu.uwa.edu.au 4242`.
In the 90's I thought it would make for a wild scene in a (cyberpunk?) story where the protagonist agrees to meet up with a possible informant in a MUD bar. The two apparently idly chatting possibly state secrets while fights between fighters and magic users break out around them.
thinking about MUDs always makes me miss the days when GhostMOO was full of players. any others among this crowd? https://mudstats.com/World/Ghostwheel
I was on Ghostwheel! I'm even still friends with somebody I met there.
Wow what a great idea. I wish this were a more common online social space format!
half the things I am asking........ what? what?
> help command_listYes, I typed help after two guesses... but go north? Or whats the point in having it tell you information and exits
Historical reasons.
This is a MUD, which stands for "multiple user dungeon"; what's more useful is that it's based on a form of game called a "text adventure". Once upon a time back in the eighties these were some of the biggest sellers of the game industry! They would present a small world to explore, often a mostly-abandoned one because that's easier to do. You'd wander around, map the world (usually on paper, by hand! [1]), and discover creatures, characters, and items sitting around it, waiting for you to interact with them.
A lot of them were in the form of exploring some kind of dungeon; D&D was popular among nerds, and "what if the computer did all the record-keeping" was a popular thing to explore. Which explains why this is a "multiple-user dungeon" even if nothing in it is described as dank, underground rooms full of monsters and treasures.
Directions are given as compass directions because that's the very first text adventure did ("Colossal Caves"), and nobody ever found anything better - a few games tried forwards/left/right/back but it was very confusing to keep track of which way you were pointing.
In practice a lot of muds really ended up more like chat servers with a sense of place; instead of being in a "channel" with other people, you're in a "room", which might have a "bulletin board" on it for less-ephemeral discussions than the general chatter among players. There might be monsters to fight and puzzles to solve somewhere off in the map but nobody engaged with them. Instead they just hang out and chat, and roleplay.
1: something like this: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/52c9d908e4b0e8... - except probably with a lot more erasures and corrections.
I learned how to program in MUDs, made friends (including my first girlfriend, online dating was very different 35 years ago), and (mostly) had a great time. The death threats weren’t much fun, especially since he lived 2 hours from me.
I am curious about your “biggest sellers” comment. What was sold, and by whom?
MUDs were fun because, as a kid who read various magical fantasy series, there would inevitably be a server that was spun up attempting to recreate the world and magic system. Because it was just text, it made it far easier to do fan works like that. It's something kids today probably can't imagine. Really enjoy Twilight? You can join as server and make a character who's a [N]ormal Teenager, [W]erewolf boy, [C]enturies-old Sparkling Vampire. And you'd have a whole list of skills and progression for 100 levels. Wheel of Time had several different competing codebases with differing versions of channeling.
It was an entertaining way to learn C as a kid, and programming new weird spells made one feel like an actual wizard.
I think there's still some space for MUDs in the world. You could build a programming/literacy class around just teaching kids how to navigate and interact within that world, how to be a god/mod/admin within the world using its tools, and how to modify it and compile it with their desired changes.
I'm still living with someone I met on a MU.
And yeah, text adventures* were some of the biggest sellers, not mus. While there were* a few pay mu*s most of them were hobby projects.
My guess would be Zork and the other Infocom games which at the time were huge because they could be played on the very limited PC's of the 80's and were top 10 selling games. Myst is basically a graphical "text style" adventure that was huge in the 90's and drove lots of CD-ROM sales and was a top seller for like a decade.
If you're not familiar with MUDs than perhaps a system based on "being a MUD" just isn't aimed at you?
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Flame looks promising for those needing an easy-to-use cluster management tool. I like the simplicity and focus on common tasks like managing users and software. The web UI is a nice touch. Curious to see how it evolves and compares to solutions like Cloudify and OpenStack in production.
Hacker News itself looks promising for those needing an easy-to-use cluster management tool. I like its ability to operate on smaller AAA batteries by just putting bits of tinfoil on each end. It seems like a good replacement for Plex. I mangle users and software when necessary, but would like an opensource tool to play with. The orange objects are a nice touch. Curious to see how it evolves and compares to other social edifices like the Catholic Church.
