Monthly Archives: January 2011

Client Work

John Baker has delivered a new set of artwork for the client and I’ve spent some time working on integrating it into the code.

What I’ve discovered is that the client code is rather brittle and prone to explode.  It will need some significant work before a new version is ready to release.  Testing with valgrind has helped a bit, but it still requires some heavy lifting to get right.

I started working on the client 6 years ago, long before I knew C++ very well (I’ve known C a lot longer, but it took a while to get the hang of C++ and the OO world).  The client was originally written to use the Simple DirectMedia Layer (SDL) and has had some bizarre things done to it over the years.

So — there are significant changes coming with it, but no idea when they’re coming.

Minor Data Fixes

I finally got around to taking care of two things that have been bugging me for a bit.

1. Every boot the MUD would reset the time/day/year to the first day of the first month of the first year (time zero).  Now time continues across reboots.  No more Groundhog Day.

2. The current, maximum, and record number of players data was not being kept correctly.  It is now.

They haven’t been deployed to the server yet since I’m in the middle of reworking the map engine on both the client and server for the new graphics, but when that’s done those two fixes will ride along.

Stuff After Death

Lyran mentioned that it’d pretty tough to do anything after dying above level 5 for complete lack of equipment.  I added a toggle that lets players start with newbie equipment every time they die no matter what level they are and turned it on.

Newbie equipment isn’t exactly a huge advantage, so it might be worth leaving that on permanently.  It’s bad enough that you lose your sword +5, no reason you should have to walk around barefoot with no pants on.  A level 6 adventurer shouldn’t find it too hard to scrounge up 2 silver pieces worth of equipment anyhow.