On the MUD-Dev mailing list, a fella was asking about Ajax(ish) code for something MUD-like. I kicked this idea around with a co-worker when discussing a current project of his. He mentioned that Microsoft had a control (or something) that would listen for events from the server and update the page. The responses to the post to MUD-Dev mentioned Comet, which looks to do the same thing.
After more thought on this subject, there are tons of neat features that could be added to the standard text-based MUDs. Specifically, images. One of my favorite text-based adventures was the interactive fiction The Guild of Thieves by Magnetic Scrolls. My friends and I would spend all night seeing what freedom we had (cross-dressing, using the toilet, etc). One cool feature was the images that would be displayed in certain areas. I always thought that this would be a great feature for a MUD. Upon entering the pub, for example, an image of the interior would be displayed.
Without the ability to “push” information to the client/browser, could a MUD be possible? I haven’t done the research on Ajax, but would it be possible to “tick” the MUD every 5 seconds and just refresh the page every 5 seconds? The worst latency would be 4 seconds, right? What about a Flash MUD client? Would that be possible? Would it be playable through a firewall? I’m sure Raph and the gang at Areae might be asking/answering the same questions.
February 15th, 2007 at 9:14 pm
Yes, you can set a timer to refresh as often as you want, though it eats up memory sometimes. I’ve got mine set to 30 seconds right now. 15 seconds would be OK probably, even 5 might be doable. 1 second chews through memory like crazy. Of course, I’m refreshing a grid with a dataset behind it. If it were just reading an XML file it might not be so bad.
That Comet stuff is cool, but I haven’t found a good way to make it work in ASP.NET yet without paying someone $500 for it.
May 31st, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Flash MUD client is possible. Link to Amitoune flash MUD client http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/348214 BTW I don’t know any other flash MUD clients…
December 13th, 2007 at 6:54 am
I’ve started to write a flash 9 client. A prerelease can be tested here:
http://dum.acc.umu.se/~pathor/client2.html
I doubt it is a good way to sneak through firewalls though, since flash player 9 refuses to connect to ports below 1024 and only to the computer that it was downloaded from (except after reading a policy file from port 943). Many firewalls limit outgoing connects and only allow port 80 and 443.
With some hacking on the server one can make an XMLSocket connection to port 80 or 443 I think and come through some firewalls.
December 13th, 2007 at 10:33 am
Hmm…I might have to check out that XMLSocket stuff. Sounds like it could be the key.