Member Discussions

Some of you are hobby coders. Others are professional coders... so hopefully at least one person will know the answer to this. How much do you think a professional coder/group of programmers would charge to write an entirely new MUD codebase with some fairly complex features?

I have plenty of ideas, and a good amount of money, too... but I really have no clue what the going rate for that sort of thing is. I was thinking about using rentacoder.com but I've heard mixed reactions about it. I want it done, and I want to make sure it gets done... where would you guys recommend I go about finding the people to do it and how much do you think they'd do it for?

From the sounds of it you are not a coder yourself, so the question is who will be making changes after the game opens? The best thing, IMO, would be for you to use some of that money and take some classes in coding and work your way towards creating your own code base. Of course that takes quite a while.

As for buying one depends on the quality of the coder, how fast you want it made, etc. It's not the easiest thing in the world to do. Of course it also matters on what all you wanted coded. If you want the whole game made, I doubt you'll find someone that would do it, at least not for cheap. If you just want a framework that you can then add on too there's already a lot of them out there(like socketMud) that are just the basics.

Well, I think he's looking to make a commercial mud. Am I correct in that assumption? If not, I'm afraid it's not going to be anywhere near worth paying for one to be made, unless you're fabulously wealthy and don't know what to do with yourself. Either way (commercial MUD or fabulously wealthy scenario), your best option would be hiring full-time programmers somewhere other than here. Go on monster.com or something. Keep in mind, creating a MUD is no different in any way than creating any other application. It's just a "port listener" or whatnot, with commands implemented. You could advertize here for a paid coder, but in all honesty the quality you'll probably get for a turnout is going to be less than if you advertized through a more professional medium, such as a help wanted page, or monster.com or something.

If you fall into the other category (that being the not fabulously wealthy hobbiest), you're going to want to develop the codebase on your own, or "hire" coders from here to help you with it that will be working for, essentially, free.

If my post has been in any way off-base, I'm just curious... how much are you expecting to budget for this? This is just a curiosity thing, so of course you don't have to answer if you feel in any way imposed upon by my asking... it would help us to get an idea of what to suggest to you, and help you by essentially advertizing for your coder here if you did, however. *shrug*

Best of luck in any case!,
-Jess

(Comment added by mann_jess on Sun Oct 1 0:35:27 2006)

As for my last question... I do also realize you're asking for a going rate, but I'd have to say that such a rate would be a professional hourly wage for as many hours as it took (which would be quite a few)... so alot. Let's say I were qualified to take on the job, and I read this post. I would probably figure that based on the kinds of questions you're asking, you wouldn't really be willing to pay what I'm worth... as a result I wouldn't respond. Giving some kind of quote (such as "I was hoping to spend around $20") would show your readers what you were really looking for in a monetary way.

Best of Luck,
-Jess

I can appreciate it's no small task... and I want it coded from the ground up because I haven't found a single codebase license yet I completely agree with.

No, I'm not interested in running a commercial MUD. I just want it coded well, and I can't do it myself (not for lack of trying). Beyond that, I was hoping to possibly attract a decent coder after the opening of the MUD to add features and bugfix, that sort of thing. I'm big on ideas, but not much for talent in the coding department.

If you guys really want a number... I was looking to spend around $300 - 500... but I didn't want to be laughed out of the forum for pitching too high or too low. I really hope it /isn't/ hourly... that's at least $12 an hour for... what? Several weeks to a couple of months worth of work hours? There's no way...

What about offering up the money to a (good) hobbyist coder? I imagine it wouldn't net the same quality as a professional, but it'd still be better than picking some random guy up off the forums... maybe? I don't know. I just want the MUD created - I want the features I have in mind implemented, and I want to see the place grow and thrive. I want... well, probably what everyone else who starts a MUD wants. Beyond that, though, I want to introduce some fresh, new concepts to the community through my game.

I am willing to trade time for cost, though (taking longer for a lower price), but I don't know if that's how it works. Like I said, I know what I want, I just don't know how to get it, which is why I was asking you guys. You are probably way out of my price range, Jess, but what do you usually work for? Is that standard? Are there individuals who will work for less but still yield worthwhile results? Got any contacts I could talk to? =D

(Comment added by Evre on Sun Oct 1 1:01:32 2006)

Sorry, misread that last paragraph. It was intended as a hypothetical, I read it as you being an actual developer who just had high standards. >_>

Well to start with, you could provide some sort of contact information so people who might be interested in discussing it with you but have no inclination to post publically can reach you.

Sorry, sorry! I'm still getting used to this forum. I didn't realize it wouldn't include my e-mail until you pointed it out. Evre@charter.net 's always a great way to get in touch with me. My AIM is SacrificeAya, though I'm on at sporadic times, so it's up in the air.

I would attempt to turn you off the idea of paying for coders if you don't intend on doing it on a professional level. There are entirely too many problems you are opening yourself up to for instance:
How do you ensure quality, similarly timeliness? What if the coder decides you are not paying enough for his/her time? Can you afford a price hike? And if not what if that coder leaves a job half done, can you just move on to the next coder? And what if they don't agree with the previous coder's methods and decide to rewrite large sections of code... you have effectively tripled the cost due to the secondary coder having to sift through and then 'fix' the previous coder's work? What if you get a nefarious coder that leaves all kinds of backdoors and hacks in the code? Ok, assume everything goes perfectly and you have yourself a great codebase, what is to stop your coder from then releasing it or selling it to someone else, or using it themself?
Basically there is no way to ensure the kind of professionalism you would need to make it worth any kind of money.

Incidently, I work in an area that would be comparable to say outsourcing programming work and the company I work for charges upwards of $60 an hour for my services (not that I personally bring home that much bacon...) and I am still at a 'junior' level. That might give you an idea of what you might expect to pay a professional coder.

I applaud your initiative and your drive, and I hope you really do have some interesting new concepts to bring to the table. I know most 'idea people' like you and I are afraid of this but it has been my policy to share my ideas with the mudding community (I personally think I am brilliant and I think it's high time everyone else agrees). So feel free to share some of those wonderful ideas of yours and who knows, maybe some intrepid coder will hear them and think, 'wow, with ideas like that I could truly make a great game!'.

That's why I wanted to use something like 'rentacoder.com', which at least partially ensures the coder will get the job done at the threat of having a big red mark on their profile, ensuring future buyers will not accept bids from them. As far as backdoors and whatnot go, I like to think I'm competent enough in comprehending at least the gist of code, so I should (hopefully) be able to spot it.

Right, so going to an actual company's totally out of the question. Christ, that's expensive.

Sure, I could write out all of my ideas, and sure, maybe a coder might even happen across one or two of them and put them into their own MUD... but then they're scattered across the web, not all in the same place. That's one of the big factors in influencing me to run my own - seeing so many MUDs with some really incredible features, but the rest of the MUD is so unbearable that it makes it very much not worthwhile.

I genuinely don't believe I'll ever have the skill needed to code the sort of things I want to see happen. Similiarly, I'll never have the kind of money to pay $60/hour for a hobby. I don't know... I was just hoping that maybe if I put some cash behind my concepts, I'd have a leg up on all the other dozens upon dozens of people who decide they want to start their own MUDs.

There's got to be some way. I just have to find it.

Well... yes my last paragraph was hypothetical... but you actually made me laugh when I read:
You are probably way out of my price range, Jess, but what do you usually work for?
Perhaps my humor is out there because it's about 4am, but I laughed because I find that extremely ironic. In all honesty, you're probably looking for someone exactly like me. I'm a broke college student who doesn't, at the moment, pull in anywhere near $60/hour but I'm competant enough to write my own codebase and whatever else I want. Unfortunately I have to say I'm unavailable given that I am working on my own "codebase"... but my point is that there are people out there who could adequately take you up on your offer... (doing a good job within your price-range).

You're also right that you can't afford to pay hourly for a coder, which also makes you right that if you want to hire someone, you're going to have to sacrifice the quality and timeliness you'd get from a professional for someone you'd find here. So in short, yes, you're right that you could hire someone to get the job done.

I have to agree with Mosin that it's a bad idea, though. There are alot of people on here that know what they're doing, but for every one of those, there are quite a few more that think they know what they're doing but really don't. If you hire someone to do your job, and (as is likely) they aren't actually competant enough to do the job... then you'll end up in a situation. Either you pay them something for their time spent (and thus lose out on some money) or you don't pay them (which depending on the situation would be wrong and/or illegal), and then afterwords you then hire someone else who has the same chances of being decent. You could of course request code samples (which you'd really have to do) before hiring... but that doesn't really prove much.

As far as the backdoor thing goes... it doesn't actually have to be a "door" of sorts. Just as one example, it could be a poor way of coding something which intentionally leaves a way for a player to manipulate the game. Let's say your coder gets it in their head they want to dominate your game if it does well... implementing a "save" command and specifically "forgetting" to make sure quantities are positive and that the game won't crash on negative values in the "buy" command... now he has the ability to crash your game and create an infinite amount of anything. Save+crash is exploitable like this for any command. Equally, there are tons of other things he could do that you might not notice if you don't understand exactly how to do what needs to be done. Hiring someone that might one day play your game, and whom you can't be sure has any maturity is opening yourself up for this possibility.

I don't know much about rentacoder.com as I've never used it, so hopefully someone else who does can give you input on that if you decide to go that way. However... as for your statement:
I genuinely don't believe I'll ever have the skill needed to code the sort of things I want to see happen.
I have to say I completely disagree. I have yet to take a programming class in which I learned anything (I took 2 in highschool, one I learned pascal after I already knew C, and the other I played games every day and submitted code I worked on for my MUD anyway). As a result, I taught myself everything from knowing absolutely nothing. It took me a couple months to get enough of an understanding to modify code coherantly, and about a year to have the ability to create the code for pretty much anything I wanted. 2 years into development I knew enough to create my own codebase. I'm now 7 years into development and I have the "codebase" I want. Realistically, you could learn and develop the codebase you're looking for in a couple years all by yourself.

Anyway, I hope my rambling has been somewhat usefull or informative.

Best of Luck!,
-Jess

Thanks for all the feedback.

From the sounds of it, anyone wanting to have any MUD coding done only really has two options; Pay a crazy amount of money for a professional, or hope for a kind-hearted coder to come along and help out. The level of underhandedness and bastardy things you have to watch out for on the 'net never ceases to completely shatter my faith in humanity.

I see your point on the "back door" thing. Exploits happen so often unintentionally, it must be terribly easy to slip them in intentionally. I suppose all I can do is hope that whomever I eventually find won't be a total dick.

I've tried programming before. Worked at it for a few months and realized it wasn't my thing. I can comprehend the baser facets of it, but there's a plateu I keep hitting and can't go beyond that. Inlining functions and scope just... ugh... too much for my brain. I have books, I have drive, I just... can't. It really sucks. So that's really just out of the quesiton at this point, not to mention seven years is a little longer than I had in mind.

Suppose I'll just have to bite the bullet, write up the design document for the bloody thing, and pray someone finds the whole thing interesting enough that s/he wants to help out.

Thanks for mentioning SocketMUD - it's the first framework I've seen with absolutely no license limitations. I'll definitely keep it in mind for later.

Might I ask exactly what about licenses you've seen that bugs you?... The only common thread that most licenses seem to have is giving credit, and honestly, $300 seems like a lot to get around that. And at very least it'd be easier to suggest a starting point if it's known what you're trying to avoid.

Anyway, the best path seems like it'd be at least vaguely disclose your idea and try to garner interest, after all, if working for you doesn't feel like work, then being paid for it suddenly isn't the most important thing ever.

As for the backdoor issue, I really don't think that'd be much of a problem unless you managed to find someone who was intending to do something truly malicious from the beginning. Not to say that people are trustworthy, just that it'd be simpler for them to just stick around in the administration if they plan on playing the game to get benefit without risking anybody else finding their handiwork. The real thing that you should worry about would be shoddy workmanship.... Someone might write some code that they know will work, but is easy enough to break, and not really assure it's solid because as soon as they deliver code that shows some some semblance of working fine, they get paid.

Maybe this is a silly question but I'll just throw it out there. Evre, are you currently an imm or a builder on any muds?

I could be totally wrong but it seems like you don't know many, if any, coders who work on muds. Perhaps one strategy you could pursue would be to find a mud you like with staff that you get on with well, contribute a lot, get a wiz bit. This way you might be in a better position to meet some coders that you trust who could later help you out.

(Comment added by Idealiad on Sun Oct 1 5:02:31 2006)

And I wanted to ask, if you're interested in SocketMUD, have you looked at NakedMUD? It's built on SocketMUD, leaves the content and game mechanics up to you, and has a liberal license.

http://www.ualberta.ca/~hollis/nakedmud.html

In the Diku license it mentions 'adult' content is prohibited (I think it's Diku, anyway, I could be wrong. It's one of the big name codebases). Not that I really want to run a MUD with tons of sex in it, but I personally have no problem with the concept, and I'm not about to go pushing a rule I personally don't believe in on my players. That's just an example, there are other issues with other licenses, but that's the one that best illustrates my point. It's a principles thing, I think.

No, sadly, I haven't found a good roleplaying MUD that can keep my interest even when no roleplayers are online in a good while. I used to help out on a few MUDs a few years past, but they've all since dispersed and scattered in the proverbial wind. Good idea, though - but I think if I set out to entrench myself in a MUD's administrative staff with the intent to steal away one of their coders, I'd be less than happy with myself on a moral standpoint.

NakedMUD looks incredible... I think. I mean, it sounds really incredible from what I've read, but I don't know enough about the more technical inner machinations of MUDs to see whether or not it's really as great as it says it is. Having the foundation, interpreters, parsers, and all the other gee-whiz that goes into the basics of the application really makes a difference. I might not be starting from scratch after all, depending on what the statutes of usage are.

On that note, is there any documentation on what goes into a MUD? Something that explains what a text parser is and how it works? Or how rooms are initialised and stored? Sort of like a "How Stuff Works.com" entry for MUDs? I'd be terribly interested in finding that stuff out. Trying to figure it all out for myself sort of feels like reinventing the wheel - someone else has done it, I just have no clue how.

I am not aware of any websites that offer a comprehensive breakdown of a MUD's functions.

There is a book called "MUD Game Programming" by Ron Penton, in which he walks you step by step through creating a MUD. He uses C++, with Python for scripting.

There are many, many ways of doing text parsing, rooms, etc. If you want just a general overview of some of those, e-mail me off list and I'd be happy to give you a brief overview.

Bear in mind you don't *have* to use C/C++. You can use languages such as Ruby, Python, or even (shudder) Perl, just to name a few. Those languages are much easier than C/C++, and there are barebones codebases similar to SocketMUD for several of them.

Tyche recently ported SocketMUD to Ruby (there's a link in the Coder's Forum), I believe, and I can point you to a couple in Python, if you want.

Good luck,

-Kuros

> In the Diku license it mentions 'adult' content is
> prohibited

No, it doesn't restrict you at all in that respect. The only codebase I've heard of which imposes those sort of restrictions is a relatively minor one called "Dawn". Most public codebases require you to include credits to the authors, and prevent commercial usage. But beyond that there are rarely any further requirements.

Paying someone professional rates to create a mud for you would be unrealistically expensive, but depending on your exact requirements you might be able to negotiate something more reasonable.

Suppose I've been misinformed, then. I'd still rather not have to deal with the original code writers showing up and disagreeing with something about my MUD, then demanding I shut it down because they still have partial rights to their code. Unlikely, maybe, but still an unwelcome possibility.

Yes, professional rates have already been dismissed, in my mind, as far too high. The question now is who I negotiate with and what's reasonable.

Thanks for clearing up the bit about licenses though. I'll have to go back over the big ones and make sure I'm not talking out of my ass.

wait for it...

If you like socketMud, you HAVE to check out NakedMud. It is built on SocketMud and adds all the infrastructure with none of the content you need to start a mud. It is the perfect starting point for anyone wanting to make a mud with fresh ideas. It also has virtually the same license as SocketMud. A another bonus it is bilingual. Just about anything you want to do you can do in either C or the vastly easier Python! Honestly, for everyone who ever said, 'I can't learn to code', you just havn't tried Python.

btw Geoff Hollis, the creator of NakedMud is amazing, he has written some hundred-odd pages of how-to manuals and coding demos for NakedMud (included in the distrobution) that make picking it up and running with it very easy.

...and Score! Another plug successfully interwoven.

I would recommend looking for someone who has already had a good deal of experience with MUDs or at least game programming, and rentacoder.com is probably not the best place to look for that

Personally, I would be hesitant about hiring someone to do the job, period. I need to be able to extend the code afterwards, because people always want new features -- well, and content too, but you need some level of interactivity with the content and that takes code. So the new codebase needs a solid, extensible design, and that's not easy to come up with.

On the other hand, I have pretty high standards. Most commercial games don't have a particularly flexible design. Oblivion and Civ4 share the same low-level game engine (Gamebyro), but all the gameplay mechanics above that are so hard-coded that they'd have trouble doing anything but what you got out of the box. That's why I get bored of them after a while. They're one-trick ponies, and even the replayability of Civ4 is only good for so long. A MUD has to stay interesting for longer than that. Then again, lots of people play MMORPGs that I would consider dead boring, and many MUDs (the hack-n-slash ones, particularly) aren't a whole lot different.