Member Discussions

Trying to setup Mordor 6.66 and would like to get some general help on some issues:

1) Altering the main.c to read from a file for the welcome screen rather than from an embedded hard code.

2) Recreating the player login and room/object database structure to utilize MySQL.

3) Any code snippets for special upgrades, additions, etc.

Thanks for any information provided.

-- M

Hmmm, I thought you were running "a total game development and publishing enterprise that was designed to be the next stage in real-time, text-based game evolution"? Asking for help in changing the login screen and adding snippets is not really what I think of in that context...

Very few here are running Morder, I can only think of one. Your best bet would be emailing the author Brook Paul directly at brooke@nazgul.com. While it's only a guess, as I don't know Mr. Paul at all, I'd bet he be more than happy to negotiate a license with Murpe LLC. Mayhap even the commercial support you seek.

I wonder what happened with the uLPC thing. BTW, Does anyone or the OP know where I can get a look at uLPC? I poked around at lysator.se and couldn't find a DL link, but then I have trouble reading Swedish. Or did uLPC become Pike eventually?

A couple of our developers wanted to see if Mordor could be used for a high-end system that could be both web and MySQL database driven. So far I have gotten it to compile, but it just seems so 'limited' having its own DB rather than have something to rely on outside DBs or data/text files for dynamic use.

As for our games, we are going to be utilizing uLPC 4 (Pike to some), but have been toying around using ColdC which is fairly similar to the LPC language/layout with a MySQL/Oracle database and PHP/XML interface. If it works (as we are hoping), we will also have a real-time Flash/Java-based game interface as well.

As for the commercial venture, thanks for the info. Might not go that route as the application seems very limited, but might be something of a future project just to keep the developers happy.

-- M

A couple of our developers wanted to see if Mordor could be used for a high-end system that could be both web and MySQL database driven. far I have gotten it to compile, but it just seems 'limited' having its own DB rather than have something to rely on outside DBs or data/text files for dynamic use.


It was hinting at something else. A business that sets its developers loose playing around with source that is licensed not-for-commercial will raise some eyebrows and perception issues here. As a business owner myself I certainly not allow any of my contracted programmers to fart around and waste my time with something that I have no clue whether I could even license at all, something that may be a potential legal liability in regard to other 'clean' software I develop, nor especially with something that may give the appearance of impropriety. YMMV.


As for our games, we are going to be utilizing uLPC 4 (Pike to some), but have been toying around using ColdC which is fairly similar to the LPC language/layout with a MySQL/Oracle database and PHP/XML interface. If it works (as we are hoping), we will also have a real-time Flash/Java-based game interface as well.

I worked on the Cold project intermittently from 97-99, and I still read and post on the lists on occasion. Both languages are similar in that they are based on C and Algol-type languages. LPC is certainly much cleaner and easier to learn and use, while ColdC is syntactically obtuse, subtle, odd and difficult to learn. Both also take different approaches to the object-oriented philosophy and implementation. And they also take different approaches to security.

But there is another big difference along the lines of your inquiry regarding persistence. LP's persistence is explicit. Cold's is implicit. Cold is a database. LP implements what is essentially object serialization within a heirarchical file database. Because ColdC implements implicit persistence there is no use at all for SQL within the language, nor any productive nor practical way to access ColdC objects with it. Although some have implemented SQL API native functions along the lines of the native text file API to access data 'external' to the server. Second, Cold's database will outperform and out scale MySQL and Oracle or any RDMS you'd care to throw at it. Take a look at the mailing list archive for details on why replacing the DB with an RDBMS is not such a hot idea for performance or scalability. Or you might inquire with the principals running the largest Cold database, The Eternal City, now running over at Skotos with well over 2 billion objects last I heard. Some have played around with replacing NDBM with other DBs such as GDBM and Berkely-DB. They may be using Berkeley DB at TEC for all I know as they were experimenting with it.

I have no clue at all how PHP, XML or Java fit in Cold at all, other than buzzwords. One can certainly serve up HTML 1.0 compliant web pages off it...slowly. Supporting a PHP or Java container execution model seems terribly redundant. Apache is a much better tool. Some of the Cold muds I've read about on the list can serve up Flash.



(Comment added by Tyche on Tue May 20 17:51:50 2003)

Forgot to add the biggest reason on why it isn't a good idea. Cold objects are runtime dynamic. I have yet to see an RDBMS that lends itself easily to implement dynamic schema.

>-- but then I have trouble reading Swedish.

I don't. Post or send me the link, addy is ebelfishMIAUelvendesigns.com.

E

I finally did find an English link: http://pike.ida.liu.se/