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[freeformschooler]

When you create a character, you don't get to pick a thing. The MUD picks a random page and creates your character out of it. So you could turn out to be a sperm whale with rainbow feathers.

A++ idea.

If I was better at programming outside of Lua and Java I would probably try to help you out.

[Soulwynd]

I need to find my old minimal MOO database. Would be the fastest base in which to build this MUD, since I don't like the LambdaMOO database.

Time to search my old backups.

[freeformschooler]

Well, when you find it you should certainly make a CP thread for it. Would be great, and easier to follow.

[counting]

MudOS? probably needs another server dedicated for webcrawlers and provide database services.

[Soulwynd]

Nope, not MudOS, MOO instead.

I've just found my custom MOO source and my minimal database. I wouldn't really require any dedicated databases/crawlers, but it's fairly simple to make 2 MOOs communicate to each other if there's such need. Hell, it's fairly simple to make a MOO connect to a SQL database.

[Poltifar]

This MOO talk is starting to remind me of PTTG's now defunct Bay12 MOO project, the Wikifirmament. Though it wasn't a dynamically-generated world based on the internet, rather more like a wiki-based world in which players would build their realms and character however they wanted (like a wiki) but with RPG elements mixed in...

In any case, I'd love to play on any MOO Soulwynd or other Bay12ers make, even if its less about building the world ourselves and more about exploring a dynamically generated world.

[Soulwynd]

Yeah, there wouldn't be really any community-created content at first. But later people could certainly have their own custom 'dungeons' made out of webpages and parts of the web they picked.

But if we do this, I will certainly need some community help and decision making. For example, here are some things I can think of right now:

1. Should webpages represent a single room, or should they be a multi-room random+procedural dungeon?
--Example: This page http://www.luresext.edu/goats/index.htm could start an university, then lead to an open field, then lead to laboratories and buildings.

2. Would need people helping catalog words and what they can applied on and what would their effects be
--Example: Rainbow - Adjective - Can be applied to fur/skin/sky/walls/floor/doors/etc/etc - Powers - when applied to attacks adds a random chance of applying a specific color effect, such as blue which may slow/freeze enemies.
-- Rainbow - Noun - Can become enemies/outside type room's 'funiture/fluff'/psychodelic type room/bridge type room/axe type weapon/etc - Acceptable adjectives - bright/narrow/double/spooky/etc - What should be it's base resistance/strength/etc?

3. Should combat be real time like traditional muds or turn based?

4. Should we try to make the game look a bit more rogue-likeish or should we stick to traditional text only?
(One obviously takes a lot more work and time than the other and would be more complex to generate)

5. Would need help describing things.
--Example: Appendage description line for 2 adjectives - "%POSSESSIVE PRONOUN% %PLURALNOUN% are %ADVERB% %ADJECTIVE% and often seen %PASTADJECTIVE%" That could wield: "His wings are excitingly bright and often seen doomed." So we'd need quite a few of these for diversity and to be able to fit all possibilities.

6. Would we have skills? How progression should be done?

And so on. I'm sure a lot more would come up if we did this thing.

[counting]

I think the idea of webcrawlers game is not about generating a dynamic world from data collected by them, but an interpretation and representation of the dynamic digital Internet activities already keeps generating and evolving every seconds. The game interface only makes it easier to comprehend and participate.

The real adventure in a real digital world not just a generated digital world using random seeds from crawlers.

[Soulwynd]

Yes, but they need some sort of representation. Otherwise it wouldn't be much of a game, but more of an exploration tool.

[freeformschooler]

1. Should webpages represent a single room, or should they be a multi-room random+procedural dungeon?
--Example: This page http://www.luresext.edu/goats/index.htm could start an university, then lead to an open field, then lead to laboratories and buildings.

I was imagining something along the line of each webpage is a dungeon by default containing one room, and all crawlable subpages/subdirectories would be a room in the dungeon or another dungeon if that page has subdirectories, and so on.

2. Would need people helping catalog words and what they can applied on and what would their effects be
--Example: Rainbow - Adjective - Can be applied to fur/skin/sky/walls/floor/doors/etc/etc - Powers - when applied to attacks adds a random chance of applying a specific color effect, such as blue which may slow/freeze enemies.
-- Rainbow - Noun - Can become enemies/outside type room's 'funiture/fluff'/psychodelic type room/bridge type room/axe type weapon/etc - Acceptable adjectives - bright/narrow/double/spooky/etc - What should be it's base resistance/strength/etc?

I would dedicate entirely too much time to this if taught how. Perhaps the MUD could try to make some guesses, and then if the community isn't satisfied they could start from there.

3. Should combat be real time like traditional muds or turn based?

I'm voting for real-time, but that's entirely a matter of opinion.

4. Should we try to make the game look a bit more rogue-likeish or should we stick to traditional text only?
(One obviously takes a lot more work and time than the other and would be more complex to generate)

Start with traditional text for now. Perhaps a rogue-style map of the world could be generated after the fact. Better to get it working first.

5. Would need help describing things.
--Example: Appendage description line for 2 adjectives - "%POSSESSIVE PRONOUN% %PLURALNOUN% are %ADVERB% %ADJECTIVE% and often seen %PASTADJECTIVE%" That could wield: "His wings are excitingly bright and often seen doomed." So we'd need quite a few of these for diversity and to be able to fit all possibilities.

I would also do some of this if necessary. That would be easier.

6. Would we have skills? How progression should be done?

If we're going with the method described above where the community helps define targets and effects for the powers, we could start with something simple, like Power X does Y to Z target for 1d4 damage, and then you could level it up in some way and it would be 1d4+1 damage, or something.

That's just my idea. I'm not thinking too far ahead, but in terms of having something workable.

[counting]

It's exactly what I am talking about : making the player role really linked to the "crawlers". The crawlers are like your pets in an adventure into a forest of digital world. Your "interaction" is made of change into the local characters database/attributes or you can make the role of player becomes crawlers themselves and measured by their success of linking keywords.

I think the idea now is more like building a mud world and simply using keywords from crawlers/pets giving you. (It's more like a group of NPC who build the surrounding). The MOO shells can fill in every kinds of content you like, and the methods of objects can be anything. You can even actually make the players interactions manifest into actual posts or blog like websites that generating robot posts from playing input. (Like a user's action is a manifest of post reply in certain form, slash 3 times with a "scrolls" will generate posts with the contents contain 3 keywords linked with the situation). The limits is to determine what kind of interactions is permitted and like you said what represent a "room". I don't think we get a consensus yet.

One webpage/website a room maybe too much for a mud world. And it's not easy to pick a suitable webpages. (How to extract keywords from flash page?) And if not careful many rooms will look a lot alike.

[freeformschooler]

One webpage/website a room maybe too much for a mud world. And it's not easy to pick a suitable webpages. (How to extract keywords from flash page?) And if not careful many rooms will look a lot alike.

One webpage a room may certainly be too much, but one website a room?  How much farther up can you go if that's too much? One category of websites on dmoz a room?

One website a room seems pretty reasonable. Anyway, as for the flash page thing, that's why in most web design courses you're told to make even the most rich websites at least somewhat accessible to the sight impaired.

[Poltifar]

2. Would need people helping catalog words and what they can applied on and what would their effects be
--Example: Rainbow - Adjective - Can be applied to fur/skin/sky/walls/floor/doors/etc/etc - Powers - when applied to attacks adds a random chance of applying a specific color effect, such as blue which may slow/freeze enemies.
-- Rainbow - Noun - Can become enemies/outside type room's 'funiture/fluff'/psychodelic type room/bridge type room/axe type weapon/etc - Acceptable adjectives - bright/narrow/double/spooky/etc - What should be it's base resistance/strength/etc?

Wouldn't that take far too much work though? There are ALOT of words in the English language, and giving special abilities to each might be a bit excessive...

[Soulwynd]

It's just an example. It could all be random. I could put a bunch of abilities and they could randomly belong to a word/adjective, etc.

[counting]

Wait a minute, if a webpage/website/groups represent a room/dungeon, what's the role of a monster/enemy/NPC? They are just random collections of keywords meshup together? Shouldn't there be a method about how (constructor) and how often to generate a mob in MUD?