LPMud
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LPMud, also known as LP, is a MUD codebase developed in 1989 by Lars Pensjö (hence the LP in LPMud). LPMud separates the MUD environment functionality between a virtual machine, known as the driver, and world-building components in the LPC programming language, known as the mudlib.
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[edit] Motivation
Pensjö had been an avid player of TinyMUD and AberMUD. He wanted to create a world with the flexibility of TinyMUD and the power of AberMUD. Furthermore, he did not want to have sole responsibility for creating and maintaining the game world. He once said, "I didn't think I would be able to design a good adventure. By allowing wizards coding rights, I thought others could help me with this."[1] The result was the creation of a new, C-based, object-oriented programming language, LPC, that made it simple for people with basic programming skills to add elements like rooms, weapons, and monsters to a gaming world.
To accomplish this goal Lars wrote what today would be called a virtual machine, the LPMud driver. The driver managed the interpretation of LPC code as well as providing basic operating system services to the LPC code. By virtue of this design, Lars made it more difficult for common programming errors like infinite loops and memory leaks made by game builders to harm the overall stability of the game. His choice of an object-oriented approach made it easy for new programmers to concentrate on the task of building the world, rather than programming logic. The original LPMud ran by Lars was called Genesis LPMud.
[edit] Evolution of LPMuds
Lars's interest in LPMuds eventually waned. By the time it did, in the early 1990s, LPMud had become the most popular MUD codebase.[2] LPMud's popularity decreased with the release of DikuMUD in 1991. Lars's work has been extended or reverse engineered in the following drivers:
- CD LPMud driver, short for Chalmers Datorförening, the computer club of the Chalmers University of Technology
- Amylaar, also known as LPMud 3.x
- MudOS
- DGD, Dworkin's Generic Driver, originally Dworkin's Game Driver
- LDMud, a game driver based on Amylaar by Lars Düning
- UriMUD, a derivative of LP 2.4.5
- FluffOS, Discworld MUD's fork of MudOS
- Pike, an LPC derived programming language.
The LPMud approach also enabled the development of gaming frameworks built in LPC that game builders could use as the foundation for their worlds. The original mudlib was the Genesis Mudlib that came with LPMud drivers up to LPMud 2.4.5. As LPMud matured, the separation between driver and mudlib grew to the point that the developers of MudOS and DGD did not ship their drivers with fully functional mudlibs. Popular LPMud mudlibs include:
- Discworld Mudlib from the Discworld MUD
- CDlib from Genesis LPMud
- Nightmare Mudlib from Nightmare LPMud
- TMI Mudlib from The Mud Institute
- Lima Mudlib from Lima Bean
- Heaven7 Mudlib from Heaven7
- Dead Souls Mudlib
- LPUniversity Mudlib from the LPUniversity Foundation
[edit] LPMud talkers
While the first talker was invented in 1984, until 1990 they were only available on small intranet services. LPMud was used as the basis for the first Internet talker, Cat Chat, which opened in 1990, and also for the second Internet talker Cheesehouse, which opened in 1991, and historically formed the basis of most other talkers, creating the ew-too code that was the most popular talker code base until 1996.
[edit] References
- ↑ George Reese (1995). "LPMud timeline". "Having fun playing Tinymud and Abermud, Lars Pensjö decides to write a server to combine the extensibility of Tinymud with the adventures of Abermud."
- ↑ William Stewart (2002). "MUD History". "The original LPMUD was written by Lars Pensjl and others, and became one of the most popular MUD's by the early 1990's."
[edit] External links
- LPMud FAQ
- LPMud Timeline
- LDMud Website
- MudOS Website
- LPMuds.net - A resource for MUDs that use LPC.
