NMC Server 1.21 (Release-5)

Getting Involved

Sure you would like to help?

Much of the work requiires skill in MUF and C++. However, a developer can only code so many features--and they can never test. What? You didn't know that. Let me re-state this clearly: Developers can't test software well.

They especially can't test what they wrote. So, if you would like to help, and don't know how to write software, you can be of great help by mercilessly testing things. Seek to break them. Feed them bad data. Violate thier documentation. No documentation? That's a bug. Report it as missing or send us docs!

Documentation is our biggest need because people who don't know how to work NMC won't use it no matter how much effort we all put in to make it easy. When you think of documentation, its not just 'help' but its also tutorials, installation, setup and configuation, the meanings of all the properties in #0, etc. A good start has been made on this (a link will be here soon to the documentation root!)

This is an open-source project. None of us have much time, but together, we have enough time.

So, join the NMC mailing list and head to the Monolith on Nameless MUCK and go to the NMC Development Lounge and stake out a space and get involved!

To join the mailing list, see the FAQ Mailing List section.

Contact Otter with any questions.

General Bugs and Checks
  1. put 'rebuild DB' invoker into +best_rper
  2. re-do lib-locks so that the locks don't need int-keys
  3. fix +banish
  4. fix @set and examine from the hanging
  5. check behavior of @sdesc showing up if no length is set
  6. check that +list's help matches (#members vs members)
  7. check the effect of {cmd} in help '+help +staff' for instance
  8. test +zmode on player isntead of zombie
  9. fix mumble program
  10. ensure that an sdesc always puts the player's name
  11. make +timeon work for self as well as have an admin lock for who else
  12. Fix +tune to handle all global settings
  13. Make sure that Motd truly indicates what you last read
  14. fix where to use Riverdale's new code
  15. have where show region-parent of location intead of location (with a switch for exact location based on some locks and ownership details...so a person with a _right_ to find someone exactly can, but in general, people are "mostly" safe--RP request)
  16. A simple command that tells how many are on (like 'who asdfa') Setup a way to 'chain' through news files (using 'pause to continue MUF') so that we can have people do 'news full_rules' and get...full rules.
  17. make sure the docs on +help are setup to create 'news' and 'help' via +help thus removing the built-ins.
  18. time handling in the C++ code is wrong and under repair
  19. large list of C++ errors from Insure++

Desired New Features

These require more work, and explanation--and some experience in MUF and often more than MUF.

  1. program to find rooms _not_ reachable by walking
  2. Salabim and group's weather
  3. SKY--already did the thought-work, just not written (based on each step going 'up' adding exits of all rooms reached by prior step)
  4. enable the ability to put startup arguments in a config file...including where to send the log-files. This assures that we can run the game without giving _any_ shell access. Extremely useful for the Win32 folks who don't have good shells at all.
  5. Move the text from help.txt into the server itself--so a change to a built-in is reflected in the server source-code. Provide a #0 hook (in the server code) so that text can be added to the help, or replaced. So the #0 "over-rides" what's in the server. Do the same for 'man' and 'mpi'. Those should stay current with the server version itself. The 'info' and 'news' should go to external docs and load-scripts. News has no benefit to being a primitive. When done, a 'virgin server' would have its server-specific help, muf man-pages and mpi man-pages all in the executable, with locals being able to add details if they wish purely inside the game without shell access.
  6. document the new server handling of '$object:reg-name' and rip the old handling methods out of MUF (and update all the load-scripts to use the new syntax instead of the old).
  7. provide MPI parsing for all the #0 file-replacements...such as welcome. This lets 'help', 'man', etc. be used instead of +help, which means that all the MU docs would be 100% consistent in usage. +help could then be re-named 'help', it could check for an object given (such as '+help +bugs') and if it finds its settings use it, otherwise, it could 'fall back' to #0, and in the end, 'fall back' to the built-ins. Players would 'help +bugs' 'help @dig' 'help ex' etc., and the text would always be consistent.
  8. get the new libraries Badger wrote integrated and do a serious round of testing.
  9. Windows installation (full-blown GUI, probably InstallShield with self-extracting WinZip)
  10. UNIX installation and RPM