Post by Zaimus on Dec 6, 2021 9:21:06 GMT
One key aspect to MUDs of various sizes are the use of in game bulletin boards to disseminate information and encourage social interactions. Even when there are online forums, by having bulletin boards in game, you feel more connected to other players, right? Some players will never use the forum, so if there is no in-game way for them to get news or some latent communications with other players and staff, it would do us well to have some means of communicating important stuff.
There are various ways different MUD codebases handle a bulletin board system. It's usually tied to a single standard way for handling inputted long text, parsing each input for a max character count, and cutting off anything over. They may have the output auto display after each line entry, or let the user issue a command to display everything written so far. Then it is just a database of a numbered list of entries with the character name that wrote it and the in-game or realworld date/time stamp.
A user typically issues a command at the board to initiate the bulletin board mode which may start with a simple "You look over the bulletin board..." then list all the entries, and then the player would have to input maybe something like READ 23, or WRITE "This is the title of my post". This could be done with pop up menus, but it may be nice to use in game text only as well to give that authentic MUD nostalgic feeling.
Each city, or sizable town ought to have a board of their own. Each guild and playable faction ought to have one. And maybe there could be a few hidden boards here and there, like graffiti on a wall, or a tucked away journal, or the guestbook at a merchant inn. Would give some fun to exploring and making your literal mark on the world.
Management is part of the fun. A staff room could have a copy of all the boards in one place for ease of access. Boards could have settings to auto delete posts too old. Maybe have a curse word, and spam filter, too. Also anti-spammer protocol incase someone tries to flood a board as an attack.
There are various ways different MUD codebases handle a bulletin board system. It's usually tied to a single standard way for handling inputted long text, parsing each input for a max character count, and cutting off anything over. They may have the output auto display after each line entry, or let the user issue a command to display everything written so far. Then it is just a database of a numbered list of entries with the character name that wrote it and the in-game or realworld date/time stamp.
A user typically issues a command at the board to initiate the bulletin board mode which may start with a simple "You look over the bulletin board..." then list all the entries, and then the player would have to input maybe something like READ 23, or WRITE "This is the title of my post". This could be done with pop up menus, but it may be nice to use in game text only as well to give that authentic MUD nostalgic feeling.
Each city, or sizable town ought to have a board of their own. Each guild and playable faction ought to have one. And maybe there could be a few hidden boards here and there, like graffiti on a wall, or a tucked away journal, or the guestbook at a merchant inn. Would give some fun to exploring and making your literal mark on the world.
Management is part of the fun. A staff room could have a copy of all the boards in one place for ease of access. Boards could have settings to auto delete posts too old. Maybe have a curse word, and spam filter, too. Also anti-spammer protocol incase someone tries to flood a board as an attack.