As I'm sure many of you know by now, for the past month and a half I've been working on creating a small but powerful MUD engine that's specifically targeted at making non-D&D style MUDs.

MITE stands for "MUD In The Eyes" (or "MITE Interactive Text Engine" -- pick your favorite). "Mud in the eyes" is a reference to Jesus opening the eyes of the blind.

Currently we're at about 2000 lines of code (including comments and lots of line breaks), so we're keeping everything very compact.

All of the game play is handled with scripts, which are stored in the database, and dynamically compiled when needed and cached for later execution.

It is written in C#, and scripts can be written in either C# or Boo.

It is small, fast, and offers many opportunities for having an extremely customized MUD.

Over the weekend, among other things, I added an IDE so that scripts could be edited and compiled much more easily. Here is a screenshot of the IDE that shows the server running on the very bottom, then the IDE with the "get" script displayed, and then on top is a Telnet session that shows the "get" script in action.

Adam Miller, if you're reading this, I've still got all the love for TigerMUD, I just needed a code base that I could more easily customize, and things like the spell system seemed fairly hard-coded in there. That's why I decided to create MITE.

So just wanted to give everyone an update, that the engine is progressing nicely, and is already at a state where I think playable MUDs could be created.

In Christ,
clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

(fixed the screenshot link)

[This message has been edited by HanClinto (edited July 25, 2005).]

Interesting scripting language choise that boo, how's it like? Similar to C#?

Ironically that reminds what one character (minsc) in game called baldurs gate says, since you named this Mud in the eyes. "Go for the eyes Boo"
Well that was just silly point from silly game.

Would be great to see something educational made using MITE.

God bless.

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Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD keeps the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. - Psalms 127:1

And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. - Isa 32:17

[This message has been edited by Jari (edited July 25, 2005).]

quote:

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Originally posted by Jari:
Hey nice to hear that you said non-D&D because we already have many of that type. I couldn't view the screenshots at this time because there was some group error... But anyway.

Interesting scripting language choise that boo, how's it like? Similar to C#?

Ironically that reminds what one character (minsc) in game called baldurs gate says, since you named this Mud in the eyes. "Go for the eyes Boo"
Well that was just silly point from silly game.

Would be great to see something educational made using MITE.

God bless.

---

Hey Jari! Thanks for the reply!

There are already several great MUD engines out there for people looking to make standard D&D style MUDs (TigerMUD is one of them that has already been mentioned several times). For some Christians who want to make other types of MUDs (for instance, perhaps a Narnia MUD that doesn't have a built-in spell system for the players to use), options are much more limited.

So MITE aims to be a small, powerful engine that lets people get up and running creating scripts and seeing what they do rapidly.

It's interesting that you said you'd like to see what an educational tool would look like in MITE -- I've been thinking with the scripting capabilities of the engine, it might be kindof cool to have MITE be able to teach people programming with C# and Boo and possibly other languages (such as VB.Net -- really any .NET enabled language).

Boo is actually radically different from C# -- it tries to be closer to Python than C#. Here is a page illustrating the differences between Boo and C#

Cheers!

In Christ,
clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

This is still in its baby stages but what HanClinto has accomplished is incredible. I've helped a bit with the networking side of things, and am currently working on dynamic text layouts. Also, there should be color in the next demo among other cool additions.

I know HanClinto is trying to keep everything simple so even a novice could pick this up and do something amazing with it. Although it's not quite there yet, MITE is quite powerful in the right hands.

[This message has been edited by HeardTheWord (edited July 25, 2005).]

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

Boo? Boo-who?! Just another language that will go nowhere.
What’s your reasoning for choosing such an obscure language?
Why don’t you stay with the more classical languages such
as Python or Lua or even XML.

Knock knock.

Who's there?

Boo.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:
Boo? Boo-who?!

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Oh please don't cry!

Sorry, bad knock-knock joke from my childhood.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:
Just another language that will go nowhere.
What’s your reasoning for choosing such an obscure language?

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It's a pretty popular scripting language for .NET and Mono.

Basically I chose Boo because I know more people using Boo than IronPython (or PythonNet), and it was an easy thing to implement. I had requests from people using my engine for me to add something easier to use than C#, so I looked at Boo, asked my users what they thought, they replied enthusiastically, and so I acted on it. I added Boo was because it was requested -- if you are a Lua.NET user and would like me to add support for that, hey, sure, no problem. I aim to please.

And Boo may be new, but it's not exactly an unknown language. Boo has an addin for Sharpdevelop, has Debian packages, and is listed as third in the list of Mono-compatible languages.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:
Why don’t you stay with the more classical languages such
as Python or Lua or even XML.

---

The great thing about the way I've designed the scripting system for MITE is that it can generically use any scripting interface that provides an interface for .NET. So you want IronPython? Sure! It might take me all of an hour to add it and do some basic testing with my game engine. Basically, all you have to do is implement a small class that takes in code and returns a valid .NET assembly, and you can easily add new languages to MITE.

Thanks for your good questions!

Respectfully,
clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

quote:

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..if you are a Lua.NET user....

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Now you've peeked my curiosity, I'd kinda like to see this "script engine"
of yours. Is this for TGE, Blitz? Blah?

J.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:
"Boo" is just another one of those
obscure language which you'll problably wont see in the gaming
community. I've been in the gaming industry for almost 13 years now, and
not one of the companies that I'm familiar with have used it for scripting.
[B]

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:
[B]Lua.NET?! No such thing. You can use Lua *IN* a .NET environment but to say there is a language called "Lua.NET" is nonsense. Lua is not a Microsoft product, .NET is. I'm assuming its a type-o.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:
Now you've peeked my curiosity, I'd kinda like to see this "script engine" of yours. Is this for TGE, Blitz? Blah?

---

Thanks for your interest!

It's really not that impressive -- my whole "scripting engine" is seriously under 100 lines of code for each language (and not complex code either). I just use the existing code compilers that come from Microsoft or other groups (such as Boo).

Currently all of this scripting integration is only for my own MUD game engine. I simply use a nice feature of .NET called the Code Dom to compile code (scripts that are stored in the database) at runtime into DLL's that I store in memory, then I reference those DLL's and call the methods in there for my scripts.

This makes it really nice, because all of my engine code (such as managing the database and network connections) is in the base code of the engine, and all of the code that manages gameplay (such as verb actions or other such things) are all handled by scripts. When scripts change, they are recompiled and take immediate effect in the game (makes it really easy to tweak gameplay on the fly).

It's pretty fast (the current slow point from my profiling is the database, not the script compilation/invokation), and it's really easy to maintain (the code to compile C# code or Boo code is under 20 lines of code). Here is an example of how to add embedded Boo scripting to your .NET/Mono program.

If you're interested in taking a look at the code of the game engine, I'd be happy to e-mail you a copy. It's not open-sourced, but I'm not going to sell it or make money off of it, and would be happy to share some of the programming things I've learned. If you're interested, drop me a line at hanclinto at gmail.

Thanks for talking Seven7! I'm very open to critique, and I appreciate you giving me feedback.

Respectfully,
clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

I can't suggest any language for your engine other than the ones I pointed
our previously. I like using the "tried and true languages", like Lua,
Python, or XML. All of these provide low overhead and are popular. If your
comfortable with "Boo", then use it. Granted, using "Boo" in a MUD engine
probably will have little impact on the amount of overhead and speed, but
its better using the classical languages that have been around the block a
few times and tested. I just hope your project doesn't end up on the book
shelf because of difficulties of introducing a weak and un-tested language.

As far as the "Lua.NET" thing, fair enough. I just wanted to be sure
readers understand that its not a language in itself. A person can't go out
to the store and buy "Lua.NET 2005" (or whatever) this is what I was
referring to. I think we are speaking the same thing, but just on different
levels. I'm from the "old school" so when people talk about languages I am
very careful on how the term "language" is used. (I will go to my grave
arguing that HTML is technically not a language, but rather a script!! (But
that’s another topic.)

Hummm... can I say anything nice about Yacc and Lex?
When I was in grad. school, I have to develop an entirely new language, and
I named my newly founded language; "JASAL" which stood for "Just Another
Silly A** Language", (this is before I became a Christian, so I'm sorry for
the "A**" part). The language was a cross breed of C++ and SAS. It took me
about 4 months of development time using Yacc and Lex. I was drinking about
23 pots of coffee a day and noticed my hair was falling out, hand tremors,
caffeine headaches, loss of sleep and hair loss. (Of course I'm joking
here.) I wouldn't recommend rolling out your own script or language,
especially for a MUD game, its just not worth the trouble. Again, if your
comfortable with "Boo" use it. I just wanted to know what amount of
overhead your engine might incur using a weak language.

Jim.

quote:

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Originally posted by HanClinto:

It's pretty fast (the current slow point from my profiling is the database, not the script compilation/invokation).

---

I noticed this when I tested the demo you had posted in show case. But why is it so slow? I don't know much about MS access databases but I think you have three reading options/solutions for the database which can make a difference in speed. If you are unaware of this I can get you more info.

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Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD keeps the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. - Psalms 127:1

And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. - Isa 32:17

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I Am God's Kid!!

quote:

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Originally posted by Jari:

I noticed this when I tested the demo you had posted in show case. But why is it so slow? I don't know much about MS access databases but I think you have three reading options/solutions for the database which can make a difference in speed. If you are unaware of this I can get you more info.

---

Hey Jari!

Thanks for the feedback.

As far as that demo goes, if you download the latest version from the showcase, it should be much increased in speed. However, we'll be releasing a new tech demo soon, so you can just wait for that. We'll have a bunch of stuff added, including the new scripting IDE (where you can compile and debug scripts).

Currently we're using ODBC for the database access, which I'm pretty sure is why it's so slow. I would go to ADO.Net, but I want it to be compatible with Mono (and Microsoft has a blocking patent on ADO.Net). I'll be switching to SQL Lite before release, so that should let us have faster schtuff too.

Thanks!

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

quote:

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I'll be switching to SQL Lite ....

---

Good idea!!

J.

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

So for instance, go to Start->Run->Browse, then find the MITE.exe.

Then after you click "open", at the very end of that line, it should something like:

"C:\Documents and Settings\cherron\My Documents\MITE\MITE.exe"

Change it to be

"C:\Documents and Settings\cherron\My Documents\MITE\MITE.exe" -i

by just adding a " -i" to the end.

Then in order to play around in the world, you need to telnet into it. Go to Start->Run again, and type in

telnet localhost 31777

And you will log into your local MITE server (provided you're not being blocked by a firewall).

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

Application has generated an exception that could not be handled. Process id=0xbf4(3060), Thread id=0x464(1124).

Why?

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

[This message has been edited by en972 (edited August 04, 2005).]

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

But if you run it without the ide, you don't get that error?

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Keep the holy day sacred.......halllllllukan

thanks,
MastaLlama

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http://www.jeremysouthard.org

However, I just stayed up 'till 2:30 AM last night getting a new tech demo ready, I can e-mail you a preview of it if you like. Here are some screenshots from the new IDE that just got fully working last night:
The verbs/scripts table -- this shows all of the verbs and scripts that are in the database, and how they relate to each other (you can also edit them here).
The objects/attributes table -- this shows all of the objects and attributes that are in the database, and how they relate to each other (surprise, you can also edit these here).
The script editor -- this allows you to edit and compile the scripts, and if there are errors, it will tell you where they are and hilight them for you.

E-mail me at hanclinto at gmail (dot com) if you're interested in checking out the new version.

Cheers!

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

dang, i'm super duper impressed by these screenshots! i just emailed you!

thanks,
MastaLlama

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http://www.jeremysouthard.org

Documentation is still thin at the moment, I'm working on it! We'll have several tutorial servers that illustrate the engine to people as we go along.

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

Well I better try to learn more about the IDE before I say anything else.

God bless.

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Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD keeps the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. - Psalms 127:1

And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. - Isa 32:17

Thanks for the feedback!

You weren't the only one confused by the verbs/scripts screen, so after reading your post, I took a screenshot, and added a few captions to explain it a little bit.

If you want, check it out here! It's in PNG format, so it's a little big, but if I went to JPG it was too grainy.

The short of it is that "scripts" are things that the server can execute, and "verbs" are the first words that users type in a command. So when a user types "get hairbrush", "get" is the verb.

Not all scripts are intended to be run as user commands, some are just utility-scripts (like subroutines), that perform actions, such as "FIND_OBJECT_IN_ROOM" is used to locate target objects, and return them to a calling script.

So verbs point to scripts, and I wanted to make an easy way to see what scripts were in the database, along with what verbs point to them (that's the "View By Scripts" section. I also wanted to be able to see what commands are available to the users, and what scripts they point to (that's the "View By Verbs" section).

So in the Verbs/scripts tab, the button on the left ("Delete Script") applies to scripts, while the 3 buttons on the right apply to verbs (sorry, I know this was confusing, I'll add tooltips and better organization and stuff for the next version).

Similarly, in the objects/attributes tab, the buttons on the left apply to objects, the buttons on the right apply to attributes.

I hope that helps!

Respectfully,
clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

That explained alot for me as well. Though I have a question. Is there going to be documentation on learning boo? I know the boo website has tutorials but I'm just curious if you will add them into your documentation.

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Oh you program? Awsome! I try to get in a little....I spend most of my time debugging.

Work on MITE is progressing nicely, PTL! Here's a new screenshot showing off a new sample database that I started from scratch last night.

This sample will be included in the alpha release that is coming this Friday. Stay tuned! Many bug fixes and a couple of IDE improvements have already been included since the pre-alpha release -- if you have feedback and suggestions, now's the time to get them in!

--clint

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

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Unless the LORD builds the house, they labor in vain who build it; unless the LORD keeps the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. - Psalms 127:1

And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. - Isa 32:17

Also, how is SQL lite working out for you? Did you change?

Jim.

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jari:
when I pressed the new script button and the view was changed to script editor tab, I went changing the script id using the arrow keys and when I compiled the script it wasn't saved, at least not under that script id, which was currently displayed.
I hope that made sense.

---

Yes, I think that makes sense.

ScriptID is an autonumber field, so you can't "assign" it per-say -- when creating a new script, leave the scriptID to be 0, then save and compile it, and it will assign it a new autonumber.

Wow, thanks for pointing out to me just how counter-intuitive that is. Thanks! I'll have to think of a better way to do that.

quote:

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Originally posted by Seven7:

I took a brief look at the scripting your using for "MITE", how are
you parsing your scripts? I'm assuming you've made your own script
language and you wrote your own parser?

---

One of the reasons I chose C# was so that I could use as much stuff built-into the language as possible. I'm using something called the CodeDOM to compile the code -- the scripting language is actually C# or Boo (another .NET language), and I compile it just the way Visual Studio compiles C# code -- by accessing the appropriate class and compiling. It's very slick and clean, though it can be memory intensive at times. However, it compiles it to memory just like any other executable -- it's pretty nice. So no, I didn't write my own parser -- one just uses C# or Boo directly.

quote:

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Also, how is SQL lite working out for you? Did you change?

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Haven't changed over to SQL Lite yet -- though I'm looking forward to being away from Microsoft Access -- I'm still getting functionality put into the engine design before I switch over to SQL Lite. I think SQL Lite is a beta feature (and alpha is this Friday).

Thanks for the replies!

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http://www.includingjudas.com/christiangame.html

quote:

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...Microsoft Access...

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I'll bring over the Holy water.

RF

[This message has been edited by riflefire (edited August 24, 2005).]