This stems from discussions that have floated about from time to time. I've always long held the belief that people should come up with their own vision for how their mud should be. The problem with stock bases is that they often end up remaining exactly that after months or even years.

This led to the decision several versions ago to strip out all but the required area files from the public distro. The currently included set is required by the code for one thing or another, including our rendition of the Astral Plane.

So I'm wondering if continuing in this tradition would be helpful, hurtful, nobody cares, or should we just leave things alone and let them ride?

If you added in a stock world you would most likely see more stock AFKmuds, but you would see more....AFKmuds just for the fact that a lot of people may shy away from AFK for the lack of stock areas. But, I believe its best to leave stuff as it is, the mud can be adapted to fit the theme a person wishes. Removing everything but the bare essentials would just be additional work for programmers having to rewrite allot of the skills/spells that would be removed.

Samson, of the choices listed, I went with the one for leaving it the way it's been, but only because I don't see a need for the whole stock world set. When I first looked at AFK, one of the turn offs for me was that the stock codebase didn't have any starting areas to work from (other than the default ones) so I had no clue how to go about adding things like a new continent or using the coordinate system to place new areas or how to add images and so forth, so sticking with smaugfuss became far more attractive. (There were some other reasons too, but they were mostly personal preference issues at the time.) If there had been a couple more basic areas (a small town, an overland map to connect them, a small forest or something, whatever) I prolly would've gone with AFK instead, but the default areas didn't leave me (at the time) understanding how to create new areas that would link properly to the overland system... we won't even go into my own fears of how bad I am at creating image based maps either...

All perfectly understandable reasons Conner. We probably haven't done enough to educate potential users that the overland is not a requirement to make use of the codebase. You don't need to set continents, place areas on a map, or any of that to have a fully functional and enjoyable world for your players. But should the time come, the facilities are available and don't require having to stop and take a bunch of time to add support for it to the codebase. It's there waiting to be tapped someday.

Well, the funny thing is, I really do like the idea of the overland code, but just don't quite "get" how to incorporate it, it looks like (from the docs in the AFK distro that I first set up) you have to make the map image in paint, then set each area file to a set of coordinates from that map image so the mud knows where on the map to place that area, and then declare for each continent it's coordinates as well. (None of which I really know how to do.) ...and, well, if I'm going to just not use the overland code, my other reasons for sticking with FUSS came out heavier on my list. *shrug*

Well, Areas would be nice, but for the most part. Most would no doubt delete the areas, redo them anyhow. My opinion is that.. the immortal zone, would be better off with actually giving information on all commands for immortals, all.. would also be good to have a section in it where it helps people learn how to deal with the olc for overland, rooms, that good stuff..

Just my two cents, may actually help people out sometime anyhow.

I personaly think there should be complete "stock" my resoning.. (pardon the repeats & spelling)

1) The best help, is that that work.
- With stock spells/areas/etc.. you have things to dicect & learn the framework from I like help files emensly but there's nothing like learning from raw data & it's how I do most things is take a chunk from here & their and put it togeather.

2) I agree with one of the previous people saying the overland map is ausom.. it's the reson I grabed it.. but (at the time) I was all linux.. I spent about 48hours or so (almost all at once) trying to find a lib to allow me to make raw files to no avail.

3) rome wasent built in a day, but if you have somthing with areas & some stuff to do.. it makes setup time a snap.. & gives you somthing fun to play with out of the box.. (I think this was said befor).. more people, more snips & fan sites.. and less hassle for people trying to implment rome in a day.

4) the stock areas reflect and show off the power & ideas behind the source code usualy, they give order to the chaos of code & help people new to it understand why this code is their & what it is for..

why not have them more like modules.. I read that AFKmud was moving to more of an SQL mentality.. somthing I was thinking of doing on a limited scale for other things mainly just areas.. and am suprised & elated to see is moving into the base.. if that's the way things are handled there could be a complete AFKmud.. empty AFKmud & modular .sql files that could be added maby even a site that allows variations of .sql files for classes etc.

anyhow I'm rambling & probably expressed my ideas well (or muttled) enough & should go armwressle my ResortMUD some more whail I wait eagerly for AFKmud2 to come out & wish for a mailing list to signup for and or a beta testing group to join..

I'd say it should be as stripped down as possible, since if we were to use it, we'd put in all of my own areas, skills, spells, classes, races, etc. I'd rather not have to remove the parts we don't want first.

As Far as areas go, if your thinking of including them, Why not just create a "area pack" that players could download if they wanted to use some stock areas. But a barebones codebase would be alot of work for people who are looking at the same general theme that AFK is that don't need to. I'm testing out AFK currently as a possible base for my DBZ mud, I dont mind the extra work removing the skills that I dont need, and as I've said before, removing the spells, classes, skills, and races would be extra work for alot of people and may even hurt the chance of people thinking about using it more as they'd have to do everything.

For what it's worth, I think you should ship with a carefully considered set of everything.

That is to say, a selection of skills and spells that show off how the basic concepts that most fantasy muds rely on are implemented in AFK. So, a direct damage spell, an area affect, a damage-over-time, healing, spells or skills to add and remove affects, and something to show how one goes about adding tokens or markers that are used and recognized by triggers later on.

Likewise, a selection of mobs which have different behaviors. A few that demonstrate the basic flags, aggressive, guardian, etc... and a small handful with mob progs which do interesting things, and even a couple which use hard-coded special procedures.

Races and classes.... I'd probably strip out all but two races, just to demonstrate how you do racial abilities and different starting areas/languages. I'd implement the classic 4 fighter/mage/cleric/thief classes.

Then there's the areas themselves. I would make an extremely detailed and functional admin area... one which both acts as a tutorial and has control panel type rooms. If you've ever looked at the Discworld LP mud, that's what I'm thinking of. I'd ship the mud so that the first new player becomes the administrator and new players thereafter become builders. If the folks running the game can't figure out how to flip a switch to make new players become mortals... they probably shouldn't be running the mud.

To that end, I would probably make the starting mortal zone an abandoned movie lot, with just a handful of rooms that have cardboard facades of shops and whatnot. Make it obvious that this isn't the real game. Have Mayor Placeholder walk around the streets shaking hands. Call the town Tempville.

Those are some good ideas Quixadhal. I've always been partial to the idea that someone who downloads a codebase and wants to start a game with it should have some kind of plan for what kind of races, classes, skills, spells, areas, and the whole bit. That's why I've always leaned toward leaving out the whole "stock world" thing. But that also leaves people doing some head scratching wondering exactly what to do with a blank slate. I may just have to resolve to spend a bit of time doing some of this.