BG server based on LambdaMOO?

[aram]

Hi all,
I would like to share an idea I started to think about a long time ago.

Does anyone know the LambdaMOO project, or object-oriented MUDs in general?
http://www.moo.mud.org/
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lambdamoo/

I think we can build a new BG server based on LambdaMOO's core, probably cutting some functionalities we don't want and adding what is needed to play BG.

Copying from the project's intro:
"LambdaMOO is a network-accessible, multi-user, programmable, interactive system well-suited to the construction of text-based adventure games, conferencing systems, and other collaborative software."

If things did not change too much in the last few years, here are the user levels we find:
1. the system administrator.  
2. wizards - can do everything inside the MOO world
3. programmers - can create parent objects and write verbs on them
4. builders - can create objects and modify them
5. players - can use objects and verbs
(more or less  I think that the default is that everyone is at least a builder, but I know this can be changed)

I remember I could easily set up my own MOO on a MacOS/PowerPC, just a few minutes after downloading the core.
I will try it on a Linux-VM ASAP, but I think it will be simple.
I am not a programmer, but MOO-programming is quite easy, I knew some wizards, some programmers and lots of builders with little programming skills.

Then we would have the network part and the chat part done, and some other utilities as well (like "@who")... and, of course, "The Infrastructure", a mature skeleton to build upon.

What has to be done is to explain to BG-MOO the rules of backgammon, the dice-generator part and the rating system.

The output is just text, and it is very easily customizable.
That's why I don't see the compatibility with existing FIBS clients as a problem, and when we decide to make an improvement backwards compatibility could be maintained simply by calling a different function (for example who_newClient instead of who).
We just have to format the output differently.

I understand that the biggest problem is that nobody has enough time to carry on something too complex.
I think that using LambdaMOO could offer us a good level of modularity, that is, it should be easy to split the tasks between the various developers and let them work quite independently, and I think it will not take too much time.
Probably in a later phase we could use lots of help from people who is willing to partecipate and has little programming knowledge but a good level of creativity: they can be good builders or programmers (after reading the manual, of course ).
Maybe I could try to do it by myself, if someone helps me to figure out how to teach to the MOO the BG ruleset. In that case, forget it for some time, and some day (a couple of years later ) I could bring up some kind of rough BG server. At that point, if you will like it, you could help me to improve it (and find a suitable way to host it).

We would also need to cut or limit some parts, like the @mail system, and bring the whole system to the minimum, to make sure that it does not consume too much disk-space, memory and bandwidth.

Unfortunately, I will be busy studying until the end of March, and will not have much time until then.
In the meantime, you could send me your suggestions... most of all: I am not a true programmer, I need a hint on how to explain the BG ruleset to wannabe-BackgamMOOn.

Consider that when I met FIBS I noticed many similarities with the MOOs.
At some point I even started to try some MOO commands.
I would not exclude that FIBS itself is based on an old core of LamdaMOO, or something similar.
I even asked if it was so (maybe I asked Patti, or I emailed Andreas, don't remember exactly) but had no answer.

And of course, if you want to have an idea about what I am talking about:
"telnet lambda.moo.mud.org 8888" )

Cheers

Aram

[amarganth]

Interesting idea...