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(formerly hosted on nimud.org)

NiMUD: Shared Adventure Game
----------------------------
IMPORTANT: To use this software, you must comply with its license.  
See docs/COPYING for more information about this.  In a nutshell: 
don't steal our work, it's mean-spirited and disappointing, not to
mention illegal.

Brought to you by Locke;

NiM5 is an advanced multi-user gaming server.

It is based on the works of the following softwares, though its source
code may not resemble the works of these people, I feel it important
to mention the "greats" - who have influenced this work, and which
continue to influence artistic representations of other worlds.

Z-games such as Zork, Planetfall and Wishbringer, Lurking Fear,
creations of Steve Meretsky and others at Infocom.

Diku and Merc variant Dikumud I multi-user domains, which have included
the specific influences of:

Nameless Merc, Locke's first mud, played on a green VAX/VMS terminal,
Hidden Worlds a Merc 1.0 with early "building" opportunities, 
Surreal and Locke's favorite, 
DuneMUSH (our learning experience), 
Zebesta, where we met our compatriots and fellow MUDkateers, 
Kalgen and Zlixlt, well-done-derring-do, 
Aldara ]I[, where God was in the details with the help of Morgenes,
ROM (Rivers of MUD) and our rival Alander aka Russ Taylor, 

And our neighbors:

Armageddon (pre- and post-Morgenes), 
newly recognized CORE, Valhalla (DikuMUD ][) from whom we learned,
and newly noticed variants such as Realms of Despair 
and a shout-out to ROM-based, Adventurer's Inn.

Of course the great works of PennMUSH and TinyMUSH, where once
was made FutureMUSH (run by Locke),
the archaic knowledge of the DUMs such as CanDUM and others,
the LambdaMOOs and the Divination Web aka DivWeb (a MUCK) run by cohorts 
of Shawn Knight and the Beast 666 (a thelemic/wiccan/occult gathering 
space once hosted at Carnegie Mellon University).

And of course ISCABBS, without whom none of this would be possible.

But perhaps you would like to kick it back farther with me for a minute
to remember Valhalla BBS, a hack/phrack board in Pittsburgh, on which
was White Knight, the infamous, and the RESIST movement, before it
became a gay rights movement, back with the hackers and the rumorz
of the original Razor Sam Hopkins who now is vice president of a
local 'Burgh ISP called Nauticomm.

Maybe you remember Telegard and Renegade, but I remember Chat Thing,
a notorious late-night hangout at 300 baud, before my account was
suspended and we met our match with Trade Wars and Baron Realms.

Maybe you can remember the world of dialups, LD dialing ports, BBS lists,
x-rated graphics dithered 2 bit and so unrecognizable in 3 colors and a
world of Demoscenes by groups called Future Crew and Renaissance
www.modarchive.org

This is NiMUD a product which is not a whole or a sum of its parts.

Introduction
------------

Welcome to NiM5!  This server was written by Herb Gilliland; the project 
began in 1992 and continues to this day.  NiM5 was the first to release
an open-source multi-user gaming software including such advanced features
as OLC; you are free to use this software, but it comes AS IS and WITHOUT
any WARRANTY expressed or implied.

NiM5 contains hundreds of hours of work and you are benefitting, please
keep our credits in your respective documentation.

You are encouraged to read the documentation contained in /NiM5/docs
for more information on a variety of useful topics related to this 
software and its functioning, including methods of debugging, extra 
features not implemented in the standard release, suggestions for 
development and tips for protecting yourself legally should you decide to 
release a derived version of this software.  I should mention here
that I am not a lawyer.

Do visit credits.txt for more information on this code's contributers.

Requirements
------------
gcc               - for compiling binaries from the source, required
                    or, djgpp

- at least 4mb of usable stack space
- between 12 and 40 megabytes of hard disk for file storage
- an open port on your firewall, or if no firewall, an unused IP port
- time and dedication
- i386 compatible linux or equivalent operating platform, unix or solaris,
  or cygwin

perl              - for extensible mail functions and using perlstart,
                    optional mud startup script, not required

IMPORTANT: If you want to be  _building_ or _coding_ new features, it is
best to run on two ports.  You cannot operate a development server without
duplicating the database.  It is recommended you build areas solely on the
development port, to retain stability for the players and minimize the
number of unscheduled reboots.  The mud already crashes enough already
without you to intervene with your own reboot requests.  Using the
supplied scripts, and maintaining a copy of your core database, you
will retain stability and the integrity of your data.  The /devo/ directory
contains a copy of the data present in the /area/ directory, and can be
served off the 'hot copy' executable found in ../src/nimud; the "cold copy"
is located in the /area/ directory, along with the "live" database.  How
you manage the /devo/ and /area/ versions is up to you, but keeping two
copies eliminates inevitable data corruption when two un-syncronous mud 
processes attempt to access the same data files.

Use /NiM5/devo/publish script to copy the mud db over top of the "live"
mud database when the "live" version is shut down.

Compiling
---------

To compile the code, simply type "./recompile" from within the NiM5 
install directory.  This script will create a fresh archived backup of the 
original source code in "/NiM5/backups/1001.backup" directory.

You may wish to categorize backups or delete outdate ones.  I encourage
you to, on occasion, make platform backups of major versions by renaming
the backup directories or moving them to some special place, a directory,
preferably one that is web-accessible.

If you make no changes to the headers (.h files) you can just "./refresh"
to compile quickly on older machines.  Note: this also calls "./cleanup"

NiM5 should properly compile on i386 machines, so if you've got an old
computer for a coffee table, please, run a mud with it.

Porting
-------

Previous versions of NiM5 have been successfully ported to Win32, Solaris, 
BSD and MacOS X (which runs a version of FreeBSD).  It has compiled+run
successfully on Debian, Redhat Linux, FreeBSD, Ultrix, AndrewUNIX, 
and Solaris.  This version is actively developed on Debian and SunOS.

Unsupported code within the source is still available for Sequent, MIPS
and AIX.  It has not been compiled or run on a machine of this type
for a very long time.

The macintosh version may experience some difficulty compiling, if you are 
a Mac user interested in developing a patch or fix for future versions, 
you are more than welcome to as we hope to support Macintosh fully in the 
future.  A version of the networking routines which worked fine on the 
Macintosh port of the socket routines is located at /src/net_macfix.c and
is incomplete.

Getting Started
---------------

BEFORE YOU RUN ANY SCRIPTS MAKE SURE TO EDIT THE $filepath IN EACH OF THEM
This is also mentioned in "Install.txt" which contains 4 steps necessary
to install the MUD.

--To run the mud:

From the directory you installed, run "startup" or "startup <port>"

Preferred cli/cron command: nohup ./startup <port> &

Make sure to not run any other scripts ("package", "recompile" or 
"cleanup") while the startup script is running for best results.

Requires "perl"

--To clean up the installation directories:

From the directory you installed, run "cleanup"
This script removes unwanted .txt files, backs up into backups directory
removes .o files, backs up players, areas and source code, clears the log 
directory clears nohup.out files stores file lists in each backup under 
file 'manifest.txt'


The workflow for using these scripts while developing, maintaining a
dev port:

cd src
<edit files>
./dev or "gdb ../devo/nimud" then in gdb "run 5334"
telnet localhost 5334
<test, crash, stack trace, etc, edit, fix, add>
cd ..
./refresh         (copies files from /area/ to /devo/, updates /area/nimud)
telnet localhost <main port>
reboot

Other scripts:

"go <port>"     for running a copy in /devo/ as ../src/nimud on port <port>

This is the recommended script for developers.  Doesn't mess with the
executable found in /area -- the main executable.  Instead, it uses the
hot copy found in /src, and runs it on its own db found in /devo -- this
is the recommended method because concurrent versions running on the same
database is forbidden in principle.  DO NOT RUN MULTIPLE COPIES OF THE MUD
ON THE SAME DATABASE FILES.  You can run multiple copies on multiple
databases only.  It is not even preferred to use the same executable, but
rather multiple copies. 

"publish"      found in /devo/ -- used to copy development db overtop of live db

"backup"        automatic core file backups stored in backups/

"package"       prepares a public package for distribution including the mud,
                areas, source code; cleans while preparing

"start"         executes the public mud executable in /area/

"stop"          stops the mud, kills all of your processes, logs you out of
                your shell account.  considered 'last ditch'

--dirs manifest:

area           <- area files and boards
devo           <- special database used for development testing
backups        <- gets big
bootlog        <- just the boot logs
cleanup        <- cleanup script (See above)
docs           <- documentation and licensing information
docs/imc       <- imc2 documentation and licensing information
docs/snippets  <- uninstalled 'optional' features from Erwin S. 
                  Andreason's website
log            <- log files
player         <- player files
package        <- stores the source in NiM5.src.tar.gz
recompile      <- run only when down
refresh        <- run only when down
src            <- source code
startup        <- startup script

export         <- directory into which exported html and scripts go
lingua         <- Perl translation algorithm...works to translate area files
nasa           <- HEASARC data of stellar masses within 25 parsecs


Muddywood's Finest: SPECIAL EDITION NIMUD
Home of the Mudcademy Award, the Muddy!

NiM5 edition by Locke (herb.gilliland_gmail.com)

This is a superior edition of NiMUD.

Persistent connectivity:
** The game will attempt to recover connections during crashes and reboots. **

It has a fully featured spell system and scripting language.

Mobs=Actors
Objs=Props
Rooms=Scenes

AEDIT now equals ZEDIT ("zone edit")
MEDIT=AEDIT ("actor editor")
OEDIT=PEDIT ("prop editor")
REDIT=SEDIT ("scene editor")

MSSP Support
------------

Running a new mud?  JOIN THE MSSP NETWORK! http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=forum&f=39
Contact scandum at the TopMudSites.com forums or at the tintin++ project on Sourceforge to add your MUD 
to the network.  See settings in the telopt.c file with respect to your mud's contact information, web
URL etc.  Supposedly MudBytes.net, MudConnect.com and others are now using the MSSP protocol to crawl 
MUDs for up to date information about their usage and statistics.  NiMUD comes with this functionality 
installed and will use it to broadcast player, zone and general mud information including contact, web 
address, your mud's greeting, the server address and many other features.  

See The Isles on the MSSP page.

MSSP Protocol defintion http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp

Client for debugging: http://tintin.sourceforge.net/
TinTin++ (Requires using '#config {debug telnet} on' to display MSSP output from a MUD server.)

MUD Crawlers supporing MSSP:
MudByte's MUD crawler  http://www.kiasyn.com/mssp
TinTin++ MUD crawler   http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp/mudlist.html

MSSP Discussion Forum 
http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=forum&f=39

NiMUD servers supporting MSSP:
nimud.divineright.org 5333

New editors:

SPEDIT (spell editor, requires specialized scripts see existing spells)
SKEDIT (skill editor, for creating and binding new skills)

Scripting language: 

Function list is extensive; not fully documented.  Upcoming releases will
have added smart documentation features that read comments from the source
code.  Some parts may be buggy, proceed with caution and use the examples
provided.  The MUD will export scripts to the /export/ directory

TRACE script recorder (use "trace" within the script editor to
toggle the feature)

Live debugger: login as a secondary immortal character and use the 'debug'
command for a full screen live view of script execution on a particular entity

Newest functions:

breed()     - script generated player followers and mounts
charge()    - payment function for scripted vendors
mana()      - gem magick spell function

Other fixes:

Revisions to object system, world mapping system widget
Minor cosmetic improvements ("Two of two's bug")
Minor fixes to hireling followers and mounts, including save/load
 - revisions to do_assist, do_mount, do_order




Known Issues
------------

This is where we deal with bugs we haven't fixed yet, but are aware of:

1) using hurt() in a script causes NiMUD to access memory unsafely if the
target has been killed by the hurt() function.  See func_hurt() in functions.c
for details; the work around is to use hurt as the last call that talks to
the %target% variable in a nimscript.

2) Sometimes while editing an area, the mud hangs and dumps a massive file to
disk in place of an area you were editing.  We're not sure why this is
happening.  We've worked around this by providing several safeguards: use
a development server and development copy of the database as described
in the tag "IMPORTANT" above.  If this happens to you, the mud will hang
while booting.  In this case, copy the .bak version over top of the area
that is afflicted.  Example: mud hangs while loading interior.zone, copy
interior.zone.bak over interior.zone and restart the mud by killing it at
the command line.

3) Sometimes scripts that are attached to spells disappear from the db, for
an unknown reason.

4) Helps are sometimes disappearing.  I believe there used to be a problem
with loading or saving helps - perhaps we should investigate.