A good crisis shouldn’t go to waste. And so it came to be that DikuMUD III will be released. :o)
DikuMUD III is the work of the Perry brothers from 1997 to 2020. The major change is that they converted almost every command to the DIL interpreted language. It’s very cool and makes an incredibly stable core.
And on top of that I’ve jumped in and made a rather radical change. DikuMUD III runs in HTML5 with websockets. So essentially it is kind of a huge chat client.
The prototype is working amazingly well. It is working with screen readers too, also the free ones. Works better than with telnet.
I’ve also added “links” in the text, so you can e.g. click on an item in a shop to buy it.
I’m adding graphical maps to the game so it’s easy to figure out where you are.
I think within a month we’ll have this up and running. Stay tuned for a link here on DikuMUD where you can try it out in your browser and then a Git version will follow.
Why am I doing this? Feels like I’m rounding off the project and with a bit of luck sending it into the web-age. And even though the MUD community is small, maybe some communities will enjoy it. 🙂
Have fun.
We at Valheru are still alive (just about) and excited to see it!
Indeed we are! 😀
I’m exited to hear more about Diku III, good to hear that the people behind the original code are still interested in updating it.
Yayayyayay!
Papi,
Many of us never left the world of mudding you created, and we have missed you 🙂 I played the original Valhalla when it was in Denmark in the early 90s, valhallamud-usa when you moved to the US, was there when Ken took over and created VME, and even contributed to that code a bit (those are my definitions in weapons.h!). I was there the last time we saw Hans-Henrik log in to Valhalla as “God” (and get in trouble for loading power items for players because he didn’t know they were supposed to be paid for, lol). Whistler, Bakka, Eirinn and so many others (the hard working team at Valheru, for example) kept fighting to keep the code and the genre alive.
There are so many worlds out there that are still alive and vibrant that owe their existence in large portion to the efforts of the original Diku team.
It’s good to have you back 🙂
Anyway – as long as we’re getting the band back together here… have you tried to track down Andrew Cowan? (Icculus) He was a big contributor to the ecosystem early on and went on to make themudconnector website.
You should also be working with Paul Thompson and team over at Valheru. There’s probably no one with more insight into ways the existing feature base could be improved than the stakeholders at Valheru. They’ve been chomping at the bit to help improve the code for the last decade.
Reach out to me directly if you want help tracking these people down.
-Matt
I’m @valheru – so’s le Vega up top. Reach out – we’d love to help any way we can.
Thank you! Almost done. Have our first dev test up today. If you have any particular wishes at this point let us know. Otherwise join please when I’ve put the first release on GitHub. 🙂
sound good! 🙂
We are pretty much there. Testing to see if we can get valhalla.com up and running on Diku III.
If that works I think I’ll release the first version on Git. Still a few things I’d like to get done after that. E.g. a few maps of Midgaard and surrounding aread.
Maybe others can help too 🙂
Very excited!
I would be happy to assist wherever I can 🙂
This is exciting to read about, especially with so much time at home these days.
I used to run mostly on Apoc IV & V, which was based on DIKU. Anyone know what happened to that, or if the code still exists for it? I’d love to track it down for nostalgia.
Hi played Diku extensively when i was at university 1991-1994, it was just amazing. I’d love to be able to host a dikumud for others now. When you put it on Git, is that the full code so I could host my own dikumud ? sorry if this is a basic question.
Yes it’s all the code and a set of core zones. 🙂
That’s brilliant! I will try and host. Anything I can contribute to the project I’m happy to help as well. I am an it infrastructure designer by trade but I can script, code to a basic level if you have any need.
If anyone has spare time on their hands we could use help with for example:
1) Creating a Wiki somewhere where we can have documentation for all Diku III.
2) Filling out the Wiki. Just as an example: http://www.valhalla.com/builder/dil.html
But also including the zone compiler.
3) Anyone who loves HTML could go through the in-game help files and pretty them up with HTML.
We’ll need a little play testing soon to make sure we didn’t break too much.
Get in touch in you want to chip in 🙂 We’re looking into making it live. If we can source will go public soon after. But there’s probably another month of work until I’d recommend anyone to fork from it.
🙂
Best place to start the wiki would be right on GitHub so it all stays together. Even if code isn’t ready to post to a public repo, could start it for the documentation.
As an avid Black Knights Legacy player back in the 90’s I am very happy to hear this.
Hey Richard,
I love hearing that you were an avid player on Black Knights, I was too, immortal/zone creator. I was big into Sojourn, and Copper 2. Even helped spin off a Black Knights clone called Darkover, when everyone copper decided to spin up there own mud. I was thinking about spinning up a closed network mud for my kids and found this site…
so excited about this!
t I’ve been playing on Valhalla/Valheru off and on since 97. Would love to contribute any way I can. 🙂
Awesome work. Is it possible you can give us summary of how to implement the websockets ourselves e.g. into an older dikumud? You guys got forked by 1000’s of MUDs who would want that I believe. I can think of at least one. *cough*