LPMud

LPMud is a MUD variant developed in 1989 by Lars Pensj? that separates the mud game functionality between a virtual machine (known as the driver) and world-building components in the LPC programming language (known as the mudlib).

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Lars had been an avid player of TinyMUD and AberMUD. He wanted to create a world with the flexibility of TinyMUD and the power of AberMUD, Furthermore, he did not want to have sole responsibility for creating and maintaining the game world. He once said, "I didn't think I would be able to design a good adventure. By allowing wizards coding rights, I thought others could help me with this." The result was the creation of a new, C-based, object-oriented programming language that made it simple for people with minimal programming skills to add elements like rooms, weapons, and monsters to a gaming world.

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To accomplish his goal, Lennart Augustsson convinced Lars to write what today would be called a virtual machine, the LPMud driver. The driver managed the interpretation of LPC code as well as providing basic operating system services to the LPC code. By virtue of this design, Lars ensured that poor programming of infinite loops, memory leaks, and other common programmer foibles by game builders would not harm the overall stability of the game. His choice of an OO approach made it easy for new programmers to concentrate on the task of "building a room" rather than programming logic.

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By the end of 1989, there were two major muds built on top of the LPMud engine:

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• Genesis LPMud (Lars' original LPMud)
• Nanvaent
LPMud: Evolution of LPMuds ►



 

MUD: :This article is about a type of online computer game. For other uses of the word "mud," see mud...

1989: 1989 is a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. The world population growth in absolute numbers is believed to have been the highest ever around this time. http://www.census.gov/ipc/www/worldpop.html...

Virtual machine: In general terms, a virtual machine in computer science is software that creates an environment between the computer platform and the end user in which the end user can operate software....