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                       Some more musings on the WikiMUD

Told you [1] those posts [2] were rather geeky.

The WikiMUD [3] entry has garnered some [4] attention [5] (and quickly too!
I'm surprised anyone reads this anymore). But it was wlofie who brought to my
attention the concept known as a MUSH (MultiUser Shared Hallucination) [6].

I was aware that there did exist some MUD (Multi User Dungeon)s that allowed
players to create rooms, but imagine my surprise when I found out that there
exist MUDs (or a MUSH (MultiUser Shared Hallucination), as they're called)
that allow for the creation of objects as well as actions (just proving that
there really are no new ideas in this industry, just fresh approaches)
although the creation is limited to a certain class of player and there
appear to be some restrictions in what you can and can't have objects do (and
in the MUSH I'm trying out, you can't copy yourself—how restrictive!).

In discussing how I envision the WikiMUD working, and how easy it would be
for a player to make a nusance of themselves, wlofie asked, “How easy would
it be for my to flood all the rooms with cyanide gas?”

I thought for a second. “It'd be easy enough to flood a room with cyanide
gas. Just add the appropriate attribute to each player in the room, and add
the action of gassing anyone else that comes in to the room. But to do the
entire WikiMUD?” Thought for anothe second. “Just make an object that travels
from room to room, adding cyanide gas to each as it passes through.”

“So I would have to do it manually?”

“Well, in a manner or speaking. Any rooms you create could be set to go off
at the same time, but for rooms you didn't create, you would have to add that
to each room.” And in looking over the MUSH stuff, while it looks like you
could add cyanide gas to a room you created, you certainly couldn't to a room
you didn't create, nor could you create an object that moves and add cyanide
gas to each room it goes through.

We also discussed security, or rather the lack of security. Which explains
why Wikis can work [7] (one reason: there's no challenge to destroying a
Wiki) but this is a game. There's a level of interaction in a WikiMUD that
you don't get in a WikiWikiWeb [8], and thus more enjoyment out of flooding
the place with virtual cyanide gas. But I think that the things that make a
Wiki work (anyone can edit anything) might keep the level of maliciousness
down. Yes, I can write an object that wanders around filling each room with
permenent cyanide gas, until someone else hacks themselves to be immune, and
hacks the cyanide adding object to remove cyanide (and hack any other cyanide
adding objects to remove cyanide). Which, to tell the truth, sounds
interesting!

And guess what? We now have Core Wars [9] taken to another level (and this is
just one unintended, but interesting, consequence of a WikiMUD).

[1] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2004/10/15.1
[2] gopher://gopher.conman.org/1Phlog:2004/10/19
[3] gopher://gopher.conman.org/0Phlog:2004/10/19.2
[4] http://www.flutterby.com/archives/comments/7438.html
[5] http://www.livejournal.com/users/gnodal/29246.html
[6] http://moosh.net/mush/what.shtml
[7] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks
[8] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WikiWikiWeb
[9] http://www.corewars.org/

Email author at [email protected]