Phantasmal Site > DGD > Contributing to DGD

Giving Back to the DGD Community

The DGD community is trying to give you a good time, as a programmer or as a player. That's what we're here for. That's what I do, what Skotos does, what everybody starting a MUD is trying to do. You may want to give back to the community in some way. You can give more of the same benefits that you most enjoyed, or however you're best able to contribute. This page is full of suggestions for things the community could benefit from, and would enjoy.

Programming

Build a new MUDLib for DGD. Every one helps. Or contribute to an existing one. Melville hasn't been updated in ages. We don't have a DGD-ized Lima version. Phantasmal can always use the help. There are plenty of new MUDLibs that haven't taken off yet like Aexeon and The Last Bastion. Go out and contribute to a MUDLib, or start your own.

Write a subsystem that other people can easily use. The Phantasmal UNQ system and Help system have both been used by other MUD libraries. They're designed to be simple and modular so you can easily use them. If you write something like that, people will use it, and MUDLibs may adopt it. And hey, it's another code example.

Along the same lines as the above, here are some things people have been talking about doing for awhile, but aren't freely available...

• A passive FTP daemon would be wonderful. We need one.
• A better telnet terminal for binary sockets. This'll let you do color without having to modify DGD.
• An IMUD3 daemon. That requires a modified DGD, or writing an external daemon that also connects to your MUD server.
• An integrated HTTP/web server
• A really good English parser

Write one of these and everybody will thank you. Many people will use it. And I'll probably integrate it into Phantasmal, if it's in the public domain.

Writing

Make some documentation. LPC needs documentation. All existing MUDLibs do. DGD certainly does. Pick something and write documentation. The most valuable documentation at this point is probably "how to code" documentation and "how to set up a new MUD". But if you've had problems getting started, write up your experiences and how you solved your problems. Chances are good that somebody else will have the same problems later on.

Build a MUD area. Write new rooms, objects and creatures for one MUDLib or another. Stock areas may get routinely badmouthed, but they also get used, and people can actually play them. Make sure to license your areas so that people can easily modify them. That way people won't instantly know the solution every time they walk into a place that uses your area, and they can enjoy your puzzles (and new puzzles added by others!) all the more.

Put together a web site. Do a fan site for an existing DGD MUD. Make a forum for new MUD administrators to share triumphs and frustrations. Do a documentation site or a set of open forums, or some other way to build community. While we're not hurting for these the way we're hurting for most other stuff on this page, every little bit helps.

Filthy Lucre

Get a Skotos account, and maybe a premium one. Skotos pays for a DGD commercial license, and those licenses aren't cheap. Pay Skotos and Skotos will stay afloat. And that keeps Dworkin eating, which keeps him maintaining DGD.

If you work for a large company, propose doing a project on top of DGD. Yahoo Chat works this way, and pays for another commercial DGD license. If you're doing something high-volume that needs to be robust, DGD will save you a *lot* of time and money -- it's worth the license, and it helps the DGD community out. The more companies that use DGD, the more time and effort Dworkin can spend on keeping it going. If it gets popular enough, all those companies will want lots of new features. And new features benefit you and me.

Many SourceForge projects take donations. My own project, Phantasmal, doesn't, but you may find some worthy recipient that will. I can't really recommend this option since it's rarely money that's holding back opensource projects. But just contributing money is an option. So if you just want to settle your feeling of debt to the DGD community, you can certainly do it.