Following my progress on The Adventures of Virellia (2D), I have decided that I will continue work on my MUD and take it to the next level of development.
I call this engine Virellia MUD (Multi-User Dungeon).
This will not be a publically available engine, since i'll just be using it for my game, and my game alone. However, this will be the first ever MUD game to come from Mirage Source.
So, why make a mud from a 2D game engine?
Well, first of all, most of the features are there already, you'll be surprised just how much of the source you can actually still use. Although most of the code relates to the graphics engine, a lot of it which is used for storing data for the character and other things is still very useful.
But still, why not write one from scratch or use an engine dedicated to an actual mud game?
It saves time to use Mirage Source, since most of the basic features are already there for me. There will be a lot of time spent deleting things which arn't needed after I've finished getting the game to function properly in the way I want it to. Mostly everything involved with the 2D graphics engine will be deleted, and most of the other systems will be rewritten to work with the text-based system.
I wanted to have a custom stand-alone client and server, which would be unique. A lot of the open source mud servers are based on other common mud systems, and make use of the Telnet client, where as I wanted a stand-alone client with it's own interface.
Plus, being the first person to ever make a mud game from Mirage Source is just something that appeals to me.
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So, what is this game? Well, the game is called Virellia MUD, and is part of The Adventures of Virellia series which now currently consists of 2 games. It is set in a world of fantasy and magic, pretty much the usual stuff you'd expect from any basic online RPG game. But what makes Virellia MUD interesting is the ability to create the visual world in your mind. The more you play, the more familiar you will get with travelling to places, even though you can't see where you're going on the screen, you'll be able to visualise it in your head.
Of course, these games are also challenging, it has everything you would expect from an RPG game, from the monsters to the quests, to the events held by players and staff.
Not to mention the development is far more flexible. I don't have to sit and decide what tiles or sprites would go with my game, I don't have to do things according to my knowledge on DirectX programming. Everything is in text, and it's up to you to be able to imagine what a monster looks like, what a spell effect looks like, or a room or forest.
Maps can be endless, there's no need to worry about how big your map can be, or how it's layed out. Each room is a grid, and grids can be connected to the North, East, South West, Up or Down. A room can be as small as 1 grid, or as large as 100.
These games are good for the imagination, and allow you to use your mind more creatively.
Here are some screenshots of the game so far. I've not yet put a nice graphical interface on it as it's only just in development. But as you can see, the mapping system works already, character stats are used from the original source with the exception of a couple new ones.
Although it looks VERY different, I assure you that this is 100% Mirage Source code, and the only change I've made is getting rid of DirectX and replacing it with text output. Some of the systems have been changed to function correctly with this method of gameplay, but the rest is the same.
THESE ARE NOT MOCK-UPS!
I know some of the titles say The Heretic Chronicles and Black Ages Room Editor, these are names I was deciding on when I was developing it, but it's officially called Virellia MUD
