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Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

I have considered to upgrade my webpage about MXP at http://www.silverbridge.org/~varmel/mxp.php. To know that I don't do a lot of work that wastes time I am going to ask some questions. If I notice little or no interest I know I shouldn't put any work on the MXP page.

Please note that an admin/developer should answer both the "player's perspective" and the "admin's perspective" (the questions that aren't the same) - but please divide the other answers into the two categories.

The Player's perspective

Would you say that new features are actively added to the mud?

Do you know what MXP(Mud eXtension Protocol) is? (if not answer 'no' and then read the explanation beneath)

Are you an admin/immortal on any mud?

Do you play on a MUD that uses MXP, and what do you like/dislike about it?

What do you believe MXP is lacking if anything?

What do you find useful with MXP?

Do you like MXP - if so why?

Do you dislike MXP - if so why?

What would you like to see added into future versions of MXP?

How many players are usually online at any given time on your mud?

The Developer's/Administrator's perspective

What is your role as developer/admin? (example: developing a mud client)

Why have/haven't you added MXP to your mud?

Is the MXP reference easy to understand? (http://www.zuggsoft.com/zmud/mxp.htm)

Is the MXP reference as detailed as it should be? If not - why?

What would you like to see added/removed to MXP?

If you are running a large mud (>30 players online any time) and haven't added MXP. Why not?

Would you say that new features are actively added to the mud?

Do you think it is difficult to add code for MXP?

What would you like to see added into future versions of MXP?

How many players are usually online at any given time on your mud?

If you want to answer the questions please avoid flaming and cursing (and please try to stay on topic Very Happy

). I have seen some bashing on MXP on some forums and as the protocol never got very popular(IMHO) I am asking why to see if those issues can be corrected.

I hope it is OK by the moderators that I post this message here and not in the developer's forum. The reason to post it here is, of course, to hear the players view of MXP and not only the developer's.

What is MXP?
MXP is short for Mud eXtension Protocol and was developed by Zugg Software as a way to extend the possible output from muds. It is very similar to html (with a bit of xml) and let's the mud output links, new colours, redirect output to frames, show gauges (like you could in theory have gauges shown for everyone in your formation/group - making it easy to know how much hp they have). It also has support for showing pictures, and playing sound/music. Links can be clicked to send commands to the mud, or to visit webpages by open an external browser (usually Internet Explorer).

MXP was later released by Zugg Software into the public domain! [^]. This means anyone can extend it/use it which is how I could make a webpage about it and add new features which could then be proposed to be added to the official MXP standard.

(if I got the above definition of MXP wrong please correct me)

Thanks for helping me Smile

Beginner Joined: 31 Mar 2003 Posts: 14 Location: Slovakia

OKay, since I have this feeling that my recent post to the devel forum was an inspiration for this survey, and that some of that "bashing" also came from me (did it really sound like that?), I'm responding/commenting and so...

okay, so the player's perspective first...
I'm not playing any mxp-enabled mud, tho I've seen one already, so I'll skip some of the questions...

Do you know what MXP(Mud eXtension Protocol) is?
yes

Are you an admin/immortal on any mud?
no

What do you believe MXP is lacking if anything?
Standardization. There are only two client implementations as of now, yet they are not compatible with each other. Also, if you've read my post in devel forum, you know that there's a lot to improve in the MXP docs...

What do you find useful with MXP?
Why, just about everything. I believe it has a great potential - that's why I'm involving in all this after all. It has a great potential, but it's just not making use of this. I'd like to change it, so that MUDs become better an'all.

Do you like MXP - if so why?
Oh yes. The idea behind is great. MUDs are being caught into some sort of stereotype lately I think, and MXP can be a way out.

Do you dislike MXP - if so why?
I don't. It just could get a lot better.

What would you like to see added into future versions of MXP?
Haven't thought about this yet...

OKay, now the admin questions...

What is your role as developer/admin? (example: developing a mud client)
developing a mud client, heh :)

Why have/haven't you added MXP to your mud?
mud -> mud client...
Not added yet, but starting to develop support for it...

Is the MXP reference easy to understand?
What do you mean by "understand"? If it is understand what it means, then yes. If it is understand how to implement it, then the answer is no. That's why all my "bashing" took place :)

Is the MXP reference as detailed as it should be? If not - why?
The post I've mentioned several times speaks for itself.

What would you like to see added/removed to MXP?
Aside from better standardization/clarification/unification/de-ambiguitization and all that? Not sure. Maybe remove things like file filters, that are impossible to do in a portable way?

Do you think it is difficult to add code for MXP?
Server part: no. Client part: kinda yes. Not too hard, but could be better...

Okay, that's for the questions themselves...
As for why MXP isn't more wide-spread... Well, part of it is related to the fact that it's kinda difficult to implement on client-side. Only two clients supporting it - that's nut so much press on MUD admins to implement it server-side, is it?
From what I've heard, there's another reason. But keep in mind that this is just what I've heard, I have no direct experience with this - that reason is the fact that ppl don't want to implement MXP because they never know when Zugg will make any incompatible changes (like MXP 0.8 -> 1.0) and their implementation will become broken. There is more to it than just that, but we would be getting into the flaming stuff then, and that's not what you want :)

OKay, finishing the post, it's damn too long already...

Wizard Joined: 14 Oct 2000 Posts: 1368

Due to too little interest my project to make a page about MXP has been stopped. The eBNF for the MXP protocol will be removed from the webpage.

Posted: Sat Feb 07, 2004 10:15 am

It's sad for me to see this, but I'm not surprised. It really takes a lot of dedication to work on stuff like this when nobody seems interested.

I've read Tomas's posts, and they are pretty typical. People love to complain. Nothing is ever perfect. That doesn't mean that MXP doesn't have a lot of good stuff in it already. Yes, zMUD and MUSHClient differ on some details, but they are pretty minor. I've played on some of the MXP MUDs and just having hyperlinks and more colors is worth it as far as I'm concerned.

As far as client support, given the huge percentage of MUD players that use zMUD, that shouldn't be an issue for any decent sized MUD. It's just another excuse.

As far as incompatible changes, that happened a long time ago when there were very few MUDs supporting MXP. The protocol spec hasn't been touched in over a year now. Again, this is just another excuse to complain and criticize.

Sure, the documents aren't perfect. I'd love to have twice as many hours each day to work on stuff like this. But I've got bills to pay and bugs to fix in zMUD and that's more important to me than tweaking a document that few people even care about in the first place. I've always said that I would be happy to link to any other document that someone created for MXP.

Public spec means that anyone can help work on this stuff. But as usual, many people just sit back and watch and then criticize. I'm not trying to flame anyone here, but I first proposed MXP over 3 years ago now and I've dealt with a lot of people since then.

There are two main categories of people: A) Those that will criticize and complain and never actually do anything because it's not perfect, and B) Those that don't care it's not perfect and who will implement something anyway. Nick (MUSHClient) and I fall into category (B). We decided to go ahead and implement *something* to give the MUD servers something to shoot for. Some did. Many didn't. But getting the client implementation did a lot of good in moving things forward.

Now we are at the point where we have to be more careful with changes to the spec. So, in order to get something changed, we need a clear statement of the problem and clear suggestions on how to fix the problem or make improvements. But the core of the spec is stable, and not hard to implement.