The Python Podcast.__init__

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Summary

Griatch is an incredibly talented digital artist, professional astronomer and the maintainer of the Evennia project for creating MUDs in Python. We got the opportunity to speak with him about what MUDs are, why they’re interesting and how Evennia simplifies the process of creating and extending them. If you’re interested in building your own virtual worlds, this episode is a great place to start.

Brief Introduction

• Hello and welcome to Podcast.__init__, the podcast about Python and the people who make it great.
• Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn or RSS
• Follow us on Twitter or Google+
• Give us feedback! Leave a review on iTunes, Tweet to us, send us an email or leave us a message on Google+
• I would like to thank everyone who has donated to the show. Your contributions help us make the show sustainable. For details on how to support the show you can visit our site at
• We are recording today on September 15th, 2015 and your hosts as usual are Tobias Macey and Chris Patti
• Today we are interviewing Griatch about the Evennia project

Interview with Griatch

• Introductions
• How did you get introduced to Python?
• Can you explain what MUDs are and what that has to do with Evennia?
• What is it about MUDs that keeps them interesting long after the technical restrictions that led to their creation are no longer present, especially in light of 3D multiplayer games like WoW and EVE Online?
• Can you give us a rundown of the various parts of Evennia (MUD engine, web interface, etc.) and how they fit together?
• How does Evennia handle the fact that a MUD world is comprised of many hundreds of objects containing various properties, maintaining consistent, persistent state as players interact with them?
• What concurrency tools or paradigms does Evennia use?
• During the height of MUDs popularity, one highly sought after feature was the idea of being able to have players travel from one MUD instance to another, would it be possible to implement this in Evennia?
• Has the Evennia core team given any thought to adding features to support a richer client interface? Graphical maps or the like?
• How difficult would it be to use Evennia to interface with something like Slack or Hipchat for a company-wide MUD? Have you ever heard of someone doing something like that?
• Are there any fully fledged running MUDs built with Evennia out in the wild?

Picks

• Tobias
  • libraries.io
  • jsonapi.org
  • Marshmallow Marshalling Library



• Chris
  • The End of All Things
  • David’s Tea Steeper
  • Hello Webapp – Intermediate Concepts



• Griatch
  • F2Py
  • Designing Virtual Worlds
  • Imaginary Realities
  • Optional Realities

Keep In Touch

• Evennia Website
• Evennia Github
• Freenode IRC Channel #Evennia

Links

• roll20

[00:00:14] Unknown:

Hello, and welcome to podcast.init,   the podcast about Python and the people who make it great. You can subscribe to our show on iTunes, Stitcher, or TuneIn Radio, or you can add our RSS feed to your pod catcher of choice.   You can also follow us on Twitter or Google plus with links on the site.   And please give us feedback. Leave us a review on iTunes,   tweet to us, send us an email, or leave us a message on Google plus   I'd like to thank everybody who has donated to the show. Your contributions help us make the show sustainable.   For details on how to support the show, you can visit our site at pythonpodcast.com.  

We are recording today on September 15, 20 15, and your hosts, as usual, are Tobias Macey and Chris Patti. And today, we are interviewing Griatch about the Avenia project. Griatch, could you introduce yourself, please?  

[00:01:00] Unknown:

Yeah. So hello. I'm Grij. I'm   a Swedish   Pythonista, I suppose. I, I am a scientist   by profession,   an astronomer   and I use Python extensively at work. And,   Yeah, that's, that's the basic thing, I think.  

[00:01:20] Unknown:

That's great. How did you get introduced to Python?  

[00:01:23] Unknown:

Yeah. So,   as I said, I I do research in astronomy, and I do computer modeling of astronomical   objects.   And in this,   you tend to use Fortran actually.   And,   Fortran is a very powerful language,   but it's not very pretty to look at. And it's not very useful   in some ways, like string manipulation and things like that. So I was recommended   to try out Python.   This was maybe   10 years ago or so.   And I sat down and learned Python over Christmas.   And what I did to do that was basically made a little choose your own adventure, text game in a terminal   to so just to get the great scripts of the language.  

And I started using Python in at work. And it turns out that Python interfaces brilliantly with Fortran. It's actually very, very nice to an easy to interface to.   So,   so these days I use Fortran   for the heavy computing stuff and,   Python for logics and   disk IO and things like that. So,   and,   so for,   eventually   when I got into Avenia, it's a program it's a program created by a guy called Greg Taylor. And I took over development   of that   5 years ago.  

[00:02:48] Unknown:

And can you explain what MUDs are and what that has to do with Evenia?  

[00:02:53] Unknown:

Right. So,   MUD   is,   well, the the abbreviation stands for multi user dungeon or   dimension maybe. But it's basically massive multiplayer text games.   So these are forerunners to the MMORPGs   of today.   And, in fact,   these games used to be called graphical NUDs at some point before this   MMORPG   abbreviation came   fashionable.   And the basic principle of   a text game, or multi player text game, is that you interact with the   world in text.   So your input usually commands via text   and you read descriptions of the environments and so on, And you do   this together   with other, other players   as you would in, in any multiplayer game.  

A mod is   usually centered on role playing,   but   that's   a bit,   it can usually be,   there can be many, many types of   mods,   from really action packed Twitchy   PVP type things   to   very   loose rule,   shared storytelling experiences   and things like that. So the,   so mud in this respect   is actually a really wide range of multiplayer   text games.   Evania,   is,   is a text   game   library.   So it's,   it's,   game creation library and server in 1, you could say.   And you and you can use this to create your own map games or text based multiplayer game   in pure Python,   which is the main,   very premise of of Avenia.  



[00:04:50] Unknown:

And what is it about MUDs that keeps them interesting long after the technical restrictions that led to creation are no longer present, especially in light of the modern 3 d multiplayer games like World of Warcraft and EVE Online?  

[00:05:02] Unknown:

Well,   it's no secret, of course, that mods are not as prevalent as they as they used to be. Right? I mean,   the the games like, I should say,   even line or Wow, or so on. I mean, they are, they are the, the, the what came after months, basically, in the technological   arena.   And I mean, I I love Eamon line, for example. So but,   I should say it. I mean, I started playing text based   games in   2, 008, 9, something like that. So I don't play these games out of sentimentality. I mean, it's not like I, you know, remember the good old days. I didn't play MUDs in their heyday.   But I find that some things are I mean, this is a personal opinion, of course, but I I find that some things are just better in text than in graphics. I mean,   there's some aspects like   descriptions and and and making use of your imagination,   and also freedom of of role play. I mean, personally,   I'm an old school role player. I game mastered many a game,   in all sorts of and I made my own rule systems and played, you know, paper and pen role playing.  

But over time, as you get older, it's people just apart and move to different places. And I find it hard it gets harder to get a group together and and   and play a role playing game and stuff like that. So   so I looked around to to see what you can do online.   And of course, you can do, you know, something like role 20, where you have an actual role playing game.   But apart from that, I would say that MUDs   are basically the best role playing you can get online   today.   The simply because the text   allows you so much freedom to   interact in game.  

And also because of   the depth you can produce   when you don't have to create very heavy   graphical assets.   Also, from a development standpoint,   they are,   for you as a small dev team or hobby developer, for example,   they require a lot less resources for you to to create and make content,   as I said, rather than, you know, having   having to make   3   d assets or graphical,   assets and so on.   So it means that you that these games tend to instead   focus on complex gaming experiences. So you have deep,   role playing systems, very deep interactions.   And,   also interactions where you have role playing in text, usually   of course,   where you   simply can't reproduce in a graphical   sense, where you have to   present this with a graphical avatar of some sort. In the text form, you can actually   have a lot more freedom in this sense.  

So here you have   a definite advantage over text games in my view. And also this is why   many still play these types of games despite,   the   existence of games like Wow or Eve Online.  

[00:08:22] Unknown:

Absolutely. I mean, I think I think a testament to that as well is the fact that interactive text based fiction games are still absolutely   not just alive but thriving in there. You know, there's a whole competition around them,   and there's it's a whole genre that hasn't been superseded   simply because   imagination is the best graphics engine that ever has or ever will exist. Right?  

[00:08:46] Unknown:

Yeah. I   mean, now the the if the   interactive fiction,   movement has really grown quite a lot,   so this is sort of parallel, you would say to the multiplayer   text game,   genre, which, which   I'm here talking about, but you've certainly correct them in the   same way books are not going anywhere, even though there are films,   available, the movies available,   text games are not going anywhere either, even though   you could imagine they may be that the young generation,   simply not maybe catching them quite as easily as you would game with flash graphics. So  

[00:09:29] Unknown:

And are MUDs,   do they accommodate more of an asynchronous approach to gaming, allowing you to sort of interact with the game and then maybe focus on something else for a minute and then go back to the game versus the more real time characteristics of things like Wow or EVE Online?  

[00:09:45] Unknown:

I would say that this depends on the game.   Text games are just as varied   as graphical games in that respect. As I said, they are really text games that   requires you to be have really great reflexes.   And you can't look away for a moment or you they brutally brutally murdered murdered or something. And then, of course, then are there are really games also that you have   time to write, you know, really careful   entries where you describe what you care to do with a lot of text.   And,   and really, you can really   take the grid, the inner author in yourself. And then then the   turn, so to speak, or the the flow of the game is much slower. And you're right. Then   there are really people who, like, play the same game, and then they take it on   different different computers or or tablets or something and and take it with them and play the same thing without stopping, so to speak.  

So, yeah, you can really have,   a very long experience   and have a very different   type of gaming experience if you choose that type of game.  

[00:10:55] Unknown:

I was gonna say I've seen everything from real time space battles involving firing photon torpedoes   to   turn based games, like, you know, that require real real time interaction to games like Boggle and the like, where people might play a lazy game over the course of a day, taking a turn only every 5 or 10, 15, 20 minutes when they have a moment to to focus on it.  

[00:11:17] Unknown:

Yeah. So, it depends very much on on what type of gameplay and style and mood. So, I mean, in some some gaming communities or, I mean, it tends to be a community, right, in many of these games. Mhmm. You you   there there is there are various types of of ways to go about this and the quality of of text you you should write or or not, depending on the type of game.  

[00:11:43] Unknown:

And can you dig into a little bit the,   the mechanisms used for   analyzing and   responding to the textual input that people   use for interacting with the game? Or, you know, sort of how the how the text is transformed into something meaningful to the game engine?  

[00:12:05] Unknown:

In the sense of asking for the technical   description how we do it in Avania? Or are you asking in the general sense on on how it's done in general from the user's perspective?  

[00:12:17] Unknown:

I guess a bit of both. Whatever you feel more comfortable addressing.  

[00:12:21] Unknown:

Okay. So basically,   as in any game, you are inputting   commands into the game. In the in,   graphical game, these commands might be mouse clicks or joystick movements, or something like that. In a text game,   it could be something like that. But in print usually,   it's handled by you entering   text commands. So this could be,   you moving around.   And this is also an interesting aspect because when you have text,   you it's harder   this is the drawback of text. It's harder to visualize,   room placements.   So spatial information.   This is a natural thing when you have graphics to to see where you are in a room. Whereas in, in text, this is actually quite a problem because you say you're in a room,   it can be quite require quite a lot of text if you really require   detailed information of where the enemy is, for example, relative to you, if you are turned in the right direction or not. So usually,   the traditional way to handle this is actually to abstract this.  

So you have,   the room   is sort of a location. It's the name for general location.   And when you move, you're actually moving between these abstract location, these abstract rooms,   traditionally, by   just north, south, east, west directions.   And these are this is commands that you enter,   and then you get a description of the location you're in.   And that description usually includes   things you can interact with in that room. For example, other other players,   or objects or monsters or whatever.   And,   then you can via commands, you can,   for example you can enter look at   monster   or look at troll or look at that cool player over there or whatever And they will get more information about that.  

And notably,   you can describe what your character   is doing, for example. So you can   describe in text that your character is standing around in his room, smoking a cigarette, or if it's a fantasy game, maybe,   fiddling with their pet dragon or something.   And,   other players will see this   and interact with you. Or   if it's a more pvp experience, you might draw your swords and attack each other. And it's all handling and handling   in commands.   So,   so from   the server's perspective, from the game server,   like Evania's perspective, what's coming in is text,   and it's up to the parser   to parse these texts to   identify it as a as a command that the server understands and the game understands,   and then spit back out some sort of response to this.  

So,   in more modern servers,   like Evania,   there are also other types of input coming from the game client.   And that is,   things which are not directly related to the   to the text written sort of on the input line. But there could be other things going back and forth between the client, like updating a health bar or   or, you know, varying dynamic things that that that doesn't require,   the direct input of the,   player.   So and also, of course, the server will inform the player gradually   if something changes without their inputs, of course, like,   weather changing in the room or night   setting   and various players coming and going or other things happening.  



[00:16:12] Unknown:

So can you give us a rundown of the various parts of Evenia,   like the MUD engine, web interface, etcetera, and how they fit together?  

[00:16:20] Unknown:

Right. So   I think it's probably the easiest if I briefly   show what what what you will see when you have a new,   Evania install   as a new wannabe,   mod developer.   So,   first of all, say so once you have installed Evenya,   so Evenia is a game library.   So we install it, usually from our GitHub page, but you, we recommend that you install it, in a virtual environment   and then use just just PIP to, to, to install it in there.   And then you will have the Avinia command   program available,   in your,   shell, in your bash shell or whatever.   And,   so what you do then is that you run Evenya init.  

And that creates your own game folder.   So that could be named whatever you want for your game.   And that game folder has a range of empty templates,   so Python templates. And basically, Python modules,   with   some instructions and empty classes for various game objects in there.   You don't need to touch that. Initially, it's all set up to run.   So you use Avania, again, the program Avania   migrate,   and that creates the   database for your game. By default, this is, SQLite   3 database.   But,   since we are running on Django,   you can actually use a wide wide range of different SQL,   databases.  

And finally, you do a venue start.   And then your game is running. So you have a fully functioning   online   game.   And that includes,   web server.   So you can at that point, you can go in your browser. You can   connect to local hosts on the port 8, 000. And you will have a nice   default website for your game. And you can click a button there and   and have a   HTML 5 web client to log into your game.   And you can, of course, also use the traditional   telnet,   telnet client clients   that that are haven't been available for many a year. So this is the traditional   third party clients you can also connect your game with.  

So,   at that point you have a fully functioning game. It's very empty though.   But it's working fine for for interacting with other players, chatting, things like that.   So then the   Sorry?   I was gonna say you can run through the tutorial, etcetera, etcetera. Right. Yeah. You can run there is a tutorial world you can install with a with a single command.   And also, out of the box, even you have some 90 commands, I think it is,   which are,   like, mostly admin commands, like   things like administrating the server, kicking players,   creating new objects.  

So build some basic building and administration   commands, which are,   most games will need, but they're pretty dull to implement if you want to, if you are starting out. So you can   a lot of basic but useful commands are available.   What Avenia does not include by default are game systems that are unique for   every game in a way anyway.   So, like, combat character creation,   you know, races,   skill,   skills,   things like that, because we expect our users to want to make these things   unique to the particular games. This is   our target group. So to speak.  

Generally,   our people are the developers coming to Avenia   are keen on making their dream games. And that is usually very custom. And   and so we had we don't impose any   of these game specific stuff.   However, we do include   with the distribution our contribution folder,   which has more game specific things like dice rollers,   more dice rollers, barter system,   examples of,   menus,   how to have menu systems,   and,   various tutorial   worlds   and and systems like that. So these are just   optional plugins. So you just import that and use it in your game. However you want.   So this is mainly my stuff at the moment, but, we are, we are open to   for more people to contribute,   stuff to to the contribute folder for everyone to use.  

So once you have this,   so I have a now you have a running game, but very empty.   So what you have now is   is that the ability to put your own Python modules   in your newly created game directory.   And,   so Avania is completely coded in Python modules,   so outside the game. So we follow the principle that   you're better off as a developer today within modern days to use your own professional   text editor,   with professional version control or whatever you want to put on your game design.   So rather than a traditional way of many mods   to   code these things in some   sort of internal language in the game.  

So Avenia, the basic working of Avenia is to   tell   Avenia to import your modules   like normal Python modules,   and, and then you execute them. So,   this makes   it very easy to make very custom games because, of course, you have access to all the Python modules out there in the wild and can use them directly   to whatever functionality   you you want in your game. So   you're not just depending on us producing,   you know, stuff for you.  

[00:22:40] Unknown:

That's great.   How does Avenia handle the fact that the mud world is comprised of many hundreds of objects   containing various properties   maintaining consistent persistent state as players interact with them?  

[00:22:53] Unknown:

Right. So,   Django is what we use for the database back end of Avenia.   So   Django is perhaps most known as a web,   framework,   and we also use it as that. So Django is what is creating make it very easy for us to present our own   website, for example, tied to the same database   as the game itself.   But it's Django also has a very stable   or m. So for interacting with with database. So we use that.   In actuality, as you said, there are lots of objects in the mud world, and,   many of these are very different from each other. So how   1 way you could imagine doing this would be to   to make different SQL   database tables for, I don't know, say a share   or a stool or   a or a person or something like that.  

And, keep adding new database, custom database tables or, say, Django models, which is the   the Python representation of this in Django.   And   that would be pretty catastrophic in the long run and very hard to maintain.   So Avenia   does this by using very few   database   tables or,   Django models.   And these base models, so we won't we only have I think it's 4 core models.   And that is the   the object, the player,   and then there are   some also for for in in line,   communication, like scripts   and   and channels.   And I won't go into the there's there's a difference between player and character in Navania.   You have,   the player is the account   which you connect to the game with. And the character is actually like any object.  

That if you're puppeting   as a player, you're puppeting character.  

[00:24:54] Unknown:

So I, as a player, could have multiple characters   in multiple   role playing systems   even in the same MUD if I wanted to, if that if the MUD supported it. If the MUD,  

[00:25:06] Unknown:

chose to implement such a thing, yes, You could you could have the same account or same player account.   So the player has your password, you know, and and and, you know, stuff like that. But you can connect and supports   a lot of different modes in this. So you can con in the most   generous mode, you can actually,   connect to   to your player account and control   multiple   characters,   with multiple   connections. So   this is actually something requested by users,   that we add this.   So you have the ability, for example, to play the same character from different   computers   at the same time   and also some multiple characters at the same time. Apparently,   there are really game communities where this is common.  

But anyway,   so we have very few database tables. And,   Venue   uses   a class, a Python class, which we call a type class, but it's basically a type and class, a Python class   that   hides, that saves itself to the database   under the scene, behind the scenes.   And it means that you, as a developer,   you create   a class   and create an instance of that class. And when you create an instance of that class,   that is actually saved to the database   for you. You'd never need to actually deal with the database   aspect of of this.   So to take an example of this, let's say, we want to create a   particular type of object called a car,   so a weaponized car.  

I I recently saw Mad Max.   And,   so how do you do that? So in invenia, you would what you would do is that you would use the child. You would make a new child class, a new Python class   inheriting from the base object class of Avenia.   So this is really like in your code, you have to import avenia,   and then you inherit from avenia dot   object, basically,   or default object.   And you call this   new class   Mad Max car, say.   And this now   has everything   under the hood. It's using meta classes and and other things under the hood, but you don't need to know about this. You put helper methods on it, whatever you need to do to represent,   you know, what you think of a Mad Max car, how that should be should be. And then he offers attributes, which are   special database,   models or objects that you just attach as properties on this class.  

So, for example, you could have health or armor or speed. So this is just creating a foreign key relationship   behind on the behind the scenes for you   and allow you to customize your Mad Max car as much as you want,   to make it specific to what what the,   what you what this particular object should be able to do.   And then you can do in this case, it's a car is a pretty complex thing. You will you will want to be able to drive it. You might have weapons on it, so you can   fire the gun or launch missiles or something like that.   So,   as I said, all the input from the player   are commands.  

And in in Newenia,   commands are also classes.   And they are just so all the commands that are are available to you, none of that is hard coded   in the engine.   It's   all freely available to you to modify as you see fit. And the so the normal commands, like look or get or drop, and   the, they are basically as command objects stored on your character.   Or in the case of admin commands, they might be stored on your player account object   to make them available.   So   in this case, we create some new commands inheriting   just inheriting from the command class of Evenya. So   from Evenya import command and inherit from that.  

And then you store so for example, we make   a command fire or launch missiles   or something like that.   And in the in that class, we   we have a we we define what happens when you do that.   And then you store those commands on   the Mad Max car   and,   set some,   permissions on it to to make sure that these are only available   to objects inside of the car.   And,   and you might also want movement commands. So, like, you know, move around or or move to the next room or or   I don't know, honk the horn or whatever.   And, so in the games, then now we have created a Python class, a Python module with these classes available.   Now you just log in to your game   and create a new object of the type mad max car. So you just use the create command, which comes with the venue,   which you could also, in pre in principle,   recreate or change as you want.  

Just a command like any other, and you give the   dot path to the class   to that command, basically.   So, you give the, like,   yeah, pointing to the mad max car class.   And, boom, then you have a new car, a new mad max car in the room.   And it has all the functionality,   of that you have coded for it. And if you did errors,   then you   you will see a nice trace back.   You will this will not crash the server normally.   But you can just fix your code and just reload   the the code right in there. So that's really  

[00:31:13] Unknown:

basically, unlike traditional MUD systems where   builders or even programmers to use, like, Mux or Muz or things like that, The programming is all done outside of the mud environment. You're actually programming Python   in your mud execution environment to affect the to create   new classes of things in world.  

[00:31:35] Unknown:

Yeah. So so,   we we basically,   Yeah. And and,   the nice thing with this is that   as you create this car, it's also now stored in the database because it's an instance of the class.   So it's it's all created in the database, and you can shut down the server or whatever, and the car will still be there.   And so now you just step into the car and can use all the commands and so on in it and drive around with it and so on.   But, yes, you're you're quite correct. Normally,   in in many traditional,   sort of game game systems,   There is a mini language   or usually a custom sort of language where you can build these things   in car in game.  

Even if there's not   prohibit this.   I mean, you could have,   for example,   you could make a generic object, say,   and allow you and create a slew   of build commands   for builders to use to populate that object, say, with names   and various functionality   and so on. So you could make what is equivalent   to an in game,   coding environment, or at least a very, very powerful build environment   in game if you wanted to.   We don't   aim for that out of the box, though, because we feel like   if you are   if you sit here and you're coding   the   you're you're you're better off actually using a proper text editor   and version control,   and all the   code help and functionality   that's available to to you when you're dealing with proper Python modules,   rather than us having some sort of in game,   system that is sort of   another high level language on top of Python.  



[00:33:34] Unknown:

Absolutely. And in this day and age with disposable servers, it's not like it used to be where giving someone account on your box to SSH into and work on the mud is not   is not the the  

[00:33:47] Unknown:

the investment that it used to be. Right? So No. I mean, you the the what we recommend is that people I mean, even if if even if our development team wants to keep their stuff secret or something, then there there are free   there are free repositories   on Bitbucket, for example, which you can use.   So everyone I mean, Evania   works in such a way so that all the developers of of your game can can just pull down the current state and run their own debugging server on their own   and push stuff down to the central repository than that you as the game owner or the group,   that is running the game can then just accept them. And a normal professional   game development or programming,   workflow.  

So, yeah, the, I think the advantages   of   having an in game   coding environment.   I mean, that that is not having to give up   access, but   that has diminished that advantage. And today,   I think you are better off actually   making use of modern technology.  

[00:34:56] Unknown:

So what concurrency tools or paradigms does Evania use?  

[00:35:01] Unknown:

So,   all the networking   of Evania,   is done using Twisted.   So Twisted is an asynchronous   network,   framework.   And so this is the core   game loop of Avenia.   So Twisted is a way to allow a synchronicity   in the same game process.   So if any, it's all running   is in the same in 1 process. There's no threading,   needed in that sense.   And   so and it so this bypasses   the   the problem the problem that Python has with the   dome.   The gill? Sorry. The gill. Yeah. The lock the lock of the,   interpreter lock, global   interpreter lock. And the,   so so instead of doing that, twisted basically,   you could say chops off chops up the   the execution of Python code into   small snippets   and lawn and execute them more   and very efficiently.  

So the effect of it of this that we get   concurrency   and all the all the users can can work together without waiting on each other.   But we don't have the problems of of a thread a threading.   And to be fair, a text server   is not that heavily demanding in in   in in the sense of a game.   So,   this generally   works very well,   unless it scales up,   the user base   to thousands of players.   But you can you can   supports a lot large range of of players. And we have tested   it quite extensively in this. It's very efficient.   Also, Twisted   offers   some easy ways to make connection protocols. I mean, it's a Twisted is a very extensive library.  

So for example, it was pretty easy for us to implement   Telnet.   It is the mud   traditional MUD interface,   and also   the various MUD   extensions to Telnet that has   evolved organically in the over the years.   But   we also have   through the through Twisted, we can also support WebSocket, SSH, SSL.   So and since the web server,   which is a twisted web server runs in the same process, you can actually have easily   link your Django   website   to the same database without any worries of caching   conflicts and things like that.   Yeah. And then also through twisted, you have a very nice way to interact with the web clients, our own web clients.  

[00:37:55] Unknown:

In a way, Evenia is kind of the ultimate realization of what Glyph originally wrote Twisted for. Right?  

[00:38:01] Unknown:

Yeah. He was he was quite excited,   when when he heard that he someone actually used twisted   for a mod style thing. I mean, he,   he, as you say, he   originally had ideas for, using it for a month. So yeah, he was quite I think he was quite, intrigued by the fact that it was actually being used for that.  

[00:38:22] Unknown:

So during the height of Mudd's popularity, 1 highly sought after feature was the idea of being able to have players travel from 1 MUD instance to another. Would it be possible to implement this in Evenia?  

[00:38:34] Unknown:

Yeah. This this question pops up now and then. The, personally, I'm a bit skeptical about the the practical use of it.   But,   I mean, you have issues like translating a character   between game systems,   for example, how do you do that?   You need some sort of custom translation table and agreements between the mods,   and so on. But   if you wanted that really, I guess it would be possible. You would need to set up some sort of custom protocol to   do, to do that, do it. And then you already linked,   with external resources. I mean, you can   do that rather easily, but   no, there is no,   you   can't specifically travel between months in between,   in that sense.  

As I said, it's possible to do, but I don't think it's worth it, to be honest.  

[00:39:28] Unknown:

Right. I had a couple of acquaintances   who who actually did this once with old school MUDs. But by the time they did, they had kinda felt like the majority of the MUD world had shriveled up to a point where nobody cared. So it was kinda like it was such a it was such a big deal in its time. And now I, you know, I I tend to agree with you. I I kinda don't see it being worth the effort either. But,  

[00:39:49] Unknown:

I think I think the I think it dilutes.   I mean,   it's just as well to create 2 accounts. It's so easy to do. So you can just as well play both worlds,   both games and   be happy doing that than having to synthetically   move between them somehow.   I mean, I guess if you have 2   sibling games that have very similar worlds or share the same world maybe and things like that, but   it's so much easier to to just create 2 separate accounts and and run   the things. So, yeah.  

[00:40:25] Unknown:

And so   we've talked a bunch about how   interaction between different elements of the game happens. But how do you   sort of describe   and update and maintain the overarching narrative of the MUD environment?   How does the story line of the game   translated   within the within the overall game environment? So what what elements of avenia or what elements of the MUD   drive the storytelling element of the of the overall interaction?  

[00:40:56] Unknown:

Well, for as far as Avenia is concerned, there are there is no   no out of the box gameplay.   And there is no   narrative   in that respect.   And know that different   traditional mud games do this in different ways. So some   have,   big staff that is running   the meta game or the sort of the overall narrative of the world and what's happening and big big events going on. I mean, and whereas others,   let it be more of a player   driven,   sort of gradually evolving open sandbox kind of thing.   I think it's the same principle that you would use in a graphical game. It's   that's no difference.  

It's just   different in in the type of discussion the type of stories and the detail, I think, of the   stories that can be created. But but the basic principles are not different from from   MMO RPG's   game.  

[00:41:55] Unknown:

Yeah. So so you can do like, what what Gaurav was just saying, that there are plenty of cases where pea there you basically just provide a framework for people to   kind of open   role play in. And there are other cases like what you're saying, Tobias, where it's kind of more like moving through an interactive fiction story where there is a consistent narrative and you're interacting with the mud   in way in various concrete ways as you move through a story, you know, quests to solve, etcetera.  

[00:42:22] Unknown:

And I mean, you should remember that the mud like, the World of Warcraft   quest chain kind of thing. I mean, this is all originally created in muds. So   the whole principle of questing and and and stuff like that and instances and all of this is just, this comes from the, from the text world and was refined,   maybe in the, in the professional,   in the graphical game world,   but all the same things work at the same.   You could could could apply the same things in principle if you wanted to have a more   game driven or world driven experience or   or, yeah, like quest or or things like that. So that would be basically the same thing, just   with different graphics or lack of graphics in a sense.  



[00:43:12] Unknown:

So so how would that work though to sort of expand on Tobias' question just a little bit? Let's say you have a quest where   you have to uncover a key. You have to you have to, you know, solve a particular puzzle to   gain access to a key, which is then used to unlock a crypt wherein you encounter some other some next part of the game, whether it's you meet an NPC that you either have to kill or work with to enable some further, you know, part of the puzzle or something like that. How does that kind of programmatic   interaction in various parts of the world   work?  



[00:43:45] Unknown:

Yeah. So   yeah. Right. So an example of this is used in,   in the tutorial, actually, for Avenia. And,   there you have an example where,   you have you're looking for this a small adventure or test example game   where you are looking for   a particular   crypt   that is containing a magical weapon.   And to get into that crypt, you have to look at   an object elsewhere in the world.   And that object   is actually a custom,   object.   And every time we look at it, it shows a different scene. It's like an obelisk that shows magical scenes on it. And that scene you happen to see is the,   is the, the crypt describes the, the fresco on the, on the crypt you have to go into.  

Because if you pick the wrong wrong crypt, there's gonna be a trap and you you sort of get whisked off. So and   so you need to,   so how that work works programmatically is that every time you look at the   the object, this obelisk,   the object   identifies that it's that it's being looked at.   And,   it is basically a hook.   So your your loop command, it triggers   a hook on on the object it's looking at. So that's simply,   the the command has a call   to the target of the look,   and it calls the hook on that called at look. Simply.   And the, so the Obelisk   response,   the, this, this thing is looking at me. So what I do then, okay, I check with this is a character   looking at me.  

Now I store a simple little flag,   in this case,   on on that object listing exactly what   that character saw,   which scene I happened to randomly show how they looked.   And then when they eventually get to the crypt, or hand and gets to choose between a range of crypts,   They go into 1 of these exits,   and the exit itself   checks   this flag.   Or it's not actual flag. It's actually, an actual identifier,   on the character. And if that matches the   the character, the exit they chose, then, okay. They went to the right 1 and they are happy and find good stuff. Otherwise, they are whisked off to,   to to horror and death and stuff.  

So, that's that's 1 way to do it. I mean, there are many other ways to do it. You could have you could use Evinias lock system, for example, to lock down,   and door unless you carry a particular object,   like a key,   or you could actually implement custom,   commands on, on the key to make sure that you have to, you know, put it in the door and turn the key if you which is usually kinda annoying to have to do, but you couldn't do that if you wanted.  

[00:46:46] Unknown:

That's great. That's what I was curious about is just to get kind of an example to to sort of show people how   how that would fit together.  

[00:46:54] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, we we had there is an another example in the tutorial with, with a wall,   which is actually a particular exit. And that wall has a range of   of,   like hanging roots from it.   And the the wall presents a range of of custom commands that are only available to you when you stand in front of the wall.   And that allows you to, like, move the   move these roofs around on the wall. It's a very simple little puzzle. So you basically move them aside.   And then there is a button appearing,   which you can, which you see in the middle of the, of the wall when they move away the roots. And then suddenly when that's available, then there's a button or press button command   available to you. And you press that and the door and the exit opens, and then you can walk out.  

So,   you can do a lot of powerful things when you have the full power of Python   available to you in your   in your in game command objects and commands.  

[00:47:54] Unknown:

Has the Avinia core team given any thought to adding features to support a richer client interaction,   like graphical maps or the like?  

[00:48:02] Unknown:

So,   through the   WebSocket   protocol,   we do support our own HTML client.   This is, it's a JavaScript,   web client.   And this can   not only receive text, but it can also receive any custom instruction sent   from or to,   the server from a venue.   And it actually the same thing can be said about Telnet because these days,   modern,   third party,   mother clients actually has a lot of extensions to the Telenor protocol to do the same thing.   But in in our web client   Transcate use JSON for for communicate for that type of communication.   And this is called out of band communication. And that's that's that's used to   do things without the user's   direct input. So we can update   health bars,   maybe have a, a window with the inventory   or, you know, like, maybe even a little graphic of of of the character,   what they wear, for example.  

You can, you could definitely have maps potentially, but there are none   I know of in the works at the moment.   But you could do stuff like that.   Many of these things,   are,   are relatively   game specific. You could imagine, but,   yeah, we, we, we, we should probably   also supply,   stuff to extend   the web clients.   We control the web client. We have   more flexibility there. So we should probably do more with that.   Also the our existing web client is   soonish   to get an update. So we hope to make it a little bit easier to plug in your own   functionality   as very JavaScript   plugins   and easily   receive data back and forth from Avenia that way.  



[00:50:02] Unknown:

And how difficult would it be to use Venue to interface with something like Slack or HipChat for a company wide mud? And have you ever heard of some somebody doing something like that?  

[00:50:12] Unknown:

So I haven't looked at looked into Slack or HipChat, but if any already interfaces   with IRC, for example.   So, you can chat to   so for example, even even though you're in game, you can chat to people sitting in the IRC channel. We'll do this all the time in the development   and support channel of Venue. So new development,   games, they connect   their own development games with the support channel. So they can literally chat with us, directly from inside game. That is really cool.   And, yeah, it's it's very, this is something which is actually quite easy to set up in via twisted   because twisted support have IRC,   protocols.  

So do we run that? And,   also a Twitter, for example, you can, you can you can easily set up,   we have instructions   on how to run   Twitter command. So you just enter a command in game, and it tweets   to your preset,   Twitter account,   whatever you want to do to, like, updates for your game world or what. So,   these things are are   fully functioning as it is. But, so I don't think it would be too hard to write and have any protocols for   something like Slack or HipChat   as well. Maybe   you would need to be a little bit careful if you want to have   control from the other side, like being able to input commands or something that   that you would need to somehow make sure that's   secure.  

But I would not be surprised if there are already   fully functioning   protocols   for Twisted or at least for Python for these   chat system. So  

[00:51:58] Unknown:

There is. There's a I can see already there's a Python dash Slack real time   module that interfaces Twisted with, the Slack rest API. Yeah. There you go. So,  

[00:52:09] Unknown:

probably, you could just slot that in. And   as with most other things, part Venue's,   protocol systems are also completely pluggable. So   you can plug in your own systems like that without touching   the core library of Vania. So,   you could in principle add this. But if you do, please   contribute it so we can all enjoy it. Alright.  

[00:52:33] Unknown:

And you you mentioning Twitter,   raises an interesting possibility as well of,   maybe having a MUD instance that anybody on Twitter can interact with by tweeting at a particular user account, and   that that just raises some, some  

[00:52:49] Unknown:

interesting ideas. I think there are a lot of possibilities here, which are still pretty unexplored. I mean, in a sense of I mean, 1 of the things with the venue is that we are using Django. Right? So that makes it very powerful to you to make a web   environment or a web experience   parallel to the game,   because it's the same database. They use the same   the game and   the websites use the same database. So you could,   for example, what a very basic example is, of course, to, to be able to see whom, how many people are in the game from the website, but you can also do stuff like potentially do stuff like logging in,   do,   character creation, maybe,   set up meetings with people.  

There are lots of good ideas. You could, you could, you could do with this kind of thing. And that's just staying within the web server,   talking about you know, as I said, tweeting or doing   Right. Stuff.  

[00:53:51] Unknown:

Or even creating a,   marketplace   between characters in the game so that different players can potentially trade inventory items   via the web interface?  

[00:54:03] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean, any   multiplayer game thrives on its community. So   I think this is true for text games the same way as it is for graphical games.   And,   I think that, and all, all of these things and also of course that that might help also for, for beginners to, to get into game a little bit more and so on. So, yeah. So there are lots of possibilities here. And,   I should say this is not, I mean, there are of course, mad games that use the web extensively. I mean, existing mud games. So if any, it's not at all,   you know, unique,   with with this possibility, but it's,   it's out of the box doing it and that's,   and it was using,   very, quite, very modern,   ways to do it. So I think in that sense, we are trying to make it easier for people to do this without having   to hack things together themselves.  



[00:55:03] Unknown:

Well, that's exactly that. That's exactly it. And that's honestly, that's 1 of the reasons I so very much wanted to talk to you and I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us is   traditionally, MUDs, you know, because they were written a while ago, are these really kind of dense   c or c plus plus code bases   using things   like Berkeley DB or other binary   file system based databases as their persistence layer.   And, you know, if you've ever read MUD source code, you know it it can get pretty pretty dense and pretty intense. It's not not for the faint of heart. Many of of the sis the the most used systems actually don't even use use a database, but they use flat files. Right. Right. That's exactly what I'm saying. Yeah. Exactly.  

[00:55:45] Unknown:

Right. So,   yeah. And as I say, I mean, they are they are   many of them   are relatively old or quite old actually,   written in CC plus and have grown in many cases quite organically   So over and changed hands many times and so on. So, yeah, it's it's it requires quite a lot of work in many cases to run,   random is my impression.  

[00:56:10] Unknown:

Right. So could you extend it a more traditional mud to interface with HipChat or Slack or or or Twitter or whatever the case may be? Yes, you absolutely could. And in the case of the more programmable ones like Moo as a for instance,   people have done much those same kinds of things.  

[00:56:27] Unknown:

People do remarkable things in soft code,   like in the MOSH or in MOO. It's   really remarkable   stuff to do. Absolutely.  

[00:56:36] Unknown:

But what's amazing, what I think makes, pardon me, makes Avenia   really noteworthy   is the fact that   you don't have to learn an incredibly arcane   programming language that's intrinsic to the mud in order to be able to do that. If you know Python   and you know you you have access to all these APIs and you can just call them unmodified.   So I think the ease with which you can   create these integrations   or make your own custom modifications   is just is is   really kind of groundbreaking and very cool.  

[00:57:10] Unknown:

So, we actually have quite a lot of   new,   developers or at least wannabe developers,   coming and talking to us   in our community or   development community of Evenya.   And it's actually quite   a considerable fraction, which are   completely new to Python   or and in some cases, completely new to programming   overall.   And,   but he just always wanted to make a game. And text gaming,   I mean, even if some really wanted to have played mods and really wanted to make their own   mod that was better than the 1 they played.   But some are really just wanting to make a game. And   in that respect,   also, if you are completely newbie,   the   text is actually very useful,   to you because you   as I said, it's much easier and cheaper to do,   resources and do content to the game in that sense. It's still a lot of work. I mean, there's no denying that in any game engine. I mean, it's taking a lot of work to make a multiplayer game,   text or graphics or not. But,   it's still,   in that sense, a slightly lower threshold. And and also text   tends to allow you is my impression in a way to focus more on the   core   game   experience. It's called the core game systems rather than the flashy   because there's no flash above beyond how you process it.  



[00:58:42] Unknown:

Absolutely. When when I first heard about Evenian and I I had, you know, gotten you to agree to come talk on the show, I actually posted   a link to the project   to a Facebook   alumni group for this MUD that we've all been talking on for the last 15 years.   And a lot of the, you know, dinos, which is MUD terminology for people who've been around for a really long time, were really excited. And a couple of them even said, you know, I've I've long said that Python would be an incredible   teaching tool.   Exactly what you said, when you think of a MUD as something that's   a really exciting   thing for a new programmer to be able to build. Like, hey. You can go create this multi user interactive game.  

That gets people   really excited about programming. It's a lot better than something dry like, you know, I don't know, here, construct this sort algorithm or something like that. It gets people excited.  

[00:59:36] Unknown:

Yeah. I mean,   the the core principle of Avenia is to remove all this boring,   your networking   stuff, database   processing,   all the stuff that you that every game needs. But if   when if you're gonna start to do that from scratch, you are you're all your enthusiasm is,   unless you're really, really   keen on doing these things,   from scratch,   it will dry, drain your enthusiasm quite quickly.   So the whole idea here is that we handle all this for you and try to actually hide away   much   of the I mean, you don't actually need to know Twisted, for example, to run Avenia or Django for that matter. You can dive into the depth into the,   you know, into the metal if you really want and really know what you're doing.  

So there's no there's no blocking or anything, but   you could, in principle, code everything using   basic pipe Python primitives, like, classes and functions. And   you find that, as you say, this is actually   potentially quite useful also for beginners or   just trying to get into Python in general or coding in general. And we we get really get all kinds of people in   our, support chat,   from all   everything from really old time   or old timers who have, you know, played mud for 20 years to people who have just heard about mods and thought it's not cool.   Just wanna try to do it again. So   and,   we have I should so maybe   flag a little bit. We have,   we have quite extensive documentation, which is also relatively unusual for mods in the mod world or in the text based world.  

So we have,   Wikipedia   on GitHub is   is considered, at least I've heard by by others, be pretty extensive and,   lots of tutorials   and information.   So that's also helping, of course, people to to sort of get going, hopefully.  

[01:01:41] Unknown:

So are there any fully fledged running MUDs built with Avenia out there in the wild that people can look at?  

[01:01:47] Unknown:

So,   at this point,   I'm not aware of   a fully running sort of production   level game.   There are a considerable amount of games in development,   Some of which are   actually   uses,   paid for coders, which is a big deal. So there are hopefully,   I think the,   the, the most promising ones I see are going to   launch sometime in the beginning of next year. But,   overall, there are large number of of thing projects in the in the works, but, none that I know that are   in full production. We have actually   initialized our own   sort of,   gaming project to, to call, I never, which are, which is meant to serve as   a breeding ground for all these various code systems that could help to   people who want a little bit more,   code to work from than the relatively   bare bones   game that that the that the core of any offers.  

But that that's a project that is ongoing.  

[01:02:58] Unknown:

That's great.   And 1 last thing. Is there are there any areas in particular in your project that you would like to welcome the community contribute to, areas that you could use some help?  

[01:03:10] Unknown:

So,   well,   I should really   be mentioning the community in general because of course you have lots of people who are involved   in working on Evania.   And, many have contributed a lot, a lot.   In my case, I'm fine that I am not really that much of a web developer.   I'm more of a core of   a of   a core coder,   in that sense. So,   people helping with,   things like,   the the interface in of of a default client or,   you know, following proper web web standards in in in the in the   files and so on that, that's something which is,   highly appreciated. And I have gotten some, some good help with this, but it could really need more inputs from,   web developers and people, you know, skilled with the   use of proper   modern techniques   and so on in in creating web pages and,   and so on. So that that's certainly a point which I   noted, recognize my   my own sort of lack of of experience.  



[01:04:21] Unknown:

And so are there any questions that we didn't ask you that you think we should have or any topics that you wanted to bring up before we move to the picks?  

[01:04:28] Unknown:

Well,   yeah. No. So   it's interesting because as me   personally, I mean, I've quoted quite a lot in, in, in,   professionally.   I must say that at least for me personally,   coding something like Avanya,   it's actually   very useful for me as well, also for helping my own private programming skills.   Because   in making code   that is intended to be read by others,   that is a very, very useful exercise. And,   I mean, we have really tried hard to make Vania   as PEP PEP 8   compliant as possible.   We have   comments on every function and class,   and so on and so on. So we really tried hard to make   the core of Avania   as well documented   and readable as possible. And this is   I can really recommend this for for any anyone who want to to improve their their coding skills,   just to   make something that you expect others to, you know, look at and   and try to understand.  

So because, I mean, the this is all critical for for something like where you have   the developers are supposed to look at your code and figure out how things hang together.   And it also helps a lot for trying to   not having to spend all the time   explaining verbally what you actually were thinking   when people want to use this. So that that's actually something which I really want to fight for to to for people to consider to make,   something that people are intended to to actually read and understand. So that that's been very useful for me personally and professionally,   to do that.  



[01:06:20] Unknown:

So I guess with that, we'll move on to our picks.   I'll start us off. So the first pick is 1 that I actually found today called libraries dot io, And it's a way for you to   keep track of the various open source libraries that you either just want to stay up to date with or ones that you use in your projects. And it will actually let you know   when there are new releases for those different libraries.   So for instance, it would be a good way to   upload   or track all the libraries that you're using in your requirements dot text for a given project and get alerts whenever 1 of those whenever 1 of those dependencies   has an upgrade.  

My next pick is the JSON API spec.   It's a very good spec that has a decent middle ground of good structure while also remaining flexible. So definitely worth checking out at JSONAPI   dot org.   And along with that, there's the Marshmallow   marshalling library for Python that makes it really easy to   create class instances that can have particular   methods that will do various mutations or   for serializing or deserializing your objects. So it makes it very easy to   create   an interface for a specific API.   So   that is it for me today. Chris, what have you got?  

[01:07:40] Unknown:

So my first pick is the latest John Scalzi book in the Old Man's War series, which I really enjoy. It's   good, entertaining science fiction. This book is called The End of All Things.   If you like science fiction   and you like science fiction with a wry sense of humor, you should definitely be reading this series.   My next pick is a thing from   a maker of teas   and purveyor of teas called David's Tea   which just recently came into the Boston area. I guess it's a Canadian chain, but you can buy this stuff online, too.   And they make this incredible   tea steeper.  

It's this plastic,   BPA free plastic   thing.   I don't quite know how to rephrase it,   that fits over your teacup or mug or whatever or glass.   And it can be used for making hot tea. You put loose tea in the top and then pour your water in. And there's like a little strainer that,   works,   when you lift lift the thing up.   It's it's really it's a really clever mechanism. So you can you can sit it on your glass and let it steep. And then, when you're ready for it to pour,   you lift up and the the,   the stopper moves automatically. And the tea goes through it, a filter. The water goes through a filter, so you don't get any of the grounds.   And the other amazing little thing about this is that it's equally awesome at making iced tea with your own tea on the fly.  

So if you're like me and you drink a lot of different herbal teas, you can make an awesome glass of herbal iced tea with no muss, no fuss, just as easy as you would a glass of hot tea in a matter of a couple of minutes. It is delightful.   My 3rd pick is,   Tracy Osborne who we had here on the show previously, limedarling on on Twitter,   is doing a kickstarter right now for a sequel book to her awesome Hello Web App book on learning the beginnings of of, Django for people who are not familiar with programming or web programming.   I've been programming for years, but I am   still have not been able to wrap my brain around web programming.  

And Hello Web App is the closest I've come thus far. I really loved this book.   It's very concise.   It says exactly what you needed to say and does not take you on all kinds of tangents.   It's just incredible. And she's doing a kickstarter   for a sequel to that called Hello Web App Intermediate Concepts.   I'm really excited. I backed the project and so should you because she's a great author and she does a lot for the community and she's doing great work.   And that's about it for me. Grits, what do you have for us?  

[01:10:29] Unknown:

Well, I   well, if when it comes to Python modules, I   I guess I should,   I doubt that many people who are using Fortran   in this user group, but,   the F2 pi,   library or module,   it's actually   something I recommend.   If you ever want to deal with Fortran, this is the thing to do it and use it from, from Python.   Also,   to stick with the theme here.   I have a, it's a book   and if you are into   text gaming or any sort of world design,   you'll probably know this 1. But there,   there is a book called, Designing Virtual Worlds by Rachel Bartle.   So this is really   something I recommend if you're at all interested   in creating your own games. It not doesn't necessarily have to be mud,   even though Richard Bartle is 1 of the co creators of the original game, Mud.  

But this is really a lot of interesting stuff for anyone interested in creating an online world,   virtual world of any form. It's a lot of   inspiration to have there.   And,   finally,   why not take a peek at the, at the various   places that are   dealing with with muds out in the wild. So,   there is, for example,   a place called imaginary realities, which is an e sign on mud design.   And there's also something called optional realities, which is a mud development forum, which is relatively recently started. And it's it's I say it because it started by 1 of the people who are developing a game in the venue. So,   I'm familiar with it. There are plenty of other mud related forums out there, but I should guess that should I guess shout out or people   will wonder what I why I didn't mention.  



[01:12:30] Unknown:

Excellent. Well, we really appreciate you taking the time to join us today. And for anybody who wants to keep track of what you are up to and what is happening with the avenia project? What would be the best way for them to do that?  

[01:12:43] Unknown:

So the avenia.com   website   has,   feeds from all the various aspects of,   of Avania. So including,   my dev blog,   the latest forum discussions   and updates in the code and issues and so on.   Otherwise,   the the code itself is available via   GitHub, the repository   on on GitHub.   So, yeah. And also, of course, we   we we are on IRC   on I on this avenia   at the free node IRC   network.   So drop in and say hi.   It's usually people around.  

[01:13:24] Unknown:

Well, thank you very much, and I'm sure everybody's gonna enjoy listening to this episode. And I, we appreciate you coming on the show. So hope you enjoy the rest of your day. No problem. Thank you.