7000gp per credit? You're over-paying.

7k is assuming that credit prices go up as I'm raising money. I don't intend on spending all of that.

Technically what happens then? Considered "abandonware" and open source for continued development? Or would someone take up the mantle and charge per credit fees for updates? I haven't been around to see a "system" run until it looses support from the chief developer.

I'll open-source it, so either someone could take it up, or multiple people could.

Tradition here is for systems to die (as far as public usage goes) once the chief developer stops.

Paid or unpaid, it all ends up the same. A prime example: Palisade.

There's also Catarin's cMud system (which Desitrus tried to keep up on but gave up), Forren's cMud system, and Ethelon's AG whenever he takes a break.

Treant's headed the same way, I'm sure.

The only one that really didn't was Thorgal's, which went through a number of hands as each developer that took it over made updates and passed it on to the next one. I think it went through four hands before it finally collapsed.

I know I never got my support and maintenance credits back on Treant, despite only receiving one update (which contained as its main fix one that I sent to him in regards to aeon curing not even having a fail-safe timer, which I had already self-coded). And having paid for two users because I didn't want to short-shrift another developer.

That's just the way things go. Either have to maintain it by yourself at that point or try to find someone else who will, and consider any investment as a relatively minor cost to make life easier instead of a loss. This is easier if the system is pretty functional on the whole, so you can keep running on it for a few years past the 'expiration date'.

Edit: As a note, I've actually paid for most of these systems mentioned above. I'm a bit of a system collector.

I think you mean "credits back on Palisade," since I'm pretty sure you didn't pay for anything related to Treant. That system was maintained for a good two years, though, so I don't feel like anyone was ripped off. Never had anyone ask for a refund, anyway.

I've been lead/only developer of five different combat systems for two games, and they all just kinda sit once I'm done with them. Even the one that had a SourceForge repository with a half dozen developers on the project didn't go anywhere when I was done with it, since no one but me ever contributed any working code. I guess a few people did tweak the one system after I threw it out there for everyone, but I didn't follow those updates. It's really not so easy learning and maintaining someone else's code, generally speaking.

I was a big system collector myself, buying what was available to study the code a little and learn how others tackled things. Incidentally, don't purchase any Vadi system if that's your intent. Buy it to use it, but you don't get the source code with it.

Yup, my systems aren't designed as learning tools, sorry. Maybe just feature-wise they are

Yes, I do mean Palisade.

Honestly, my biggest issue with the whole experience is that you didn't even warn me you were switching off of it shortly but took my credits anyways for a pair of systems with maintenance and updates. I bought it near the end of that two-year period. Like I said, one update, primarily fixing an issue that I had already fixed.

That said, it's not like I haven't gotten good use out of the thing since then. It's not really about the credits, just the principle of the thing.

Also, I think part of it is that I'm used to systems where the developer disappears and stops playing; the whole "I'm still here, you paid for it, but I'm just ending the support and maintenance arbitrarily now" thing is just a bit more awkward to me. Especially when it's not about lack of time (just moving that time investment to a completely different system).

(Sorry for the /divert! It was mostly intended to be a point about lack of system updates once the primary developer moves on. With, I will admit, a dash of personal experience thrown in. However, I cannot PM explanations / responses to you, so I suppose there's not a better place for it.)

I am also holding off on Vadi-purchase. However, the main reason is not lack of source. I do not wish to lose my map. That, and distaste for change / rewriting all my personalized code!

As to the map, you're aware that mudlet's current pre-release version has a mapper, which comes with everything that is already mapped in the ingame MAP with it, pathfinding, room name searches, and the like? It's quite useful, and doesn't crash like the code i did finally manage to turn up for the lusternia port of the IMAP implementation did. Mostly seemed to happen on the gold color which denotes demigods in qw, which would turn up other places as well... I think it's because it considered it a room name or some such.

Regardless, Mudlet has some really good map capabilities now, if you use the current beta/prerelease version, and they're growing quite quickly... As for the rewriting all the personalized code/distaste for change, well... I can totally understand that.

The map is pretty sweet.

I've been busy porting over all my scripts the past few days too, kind of a hassle, but it's all good

Nice

Lulz. Didn't even notice that master was room number 1337.

come2glom.

By 'no source code', do you mean that users can't edit the system themselves (I.E. if there's a faulty trigger, they can't fix it themselves)? Or that the scripting backbone (mapper functions, etc) can't be edited, but all the world aliases and triggers that call said backbone can be edited?

Functions can't be edited, so if I understand your question, the latter.

Functions actually cannot be edited? Or functions shouldn't be edited, and if you edit them and the thing breaks, you'll get zero sympathy or support?

You can make your own functions, but you can't edit the m&m's.

What's the reasoning behind that, and how is it prevented?

Yeah, I am aware.

The problem is that it is not my map, which has the rooms that I have personally visited on it (and nothing that I haven't).

Being a bit of an explorer, that's kind of important to me.

The code (not including triggers, aliases, etc, of course) is in a single Lua module that has been encoded in binary. An interesting process, and I wish I knew how he did it so I could play around with that myself.

You can add your own triggers if they are missing, although it would make more sense to notify me. Functions cannot be edited (although you can of course delete them, and 'break' it that way - why would you I'm not sure. Fixing is easy though).

What is editable is what needs to be editable. The core system should work just fine - if it does not, it's a bug, and I'll fix it. If you want to edit your priorities, you can do that just fine - you can even script it to edit them on the fly as you need it depending on conditions you set. You can edit defence defup, keepup, and a host of options (use this skill/artefact or not, etc.).

So in general, it's not 'oh this is a useless wooden block' as people are making it out to sound like. It's just made to make your life easier by not forcing you to fix things which you shouldn't be forced to fix. Oh, and the reasoning behind that is that from my experience in Achaea, it just makes everyone around a whole lot happier if they get a functioning, working system they don't have to fiddle with. I did add way more fiddling capabilities to m&m though for things that matter.