MUD Game Programming (Premier Press Game Development)

Chapter 16. The Networking System

Since more than half of this book is dedicated to networking, you must be completely bored with the topic by now. Nevertheless, networking is an extremely important part of MUD programming, and the job must get done. Networking code doesn't just write itself.

Because I've covered networking so extensively before, I'm not going to delve too deeply into it in this chapter. I would like to give you a brief overview of the major concepts involved in the networking system of the BetterMUD, and then move on to the more interesting topics. In this chapter, you will learn to:

• Design a more robust and flexible networking layer

• Abstract reporting events to your clients in a non-specific manner

• Create a flexible color coding system that doesn't require a specific protocol

• Convert colors from the flexible system to VT-100 color codes

• Understand how the BetterMUD logon process works

• Understand how the BetterMUD menu system works

• Implement a Telnet reporter