Text-based RPG: A Cleaner Session?

hydraMax · 10-24-2011, 11:39 PM

Recently I started playing Lost Souls, a text-based RPG. I use a simple telnet client from a Gnome terminal. It is fun, but the only annoying thing is that whenever I start typing something, some other text pops up, and my command gets split over several lines. I was curious if there was a Linux telnet client or other tool that had a separate box for entering input -- so you could avoid getting it mixed in with the other text until you hit ENTER.

sundialsvcs · 10-25-2011, 08:30 AM

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.
> NORTH
You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all different.
> BECOME ADDICTED
Done.

>

http://www.ifarchive.org

You absolutely do not want to get into this unless you have positively nothing else to do with your life for, say, the next three weeks solid. "Eat in advance." This pasttime is notably incompatible with final exams. (Trust me on this.) If you introduce such games to your girlfriend, you will soon discover that she is much better at playing them than you are. (Trust me also on this.)

hydraMax · 10-26-2011, 01:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sundialsvcs

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all different.
> NORTH
You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all different.
> BECOME ADDICTED
Done.

>

http://www.ifarchive.org

You absolutely do not want to get into this unless you have positively nothing else to do with your life for, say, the next three weeks solid. "Eat in advance." This pasttime is notably incompatible with final exams. (Trust me on this.) If you introduce such games to your girlfriend, you will soon discover that she is much better at playing them than you are. (Trust me also on this.)

Wow, thanks for wasting my zero reply status by completely ignoring my question. Even the link you gave is broken.

Nominal Animal · 10-26-2011, 04:10 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hydraMax

Recently I started playing Lost Souls, a text-based RPG. I use a simple telnet client from a Gnome terminal. It is fun, but the only annoying thing is that whenever I start typing something, some other text pops up, and my command gets split over several lines. I was curious if there was a Linux telnet client or other tool that had a separate box for entering input -- so you could avoid getting it mixed in with the other text until you hit ENTER.

I'm not aware of anything that exactly matches your description.

On the other hand, a quick hack might just do the trick: use two terminals, one for the commands, and the other for the game output.

In the "game" terminal, create a FIFO and cat it to the terminal:

Code:

mkfifo -m 0600 lostsouls ; clear ; cat lostsouls

In the "command" terminal, start the telnet connection, but redirect output to the FIFO, and thus to the other terminal:

Code:

clear ; telnet -L lostsouls.org > lostsouls

The -L option should give you color ANSI output. (It does for me, but I use xfce4-terminal.)

ntubski · 10-26-2011, 09:18 AM

I think you should be looking for a MUD client. I don't have a specific suggestion because it's been a while since I've played any MUDs.

hydraMax · 10-26-2011, 11:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nominal Animal

I'm not aware of anything that exactly matches your description.

On the other hand, a quick hack might just do the trick: use two terminals, one for the commands, and the other for the game output.

In the "game" terminal, create a FIFO and cat it to the terminal:

Code:

mkfifo -m 0600 lostsouls ; clear ; cat lostsouls

In the "command" terminal, start the telnet connection, but redirect output to the FIFO, and thus to the other terminal:

Code:

clear ; telnet -L lostsouls.org > lostsouls

The -L option should give you color ANSI output. (It does for me, but I use xfce4-terminal.)

Thanks. Seems to be working great.

hydraMax · 10-27-2011, 10:15 AM

Code:

The brown female giant rat connects adequately and chews on your chest with its mouth.

The brown female giant rat kicks at you with its left forepaw, connects adequately and wallops your left
foot.

Your left foot is torn off.

A brown female giant rat's left forepaw is thumped by the impact.

The brown female giant rat kicks at you with its left forepaw, connects adequately and bashes your right
arm and right hand.

A brown female giant rat's left forepaw is thumped by the impact.

The brown female giant rat connects indifferently and chews on your right arm with its mouth.

Your right arm and right hand are bitten off.

The brown female giant rat barely connects and bites your right leg with its mouth.

The brown female giant rat connects reasonably well and bites your chest with its mouth.

You have been mortally wounded and will die soon if not aided.

The brown female giant rat kicks at you with its left forepaw, connects adequately and pounds your head.

You have been stunned by the pain and trauma.

The area goes dark.

The world goes silent.

Your attempt to flee has been stopped.

You attempt to flee southward, but cannot.

Some blood flows from your chest.

You are stunned.

Your hearing returns.

Something connects adequately and chews on your chest with its mouth, despite your attempt to dodge.

[ Spirit: 475 Endurance: 409.1/426 Speed: 10 Head: 3.3/35 Chest: -18.9/77 ]

Your wounds are too severe to fight.

You attempt to flee northward, but cannot.

Some blood flows from your chest.

You are stunned.

The world comes back into focus.

Your body fails to obey you.
>
The brown female giant rat kicks at you with its left forepaw, connects adequately and wallops your left
leg.

A brown female giant rat's left forepaw is thumped by the impact.

You die.

You feel yourself floating away from your body.

frieza · 10-27-2011, 11:35 AM

not exactly useful if you don't tell us what program is generating that output.
did you try any programs designed specifically as mud clients rather than just a generic telnet? not all terminals are built the same, a generic telnet session isn't designed necessarily to handle the ANSII characters and escape sequences sent by the mud server whereas mud clients are. Just because it uses the telnet protocol doesn't mean it works properly with all telnet clients.

hydraMax · 10-27-2011, 12:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frieza

not exactly useful if you don't tell us what program is generating that output.
did you try any programs designed specifically as mud clients rather than just a generic telnet? not all terminals are built the same, a generic telnet session isn't designed necessarily to handle the ANSII characters and escape sequences sent by the mud server whereas mud clients are. Just because it uses the telnet protocol doesn't mean it works properly with all telnet clients.

I'm sorry, I didn't think you would take it seriously. The two-terminal solution has been working great. However, I am still an RPG newbie and my first character ended-up getting owned by a giant rat. I just posted the last few lines of my brutal death via a furry sewer-dwelling creature.

It's great fun.

frieza · 10-27-2011, 02:42 PM

ok, didn't catch that... good luck

hydraMax · 10-27-2011, 07:38 PM

I should probably mention (for posterity's sake): The only problem I've had with the solution given by Nominal Animal is that the server is sent the terminal size information belonging to the input terminal (i.e., the terminal I type into). The RPG software then makes assumptions based on that size, such as how much text to page you at once. It would be more ideal if server received the terminal size information of the output terminal, because then I could make the output terminal really large and the input terminal really small, which is more of what I originally had in mind.

EDIT: But in Lost Souls, at least, you can manually set the terminal rows and columns from the main menu, so that isn't really a problem.

hydraMax · 11-14-2011, 02:02 AM

I don't normally like reopening my old threads, but I just wanted to say that I gave tt++ a try and it is pretty useful. Aside from a #split command (for splitting i/o areas) it also has a lot of other helpful features, like alias syntax and history searching, that are pretty cool.