MUDHACKER: Uplink and EVE had a baby and you can steal all its stuff

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > MUDHACKER: Uplink and EVE had a baby and you can steal all its stuff

SCROTEBUSTIN: Sep 2, 2008; "the asslicker" of fyad

HACKMUD
IT'S CALLED HACKMUD
I'M SO EMBARRASSED

please ignore my shitter post history

Let's talk about game of the year 2016: HACKMUD

Do you like terminal-based hackers?
Do you like MUDs?
Do you like games with a strong social/human/communal aspect?
Do you like games where you can script poo poo? Like with a javascript editor?

Some dude made a text adventure in the game. You can rob other players and steal their poo poo, edit and implement scripts into the game, crazy stuff like that. Backstabbing, scamming, robbery, etc. are all encouraged. There are already several scripts that will just empty your money into the creator's account when you run them. They're labelled stuff like "supercracker".

One user has made a collection of public scripts including a record of what he's discovered about the game so far, a basic cracking tool, a probe for dead NPC accounts, etc. You can sell scripts, services, etc. I'm still pretty new but it's amazing so far. I met some guy called Whizzard who asked if I was after gold or influence. He was cool.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/469920/

Two quick caveats:
The tutorial will take you 1-3 hours depending on if you've played these kind of games before.
The servers are having a bit of a hard time on day 2. But their capacity has increased 600% since day 1, so I feel like it's gonna be fine.

I was thinking we should start a corporation. I'll do it when the server comes back from maintenance (presumably upgrading it); my in-game name is Cetacomancer. Corp name suggestions welcome.

SCROTEBUSTIN fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Sep 24, 2016

# ? Sep 24, 2016 22:16

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 7, 2024 18:53

edgeman83: Jul 13, 2003

This game does seem interesting. I played Uplink quite a bit back in the day, so this is right up my alley.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 06:06

Ben Nerevarine: Apr 14, 2006

I want to like this game but the constant timeouts haven't helped. I also beat the tutorial and it was the most anticlimactic thing imaginable, up to and including having to guess the name of a channel to even confirm that I had left the tutorial.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 06:36

Lichtenstein: May 31, 2012; It'll make sense, eventually.

Shab posted:

I want to like this game but the constant timeouts haven't helped. I also beat the tutorial and it was the most anticlimactic thing imaginable, up to and including having to guess the name of a channel to even confirm that I had left the tutorial.

It is very much the case of the dev underestimating the load on launch. He's quite working on fixing it and quite active on twitter/steam.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 08:26

Macintosh HD: Mar 9, 2004; Oh no its today

Yeah this game is very neat but the constant server issues are making getting past the tutorial to be pretty frustrating.

It kind of stinks that hardlines keep counting down during the game's server timeouts.

EDIT: The spoiler was probably unnecessary but this game is basically a multiplayer puzzle so I'm taking no chances.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 18:52

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

A lot of MUD developers underestimate the impact a highly loaded server can have on your hosting. People think because the connection is low bandwidth you don't have to optimize much, but in truth your game is an unplayable piece of rear end if you don't try to slim everything down as much as humanly possible, especially code that is displaying strings for the player

# ? Sep 25, 2016 18:54

Macintosh HD: Mar 9, 2004; Oh no its today

I don't think this is a real MUD, though.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 19:34

Concerned Citizen: Jul 22, 2007; Ramrod XTreme

Macintosh HD posted:

I don't think this is a real MUD, though.

It's definitely a real MUD. Once you get out of the vLAN, it falls pretty squarely into that category.

Per the developer, the issue is really the db server. It can't handle 400 concurrent users given the architecture - the game is written entirely in JavaScript.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 19:53

Concerned Citizen: Jul 22, 2007; Ramrod XTreme

also, cross-posting from the OTHER MUD HACK THREAD

Concerned Citizen posted:

Cool game so far, just started. This game is basically entirely JavaScript - not only is every command you type in JavaScript, but you are also able to (after leaving the vLan) create scripts that will automatically solve certain puzzles for you. This is a (very basic) script that breaks the easiest lock in the game.
code:
function(context, args)
{
	///usage ez_21{target:#s.your.target}
	var c=["open", "release", "unlock"];

	var llen = "!LOCK_UNLOCKED".length;
		
	var ret = "";
	
	var success = false;
	
	for(var k=0; k<3; k++)
	{
		///alt syntax
		/*var v = {};
		v["ez_21"]	= c[k];
		ret = args.target.call(v);*/
		
		ret = args.target.call({ez_21 : c[k]})
				
		if(ret.substr(0, llen) === "!LOCK_UNLOCKED")
		{
			success = true;
			break;
		}
	}
	
	return {ok:success, msg:ret};
}
You don't need to be a coder to play (I certainly am not) but it follows the game's basic premise that players will follow an organic class system when they join corporations. Architects are programmers, scavengers who are good puzzle solvers and hack NPCs, infiltrators specialize in PVP-oriented upgrades, and executives are the guys that organize raids. So an executive leads a corporation, the scavengers (who are meant to be the kind of person who is good at solving puzzles and plays ARGs) solves puzzles, and then hands the parameters to the architect to create scripts to break into a target.

Not that I really know how well it works yet, but still a neat concept and am looking forward to delving deeper into the game. A warning though - the server is still loving terrible and frequently errors at you.

# ? Sep 25, 2016 19:57

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

Concerned Citizen posted:

It's definitely a real MUD. Once you get out of the vLAN, it falls pretty squarely into that category.

Per the developer, the issue is really the db server. It can't handle 400 concurrent users given the architecture - the game is written entirely in JavaScript.

I wonder if he wrote it himself, because for some reason 90% of new MUD servers use the same old hacky implementations the ancient ones did for no reason

# ? Sep 25, 2016 20:04

Larry Parrish: Jul 9, 2012; by Jeffrey of YOSPOS

I just realized it's a Steam client instead of letting you connect over telnet like everything else ever. Cool. Too bad I'm broke at the moment

# ? Sep 25, 2016 20:06

Envy Insanity: Oct 2, 2003; Have gone to commit suicide. Intend to return from grave Friday. Feed cat.

I started playing this over the weekend but didn't get into it really till today because of the server issues. I just escaped the vLAN, would love to team up with a goon corp as I have no clue what I'm doing.

# ? Sep 26, 2016 12:09

Caecitas: Sep 23, 2012; Dare ye pick the wizard?

I am that Whizzard.

If any goons have made any progress with the game do feel free to drop me a PM to sort out some quality time on Steam. I'll see if I cant help where I can.

# ? Sep 27, 2016 14:38

Rapner: May 7, 2013

This is the game I've been wishing to have for like the past decade. I'm just out of the vlan and have no idea what I'm doing.

Larry Parrish posted:

I just realized it's a Steam client instead of letting you connect over telnet like everything else ever. Cool. Too bad I'm broke at the moment

It's probably for the best, if we could connect via telnet shitlords like me would find ways to automate the poo poo out of things and wreck it.

# ? Sep 27, 2016 15:44

Petanque: Apr 14, 2008; Ca va bien aller

I've been having fun. Can crack all tier 1 locks with one script, I understand (mostly) how tier 2 locks work and I'm working on some kind of automation for cracking them. Interested to see where this keeps going!

# ? Sep 28, 2016 05:34

Woodburger: Dec 5, 2004; ...Like a thousand other commanders on a thousand other battlefields, I wait for the dawn.

Bought this on release on a whim and I love it. If you aren't a programmer you can use safe(ish) cracking scripts that others create to do it for you for a nominal currency cost which is awesome. T1 scripts are easily found online but other scripts, like stealing a players money or higher level puzzles are guarded pretty intensely.

If you get out of the vLAN for gods sakes don't listen to anyone in 0000. This game is like eve in that people will take advantage of your ignorance. Many players have scripts you can run that are misspellings or 1 letter off from safe scripts. People will spam scripts in 0000 which adds them to your autocomplete list which as of now you can't manually edit or remove.

Some non-sa friends are saving up money to start a Corp so if you want to play and chat, hit me up.

Also I'd recommend joining the unofficial discord server which is listed on the subreddit, the developer idles in there and actually responds to people's questions when not putting out server fires.

# ? Sep 28, 2016 07:30

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ? May 7, 2024 18:53

Lichtenstein: May 31, 2012; It'll make sense, eventually.

Hey guy, I just want to tip you off that the other mudhack thread is the one that took off.

# ? Sep 28, 2016 08:10

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > MUDHACKER: Uplink and EVE had a baby and you can steal all its stuff