save command

[tortall]

I wanted to bump this because the topic has come up among players again. I felt this was the thread that best answered questions.

[Xygax]

Here's the reason we don't do this.

The current structure of the MUD's zone database is such that each room is recorded in a huge file with all the other rooms in that zone.  In other words, its contents are serialized in a giant lump with every other item in that zone.

Code Select Expand

-rw-r--r-- 1 mud mud 6942916 Dec 11 11:27 /armag/lib/cmds/z3.cmd
-rw-r--r-- 1 mud mud 7943146 Dec 11 11:27 /armag/lib/cmds/z13.cmd
-rw-r--r-- 1 mud mud 2266014 Dec 11 11:27 /armag/lib/cmds/z33.cmd
-rw-r--r-- 1 mud mud  458841 Dec 11 11:27 /armag/lib/cmds/z73.cmd

For most of these zones, then, typing save would require writing a multi-megabyte file.  As it is, there is already a noticeable pause when these zones save in the game.  Allowing players to cause that pause would allow a downright denial-of-service attack.

For 2.arm, the situation will be drastically improved, but for now, it's a bit too much to tackle for Arm.

A few years ago, I wrote code to allow the saving of a single room, and even that code is extremely tricky because it tries to -avoid- capturing the state of other rooms, and it still must read/write the contents of all the other rooms in the zone before and after this one, to maintain our DB structure.

-- X

[tortall]

Stuff

Yup, that's why I wanted to bump it. Because this thread explained WHY it didn't work, rather than hashing it out yet again.

[Halcyon]

I was previously an admin on a mud with save enabled on every room.  It required a large, regular amount of cleanup to prevent players from being packrats, or abusing various things, to the tune of manually removing 10-15k objects.  There was an option for an automated cleanup janitor, but it caused its own set of problems.

[fourTwenty]

I was previously an admin on a mud with save enabled on every room.  It required a large, regular amount of cleanup to prevent players from being packrats, or abusing various things, to the tune of manually removing 10-15k objects.  There was an option for an automated cleanup janitor, but it caused its own set of problems.

My current PC has been called a packkank.

[brytta.leofa]

I was previously an admin on a mud with save enabled on every room.  It required a large, regular amount of cleanup to prevent players from being packrats, or abusing various things, to the tune of manually removing 10-15k objects.  There was an option for an automated cleanup janitor, but it caused its own set of problems.

'Twould be interesting to have things coded such that objects were almost never destroyed (remove the junk command, etc.)...   
...or created.

- Armchair Critic