 Welcome to...


       -- The LPUni Mudlib --
           ALPHA-0607-R6

  i) Introduction
 ii) The team
iii) Whats new?
 iv) Known issues
  v) Plans/Goals/Todo
 vi) Conclusion

i) Introduction

Hello Everyone,

Well, it has been a long 4 or so months since the last release
and a lot has certainly been happening here at LPUniversity.
Our website has almost literally exploded with activity and
interest in LPUniversity is on the rise daily. Regardless of
all the activity, we've managed to bring you another good release.
Well... To be honest, I was hoping for that we'd be able to jam
a bit more into this release but there is always next time, right?
And even if we weren't able to get _everything_ in, I think you'll
enjoy what we have accomplished for this release.

On another level, a more administrative level, the lpuni mudlib
project has grown. We now have a few individuals (who I'll mention
a bit later) who are dedicated developers of the LPUniversity Mudlib
(and as such, you'll start to notice a few new names in header files
besides my own). Personally, I'm very pleased with how things are working
out and the effects of this growth will most certainly be felt in the
next release of the mudlib. Specifically, I'd like to thank Parthenon
for all his hard work.

Another benefit of this growth is that there will be a lot more planning
and information available about the next release. Infact, keep your eyes
pealed on http://lpuni.org for information regarding a meeting that will
be occuring shortly after this release (ie. a few days) to discuss the
focus of the next release.

Anyhow, I think I've chit-chatted long enough - I'll let you get to the good
stuff. However, before I go I just want to encourage you to get involved
at http://lpuni.org - the more the merrier.

Anyhow - Thanks once again for taking an interest in LPUniversity.

Cody A.W. Somerville
Executive Officer LPUniversity
Director of Research, Education, and Development

ii) The team

This release was brought to you by:

Tacitus, Parthenon, Abbot, Namir, Eugenides, Berun, Ummu, Vicore, Malak, Magic,
Letrum, Kugrian, Berun, Icoz, Byre, Tricky, Gwegster, Jhereg, Psycluded,
and Johndoe.

I'd also like to thank everyone who has taken the time to
give me advice, guidance, and feedack.

In perticular, big thanks to Tim, Cratylus, Shigs, and Daos.

** Special big thanks to Parthenon for all his help and support. **

iii) Whats new?

This is just a small release but the major changes include:

	o Major improvements to intermud service
	o Improvements to command parsing
	o New commands include reply, version, sockinfo, relogin, people, and beep
	o Several improvements to room inheritables
	o Ability to set start_location for developers
	o Improvements to user object
	o User object refractored
	o Several improvements to simul-efuns
	o Item highlighting in room descriptions
	o Improvements to login daemon
	o Directory structure updated
	o NPC framework
	o Link-dead management added
	o Refractored pinkfish parsing
	o Added pinkfish support to login daemon
	o New, much more powerful emote command
	o Several memory leaks fixed
	o Added ability to auto tune into channels
	o Added ability to disable debug output
	o Improved security
	o Soul daemon
	o New edemote command to manage soul daemon database
	o Huge improvement to 'help' system
	o New and improved 'who' command
	o New and improved 'force' command
	o Improvements to file system manipulation commands
	o Update will now move you back to the room you updated
	o Added ability to ignore pinkfish
	o Access command not operational
	o New announce channnel module
	o Smaller windows package
	o Driver support for gcc4.0
	o Improved documentation (finally!)
	o And _many_ many many bug fixs

iv) Known issues

 - File system manipulation commands aren't fully functional
 - get_char() efun doesn't work correctly (driver bug)
 - Poor-Fair documentation
 - I3 client is beta software and isn't fully functional
 - Look command has several bugs (will be rewritten)
 - I3 module does not auto-reconnect
 - Shutdown reboots mud in Windows

Since this is only the 6th release, there are bound to be
many more bugs and issues. Please report them to
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpuni to help make
LPUniversity Mudlib better.

v) Plans/Goals/Todo

LPUni has many goals and aspirations that have yet
to be furfilled because, to put it simply, we are just
starting out. In the next release, we plan to have
some of the following:

 - More administrative tools
 - More functional standard commands
 - More support for areas
 - Revamped and enhanced security
 - More in-mud developer support
 - Much more documentation and support
 - New Help system
 - FTP server
 - and much much more!

Somethings we want to place in longterm:

 o RCIL (Interpreted language)
 o WMS (Wizard management tools)
 o Enhanced client-server interaction protocals (ie. mcp/mxp)
 o Mudmin (A web based mud administration tool)
 o Many web based of web interacting tools
 o And much much more!

vi) Conclusion

It is important to note that LPUni is still in very early stages
of development. We thank the brave who have came out to test it for
us. If you are interested in helping out, then feel free to contact us.
You might also like to note that you can upload patches, plugins, add-ons,
and other contributions through our sourceforge.net project page using the
patch tracker.

Need quick support? Use the 'lpuni' channel! :)

Trackers can be foudn at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/lpuni

You can find our website at: http://lpuni.org

If you are looking for mudOS, you can download it at:

http://www.mudos.org

Thanks,

Cody A.W. Somerville (Tacitus)

E-mail: cody.somervile@lpuni.com
