ROM  [codebase]
Merc's best-known descendant, and the combat engine a large share of nineties
MUDs were built on.

Games we have identified as running this codebase
  55 listed, 0 archived
  /games?codebase=ROM
  Measured in their handshakes: MCCP, MSSP, MXP, MSDP, GMCP, CHARSET, UTF-8

ROM — Rivers of MUD — is a derivative of Merc, which is itself a DikuMUD
derivative, and it is the one that stuck. Its combat model, its skill and spell
system and its area format were the starting point for an enormous number of
games through the nineties and after, and ROM 2.4 in particular is one of the
most-forked pieces of source in the hobby.

Like the rest of the Diku line it carries the original credits requirement, so a
game whose lineage you cannot otherwise establish will often name Diku, Merc and
ROM on its login screen.

WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE FROM OUTSIDE

MSSP, CHARSET and MCCP2, on the game we measured.

ROM is the server this project proved its own compression bug against. Our probe
negotiated MCCP2, the server correctly began compressing, and the telnet library
we depend on never inflated the stream — so the connect screen arrived as a wall
of replacement characters and we briefly recorded that as the game's fault. The
payload decompressed cleanly with a stock zlib call, which is what made it
unambiguous. It was fixed upstream; the story is on the MCCP
[/reference/protocols/mccp] page, because it is a good example of a defect that
looks exactly like a broken game from outside.

See also
  DikuMUD — /reference/codebases/dikumud
  SMAUG — /reference/codebases/smaug
  MCCP — /reference/protocols/mccp