Caelestia.net: Wikis

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Caelestia.net is an IRC network that focuses on games and the gaming community. Caelestia.net evolved as the offspring of JEOCOM, which itself is the offspring of the older DreamMyst IRC Network. This evolution was more or less organic as staff members from each of the networks continued chatting amongst themselves.

Codebase

Caelestia.net's codebase is UnrealIRCD, and its services set is based on Anope. However several customized modules added to extend this functionality based on Caelestia.net's prior codebase Farpoint which was based upon earlier versions of UnrealIRCD. Farpoint maintains a project at sourceforge designed to provide tools for games and gaming via IRC including the aforementioned modules.

Distinguishing and/or Unusual Features

The network's central and most distinguishing feature's are in some way related to gaming in its various forms. Many of these gaming features are role-playing game or Computer role-playing game related.

RPGServ

Among these features is RPGServ, an integrated dice service that provides a network-wide facility for rolling dice for roleplaying games, which remain a central focus of the network . This service exists in its current form only on Caelestia.net, though an older rendition based on IRCServices 4 can also be found on MagicStar where the head coder of Caelestia.net still officially serves as staff. Mystical IRC Network once maintained an older version of the code which was released to it during a dispute between the founders of DreamMyst and the then WorldIRC network founder Tech. Mystical however, has subsequently stopped providing the RPGServ service.

Other RPG Features

In addition to RPGServ, Caelestia.net utilizes modules which extend UnrealIRCD in somewhat unique ways. For instance the m_roleplay module, part of the Farpoint Networks Project, provides facilities for channel operators allowing them to speak and emote as a non-player character. These pseudousers are marked by having an underlined nickname, which is disallowed as part of a user nickname.

The same module also provides the ability to send messages as the environment, similar to the emit command on muds and moos. These messages appear to come from the pseudouser >Ambiance<. Angle brackets are also disallowed in normal nicknames.

Historical Importance

Historically, Caelestia.net and its predecessors have often served as the chat network for various computer games that chose not to run their own server. During the height of DreamMyst IRC Network, the network served as the official chat location for several games including Fallout 2, PlaneScape: Torment, and Baldur's Gate.

Currently Caelestia.net serves a similar function for two gaming communities:

ArtixEntertainment, publisher of the popular web games AdventureQuest, a lunch break sized flash game that has consistently grown in usership over the past year and half, and DragonFable, a direct conquel as well as ArchKnight and several other minigames.

Popular Virtual Pet site Subeta<sup>[1203]</sup>