I've had an idea recently for a Ruby project, so I figured I'd offer it up in advance in case anyone is interested.
Basically, I used to be a pretty hardcore MUD'er, doing text based RP. When I got to college I sort of gave it up, because the 'real' dungeon was more fun ;)
Anyways, I started playing WoW this summer while I had time on my hands (I know, I know....). Meanwhile I also got interested in browser-based games like Travian. I was thinking about creating my own browser based game, when I realized that LambdaMOO already has the framework for a multi-user persistent environment, and all it's really lacking is a modern programming language/user interface.
All this said, I thought it would be interesting to create a Ruby shell to a LambdaMOO server! It seems like this old Ruby quiz is a good jumping off point.
Note that I'm not talking about a MUD/MOO/M* client, but rather a Ruby shell for the game environment itself. Basically using Ruby as a bridge to the MOO programming language, to help a new generation of
hackers discover the joy in manipulating an object oriented shared environment.
I think Ruby is especially good for this task because of EverythingIsAnObject, which is the philosophy of LambdaMOO to begin with. If you think of the LambdaMOO server as Moonix, this project would be about porting Ruby to it. :)
I've already got a prototype on OS X that uses the Telnet standard library and connects via a Unix Domain Socket (I compiled LambdaMOO to use file sockets instead of net sockets).


One mushroom makes you larger, and one mushroom makes you small....