MUD

In computer gaming, a 'MUD' ('Multi-User Dungeon', 'Domain' or 'Dimension') is a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games and social chat rooms. Typically running on a bulletin board system or Internet server, the game is usually text driven, where players read descriptions of rooms, objects, events, other characters, and computer-controlled creatures or non-player characters (NPCs) in a virtual world. Players usually interact with each other and the surroundings by typing commands that resemble a natural language, usually English.
Traditional MUDs implement a fantasy world populated by elves, goblins, dwarves, halflings and other mythical or fantasy-based races with players being able to take on any number of classes, including warriors, mages, priests, thieves, druids, etc., in order to gain specific skills or powers. The object of the game is to slay monsters, explore a rich fantasy world, to complete quests, go on adventures, create a story by roleplaying, and/or advance the created character. Many MUDs were fashioned around the dice rolling rules of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) series of games.
MUDs often have a fantasy setting, while many others are set in a science fiction-based universe or themed on popular books, movies, animations, history, etc. Still others, especially those which are often referred to as MOOs, are used in distance education or to allow for virtual conferences. MUDs have also attracted the interest of academic scholars from many fields, including communications, sociology, law, and synthetic economies.
Most MUDs are run as hobbies and are free to players; some may accept donations or allow players to "purchase" in-game items. There are also many professionally developed MUDs which charge a monthly subscription fee.

Contents

History

Prehistory

MUD the game

Commercialisation and spread

TinyMUD and diversification

MUDs: Next Phase?

Variations on MUDs

Graphical MUDs

Talkers and spods

Role-play intensive MUDs

Player-Killing MUDs

Psychology of MUDs

See also

References

External links

MUD History & Analysis

Mud source code repositories

History

Prehistory

The first games which might today be recognised as MUDs appeared in 1977 on the PLATO system. In Europe at around the same time, MUD development was centered around academic networks, particularly at the University of Essex where they were played by many people, both internal and external to the University. In this context, it has been said that MUD stands for "Multi-Undergrad Destroyer" or "Multiple Undergraduate Destroyer" due to their popularity among college students and the amount of time devoted to the MUD by the student. The popularity of MUDs of the Essex University tradition escalated in the USA during the 1980s, when — relatively speaking — cheap, home personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled role players to log into multi-line BBSes and online service providers such as Compuserve.

MUD the game

The first known MUD was created in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University on a DEC PDP-10 in the UK, using initially MACRO-10 (an assembly language) and, later, rewritten in BCPL; also used was a database description language, MUDDL.^[1] They chose the acronym ''MUD'' to stand for ''Multi-User Dungeon'',^[2] in reference to another PDP-10 game called ''Dungeon'' (or ''DUNGEN'' due to the six character filename limit), which was later commercially released by Infocom under the original development code name ''Zork''. ''Zork'' in turn was inspired by an older text-adventure game known as ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' or ''ADVENT''. The classic game ''MIST'' (also part of Essex University MUD) which could be played from any computer connected to JANET (a European academic network), became one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity.^[3]
''Oubliette'', written by Jim Schwaiger, and published on the PLATO system predated ''MUD1'' by about a year. It was so difficult that one could not play it alone: in order for players to survive, they had to run in groups. While ''Oubliette'' was a multi-player game, there was no persistence to the game world. Following it, also on PLATO, was a game called ''Moria'' written in 1977, copyright 1978. Again, players could run in parties but in this game it was also possible to effectively play while only running one character. They were graphical in nature and very advanced for their time, but were proprietary programs that were unable to spread beyond PLATO. Textual worlds, which typically ran on Unix, VMS, or DOS, were now far more accessible to the public.
Another early MUD was ''Avatar'', began around 1977 and opened in 1979, written by Bruce Maggs, Andrew Shapira, and Dave Sides, all high school students using the PLATO system at the University of Illinois. This MUD was 2.5-D game running on 512x512 plasma panels of the PLATO system, and groups of up to 15 players could enter the dungeon simultaneously and fight monsters as a team. Avatar, with by far the most hours played of any PLATO game, is still running, playable by anyone, on the emulated mainframe at www.cyber1.org and via the NovaNET NPT service.
In the late 1970s there were numerous other PLATO games which were MUD-like, in various stages of development, some open, some never opened. Some were essentially single-player games but had some multi-player interaction such as communication and shared halls of fame. These games influenced the development of more well known PLATO MUDs such as Avatar and Oubliette. Then, these games were referred to as 'dungeon games'. Around this time, at least 10 people, and probably many times this number of people, quite possibly 100, were actively working on MUD games on PLATO. There was a sizeable community developing these games. It was common to see two to five people sitting side by side and working on different MUD games in room 165 or the author room of University of Illinois's CERL building. Many non-MUD games also came from this environment, such as empire and airfight.

Commercialisation and spread

In 1978, Alan E. Klietz wrote a game called ''Milieu'' using Multi-Pascal on a CDC Cyber, which was used by high school students in Minnesota for educational purposes. Klietz ported ''Milieu'' to an IBM XT in 1983, naming the new port ''Scepter of Goth'' (also spelled ''Sceptre of Goth''). ''Scepter'' supported 10 to 16 simultaneous users, typically connecting in by modem. It was one of the first commercial MUDs, as franchises were sold to a number of locations. ''Scepter'' (as well as unfinished advanced MUD by Klietz called ''ScreenPlay'') was first owned and run by GamBit (of Minneapolis, Minnesota), founded by Bob Alberti. GamBit's assets, including ''Scepter'' and ''ScreenPlay'', were then sold to InterPlay (of Fairfax, Virginia). InterPlay eventually went bankrupt, making ''Scepter'' no longer available. In 1984, Mark Peterson wrote ''The Realm of Angmar'', beginning as a clone of ''Sceptre of Goth''.
In 1984, ''Mark Jacobs'' created and deployed a commercial gaming site, ''Gamers World''. The site featured two games coded and designed by Jacobs, a MUD called ''Aradath'' (which was later renamed, upgraded and ported to ''GEnie'' as ''Dragon's Gate'') and a 4X sci-fiction game called ''Galaxy'' which was also ported to ''GEnie''. At its peak the site had about 100 monthly subscribers to both Aradath and Galaxy and it was shut down in the late 80s.
These text-adventure games (both single and multi-player) drew inspiration from the paper-and-pencil based role-playing games (RPGs) which were approaching their peak popularity at this time, especially with the release of ''Advanced Dungeons & Dragons'' (AD&D) in 1977.
This strong bond between RPGs and MUDs continued through the years with the release of dozens of AD&D modules and series of related books and stories (e.g., ''Forgotten Realms'' and ''Dragonlance''). Influences also came from the gamebooks such as ''Fighting Fantasy'', ''Choose Your Own Adventure'', and ''Lone Wolf''; and also other RPGs such as '' and ''Middle-Earth Role Playing''.
Other MUDs that appeared around 1985 included ''Mirrorworld'', run by Pip Cordrey and developed and written by Tim Rogers, Lorenzo Wood and Nathaniel Billington. ''Mirrorworld'' was the first MUD to feature rolling resets. ''SHADES'' by Neil Newell was a commercial MUD accessible in the UK via British Telecom's Prestel and Micronet networks. A scandal on ''SHADES'' led to the closure of Micronet, as described in Indra Sinha's net-memoir, ''The Cybergypsies''.
Another popular MUD was AberMUD written in 1988 by Alan Cox, also known as ''Anarchy'', named after the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. ''Avalon, the Legend Lives'', started in 1989, was the first MUD to combine a consistent fantasy story-line with a commercial venture.
''Monster'' was a multi-user adventure game created by Richard Skrenta for the VAX and written in VMS Pascal. It was publicly released in November 1988.[1] ''Monster'' was disk-based and modifications to the game were immediate. Monster pioneered the approach of allowing players to build the game world, setting new puzzles or creating dungeons for other players to explore.^[4] ''Monster'' was the inspiration for TinyMUD.^[5]

TinyMUD and diversification

In 1989, TinyMUD began to allow players to easily participate in creating the online environment, as well as playing in it. The TinyMUD code spawned a number of descendants, including TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH, which added more sophisticated programmability. (TinyMUCK versions 2 and higher contain a full programming language named MUF, or Multi-User Forth, while MUSH greatly expanded the variety of commands and functions available and allowed them to apply to all objects.) Some use the term ''MU
★ '' to refer to TinyMUD, MUCK, MUSH, MUSE, MUX, and their kin; others simply allow the term ''MUD'' to apply universally. ''MUVE'' is a recent coinage, intended to stand for ''Multi-User Virtual Environment''. UberMUD, UnterMUD, and MOO are some other MUD servers that were at least partially inspired by TinyMUD but are not direct descendants.
Also in 1989, and inspired by TinyMUD and AberMUD, LPMud was developed as a more game-oriented MUD that allowed participants to program the behavior of its "monsters". 1989 also saw the development of Avalon, using its own code base run through the Hourglass compiler. Developed in complete isolation of all other MUDs, Avalon adopted an object oriented approach using the powerful British Acorn Archimedes computer technology. In Europe it was very popular for MUD writers to write in isolation. The three largest commercial examples would be Avalon, Shades and the Terris/Cosrin Engine.
In 1991, the release of DikuMUD, which was inspired by AberMUD, lead to a virtual explosion of hack-n-slash MUDs based upon its code. DikuMUD inspired several derivative codebases as well, including CircleMUD, Merc, ROM and SMAUG. Meanwhile Avalon had become a commercial game operating in the UK on up to 16 connections at once over a dial-up system using a front end with double Moxa eight port serial cards and 2400 bit/s modems and boasting the first ever blow-by-blow combat system.
In 1992 a second ''Avalon, the Legend Lives'' site was opened in the north of England, Sheffield, to give local users cheaper phone call access.
In 1993 ''Avalon, the Legend Lives'' attempted to circumvent the expense of online connections in the UK with the Hostplay concept; providing access via terminals in Avalon's own offices in central London as well as the continued use of 16 possible modem connections.
In 1994, Mark Peterson rewrote ''The Realm of Angmar'', adapting it to MS-DOS (the basis for many dial-in BBS systems), and renamed it ''Swords of Chaos''. For a few years this was a very popular form of MUD, hosted on a number of BBS systems, until widespread Internet access eliminated most BBSs.
Avalon, like other commercial MUD's went live on the internet late 1994. In doing so they closed down the local Sheffield site. It also released a specialised Windows telnet client named AvPlay; the first MUD to release such a client, although AvPlay can also be used for any other MUD. ''Avalon, the Legend Lives'' is still running and under continuous development today.
Curiously by closing the Sheffield site it provided one Avalon player, Paul Barnett (Now creative Director for the Warhammer Online MMO at EA-Mythic), to design and write the Legends of Terris MUD engine with Doug Goldner. Paul Barnett was the game designer of the game and Doug Goldner wrote the code.
AOL Europe had also opened up operations within Europe and was looking for a European MUD game to offer to the European subscribers. AOL US already ran several highly successful games including Dragons Gate and Darkness Falls (Mythic Entertainment, later to launch Dark age of Camelot), Federation (A space trading game again written by an Englishman) and Gem Stone III (Simutronics, later to launch a Heroes journey). At this time Gem Stone III. AOL Europe was a looking for a game that could meet a European audience. Legends of Terris was selected to be AOL Europe’s flagship MUD. At this time European commercial Games had around 30-50 players connected at once. Legends of Terris was launched on AOL Europe at the end of the year. Legends of Terris itself was hosted at a place called Sub-Cyberia in the basement of the first ever UK internet cafe known as Cyberia. The game was also translated into German. Within one month is had over 600 players connected to it at once.
Meanwhile Legends of Terris had become the largest commercial MUD in Europe with over 2000 simultaneous players connected at once. It was now generating over 250,000 game hours worth of revenue for AOL. Legends of Terris itself would hit a number as high as 2,544 players at once.
Gem Stone III continued to dominate the commercial MUD world, at its height it attracted 6000 concurrent users. In Europe Legends of Terris topped the charts with highs of 2500 concurrent users. How much of this is due to the games or access via AOL is open to speculation. It is interesting to note that Gem Stone III, Avalon and Legends of Terris are all commercially operating today.
Of the commercial engines available Avalon defined and dominated within Player vs Player design. Gem Stone III dominated with sheer game world size and installed player base and Legends of Terris championed the Player vs Environment style of game play.
MUDs can be accessed via standard telnet clients, or specialized MUD clients (which give a more pleasant user experience). These games are still listed at various web portals (see external links).

MUDs: Next Phase?

Online graphics-based games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft, plus graphics-based social avatar worlds such as SecondLife, are (arguably) analogous to MUDs, and are sometimes referred to as "graphical MUDs" (see next section) or "next-generation MUDs".
Similarities include the basic goals and objectives of the games (where games are present) and the sociality of the environments (the tendency to associate in or form social groups). One difference (among many) is that the majority of MMORPGs and social avatar worlds are commercial ventures.The Business of Social Avatar Virtual Worlds

Variations on MUDs

Graphical MUDs

''Main article: MMORPG''
A 'graphical MUD' is a MUD that uses computer graphics to represent parts of the virtual world and its visitors. A prominent early graphical MUD was ''Habitat'', written by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar for Lucasfilm in 1985. Graphical MUDs require players to download a special client and the game's artwork. They range from simply enhancing the user interface to simulating 3D worlds with visual spatial relationships and customized avatar appearances.
After the increase in computing power and Internet connectivity during the late nineties graphical MUDs became better known as MMORPGs ('m'assive 'm'ultiplayer 'o'nline 'r'ole-'p'laying 'g'ames). Unlike earlier MUDs, most MMORPGs are commercial ventures. See list of MMORPGs for examples of this type of game.

Talkers and spods

''Main article: Talker''
A lesser known variant is the ''talker'', typically based on ew-too or NUTS, with plenty of derived codebases. The early talkers were essentially MUDs, with most of the complex game machinery stripped away, leaving just the communication level commands - hence the name "talker".
They also use very little network traffic, and use simple protocols, making them ideal for setting up quietly at work.
People who use these tend to be called spods, and have earned a place in the Jargon File.

Role-play intensive MUDs

A lesser known type of MUDs are 'Role-Play Intensive MUD' ('RPIMUD'). RPIMUDs focus on realistic, enforced roleplay which is often blended with fantasy themes. In general, the objective of the game is not goal based hack-and-slash, but to collaborate with fellow players to create complex and multi-layered storylines in a cohesive gameworld.
The majority of RPIMUDs are levelless and classless, focusing instead on skills, crafts, and role-playing against the world or environment, often going as far as to request their players engage in role-play with inanimate creatures and objects. Such dedication to role-playing, in addition to creating a vivid experience for other players, is often rewarded by staff members who invisibly monitor the game.
Out-of-character communications are mostly restricted if present at all. This contrasts with other forms of mud role-playing styles such as storytelling and freestyle mushes in which role-play is conducted between players and OOC communications are more important.
A brief list of RPI MUDs includes Shadows of Isildur, Accursed Lands, DartMUD and Armageddon. A community portal dedicated to RPIMUDs can be found at http://www.rpimud.com.

Player-Killing MUDs

Main Article: Player Killing
A 'Player Killing MUD' is a type of MUD that encourages player versus player combat. Some MUDs have registered Player Killing, meaning a player must register as a Player Killer and can only combat other registered Player Killers.

Psychology of MUDs

Dr. Sherry Turkle, Ph.D. of Sociology of Science at MIT, developed a theory in her book "Life on the Screen" that the constant use (and in many cases, overuse) of MUDs allows users to develop different personalities in their environments. She uses examples, which date back to the text-based MUDs of the mid-1990s, showing college students who simultaneously live different lives through characters in separate MUDs, up to three at a time, all while doing schoolwork. The students claimed that it was a way to "shut off" their own lives for a while and become part of another reality, one that Turkle claims could present a psychological problem of identity for today's youths.
Turkle also explores the ideas of the use of bots in MUDs. She references the Turing Test developed by Alan Turing, stating that bots could be considered truly intelligent if they were able to convince a human user speaking to the bot that the bot was actually human. Turkle presents the troubling ideas of sexual deviancy involved with this, that someone posing as a bot could "trick" someone into believing that they were a bot and allowing them to engage in sexual activity online. Turkle wonders aloud if this could be considered at the worst rape and at the very least an invasion of privacy.

See also

★ Interactive fiction, a kind of single player "MUD"

★

★

★ MUD client

★ MUD trees

★ Mobile (MUD)

★ MMORPG – Massive Multiplayer Online RPG

★ MUSH

★ MOO

★ Talker - historically based on MUDs

★ Online Creation

★ OTBRPG

References

1. Early MUD History.
2. The Dragon Ate My Homework
3. Escape from the Dungeon
4. [2]
5. [3]

External links

MUD History & Analysis

★ Some history and reviews from Richard Bartle's "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games" report

★ The MUDline: A timeline of MUD history up to 1995.

★ A Classification of MUDs by Martin Keegan, Grandmaster Data Services Ltd, Cambridge, UK

★ Early MUD history

★ Online World Timeline - Raph Koster's timeline of significant events for the development of virtual worlds.

★ Living Internet A comprehensive history of the internet, including MUDs.

★ Bartle MUD Personality Analyzer Long-running test to classify MUD/MMORPG personality, based on Bartle's research.

Mud source code repositories

★ MudBytes.net: MUD code repository and discussion.

★ MudMagic.com: MUD software downloads, discussion, game listings, and documentations.

★ Game.org: Hierarchal archive of MUD source code

★ The MUD Connector: Large portal site containing 1700+ searchable listings of text-based muds as well as discussions, a social network devoted to mudding, resources, etc

★ Erwin S. Andreasen: Home of the 16k MUD competition, and other resources.

★ Jargon File: The Jargon File's entry on MUDs.

★ Mapping MUDs: 3-Dimensional modelling of a MUD

★ Mud Domain: The Social Network for Mudders

★ MU
★ Wiki: A community site for discussion and promotion of MUDs.

★ The MudLists Resource Center: A comprehensive list of over 600 MUDS including numerous player references and other MUD related statistics.

★ Top Mud Sites: MUD portal and voting site containing 1700+ MUDS, MUD forums, reviews, resources, MUD articles.