MUD

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This article is  about a type of online computer game. For other uses of the word "mud", see Mud (disambiguation).

In computer gaming, a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon or  Domain or  Dimension) is  a multi-player computer game that combines elements of role-playing games,  and  slash">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 1 History 1.1 Prehistory 1.2 MUD the game 1.3 Commercialisation and  spread 1.4 TinyMUD and  diversification 1.5 MUDs: Next Phase? 2 Variations on MUDs 2.1 Graphical MUDs 2.2 Talkers and  spods 2.3 Role-play intensive MUDs 2.4 Player-Killing MUDs 3 Psychology of MUDs 4 See also 5 References 6 External links 6.1 MUD history and  studies 6.2 Mud source code repositories

[edit] History

[edit] Prehistory

The first games which were recognisably 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 baud modems enabled role players to log into multi-line BBSes and  online service providers such as Compuserve.

[edit] 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^{[citation needed]}. 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 predating the internet), 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 vital and  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.

[ and  spread">edit] Commercialisation and  spread

In the early 1980s 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  and  video games)">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 Vampire: The Masquerade 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; and  SHADES. SHADES was a commercial MUD accessible in the UK via the Prestel system. Mirrorworld was the first MUD to feature rolling resets.

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^[4]. 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^[5]. Monster was the inspiration for TinyMUD^[6].

[ and  diversification">edit] 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 expamples 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  2400bps modems and  boasting the first ever blow-by-blow combat system.

In 1992 a second Avalon site was opened in the north of England, Sheffield, to give local users cheaper phone call access.

In 1993 Avalon 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 is  still running and  under further 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.

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 (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. The game was also translated into French and  German. Within one month is  had over 600 player 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.

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).

[edit] MUDs: Next Phase?

Online graphics-based games (MMORPGs) such as World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment ) and  Dark Age of Camelot (Mythic Entertainment), plus graphics-based social avatar worlds such as There (Makena Technologies, Inc.) and  SecondLife (Linden Research, Inc.), 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. (See: The Business of Social Avatar Virtual Worlds)

Are users leaving MUDs and  migrating to the next-generation virtual worlds? Since usage statistics are  typically available from the corporations running MMORPGs and  social avatar worlds we know quite a bit about their populations (MMOGChart.com). But, due to the scattered and  independent nature of MUDs -- independently run by individuals all over the world, hosting populations of 6 to 600, privately and  publicly -- it  is a challenge to study or  survey levels of use of MUDs as a whole from year to year. Therefore, it  is unknown whether the population of text-based MUDs has been impacted by graphics-based games and  graphics-based social avatar virtual worlds.

[edit] Variations on MUDs

[edit] 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 (massively multiplayer online role-playing games). Unlike earlier MUDs, most MMORPGs are  commercial ventures. See list of MMORPGs for examples of this type of game.

[ and  spods">edit] 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. Talker applications predate MUDs by many years, although some of the early ones were used to play Dungeons & Dragons over computer networks. Talkers and  some other MUDs use InterMUD to chat with users on completely separate MUDs.

People who use these tend to be called spods, and  have earned a place in the Jargon File here.

[edit] 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 Harshlands, Accursed Lands, DartMUD, and  Armageddon. A community portal dedicated to RPIMUDs can be found at http://www.rpimud.com.

[edit] Player-Killing MUDs

A Player Killing MUD is  a type of MUD that encourages player versus player combat. Often, there is  no ultimate "goal" to the game. Competition can be driven in a number of ways: a "fame" or  "infamy" style score that players can accrue via PvP combat, limited availability of powerful items or  equipment that can be looted from the corpse of a defeated opponent, or  via a complex combination of role-playing and  an economic/social system. Competition can be quite fierce; a quick-thinking, fast-typing player with a customized MUD client can enter a staggering number of commands in a very small timeframe, and  players who have  been blinded (stricken with an  effect that prevents the game from displaying any descriptions or  prompts that allow them to determine their location) are  very often able to traverse complex paths through hundreds of rooms via memory alone to escape pursuers.

The main balancing factor of the Player-Killing MUD is  time. Time is  counted via a system of "pulses". When a certain number of pulses pass (a number that varies widly from game to game), an  event called a "tick" happens. A pulse usually takes a fraction of a second, where a tick may take up to several minutes. Status effects last for a certain number of ticks and  when that amount of time passes the effect expires. When a player inputs certain commands, particularly offensive ones such as kicking or  casting a spell, further commands have  no effect until a certain number of pulses have  passed. This effect is  usually referred to as "lag", and  should not be confused with network latency. Often, certain characters can even impose lag on others via means such as stunning, tripping, or  ensorceling their opponents.

One of the most easily recognized Player-Killing MUD systems is  the GodWars codebase.

[edit] 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.

[edit] See also

• Interactive fiction - a kind of single player MUD
• Category:MU* servers
• Category:MU* games
• MUD client
• MUD trees
• Mobile (MUD)
• MMORPG – Massive Multiplayer Online RPG
• MUSH
• MOO
• Talker - historically based on MUDs
• Online Creation
• OTBRPG

[edit] References

1. ^ Early MUD History.
2. ^ The Dragon Ate My Homework
3. ^ Escape from the Dungeon
4. ^ [1]
5. ^ [2]
6. ^ [3]

[edit] External links

[ and  studies">edit] MUD history and  studies

• Some history and  reviews from Richard Bartle's "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games" report
• Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO
• 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
• Sherry Turkle has studied MUDs academically.
• Online World Timeline - Raph Koster's timeline of significant events for the development of virtual worlds.
• http://www.fudco.com/habitat/ - "Cyberspace. Virtual communities. Online games. Distributed systems. Opinion, history, advice, and  silliness from two guys who've been building this stuff for a long, long time." -- website of Chip Morningstar and  Randy Farmer.

[edit] 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 MUD Personality Test, 16k MUD competition, and  other resources.
• Jargon File: The Jargon File's entry on MUDs.
• Mapping MUDs: 3-Dimensional modelling of a MUD