Slashdot Mirror
MUDs Turn 30 Years Old
Massively points out that today marks the 30th anniversary of the first Multi-User Dungeon (MUD) going live at Essex University in the UK. The game, referred to as MUD1, was created by Roy Trubshaw. Richard Bartle, a man who also worked on the game as a student at Essex, has a post discussing the milestone and talking about how MUDs relate to modern MMOs. What MUDs did you play?
So much wasted time. Best MUDs I found were the highly modified diku/circles, like ThunderdomeII and MUME.
Aardwolf - where the men are MEN, and most of the women are too... http://www.aardmud.org/
I played Kobra (a Star Wars MUD) in the mid-late 1990's. It was as addictive as crack to me. I was way more addicted to that game than anything else I've ever played before or since (including WoW). And, unlike mordern MMO's, it was all FREE!
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
30 years old ... and they still haven't got laid.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Yes, that's right, AnimeMUD. And this was back before Dragonball Z was all the rage. We're talking Akira and MD Geist level anime here. I was bored with most of the standard Tolkein-esque MUDs, so this one was a nice change of pace.
http://www.theforestsedge.com/
still good enough to play, i just find that with kids, school and a full time job, i don't have as much time to modify my bots...err play.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
Tinyworld was popular by alot of people at Carnegie Mellon and the Univ of Northern Iowa and we had a bit of an exchange program. We even talked an english teacher into teacher class online. We started a school organization to police ourselves so we didnt hog all the universities resources for students who needed them but the university still considered it a game and when they found out that we had found a loophole in the student organization charter to get around them kicking people out for using computers for MUDDING, they called me (the president of the org) before the school board). I took the opportunity to give a presentation on how MUDDing was an example of the internet and how the internet would allow people from across the world to connect. I showed them how we were able to exchange files and ideas and how one teacher had taught a class online. Afterward, they were so impressed that I didn't get kicked out of school and instead they put a million dollars more funding into the information/computer sciences programs (which at that time was what they considered it to fall under).
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
D'oh, I thought you said "Tetris" and I was like "Tetris is a MUD?" and tried to imagine a Tetris based MUD.
Weird.
-l
Help cure AIDS, cancer, and more. Donate your unused computer time to worldcommunitygrid.org. Join Team Slashdot!
Thirty years, and the graphics still suck.
Netbooks, they come with Linux or a $3 copy of Windows. Either way, Microsoft loses.
Creeping Death was a very fast paced MUD. I remember getting up at 4am to play, just so I could avoid the higher-level player killers. Not even the 'safe room' was safe (through a means of dragging someone out of the room once they're asleep). Aarilax was his name. Finally one of my friends beat him at his own game. That was like a gazelle ramming its hoof down a lion's throat while simultaneously kicking him in the groin. *Ahhh* Those were the days...
But, more on topic: Thanks to playing MUDS, my typing skills were greatly improved while I was just a kid. I remember beating the entire typing program our school had when I was in the 5th grade, in only 1 month. The rest of the year I was allowed to surf the "internet" (a novel concept at the time) and animate stuff.
Now I'm an independent contractor and am earning my keep while paying for my wife and I to go through school. Proves to show that, at least in my case, games helped pave the way to education and employment.
If all else fails, add another if.
Back in 1990 I had absolutely no idea what "multitasking" and "multi-user" meant when it came to a single machine; I was raised on C64s, Apple ][s, etc., which were basically single-tasking. A friend at college showed me MUDs (specifically AberMUD) and all of a sudden it was like playing Zork and Adventure all over again, but in real time! With real people! All over the world!
As if my mind weren't already completely blown by the idea of a real-time Zork-like game, I realized that all of this was happening on a single machine, somewhere in Sweden. I asked how this was possible, and therein lies the beginning of my discovery of how computers worked in general, culminating in being a developer today.
It seemed absolutely magic to me then, and in reality, is still magic now. Man...I can still see it all now, sitting in front of that VT102 on the tiled, raised floor, thinking I had been let in on the hidden secret of the world, which was the early 1990s-era Internet.
Good times, good times.
They should have a mod: -1 WTF
It's like "looking busy" at your employment - it's actually easier to do real work than to fake it. - bmo
I never got into MUDs for gaming. For me, it was partly the social aspect but mostly for the construction and coding. I played TinyMUDs, then later TinyMUCKs. I learned Forth by learning MUF.
I think I was the first person to code an elevator that wasn't just a set of numbered exits. Instead, choosing a floor number swapped out an invisible object with a new exit attached leading to the floor you chose. It would also swap the object on that floor to indicate that the elevator was there waiting for you to enter (otherwise you'd have to press the call button to bring the car to the floor). It didn't even need MUF until I wanted to figure out how to make it take time (because otherwise someone could just keep summoning the elevator to one floor keeping anyone else from getting off where they wanted to). I never got around to implementing that part though.
Working on that and other state machines got me to come up with the line, "Invisible objects aren't really invisible; they only look that way." For most people it's just a funny line, but in TinyMUCK it references that an invisible object can always be seen by its owner. There was a bit of a complaint in that: there didn't seem to be an option to hide my own invisible objects from myself.
I remember wishing that someone would create a client that would remember all the object IDs returned by @dig and @open and the like so that construction of complicated structures was simplified, to the extent where I could say "dig a room from here linked as north and backlinked as south" and other constructs that would negate my need to know actual object numbers.
I had also intended to implement my own version of TinyMUD in ACOS (GBBS Pro), and later in METAL (FutureVision), for use on a single-line dial-up BBS. Players left in a room would act as recorders of what happened in that room, creating a messaging system which you had to seek out the people you wanted to converse with and avoid interlopers you didn't want listening in. Implementation was to use the message forum file format for the object database, each object being a single message in that database, and each player object recording the size of the room they were in to know where to start reading anew. Once a room was vacated, its message history would be archived. Unfortunately, it was difficult to code such a system on a BBS intended to be live 24/7, and then the BBS scene ending and my educational requirements prevented me from implementing it.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
www.carrionfields.com 9999
Unlike other popular members of the genre, Carrion Fields does not allow players to purchase in-game advantages with OOC currency. In other words, it's a level playing field.
Diku forever - apocmud.usurped.org:4000
There is a shape made up of four squares arranged 3 on one side and one sticking out to the left at the bottom. The next shape after this is four squares arranged in a two by two square.
Which direction do you wish to move the current peice?
(left, right, down)
100hp 56ma 13456exp > d
You have made 2 complete lines. Gained 148 experience.
The pieces are moving faster now.
There is a shape made up of four squares arranged in a two by two square. The next shape after this is four squares arranged with two on the bottom left and two on the top right.
Which direction do you wish to move the current peice?
(left, right, down)
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
www.bat.org
BatMUD was my first foray into the world of online gaming as well. The amazing thing is that it's nearly two decades old itself, and still going moderately strong (although it doesn't get the 300+ peak simultaneous users it had back in the '90s).
I play Genesis http://genesis.tekno.chalmers.se/ LPMud. been playing for a long time since around the time it opened i think. really love it. always changing and new things to explore and do.
All that is gold does not glitter, Not all those who wander are lost.
I'm one of the creators of MajorMUD -- it's quite interesting and a little humbling to see people still remember it. It was a blast to develop, we started it before I had finished high school, and had a good many years developing it further until we sold the whole shebang to Metro. Good times :D
Well, my first and longest MUD presence was in Holy Mission (the original one) until it slowly died (less and less players). It was a great place, with great people, it was fun to play and to code, I still remember most of the commands. The only game I ever felt close to the old feeling was the baldur's gate and icewind dale series.
:)
MUDs were a good challenge too, I used to know huge parts of the map by heart and I still can recall some places of it. Newbies had large hand-drawn maps and pieces of papers lying around with directions to specific places
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I have a text log of that first MUD session by the two guys who set it up:
# Welcome to MUD1 at Essex University!
#
# Time: 18:57:32
# There are 1 users on currently, including you.
#
# You are in a room with one door on the north wall.
#
> n
# You go north.
> look
# You see one door to the south.
> s
# You go south.
> look
# You are in a room with one door on the north wall.
> search
# What?
> examine
# I don't know how to do that, Dave.
> find
# What?
>
# TimTheEnchanger logged in.
#
# Time: 19:02:12
# There are 2 users on currently, including you.
#
>
*** TimTheEnchanter attacks YOU ***
*** You are hit for 26721 damage! ***
*** You DIE! ***
> n
# You can't do that, you are dead.
> nnnn
# What?
> nn
# I don't know how to do that, Dave.
> nnnnnnnnnnnn
# What?
>
TimTheEnchanter shouts, "hahaha dumbass!"
> q
# I don't know how to do that, Dave.
> quit
# What?
> exit
# Goodbye, and thanks for playing! Come back soon!
# Elapsed time: 0 hours 6 minutes 33 seconds.
^(*@#CONNECTION LOST
And we've never looked back!
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Back in college between 1994-1998 my MUD of choice was Kingdoms http://www.kingdoms.se/. But, what really held my interest was programming TinyFugue http://tinyfugue.sourceforge.net/. I had macros and autoresponders for everything. No one could touch me without some good autoretribution. I even created some remote controllable semi-AI bots such as Locutus of Borg who went around trying to assimilate people and one linked to an outside lisa/eliza type program that just went around chatting with people just to watch the hilarious conversations :-)
You wield the Annihilator.
Annihilator says: Let's kick some butt!
Nevermore.