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Gaming Roots: MUD and the Birth of MMOs
angry tapir writes "I recently had a chance to interview Richard Bartle — the creator of MUD, considered the grandfather of modern massively multiplayer online games. MUD had a text-based interface, but despite that, its design was hugely influential on modern MMOs."
The thing about MUDs were, it was very up front about your options: Go North, Go West, or Get Eaten By Grue. Modern MMOs try to sell themselves as "fully immersive", but just try running out of the battlefield area once... flashing red lights and your character either explodes, or magically teleports. Very realistic... I know that when I make a wrong turn in my car, if I don't make a u-turn in the next 60 seconds, my car explodes and the police are sent out to pick up little bits of me splattered all over the roadway and other drivers.
I guess my point is... MUDs didn't hide the fact that there were limitations, and in fact turned it into clever logic puzzles and such to solve. They were about having fun and thinking your way out, rather than focusing on beautiful walls of text and then having your only option being pressing ENTER repeatedly, which is what today's MMOs feel like.
The older games were more creative, and they made do with a lot less. Today it's all about achieving technical perfection but without any real substance.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
That summary was both informative and well crafted... Almost a bit too long but I think you stopped yourself before it became "wordy"
MUD, PLATO and the dawn of MMORPGs: "Richard Bartle has been answering a reader's suggestion that MUD was not, in fact, the first online RPG and that the original multi-user games actually ran on the University of Illinois' PLATO system - generally regarded as the birthplace of the 'online community' concept."
His famous paper "Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players who suit muds"
http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/hcds.htm [mud.co.uk]
incorrectly assumes that the taxonomy MUST include kilers.
Those players are still there. Just because (some) modern games have been designed with the intent of excluding them doesn't make them stop existing, and knowing that they exist is important for future game designers.
I think you find most players these days are more interested in cooperation then competition
I'm a long way from convinced. If this were true, why do people complain every time an MMO's cash shop offers an item that gives the players who buy it an "advantage" (scare quotes because it's not entirely clear that items that make a game easier are actually advantageous to the players who purchase them, as doing so actually reduces the amount of fun they get from the game)?
Does Richard understand modern game design?
Yes. And if you want to start understanding it yourself, read that article. Then read it again. This is at least part of the key to why WoW is still the most popular subscription-based game in the world, all these years later.
HI I NEW HERE
HOW DO I KILL PPL ON THIS MUD?!!!!!!!!!!!
Filter error: Don't use so many caps. It's like yelling. Aww, c'mon slashdot!
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Also where tabletop RPGs shine over everything else, including MUDs.
I heartily agree with the comment about orcs down the hall not hearing or seeing the attack on their colleagues and either coming to help or running away. it is, of course, a game design thing to make each encounter doable, rather than having to worry about more unpedictable situations where the group size suddenly doubles (the famed "ADD!!!") or quadruples because those who ran away came back with helpers.
Games have done limited variations on this:
- D&D Online, the monsters can hear you, and specifically will hear you smash a barrel on the other side of a closed door and wake up, being ready for your attack. Sound and sight matter, though still not quite as much as desired here.
- EverQuest and other games frequently have a monster run away through other packs, hoping you will stupidly follow and aggro a second group. Most people quickly learn not to do this. Sadly, the other pack doesn't join in in this case. I guess when tearing by, the monster under attack forgot to mention his colleagues were currently under assault.
- World of Warcraft had perhaps the most egregious example, where a group of two wandering (cycling on a large path) centaur "scouts" would attack you. You could kill one then run away. Eventually the other "scout" would give up and go back. Did he do what scouts are supposed to, hightail it back to camp and warn the others? No, he just resumes his path, making a mockery of the concept of being a "scout". Uhh, thanks for scouting for us, Beaky.
It's all this "idiocracy" of design that bothers me. I want to see dynamic, world-upsetting events and invasions. I don't mean one-shot stupidities, I mean real wars. I want to see cities invaded where the vendors and trainers get attacked and slaughtered, and the players don't know where to go anymore, so they'd better fight.
Death to the sentiment, "I don't wanna participate in that, and am irritated that I can't go do something else."
Well, nowadays we have enough games to accommodate you. Let's have a new one that shakes things up. Hell, for that matter, start out with a new principle: Ban all static zones and dungeons from design, and force designers to create a dynamic, ever-changing world. No more theme park zone designs, including safe cities.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
The thing is that building takes much more time to do than destruction, so if you had marauding armies destroying major cities, the entire MUD would be a wasteland in no time whatsoever.
The game should include natural limiting forces. There's not enough food to raise enough armies to destroy all the towns all the time, etc.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Bartle has made a career out of claiming he created the first MUD. He didn't. His claim is similar to the guy claiming he invented email. Both created programs that happened to have those names, MUD and in the other case, EMAIL. Somehow this makes them the inventors of it simply because of the filenames they chose. The fact is, MUDs were alive and well and thriving already on the PLATO system years before Bartle got involved. I am disappointed that Slashdot doesn't call Bartle on this.