Multi-user dungeon
[3] Traditional MUDs implement a role-playing video game set in a fantasy world populated by fictional races and monsters, with players choosing classes in order to gain specific skills or powers.
[11] Most MUDs are run as hobbies and are free to play; some may accept donations or allow players to purchase virtual items, while others charge a monthly subscription fee.
By 1978–79, these games were heavily in use on various PLATO systems, and exhibited a marked increase in sophistication in terms of 3D graphics, storytelling, user involvement, team play, and depth of objects and monsters in the dungeons.
[18] Inspired by Adventure, a group of students at MIT in the summer of 1977 wrote a game for the PDP-10 minicomputer; called Zork, it became quite popular on the ARPANET.
[19][1] In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at the University of Essex in the UK, started working on a multi-user adventure game in the MACRO-10 assembly language for a DEC PDP-10.
[20] Trubshaw converted MUD to BCPL (the predecessor of C), before handing over development to Richard Bartle, a fellow student at the University of Essex, in 1980.
[21][22][23] The game revolved around gaining points till one achieved the Wizard rank, giving the character immortality and special powers over mortals.
This left MIST, a derivative of MUD1 with similar gameplay, as the only remaining MUD running on the University of Essex network, becoming one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity.
Neil Newell, an avid MUD1 player, started programming his own MUD called SHADES during Christmas 1985, because MUD1 was closed down during the holidays.
Starting out as a hobby, SHADES became accessible in the UK as a commercial MUD via British Telecom's Prestel and Micronet networks.
In 1994, 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 popular form of MUD, hosted on a number of BBS systems, until widespread Internet access eliminated most BBSes.
[39] The popularity of MUDs of the University of Essex tradition escalated in the United States during the late 1980s when affordable personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled role-players to log into multi-line BBSs and online service providers such as CompuServe.
TinyMUCK version 2 contained a full programming language named MUF (Multi-User Forth), while MUSH greatly expanded the command interface.
The first version of Hourglass was written by Yehuda Simmons and later Daniel James for Avalon: The Legend Lives which debuted in 1989 at the last of the London MUD mega Meets aptly named Adventure '89[52] and initially hosted on the IOWA system.
The now defunct 1996 Age of Thrones and notably Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands started life in Vortex prior to moving to its own Rapture engine.
Hourglass continues to be developed as of 2016 and Avalon: The Legend Lives currently has 2,901,325 written words and 2,248,374 lines of game code (with 2,417,900 instructions).
In order to accomplish this he wrote what is nowadays known as a virtual machine, which he called the LPMud driver, that ran the C-like LPC programming language used to create the game world.
[53] Pensjö's interest in LPMud eventually waned and development was carried on by others such as Jörn "Amylaar" Rennecke, Felix "Dworkin" Croes, Tim "Beek" Hollebeek and Lars Düning.
In 1990, the release of DikuMUD, which was inspired by AberMUD, led to a virtual explosion of hack and slash MUDs based upon its code.
The original Diku team comprised Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Staerfeldt.
[55][56] In 1987, David Whatley, having previously played Scepter of Goth and Island of Kesmai, founded Simutronics with Tom and Susan Zelinski.
Perhaps the most common approach to game design in MUDs is to loosely emulate the structure of a Dungeons & Dragons campaign focused more on fighting and advancement than role-playing.
A less-known MUD variant is the talker, a variety of online chat environment typically based on server software like ew-too or NUTS.
[71] Some graphical MUDs require players to download a special client and the game's artwork, while others provide a rich experience by being website-based.
Graphical MUDs range from simply enhancing the user interface (e.g. Wolfery provides an option to set the room picture, but otherwise remains a text-based interaction) to simulating 3D worlds with visual spatial relationships and customized avatar appearances (e.g. Ultima Online provides a rich point-and-click experience).
Games such as Meridian 59, EverQuest, Ultima Online and Dark Age of Camelot were routinely called graphical MUDs in their earlier years.
[8] "A Story About A Tree" is a short essay written by Raph Koster regarding the death of a LegendMUD player named Karyn, raising the subject of inter-human relationships in virtual worlds.
Achievers focus on concrete measurements of success such as experience points, levels, and wealth; Explorers investigate every nook and cranny of the game, and evaluate different game mechanical options; Socializers devote most of their energy to interacting with other players; and then there are Killers who focus on interacting negatively with other players, if permitted, killing the other characters or otherwise thwarting their play.
[90] Research has suggested that various factors combine in MUDs to provide users with a sense of presence rather than simply communication.
