MUD
Encyclopedia
A MUD pronounced ˈmʌd, is a multiplayer real-time virtual world
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...

, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash
Hack and slash
Hack and slash or hack and slay, abbreviated H&S or HnS, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat. "Hack and slash" was originally used to describe an aspect of pen-and-paper role-playing games , carrying over from there to MUDs, MMORPGs, and video games in general...

, player versus player
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...

, interactive fiction
Interactive fiction
Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, describes software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives and as video games. In common usage, the term refers to text...

, and online chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...

. Players can read or view descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters, and actions performed in the virtual world. Players typically interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language
Natural language
In the philosophy of language, a natural language is any language which arises in an unpremeditated fashion as the result of the innate facility for language possessed by the human intellect. A natural language is typically used for communication, and may be spoken, signed, or written...

.

Traditional MUDs implement a role-playing video game
Role-playing video game
Role-playing video games are a video game genre with origins in pen-and-paper role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons, using much of the same terminology, settings and game mechanics. The player in RPGs controls one character, or several adventuring party members, fulfilling one or many quests...

 set in a fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...

 world populated by fictional races and monsters, with players choosing classes
Character class
In role-playing games, a common method of arbitrating the capabilities of different game characters is to assign each one to a character class. A character class aggregates several abilities and aptitudes, and may also sometimes detail aspects of background and social standing or impose behaviour...

 in order to gain specific skills or powers. The object of this sort of game is to slay monster
Monster
A monster is any fictional creature, usually found in legends or horror fiction, that is somewhat hideous and may produce physical harm or mental fear by either its appearance or its actions...

s, explore a fantasy world, complete quests, go on adventures, create a story by roleplaying, and advance the created character. Many MUDs were fashioned around the dice-rolling rules of the Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

series of games.

Such fantasy settings for MUDs are common, while many others have science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 settings or are based on popular books, movies, animations, periods of history, and so on. Not all MUDs are games; some are designed for educational purposes, while others are purely chat environments, and the flexible nature
Turing completeness
In computability theory, a system of data-manipulation rules is said to be Turing complete or computationally universal if and only if it can be used to simulate any single-taped Turing machine and thus in principle any computer. A classic example is the lambda calculus...

 of many MUD servers leads to their occasional use in areas ranging from computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...

 research to geoinformatics
Geoinformatics
Geoinformatics is the science and the technology which develops and uses information science infrastructure to address the problems of geography, geosciences and related branches of engineering.-Overview:...

 to medical informatics to analytical chemistry
Analytical chemistry
Analytical chemistry is the study of the separation, identification, and quantification of the chemical components of natural and artificial materials. Qualitative analysis gives an indication of the identity of the chemical species in the sample and quantitative analysis determines the amount of...

. MUDs have attracted the interest of academic scholars from many fields, including communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...

s, sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

, law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

, and economics
Economics
Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...

. At one time, there was interest from the United States military in using them for teleconferencing.

Most MUDs are run as hobbies and are free to players; some may accept donations or allow players to purchase virtual items, while others charge a monthly subscription fee. MUDs can be accessed via standard telnet
TELNET
Telnet is a network protocol used on the Internet or local area networks to provide a bidirectional interactive text-oriented communications facility using a virtual terminal connection...

 clients, or specialized MUD client
MUD client
A MUD client is a computer application used to connect to a MUD, a type of multiplayer online game. Generally, a MUD client is a very basic telnet client that lacks VT100 terminal emulation and the capability to perform telnet negotiations...

s which are designed to improve the user experience. Numerous games are listed at various web portals, such as The Mud Connector
The Mud Connector
The Mud Connector, abbreviated TMC, is a computer gaming web site which provides articles, discussions, reviews, resource links and game listings about MUDs. The site allows mud owners, administrators and enthusiasts to submit information and reviews about specific MUDs...

.

The history of modern Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs)
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 like World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft
World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

, and related virtual world
Virtual world
A virtual world is an online community that takes the form of a computer-based simulated environment through which users can interact with one another and use and create objects. The term has become largely synonymous with interactive 3D virtual environments, where the users take the form of...

 genres such as the social virtual worlds exemplified by Second Life
Second Life
Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...

, traces directly back to the MUD genre. Indeed, before the invention of the term MMORPG, games of this style were simply called graphical MUDs. A number of influential MMORPG designers began as MUD developers and/or players (such as Raph Koster
Raph Koster
Raphael "Raph" Koster is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies...

, Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid is an American computer game designer who was the key designer of EverQuest, a highly successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 1999...

, Matt Firor
Matt Firor
Matt Firor is a well known game producer/designer of Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games . Matt is best known for his involvement in the critically acclaimed game Dark Age of Camelot for Mythic Entertainment.-Biography:...

, and Brian Green
Brian Green (game developer)
Brian "Psychochild" Green is a game developer known for his work on the online 3D graphical RPG, Meridian 59. He worked on the game for 3DO, then co-founded Near Death Studios in 2001. He is a frequent gaming conference speaker and writes for a number of game design websites, including...

) or were involved with early MUDs (like Mark Jacobs
Mark Jacobs (video game designer)
Mark Jacobs is the former GM/VP/CEO of Mythic Entertainment, Inc. He is one of the pioneers in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game industry, having created two early MUDs, Aradath and Dragon's Gate serving as both the designer and programmer in addition to his duties as...

 and J. Todd Coleman
J. Todd Coleman
J. Todd Coleman is an American computer game designer who is a director of massively multiplayer online role-playing game titles. He is known for Shadowbane released in 2003 and Wizard101 released in 2008...

).

Origins

Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...

, created in 1975 by Will Crowther on a DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

 PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...

 computer, was the first widely used adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

. The game was significantly expanded in 1976 by Don Woods. Also called Adventure, it contained many D&D features and references, including a computer controlled dungeon master
Dungeon Master
In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, the Dungeon Master is the game organizer and participant in charge of creating the details and challenges of a given adventure, while maintaining a realistic continuity of events...

.

Inspired by Adventure, a group of students at MIT wrote a game called Zork
Zork
Zork was one of the first interactive fiction computer games and an early descendant of Colossal Cave Adventure. The first version of Zork was written in 1977–1979 on a DEC PDP-10 computer by Tim Anderson, Marc Blank, Bruce Daniels, and Dave Lebling, and implemented in the MDL programming language...

in the summer of 1977 for the PDP-10 minicomputer which became quite popular on the ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...

. Zork was ported under the name Dungeon to FORTRAN
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

 by a programmer working at DEC
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

 in 1978.

In 1978 Roy Trubshaw
Roy Trubshaw
Roy Trubshaw was a programmer at the University of Essex who co-authored MUD1, the first MUD, with Richard Bartle on a DEC PDP-10. Both of them now work together at Multi-User Entertainment with Trubshaw being the company’s technical director....

, a student at Essex University in the UK, started working on a multi-user adventure game in the MACRO-10 assembly language for a DEC PDP-10. He named the game MUD
MUD1
Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD is the first MUD and the oldest virtual world in existence. It was created in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw at Essex University on a DEC PDP-10 in the UK, using the MACRO-10 assembly language...

 (Multi-User Dungeon), in tribute to the Dungeon variant of Zork, which Trubshaw had greatly enjoyed playing. Trubshaw converted MUD to BCPL
BCPL
BCPL is a procedural, imperative, and structured computer programming language designed by Martin Richards of the University of Cambridge in 1966.- Design :...

 (the predecessor of C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

), before handing over development to Richard Bartle
Richard Bartle
Richard Allan Bartle is a British writer, professor and game researcher, best known for being the co-creator of MUD1 and the author of the seminal Designing Virtual Worlds. He is one of the pioneers of the massively multiplayer online game industry.-Life and career:Bartle received a Ph.D...

, a fellow student at Essex University, in 1980.

MUD
MUD1
Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD is the first MUD and the oldest virtual world in existence. It was created in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw at Essex University on a DEC PDP-10 in the UK, using the MACRO-10 assembly language...

, better known as Essex MUD and MUD1 in later years, ran on the Essex University network until late 1987, becoming the first Internet multiplayer online role-playing game in 1980, when Essex University connected its internal network to ARPANet
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...

. The game revolved around gaining points till one achieved the wizard rank, giving the player immortality and certain powers over mortals. The game became more widely accessible when a guest account was set up that allowed users on JANET
JANET
JANET is a private British government-funded computer network dedicated to education and research. All further- and higher-education organisations in the UK are connected to JANET, as are all the Research Councils; the majority of these sites are connected via 20 metropolitan area networks JANET...

 (a British academic X.25
X.25
X.25 is an ITU-T standard protocol suite for packet switched wide area network communication. An X.25 WAN consists of packet-switching exchange nodes as the networking hardware, and leased lines, Plain old telephone service connections or ISDN connections as physical links...

 computer network) to connect on weekends and between the hours of 2 AM and 8 AM on weekdays. MUD1 was reportedly closed down when Richard Bartle licensed MUD1
MUD1
Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD is the first MUD and the oldest virtual world in existence. It was created in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw at Essex University on a DEC PDP-10 in the UK, using the MACRO-10 assembly language...

to CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...

, and was getting pressure from them to close Essex MUD. This left MIST, a derivative of MUD1 with similar gameplay, as the only remaining MUD running on the Essex University network, becoming one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity. MIST ran until the machine that hosted it, a PDP-10
PDP-10
The PDP-10 was a mainframe computer family manufactured by Digital Equipment Corporation from the late 1960s on; the name stands for "Programmed Data Processor model 10". The first model was delivered in 1966...

, was superseded in early 1991.

During the Christmas of 1985, Neil Newell, an avid MUD1 player, started programming his own MUD called SHADES 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
Prestel
Prestel , the brand name for the UK Post Office's Viewdata technology, was an interactive videotex system developed during the late 1970s and commercially launched in 1979...

 and Micronet
Micronet800
Micronet 800 was an information provider on Prestel, aimed at the 1980s personal computer market. It was an online magazine that gave subscribers computer related news, reviews, general subject articles and downloadable telesoftware....

 networks. A scandal on SHADES led to the closure of Micronet
Micronet800
Micronet 800 was an information provider on Prestel, aimed at the 1980s personal computer market. It was an online magazine that gave subscribers computer related news, reviews, general subject articles and downloadable telesoftware....

, as described in Indra Sinha
Indra Sinha
Indra Sinha is a British writer of English and Indian descent. Formerly a copywriter for Ogilvy & Mather, London, and, from 1984, Collett Dickenson Pearce & Partners, Sinha has the distinction of having been voted one of the top ten British copywriters of all time...

's net-memoir, The Cybergypsies.

In 1985 Pip Cordrey gathered some people on a BBS he ran to create a MUD1 clone that would run on a home computer. The tolkienesque MUD went live in 1986 and was named MirrorWorld.

1985 also saw the creation of Gods by Ben Laurie
Ben Laurie
Ben Laurie is a software engineer, protocol designer and cryptographer. He is a founding director of The Apache Software Foundation, a core team member of OpenSSL, a member of the Shmoo Group, a director of the Open Rights Group, Director of Security at The Bunker Secure Hosting, Trustee and...

, a MUD1 clone that included online creation
Online creation
Online Creation, also referred to as OLC, Online Coding, Online Building, and online editing, is a software feature of MUDs that allows users to edit a virtual world from within the game itself...

 in its endgame. Gods became a commercial MUD in 1988.

In 1985 CompuNet started a project named Multi-User Galaxy Game as a Science Fiction alternative to MUD1 which ran on their system at the time. When one of the two programmers left CompuNet, the remaining programmer, Alan Lenton, decided to rewrite the game from scratch and named it Federation II
Federation II
Federation II is an online text-based game also known as Federation 2 or Fed2, designed and programmed by Alan Lenton and developed by IBGames that centers on the intergalactic trade and economy in the distant future. The game was originally launched in 2003, but started attracting larger crowds...

 (at the time no Federation I existed). The MUD was officially launched in 1989. Federation II was later picked up by AOL, where it became known simply as "Federation: Adult Space Fantasy". Federation later left AOL to run on its own after AOL began offering unlimited service.

In 1978, around the same time Roy Trubshaw wrote MUD, Alan E. Klietz wrote a game called Milieu using Multi-Pascal
Pascal (programming language)
Pascal is an influential imperative and procedural programming language, designed in 1968/9 and published in 1970 by Niklaus Wirth as a small and efficient language intended to encourage good programming practices using structured programming and data structuring.A derivative known as Object Pascal...

 on a CDC Cyber
CDC Cyber
The CDC Cyber range of mainframe-class supercomputers were the primary products of Control Data Corporation during the 1970s and 1980s. In their day, they were the computer architecture of choice for scientific and mathematically intensive computing...

 6600 series mainframe
Mainframe computer
Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

 which was operated by the Minnesota Educational Computing Consortium. Klietz ported Milieu to an IBM XT in 1983, naming the new port Scepter of Goth
Scepter of Goth
Scepter of Goth, also spelled Sceptre of Goth, was an early multi-user text-based role-playing game, or MUD. Originally written by Alan E. Klietz, Scepter of Goth was one of the first commercial MUDs and the first commercial MUD in the United States...

. Scepter supported 10 to 16 simultaneous users, typically connecting in by modem. It was one of the first commercial MUDs; franchises were sold to a number of locations. Scepter was first owned and run by GamBit (of Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis, Minnesota
Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

), founded by Bob Alberti. GamBit's assets were later sold to Interplay Productions
Interplay Entertainment
Interplay Entertainment Corporation is an American video game developer and publisher, founded in 1983 as Interplay Productions by Brian Fargo. The company had been a quality developer until they started publishing their own games in 1988, like Neuromancer and Battle Chess. The company was renamed...

. Interplay eventually went bankrupt.

In 1984, Mark Peterson wrote The Realm of Angmar, beginning as a clone
Clone (computer and video games)
A video game clone is a video game or game series which is very similar to or heavily inspired by a previous popular game or game series. Some video game genres are founded by such archetypal games that all subsequent similar games are thought of as derivatives.The term is sometimes derogatory,...

 of Scepter of Goth. In 1994, Peterson rewrote The Realm of Angmar, adapting it to MS-DOS
MS-DOS
MS-DOS is an operating system for x86-based personal computers. It was the most commonly used member of the DOS family of operating systems, and was the main operating system for IBM PC compatible personal computers during the 1980s to the mid 1990s, until it was gradually superseded by operating...

 (the basis for many dial-in BBS
Bulletin board system
A Bulletin Board System, or BBS, is a computer system running software that allows users to connect and log in to the system using a terminal program. Once logged in, a user can perform functions such as uploading and downloading software and data, reading news and bulletins, and exchanging...

 systems), and renamed it Swords of Chaos
Swords of Chaos
Swords of Chaos is a computer game made by Mark Peterson. It is a MUD type game for the Major BBS and Worldgroup BBS software, allowing it to be played over a dial-up connection with a modem: since the advent of the internet, it is also possible to use a telnet connection or a terminal emulator...

. 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 BBSes.

In 1984, Mark Jacobs
Mark Jacobs (video game designer)
Mark Jacobs is the former GM/VP/CEO of Mythic Entertainment, Inc. He is one of the pioneers in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game industry, having created two early MUDs, Aradath and Dragon's Gate serving as both the designer and programmer in addition to his duties as...

 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
GEnie
GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business - GEIS that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users...

as Dragon's Gate
Dragon's Gate
Dragon's Gate was an interactive, real time, text-based multi user online fantasy role-playing game, sometimes referred to as a MUD. It was one of the longest running pay-for-play online games in the world, it opened to the public in the spring of 1990 on GEnie. In the summer of 1996 the game was...

) and a 4X science-fiction game called Galaxy, which was also ported to GEnie
GEnie
GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business - GEIS that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users...

. At its peak, the site had about 100 monthly subscribers to both Aradath and Galaxy. GEnie was shut down in the late 1980s, although Dragon's Gate
Dragon's Gate
Dragon's Gate was an interactive, real time, text-based multi user online fantasy role-playing game, sometimes referred to as a MUD. It was one of the longest running pay-for-play online games in the world, it opened to the public in the spring of 1990 on GEnie. In the summer of 1996 the game was...

was later brought to America Online before it was finally released on its own. Dragon's Gate was closed on February 10, 2007.

In the summer of 1980 University of Virginia
University of Virginia
The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

 classmates John Taylor and Kelton Flinn
Kelton Flinn
Kelton Flinn is an American computer game designer who is a major pioneer in online games. He is a co-founder of the seminal online game company Kesmai, which they began in 1982...

 wrote Dungeons of Kesmai, a six player game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

which used Roguelike
Roguelike
The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by randomization for replayability, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many...

 ASCII
ASCII
The American Standard Code for Information Interchange is a character-encoding scheme based on the ordering of the English alphabet. ASCII codes represent text in computers, communications equipment, and other devices that use text...

 graphics. They founded the Kesmai
Kesmai
Kesmai was a pioneering game developer and online game publisher, founded in 1981 by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor. The company was best known for the combat flight sim Air Warrior on the GEnie online service, one of the first graphical MMOGs, launched in 1987...

 company in 1982 and in 1985 an enhanced version of Dungeons of Kesmai, Island of Kesmai, was launched on CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...

. Later, its 2-D graphical descendant Legends of Kesmai was launched on AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 in 1996. The games were retired commercially in 2000.

The popularity of MUDs of the Essex University tradition escalated in the USA during the late 1980s when affordable personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled role-players to log into multi-line Bulletin Board Systems and online service providers such as CompuServe
CompuServe
CompuServe was the first major commercial online service in the United States. It dominated the field during the 1980s and remained a major player through the mid-1990s, when it was sidelined by the rise of services such as AOL with monthly subscriptions rather than hourly rates...

. During this time it was sometimes said that MUD stands for "Multi Undergraduate Destroyer" due to their popularity among college students and the amount of time devoted to them.

AberMUD

The first popular MUD codebase
Codebase
The term codebase, or code base, is used in software development to mean the whole collection of source code used to build a particular application or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or...

 was AberMUD, written in 1987 by Alan Cox
Alan Cox
Alan Cox is a British computer programmer who formerly maintained the 2.2 branch of the Linux kernel and continues to be heavily involved in the development of the Linux kernel, an association that dates back to 1991...

, named after the University of Wales, Aberystwyth
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
Aberystwyth University is a university located in Aberystwyth, Wales. Aberystwyth was a founding Member Institution of the former federal University of Wales. As of late 2006, the university had over 12,000 students spread across seventeen academic departments.The university was founded in 1872 as...

. Alan Cox had played the original University of Essex
University of Essex
The University of Essex is a British campus university whose original and largest campus is near the town of Colchester, England. Established in 1963 and receiving its Royal Charter in 1965...

 MUD, and the gameplay was heavily influenced by it. AberMUD was initially written in B for a Honeywell L66 mainframe under GCOS3/TSS. In late 1988 it was ported to C
C (programming language)
C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....

, which enabled it to spread rapidly to many Unix
Unix
Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 platforms upon its release in 1989. AberMUD's popularity resulted in several inspired works, the most notable of which were TinyMUD
TinyMUD
TinyMUD is the name of a MUD server codebase, and the first MUD running that codebase. The MUD itself has subsequently come to be known as "TinyMUD Classic" or simply "Classic", or occasionally "DaisyMUD"...

, LPMud
LPMud
LPMud, abbreviated LP, is a family of MUD server software. Its first instance, the original LPMud game driver, was developed in 1989 by Lars Pensjö...

, and DikuMUD
DikuMUD
DikuMUD is a multiplayer text-based role-playing game, which is a type of MUD. It was written in 1990 and 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Staerfeldt at DIKU —the department of computer science at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen,...

.

TinyMUD

Monster was a multi-user adventure game created by Richard Skrenta for the VAX
VAX
VAX was an instruction set architecture developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in the mid-1970s. A 32-bit complex instruction set computer ISA, it was designed to extend or replace DEC's various Programmed Data Processor ISAs...

 and written in VMS Pascal. It was publicly released in November 1988. Monster was disk-based and modifications to the game were immediate. Monster pioneered the approach of allowing players to build the game world
Online creation
Online Creation, also referred to as OLC, Online Coding, Online Building, and online editing, is a software feature of MUDs that allows users to edit a virtual world from within the game itself...

, setting new puzzles or creating dungeons for other players to explore. Monster, which comprised about 60,000 lines of code, had a lot of features which appeared to be designed to allow Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure
Colossal Cave Adventure gave its name to the computer adventure game genre . It was originally designed by Will Crowther, a programmer and caving enthusiast who based the layout on part of the Mammoth Cave system in Kentucky...

to work in it. Though there never were many network-accessible Monster servers, it inspired James Aspnes
James Aspnes
James Aspnes is a professor in Computer Science at Yale University. He earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University in 1992. His main research interest is distributed algorithms....

 to create a stripped down version of Monster which he called TinyMUD.

TinyMUD, written in C and released in late 1989, spawned a number of descendants, including TinyMUCK
TinyMUCK
TinyMUCK or, more broadly, a MUCK, is a type of user-extendable online text-based role-playing game, designed for role playing and social interaction...

 and TinyMUSH. TinyMUCK version 2 contained a full programming language named MUF
MUF (programming language)
MUF is a Forth-based programming language used on TinyMUCK MUCK servers and their descendants, including Fuzzball MUCK, ProtoMUCK and GlowMUCK.MUF is the system programming language for TinyMUCK systems...

 (Multi-User Forth), while MUSH
MUSH
In multiplayer online games, a MUSH is a text-based online social medium to which multiple users are connected at the same time...

 greatly expanded the command interface. To distance itself from the combat-oriented traditional MUDs it was said that the "D" in TinyMUD stood for Multi-User "Domain" or "Dimension"; this, along with the eventual popularity of acronyms other than MUD (such as MUCK, MUSH, MUSE, and so on) for this kind of server, led to the eventual adoption of the term MU* to refer to the TinyMUD family. UberMUD, UnterMUD, and MOO
MOO
A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users are connected at the same time.The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses...

 were inspired by TinyMUD but are not direct descendants.

LPMud

In 1989 LPMud was developed by Lars Pensjö
Lars Pensjö
Lars Pensjö of Sweden is the original author of the LPMud MUD engine and the LPC programming language, and is one of the founders of Genesis LPMud, notable for their part in the history of MMORPGs as well as the Pike programming language. He attended Chalmers University of Technology in...

 (hence the LP in LPMud). Pensjö had been an avid player of TinyMUD
TinyMUD
TinyMUD is the name of a MUD server codebase, and the first MUD running that codebase. The MUD itself has subsequently come to be known as "TinyMUD Classic" or simply "Classic", or occasionally "DaisyMUD"...

 and AberMUD
AberMUD
AberMUD, pronounced , was the first popular open source MUD, named after the town in which it was written, Aberystwyth. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane based at University of Wales, Aberystwyth for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in...

 and wanted to create a world with the flexibility of TinyMUD and the gameplay of AberMUD. In order to accomplish this he wrote what is nowadays known as a virtual machine
Virtual machine
A virtual machine is a "completely isolated guest operating system installation within a normal host operating system". Modern virtual machines are implemented with either software emulation or hardware virtualization or both together.-VM Definitions:A virtual machine is a software...

, which he called the LPMud driver, that ran the C-like LPC programming language used to create the game world. 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. During the early 1990s, LPMud was one of the most popular MUD codebases. Descendants of the original LPMud include MudOS
MudOS
MudOS is a major family of LPMud server software, implementing its own variant of the LPC programming language. It first came into being on February 18, 1992. It pioneered important technical innovations in MUDs, including the network socket support that made InterMUD communications possible and...

, DGD, SWLPC
SWLPC (programming language)
The SWLPC programming language, "Shattered World LPC", is a variant of LPC developed and maintained by the staff of the MUD Shattered World. It is a fork of the LPMud 2.4.5 server. The SWLPC server software was originally distributed privately, but was later made publicly available. Its primary...

, FluffOS, and the Pike programming language, the latter the work of long-time LPMud developer Fredrik "Profezzorn" Hübinette.

DikuMUD

In 1990, the release of DikuMUD, which was inspired by AberMUD, led to a virtual explosion of hack and slash
Hack and slash
Hack and slash or hack and slay, abbreviated H&S or HnS, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat. "Hack and slash" was originally used to describe an aspect of pen-and-paper role-playing games , carrying over from there to MUDs, MMORPGs, and video games in general...

 MUDs based upon its code. DikuMUD inspired numerous derivative codebases, including CircleMUD
CircleMUD
CircleMUD is a MUD codebase written by Jeremy Elson first released on July 16, 1993. It is a derivative of DikuMUD that was written in 1990 by Katja Nyboe, Tom Madsen, Hans Henrik Staerfeldt, Michael Seifert and Sebastian Hammer.- Overview :...

, Merc
Merc (MUD)
Merc is a MUD engine derived from Copper, which in turn was based on DikuMUD. First released in March 1991, DikuMUD served as the basis for many later MUDs....

, ROM
ROM (MUD)
ROM is a MUD codebase derived from Merc, which is based on DikuMUD. Russ "Alander" Taylor released Rom 2.3 in 1993.The most current publicly available version of Rom is , which was released in May 1998....

, SMAUG
SMAUG
SMAUG is a Merc and DikuMUD derived MUD server. Its name is a backronym inspired by the dragon Smaug found in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction. The project was started in May of 1994 by Derek Snider and in July of 1994, Realms of Despair, was opened to the public...

, and GodWars
GodWars
GodWars is a MUD engine derived from Merc, created in 1995 by Richard Woolcock, better known in the MUD community as "KaVir". GodWars MUDs are typically loosely based on White Wolf games such as Vampire: The Masquerade, and generally offer supernatural classes such as Vampire, Werewolf, Mage and...

. The original Diku team comprised Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Staerfeldt. DikuMUD had a key influence on the early evolution of the MMORPG
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

 genre, with EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...

(created by avid DikuMUD player Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid
Brad McQuaid is an American computer game designer who was the key designer of EverQuest, a highly successful massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 1999...

) displaying such Diku-like gameplay that Verant developers were made to issue a sworn statement that no actual DikuMUD code was incorporated.

Simutronics

In 1987 David Whatley, having previously played Scepter of Goth
Scepter of Goth
Scepter of Goth, also spelled Sceptre of Goth, was an early multi-user text-based role-playing game, or MUD. Originally written by Alan E. Klietz, Scepter of Goth was one of the first commercial MUDs and the first commercial MUD in the United States...

and Island of Kesmai, founded Simutronics with Tom and Susan Zelinski. In the same year they demonstrated a prototype of GemStone
GemStone IV
GemStone IV is a multiplayer text-based online role-playing game produced by Simutronics. Players control characters in a High Fantasy game world named "Elanthia". The first playable version of the game was known as GemStone ][ and was launched in April 1988 on GEnie...

to GEnie
GEnie
GEnie was an online service created by a General Electric business - GEIS that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around 350,000 users. Peak simultaneous usage was around 10,000 users...

. After a short-lived instance of GemStone II, GemStone III was officially launched in February 1990. GemStone III became available on AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

 in September 1995, followed by the release of DragonRealms
DragonRealms
DragonRealms is a medieval fantasy game set in the world of Elanthia. One of the oldest and most popular examples of the MUD genre, it was developed from 1992-1995 and released in February 1996. It was originally intended for an online service planned by the Ziff-Davis company...

in February 1996. By the end of 1997 GemStone III and DragonRealms had become the first and second most played games on AOL.

Gameplay

The typical MUD will describe to you the room or area you are standing in, listing the objects, players and NPCs in the area, as well as all of the exits. To carry out a task the player would enter a text command such as take apple or attack dragon. Movement around the game environment is generally accomplished by entering the direction (or an abbreviation of it) in which the player wishes to move, for example typing north or just n would cause the player to exit the current area via the path to the north.

MUD clients often contain functions which make certain tasks within a MUD easier to carry out, for example commands buttons which you can click in order to move in a particular direction or to pick up an item. There are also tools available which add hotkey-activated macros to telnet and MUD clients giving the player the ability to move around the MUD using the arrow keys on their keyboard for example.

Style

While there have been many variations in overall focus, gameplay
Gameplay
Gameplay is the specific way in which players interact with a game, and in particular with video games. Gameplay is the pattern defined through the game rules, connection between player and the game, challenges and overcoming them, plot and player's connection with it...

 and features in MUDs, some distinct sub-groups have formed that can be used to help categorize different game mechanic
Game mechanic
Game mechanics are constructs of rules intended to produce an enjoyable game or gameplay. All games use mechanics; however, theories and styles differ as to their ultimate importance to the game...

s, game genres and non-game
Non-game
Non-games define a class of software that lies on the border between video games, toys and applications. The original term non-game game was coined by Nintendo president Satoru Iwata. The main difference between non-games and traditional video games is the apparent lack of goals, objectives and...

 uses.

Hack and Slash MUDs

Perhaps the most common approach to game design in MUDs is to loosely emulate the structure of a Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons is a fantasy role-playing game originally designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson, and first published in 1974 by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. . The game has been published by Wizards of the Coast since 1997...

campaign focused more on fighting and advancement than role-playing. When these MUDs restrict player-killing
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...

 in favor of player versus environment
Player versus environment
Player versus environment, or PvE , is a term used in online games, particularly MMORPGs, CORPGs, MUDs, and other online role-playing video games, to refer to fighting computer-controlled enemies—in contrast to PvP .Usually a PvE mode can be played either alone, with human...

 conflict and questing
Quest (gaming)
A quest in role-playing video games — including massively multiplayer online role-playing games and their predecessors, MUDs — is a task that a player-controlled character or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward...

, they are labeled Hack and Slash MUDs. This may be considered particularly appropriate since, due to the room-based nature of traditional MUDs, ranged combat is typically difficult to implement, resulting in most MUDs equipping characters mainly with close-combat weapons. This style of game was also historically referred to within the MUD genre as "adventure games", but video gaming as a whole has developed a meaning of "adventure game
Adventure game
An adventure game is a video game in which the player assumes the role of protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and puzzle-solving instead of physical challenge. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based media such as literature and film,...

" that is greatly at odds with this usage.

Player versus player MUDs

Most MUDs restrict player versus player combat, often abbreviated as PK (Player Killing). This is accomplished through hard coded restrictions and various forms of social intervention. MUDs without these restrictions are commonly known as PK MUDs. Taking this a step further are MUDs devoted solely to this sort of conflict, called pure PK MUDs, the first of which was Genocide
Genocide (online game)
Genocide is a MUD, a text-based online game, focused exclusively on player-killing. Founded in 1992, it was influential as the first such "pure PK" MUD, and has met with positive critical response.-Game characteristics:...

in 1992. Genocide ideas were influential in the evolution of player versus player
Player versus player
Player versus player, or PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer controlled opponents, which is correspondingly referred to as player versus environment...

 online gaming.

Roleplaying MUDs

Roleplaying MUDs, generally abbreviated as RP MUDs, encourage or enforce that players act out the role of their playing characters at all times. Some RP MUDs provide an immersive gaming environment, while others only provide a virtual world with no game elements. MUDs where roleplay is enforced and the game world is heavily computer-modeled are sometimes known as Roleplay Intensive MUDs, or RPIMUDs.

Social MUDs

Social MUDs de-emphasize game elements in favor of an environment designed primarily for socializing. They are differentiated from talkers by retaining elements beyond online chat, typically online creation
Online creation
Online Creation, also referred to as OLC, Online Coding, Online Building, and online editing, is a software feature of MUDs that allows users to edit a virtual world from within the game itself...

 as a community activity and some element of role-playing
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...

 — often such MUDs have broadly defined contingents of socializers and roleplayers. Server software in the TinyMUD family, or MU*, is traditionally used to implement social MUDs.

Talkers

A less-known MUD variant is the talker
Talker
A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging....

, a variety of online chat
Online chat
Online chat may refer to any kind of communication over the Internet, that offers an instantaneous transmission of text-based messages from sender to receiver, hence the delay for visual access to the sent message shall not hamper the flow of communications in any of the directions...

 environment typically based on server software like ew-too
Ew-too
ew-too, short for Elsewhere Too, was the first publicly available code base for Internet talkers and was written by Simon "Burble" Marsh in 1992, following the demise of the second internet talker, Cheeseplant's House, which had been closed down some months earlier. It was based on the LPMud game...

 or NUTS
Nuts (Talker)
NUTS, or Neil's Unix Talk Server is a talker base written in C programming language by Neil Robertson, and got the status as the best-known talker base by 1996, surpassing ew-too....

. Most of the early Internet talkers were LPMud
LPMud
LPMud, abbreviated LP, is a family of MUD server software. Its first instance, the original LPMud game driver, was developed in 1989 by Lars Pensjö...

s with the majority of the complex game machinery stripped away, leaving just the communication commands. The first Internet talker was Cat Chat
Cat Chat
Cat Chat was the first Internet / JANET talker, created in 1990 by Chris Thompson, who used the name "Cat" on the talker. It was based on the LPMud server code and was hosted at the University of Warwick. It was later replaced by Cheeseplant's House....

in 1990. Avid users of talkers are called spod
Spod
Spod refers to an avid user of Internet talkers, a type of online chat system. Less frequently, it may be applied to those who use MUDs as if they were talkers. The spod tends to be something of a long-term fanatic, and many have been using the same talker for a decade or more...

s.

Educational MUDs

Taking advantage of the flexibility of MUD server software, some MUDs are designed for educational purposes rather than gaming or chat. MicroMUSE
MicroMuse
MicroMUSE is a MUD started in 1990. It is based on the TinyMUSE system, which allows members to interact in a virtual environment called Cyberion City, as well as to create objects and modify their environment. MicroMUSE was conceived as an environment to allow people in far-flung locations to...

is considered by some to have been the first educational MUD, but it can be argued that its evolution into this role was not complete until 1994, which would make the first of many educational MOO
MOO
A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users are connected at the same time.The term MOO is used in two distinct, but related, senses...

s, Diversity University
Diversity University
Diversity University was the first MOO dedicated specifically for educational use. Like other MUDs, it was an online realm that allowed people to interact in real time by connecting to a central server, assuming a virtual identity within that realm, "teleporting" or "walking" to virtual rooms,...

in 1993, also the first educational MUD. The MUD medium lends itself naturally to constructionist learning pedagogical approaches. The Mud Institute (TMI) was an LPMud opened in February 1992 as a gathering place for people interested in developing LPMud and teaching LPC after it became clear that Lars Pensjö had lost interest in the project. TMI focussed on both the LPMud driver and library, the driver evolving into MudOS, the TMI Mudlib was never officially released, but was influential in the development of other libraries.

Graphical MUDs


A graphical MUD is a MUD that uses computer graphics
Computer graphics
Computer graphics are graphics created using computers and, more generally, the representation and manipulation of image data by a computer with help from specialized software and hardware....

 to represent parts of the virtual world and its visitors. A prominent early graphical MUD was Habitat
Habitat (video game)
Lucasfilm's Habitat was an early and technologically influential online role-playing game developed by Lucasfilm Games and made available as a beta test in 1986 by Quantum Link, an online service for the Commodore 64 computer and the corporate progenitor to America Online...

, written by Randy Farmer
Randy Farmer
F. Randall "Randy" Farmer has created and organized numerous online communities. He is probably most famous for his role creating one of the first graphical online MMOGs, Lucasfilm's graphical MUD Habitat, with Chip Morningstar...

 and Chip Morningstar
Chip Morningstar
Chip Morningstar is an author, academic and developer of software systems for online entertainment and communication. A University of Michigan graduate, he participated in Project Xanadu, for which the word hypertext was first coined. Later, he overhauled the chat environment known as The Palace,...

 for Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm
Lucasfilm Limited is an American film production company founded by George Lucas in 1971, based in San Francisco, California. Lucas is the company's current chairman and CEO, and Micheline Chau is the president and COO....

 in 1985. Graphical MUDs require players to download a special client and the game's artwork. They range from simply enhancing the user interface
User interface
The user interface, in the industrial design field of human–machine interaction, is the space where interaction between humans and machines occurs. The goal of interaction between a human and a machine at the user interface is effective operation and control of the machine, and feedback from the...

 to simulating 3D worlds with visual spatial relationships and customized avatar
Avatar (computing)
In computing, an avatar is the graphical representation of the user or the user's alter ego or character. It may take either a three-dimensional form, as in games or virtual worlds, or a two-dimensional form as an icon in Internet forums and other online communities. It can also refer to a text...

 appearances.

Games such as Meridian 59
Meridian 59
Meridian 59, abbreviated M59, is an online computer role-playing game first published by the now defunct 3DO Company. First launched online in an early form on December 15, 1995 and released commercially on September 27, 1996 with a flat-rate monthly subscription, Meridian 59 is often credited as...

, EverQuest
EverQuest
EverQuest, often shortened to EQ, is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game that was released on the 16th of March, 1999. The original design is credited to Brad McQuaid, Steve Clover, and Bill Trost...

, Ultima Online
Ultima Online
Ultima Online is a graphical massively multiplayer online role-playing game , released on September 24, 1997, by Origin Systems. It was instrumental to the development of the genre, and is still running today...

and Dark Age of Camelot
Dark Age of Camelot
Dark Age of Camelot is a 3D medieval fantasy MMORPG, released on October 10 2001 in North America and in Europe shortly after through it's partner GOA. It is still running today recently celebrating its 10th anniversary....

were routinely called graphical MUDs in their earlier years. RuneScape
RuneScape
RuneScape is a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in January 2001 by Andrew and Paul Gower, and developed and published by Jagex Games Studio. It is a graphical browser game implemented on the client-side in Java, and incorporates 3D rendering...

was actually originally intended to be a text-based MUD, but graphics were added very early in development. However, with the increase in computing power and Internet connectivity during the late nineties, and the shift of online gaming to the mass market, the term "graphical MUD" fell out of favor, being replaced by MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game
Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

, a term coined by Richard Garriott
Richard Garriott
Richard Allen Garriott is a British-American video game developer and entrepreneur.He is also known as his alter egos Lord British in Ultima and General British in Tabula Rasa...

 in 1997.

Psychology and engagement

Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle
Sherry Turkle is Abby Rockefeller Mauze Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a sociologist...

 developed a theory that the constant use (and in many cases, overuse) of MUDs allows users to develop different personalities in their environments. She uses examples, dating 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. Turkle claims that this could present a psychological problem of identity for today's youths.

"A Story About A Tree
A Story About A Tree
A Story About A Tree is a short essay and an epitaph written by Raph Koster, regarding the alleged death of a LegendMUD player named Karyn. The essay raises the subject of inter-human relationships in virtual worlds, particularly the loss of friends, concluding that these are not "just games"...

" is a short essay written by Raph Koster
Raph Koster
Raphael "Raph" Koster is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies...

 regarding the death of a LegendMUD
LegendMUD
LegendMUD is a historically significant, award-winning MUD founded by a group of friends including virtual world designer Raph Koster. It opened publicly on February 14, 1994...

player named Karyn, raising the subject of inter-human relationships in virtual worlds.

Observations of MUD-play show styles of play
Bartle Test
The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology is a series of questions and an accompanying scoring formula that classifies players of multiplayer online games into categories based on their gaming preferences. The test is based on a 1996 paper by Richard Bartle and was created in 1999–2000 by Erwin...

 that can be roughly categorized. Achievers focus on concrete measurements of success such as experience points, levels
Experience point
An experience point is a unit of measurement used in many role-playing games and role-playing video games to quantify a player character's progression through the game...

, 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. Few players play only one way, or play one way all the time; most exhibit a diverse style. According to Richard Bartle
Richard Bartle
Richard Allan Bartle is a British writer, professor and game researcher, best known for being the co-creator of MUD1 and the author of the seminal Designing Virtual Worlds. He is one of the pioneers of the massively multiplayer online game industry.-Life and career:Bartle received a Ph.D...

, "People go there as part of a hero's journey — a means of self-discovery".

Research has suggested that various factors combine in MUDs to provide users with a sense of presence rather than simply communication.

Grammatical usage and derived terms

As a noun, the word MUD is variously written MUD, Mud, and mud, depending on speaker and context. It is also used as a verb, with to mud meaning to play or interact with a MUD and mudding referring to the act of doing so. A mudder is, naturally, one who MUDs. Compound words
Compound (linguistics)
In linguistics, a compound is a lexeme that consists of more than one stem. Compounding or composition is the word formation that creates compound lexemes...

 and portmanteaux
Portmanteau word
A portmanteau or portmanteau word is a blend of two words or morphemes into one new word. A portmanteau word typically combines both sounds and meanings, as in smog, coined by blending smoke and fog. More generally, it may refer to any term or phrase that combines two or more meanings...

 such as mudlist, mudsex
Cybersex
Cybersex, also called computer sex, Internet sex, netsex, mudsex, TinySex and, colloquially, cybering, is a virtual sex encounter in which two or more persons connected remotely via computer network send each other sexually explicit messages describing a sexual experience...

, and mudflation
Mudflation
Mudflation, from MUD and inflation, is an economic issue that exists only in massively multiplayer online games. Mudflation occurs when future additions to a game causes previously acquired resources to decline in value...

are also regularly coined. Pun
Pun
The pun, also called paronomasia, is a form of word play which suggests two or more meanings, by exploiting multiple meanings of words, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from the intentional use and abuse of homophonic,...

s on the "wet dirt" meaning of "mud" are endemic, as with, for example, the names of the ROM
ROM (MUD)
ROM is a MUD codebase derived from Merc, which is based on DikuMUD. Russ "Alander" Taylor released Rom 2.3 in 1993.The most current publicly available version of Rom is , which was released in May 1998....

 (Rivers of MUD), MUCK
TinyMUCK
TinyMUCK or, more broadly, a MUCK, is a type of user-extendable online text-based role-playing game, designed for role playing and social interaction...

 and MUSH
MUSH
In multiplayer online games, a MUSH is a text-based online social medium to which multiple users are connected at the same time...

 codebases and the MUD Muddy Waters
Muddy Waters (online game)
Muddy Waters, frequently abbreviated MW, is a long-running MUD, a text-based online role-playing game, founded in 1993. It has received positive critical response.-Game characteristics:...

.

See also

  • MUD trees
    MUD trees
    The MUD trees below depict hierarchies of derivation among MUD codebases. Solid lines between boxes indicate code relationships, while dotted lines indicate conceptual relationships...

  • Chronology of MUDs
  • Bartle Test
    Bartle Test
    The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology is a series of questions and an accompanying scoring formula that classifies players of multiplayer online games into categories based on their gaming preferences. The test is based on a 1996 paper by Richard Bartle and was created in 1999–2000 by Erwin...

  • MUD client
    MUD client
    A MUD client is a computer application used to connect to a MUD, a type of multiplayer online game. Generally, a MUD client is a very basic telnet client that lacks VT100 terminal emulation and the capability to perform telnet negotiations...

  • Online text-based role-playing game
    Online text-based role-playing game
    An online text-based role playing game is a role-playing game played online using a solely text-based interface. Online text-based role playing games date to 1978, with the creation of MUD1, which began the MUD heritage that culminates in today's MMORPGs...

  • Virtual economy
    Virtual economy
    A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...

  • Cyberformance
    Cyberformance
    Cyberformance refers to live theatrical performances in which remote participants are enabled to work together in real time through the medium of the internet, employing technologies such as chat applications or purpose-built, multiuser, real-time collaborative software such as UpStage...

  • Digital architecture
    Digital architecture
    Digital architecture uses computer modeling, programming, simulation and imaging to create both virtual forms and physical structures. The terminology has also been used to refer to other aspects of architecture that feature digital technologies...


Source code repositories


Resources

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
x
OK