Some of the simpler muds worked quite well with the zMUD automapper[1] which would try to parse the room descriptions and build/navigate the map. I remember tr

Some of the simpler muds worked quite well with the zMUD automapper[1] which would try to parse the room descriptions and build/navigate the map. I remember trying to get it working for Discworld, but the richness of the world descriptions (which varied depending on weather, light level, and all sorts of other factors), along with spontaneous info messages, made it very hard to extract reliably. My complete lack of knowledge about parsing & text processing probably didn't help matters, and I learned a lot building triggers and other (mostly tolerated) automation back in the day. One particular feature/challenge I remember was the UU library, which in order to navigate around, switched from cardinal directions (go east; go west; ...) to relative (turn left; forward; forward; turn right), so you had to keep track of your rotation. Combined with deviously constructed routes, it didn't take much to get hopelessly lost, which as the entire point I think :) A lot of that subtlety would be lost in a simple tiled map, as would all the (often extremely verbose and entertaining) world descriptions. Add that to the fact that almost all were player/volunteer-built worlds, and graphical art is a much harder field to dabble in than text, probably explains why graphics-first waited until commercial developments like EQ. [1] http://www.oocities.org/timessquare/dungeon/6091/automap1.gif http://www.oocities.org/timessquare/dungeon/6091/automap1.gi...