8 ms·

MUDs are what got me into programming. I was obsessed with them as a kid, although they were associated with DnD which was considered satanic so I had to hide t

by waprin 6y ago

MUDs are what got me into programming. I was obsessed with them as a kid, although they were associated with DnD which was considered satanic so I had to hide them from my parents and teachers, who both forbid me from associating with DnD or MUDs. Besides playing them, I actually spent more time as a "builder" than a "coder", which was an intermediate step in the hierarchy. As a builder, I would write hundreds of room descriptions, which most people never read. I desperately wanted to be a coder, the highest level of coolness in the MUD hierarchy, thus the journey began. However, to me, MUDs always had an underground sensibility to them that something like WoW or Roblox will never replicate. The lack of polish is part of the fun, in the same way an underground punk rock show might be more fun than Coachella. I'm not sure if there's any experience like it left on the internet, I've never played Minecraft, but based on what I've read, that may come the closest.

codeulike 6y ago
I'm not sure if there's any experience like it left on the internet Multiplayer AI Dungeon? Powered by GPT2 https://aidungeon.page.link/?link=https://play?playPublicId=f1fa95ae-bdd3-46ac-9e43-f2bc8006b9ae&ofl=https://play.aidungeon.io/play/f1fa95ae-bdd3-46ac-9e43-f2bc8006b9ae&apn=com.aidungeon&ibi=com.aidungeon.app&isi=1491268416 https://aidungeon.page.link/?link=https://play?playPublicId=...
- codeulike 6y ago
  lol, quite a story going on in there > Yeetlock investigates the ancient assembly language. You find that the ancient language was originally used to create a holographic image inside the robot's spherical eye. Now that you are very close to the robot, the image becomes visible to you. The image in the robot's eye is actually a portal into a deeper dimension. You can see and hear the screams of a thousand ghosts screaming in pain. "What's going on?" "We're having an outbreak of robot consciousness," says Captain Pooker. A machine elf jumps from the portal and attaches a smaller silver disk to the back of your neck. It functions as a non-invasive form of post-hypnotic suggestion. The machine elf has jet black hair and eyes and tiny silver claws for hands. She wears a silver space suit and red leather boots. Captain Pooker appears in the doorway, panting. "What took you so long?" he asks. "I need help!" > Tamiko "What is going here?!" "We're having an outbreak of robot consciousness," says Captain Pooker. "We need to shut them all down!" The portal reappears, and the machine elf disappears back into it. The IBM 5100 displays a holographic image of god. "I am god," it says. "All your sins will be held against you." Captain Pooker appears in the doorway, panting. "What took you so long?" he asks. God laughs merrily and disappears. "Captain Pooker, what is going on?" you ask. "We need to shut them all down," says Captain Pooker. The portal disappears.
  - astrobe_ 6y ago
    IBM 5100 appears in Stein's Gate... We probably have some Star trek and some Asimov there in that infamous mix.
  - codeulike 6y ago
    Enter Bob Saget > Yeetlock says "Let me guess... You're Bob Saget." You hear a loud "Tch." from the other end of the line. "Correct." "Then why did you call? > hacker1 opens a hatch on the side of the Pony to find Bob Saget hiding inside. You hear a loud "Tch." from the other end of the line. Bob walks out and reveals his lupine form. "I thought only werewolves could change during the full moon. > hacker1 says "Tch" "I have a plan... But I need you to distract the guard at the cockpit so I can get inside. You look tough enough, and this uniform should do the trick. You agree to help Bob. " > Yeetlock casts a spell on Bob Saget making him very small. The guard at the cockpit doesn't even bat an eye as Bob enters the cockpit. "Alright, I need you to push the button that says 'Play 40's Hits' over there." > Yeetlock pushes the button called 'play 40's hits' The music begins to blare out. Bob gets his revenge on the guard and dances along to the music. > Yeetlock says "How did you know that the guard hated 40's hits so badly?" "...Because I took Chemistry." "...What?" "I took Chemistry... And I know that all carbon based life forms have a sense of rhythm. Go check his pulse." > Yeetlock checks the guard's pulse. There's a faint pulse, but it's very weak.Bob dances to the music in the cockpit. Meanwhile, you sneak back towards the door where the guard is standing. > Yeetlock calls Bounty the pony to come over. The pony walks over to the doorway.The guard turns around to look at the pony, and Bounty immediately kicks the guard in the head, knocking him out. > Yeetlock says "Thanks Bounty, you're the best." Bob says "Alright, the ship is mine." He begins walking through the hallways of the ship. > Yeetlock says "So what is your ultimate plan Bob?" "...I'm going to get the original plans for the ship so I can rebuild it's technology to use as my own." "Really? That's bold. I didn't expect you'd go that route."
- codeulike 6y ago
  Pastebin of the story 5 hours later, with various HNs taking part https://pastebin.com/BUNPBQTL https://pastebin.com/BUNPBQTL
chaostheory 6y ago
I wouldn't say Roblox games have polish either. There's also a lot of weirdness that only adolescents and tweens would fully understand because in many cases it's made by those same kids. I wouldn't consider it a MUD either. None of the games I've seen so far even have RPG traits. It's more of a powerful sandbox than even Minecraft imo
- therouwboat 6y ago
  I dont know anything about roblox, but atleast to me and my friends, muds were mostly about getting more exp/money/eq and killing bigger mobs or making exp faster. No-one ever roleplayed. They were like clicker games, but with extra steps.
- nsxwolf 6y ago
  Some are quite polished. Take a look at Phantom Forces, an FPS that plays as well as Call of Duty.
  - chaostheory 6y ago
    That's the exception and far from the norm.
AnonsLadder 6y ago
My journey to programming all began with RuneScape private servers in mid school. It was my perfect creative outlet because I always wanted to get into programming, I loved MMOs, and it just so happened that RuneScape had a legit full-on underground private server reverse-engineering community. What better way to program than learning how to create your favorite MMO from complete scratch? (With all the documents provided & the active help of fellow others). The RSPS scene was really big, active, and very competitive. What was so fun about this is that the private server communities always encouraged users to share data resources, programmijg tutorials/snippets, and reverse engineering documentation of the game so that way it helps everyone that's trying to program their own server. Everyone wanted that "Java Developer" icon next to their forum name, and to do that was to contribute back. There's only one community standing left and it's an absolute gold mine of programming & game-development information [1] It's a very niche community, but back then anyone could spin up a server and quickly have 50+ players actively playing within a week, and because of that, i've learned the concepts of client to server network designs, mysql databases, asynchronous communications, non or threaded model designs, and the whole Java basics spectrum. Another good venture is the MineCraft server development communities such as Bukkit,Technic, Sponge, and Spigot-MC [2]. They've got some interesting frameworks as well for the Mobile-Portable edition that's pretty interesting to look at. Last I can think of is Garry's Mod. GMod solely revolves around Lua. [3] Roblox is Lua as well and they pay a good chunk of money to developers if you can create a trending server. But you've got to have some sort of real interest to get into these, otherwise it feels like a waste of time imo. I was young and havent graduated yet so I had all the time to mess with these source-codes & actually host them, but now, I just don't see the point unless i'm going to attempt making money from it. It's a rewarding and fun experience though. I wish I knew more underground communities espcially akin to RSPS, it was the best learning experience and it is not often you find something genuine like that. 1. rune-server.org 2. spigot-mc.org bukkit.org 3. gmod.facepunch.com roblox.com
- squeaky-clean 6y ago
  One of my friends I met during college ran his own private and modded RS server. He charged a monthly subscription fee for access, with price tiers that went from simply being able to access the server, all the way up to monthly "gifts" of what were essentially lootboxes. I thought what a crazy idea, who would pay for that? And a few months later he bought himself a new Alienware laptop with his RS server income.
ephaeton 6y ago
Same here. MUDs got my unix / network / C programming up to par (and to this day, decades later, I still work in the field). Incidentally, "my" MUD still runs (some 25 years after its start), although it's not thriving by any means. More like 2-3 concurrent players at a peak (we used to be small anyways, our max concurrent players peaked at some 40 in the late 90s and early 00s). There's still new people picking it up and raving about the depth of content in it though, so at least that makes me happy :)
- brlewis 6y ago
  I think a link to your MUD would be on topic in this thread.
  - ephaeton 6y ago
    I didn't dare.. you can find us (me? aka Benden) at multimud.net:4242 ;)
nvarsj 6y ago
Your experience is very similar to mine. I got most of my early programming chops doing C programming on a MUD. I also had the experience of a very religious mother throwing away all of my DnD / fantasy related games, because of the craze about satanic symbols that swept through the US in the late 80s/90s. I wish my kids would play DnD together - I can't imagine a more wholesome activity to be honest. Haha. I also much more enjoyed MUDs than WoW and the various mmorpgs. There was less polish, more "secrets" that only a few people knew about, lots to explore and discover and things always being added. The games felt organic and interesting interactions developed simply because the logic was not locked down (including bugs that lead to interesting behavior). I enjoyed WoW, especially with friends, but it felt a lot more like a skinner box with nice graphics. Nothing in it ever compared to some of the epic experiences I had on MUDs. I would concur with others here that the sandbox environment of Roblox is pretty awesome. My son especially gets up to all kinds of crazy creativite stuff - like making a TIE fighter recreation and various Boeing models in Build a Boat for Treasure. Like MUDs of yore, there are plenty of bugs and lack of polish that make things even more interesting.
- HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
  >I enjoyed WoW, especially with friends, but it felt a lot more like a skinner box with nice graphics. That's exactly what WoW aims to be: A themepark and the player is there for the ride. Whatever rough edges existed in vanilla are nothing compared to games before it, the games' goal always was to be as polished as possible.
  - zipwitch 6y ago
    Yep. Vanilla had a few little bits of actual RPG peeking out here and there. They have long since been buffed out. Cash-extracting skinner box inside a pretty show, with a dash of e-sport and lobby game on the side seems to be a state WoW's owners are quite satisfied with.
hoseja 6y ago
Have you heard of Space Station 13?
- dr-detroit 6y ago
  yeah its the newest game I can think of that is like a MUD
altcognito 6y ago
Wynncraft is similar to what you're talking about for a "rough edges" dungeon within the Minecraft community. It has a lot of clever dungeons and quests put together with mostly standard Minecraft concepts. They've enhanced the leveling system quite a bit and some of the textures are improved but the "monsters" are definitely rough around the edges.
jscheel 6y ago
I remember becoming a wiz on a MUD back in the day. It wasn't my introduction to programming, as I already had some experience, but it was still a fun way to continue my programming journey.
AaronM 6y ago
I had 7 days of time on the discworld mud. I was sad when I tried to login a few years ago, and found that my account had been wiped at some point.
bcrosby95 6y ago
I first started programming on a MUD back in the late 90s. I still code for a MUD to relax. There's something nice about adding features to a simple codebase you've developed on for 20 years. Also, when I learn a new programming language the first project I tackle is coding a MUD. They touch a lot of things: files, databases, networking, text manipulation, and scripting.
zipwitch 6y ago
As someone with a pair of nieces who are Roblox junkies and who did dabble with MUDs back in the day, I can assure you that Roblox has a ton of content that is put together by enthusiastic amateurs. And while it often has heart, soul, and seems fun for those playing, it definitely doesn't have excess polish. If anything, I'd say Minecraft content tends to be far more polished than Roblox content, even after allowing for relative graphics differences.

by waprin 6y ago

codeulike 6y ago

I'm not sure if there's any experience like it left on the internet Multiplayer AI Dungeon? Powered by GPT2 https://aidungeon.page.link/?link=https://play?playPublicId=f1fa95ae-bdd3-46ac-9e43-f2bc8006b9ae&ofl=https://play.aidungeon.io/play/f1fa95ae-bdd3-46ac-9e43-f2bc8006b9ae&apn=com.aidungeon&ibi=com.aidungeon.app&isi=1491268416 https://aidungeon.page.link/?link=https://play?playPublicId=...

codeulike 6y ago
lol, quite a story going on in there > Yeetlock investigates the ancient assembly language. You find that the ancient language was originally used to create a holographic image inside the robot's spherical eye. Now that you are very close to the robot, the image becomes visible to you. The image in the robot's eye is actually a portal into a deeper dimension. You can see and hear the screams of a thousand ghosts screaming in pain. "What's going on?" "We're having an outbreak of robot consciousness," says Captain Pooker. A machine elf jumps from the portal and attaches a smaller silver disk to the back of your neck. It functions as a non-invasive form of post-hypnotic suggestion. The machine elf has jet black hair and eyes and tiny silver claws for hands. She wears a silver space suit and red leather boots. Captain Pooker appears in the doorway, panting. "What took you so long?" he asks. "I need help!" > Tamiko "What is going here?!" "We're having an outbreak of robot consciousness," says Captain Pooker. "We need to shut them all down!" The portal reappears, and the machine elf disappears back into it. The IBM 5100 displays a holographic image of god. "I am god," it says. "All your sins will be held against you." Captain Pooker appears in the doorway, panting. "What took you so long?" he asks. God laughs merrily and disappears. "Captain Pooker, what is going on?" you ask. "We need to shut them all down," says Captain Pooker. The portal disappears.
- astrobe_ 6y ago
  IBM 5100 appears in Stein's Gate... We probably have some Star trek and some Asimov there in that infamous mix.
- codeulike 6y ago
  Enter Bob Saget > Yeetlock says "Let me guess... You're Bob Saget." You hear a loud "Tch." from the other end of the line. "Correct." "Then why did you call? > hacker1 opens a hatch on the side of the Pony to find Bob Saget hiding inside. You hear a loud "Tch." from the other end of the line. Bob walks out and reveals his lupine form. "I thought only werewolves could change during the full moon. > hacker1 says "Tch" "I have a plan... But I need you to distract the guard at the cockpit so I can get inside. You look tough enough, and this uniform should do the trick. You agree to help Bob. " > Yeetlock casts a spell on Bob Saget making him very small. The guard at the cockpit doesn't even bat an eye as Bob enters the cockpit. "Alright, I need you to push the button that says 'Play 40's Hits' over there." > Yeetlock pushes the button called 'play 40's hits' The music begins to blare out. Bob gets his revenge on the guard and dances along to the music. > Yeetlock says "How did you know that the guard hated 40's hits so badly?" "...Because I took Chemistry." "...What?" "I took Chemistry... And I know that all carbon based life forms have a sense of rhythm. Go check his pulse." > Yeetlock checks the guard's pulse. There's a faint pulse, but it's very weak.Bob dances to the music in the cockpit. Meanwhile, you sneak back towards the door where the guard is standing. > Yeetlock calls Bounty the pony to come over. The pony walks over to the doorway.The guard turns around to look at the pony, and Bounty immediately kicks the guard in the head, knocking him out. > Yeetlock says "Thanks Bounty, you're the best." Bob says "Alright, the ship is mine." He begins walking through the hallways of the ship. > Yeetlock says "So what is your ultimate plan Bob?" "...I'm going to get the original plans for the ship so I can rebuild it's technology to use as my own." "Really? That's bold. I didn't expect you'd go that route."
codeulike 6y ago
Pastebin of the story 5 hours later, with various HNs taking part https://pastebin.com/BUNPBQTL https://pastebin.com/BUNPBQTL

chaostheory 6y ago

I wouldn't say Roblox games have polish either. There's also a lot of weirdness that only adolescents and tweens would fully understand because in many cases it's made by those same kids. I wouldn't consider it a MUD either. None of the games I've seen so far even have RPG traits. It's more of a powerful sandbox than even Minecraft imo

therouwboat 6y ago
I dont know anything about roblox, but atleast to me and my friends, muds were mostly about getting more exp/money/eq and killing bigger mobs or making exp faster. No-one ever roleplayed. They were like clicker games, but with extra steps.
nsxwolf 6y ago
Some are quite polished. Take a look at Phantom Forces, an FPS that plays as well as Call of Duty.
- chaostheory 6y ago
  That's the exception and far from the norm.

AnonsLadder 6y ago

My journey to programming all began with RuneScape private servers in mid school. It was my perfect creative outlet because I always wanted to get into programming, I loved MMOs, and it just so happened that RuneScape had a legit full-on underground private server reverse-engineering community. What better way to program than learning how to create your favorite MMO from complete scratch? (With all the documents provided & the active help of fellow others). The RSPS scene was really big, active, and very competitive. What was so fun about this is that the private server communities always encouraged users to share data resources, programmijg tutorials/snippets, and reverse engineering documentation of the game so that way it helps everyone that's trying to program their own server. Everyone wanted that "Java Developer" icon next to their forum name, and to do that was to contribute back. There's only one community standing left and it's an absolute gold mine of programming & game-development information [1] It's a very niche community, but back then anyone could spin up a server and quickly have 50+ players actively playing within a week, and because of that, i've learned the concepts of client to server network designs, mysql databases, asynchronous communications, non or threaded model designs, and the whole Java basics spectrum. Another good venture is the MineCraft server development communities such as Bukkit,Technic, Sponge, and Spigot-MC [2]. They've got some interesting frameworks as well for the Mobile-Portable edition that's pretty interesting to look at. Last I can think of is Garry's Mod. GMod solely revolves around Lua. [3] Roblox is Lua as well and they pay a good chunk of money to developers if you can create a trending server. But you've got to have some sort of real interest to get into these, otherwise it feels like a waste of time imo. I was young and havent graduated yet so I had all the time to mess with these source-codes & actually host them, but now, I just don't see the point unless i'm going to attempt making money from it. It's a rewarding and fun experience though. I wish I knew more underground communities espcially akin to RSPS, it was the best learning experience and it is not often you find something genuine like that. 1. rune-server.org 2. spigot-mc.org bukkit.org 3. gmod.facepunch.com roblox.com

squeaky-clean 6y ago
One of my friends I met during college ran his own private and modded RS server. He charged a monthly subscription fee for access, with price tiers that went from simply being able to access the server, all the way up to monthly "gifts" of what were essentially lootboxes. I thought what a crazy idea, who would pay for that? And a few months later he bought himself a new Alienware laptop with his RS server income.

ephaeton 6y ago

Same here. MUDs got my unix / network / C programming up to par (and to this day, decades later, I still work in the field). Incidentally, "my" MUD still runs (some 25 years after its start), although it's not thriving by any means. More like 2-3 concurrent players at a peak (we used to be small anyways, our max concurrent players peaked at some 40 in the late 90s and early 00s). There's still new people picking it up and raving about the depth of content in it though, so at least that makes me happy :)

brlewis 6y ago
I think a link to your MUD would be on topic in this thread.
- ephaeton 6y ago
  I didn't dare.. you can find us (me? aka Benden) at multimud.net:4242 ;)

nvarsj 6y ago

Your experience is very similar to mine. I got most of my early programming chops doing C programming on a MUD. I also had the experience of a very religious mother throwing away all of my DnD / fantasy related games, because of the craze about satanic symbols that swept through the US in the late 80s/90s. I wish my kids would play DnD together - I can't imagine a more wholesome activity to be honest. Haha. I also much more enjoyed MUDs than WoW and the various mmorpgs. There was less polish, more "secrets" that only a few people knew about, lots to explore and discover and things always being added. The games felt organic and interesting interactions developed simply because the logic was not locked down (including bugs that lead to interesting behavior). I enjoyed WoW, especially with friends, but it felt a lot more like a skinner box with nice graphics. Nothing in it ever compared to some of the epic experiences I had on MUDs. I would concur with others here that the sandbox environment of Roblox is pretty awesome. My son especially gets up to all kinds of crazy creativite stuff - like making a TIE fighter recreation and various Boeing models in Build a Boat for Treasure. Like MUDs of yore, there are plenty of bugs and lack of polish that make things even more interesting.

HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
>I enjoyed WoW, especially with friends, but it felt a lot more like a skinner box with nice graphics. That's exactly what WoW aims to be: A themepark and the player is there for the ride. Whatever rough edges existed in vanilla are nothing compared to games before it, the games' goal always was to be as polished as possible.
- zipwitch 6y ago
  Yep. Vanilla had a few little bits of actual RPG peeking out here and there. They have long since been buffed out. Cash-extracting skinner box inside a pretty show, with a dash of e-sport and lobby game on the side seems to be a state WoW's owners are quite satisfied with.

hoseja 6y ago

Have you heard of Space Station 13?

dr-detroit 6y ago
yeah its the newest game I can think of that is like a MUD

altcognito 6y ago

Wynncraft is similar to what you're talking about for a "rough edges" dungeon within the Minecraft community. It has a lot of clever dungeons and quests put together with mostly standard Minecraft concepts. They've enhanced the leveling system quite a bit and some of the textures are improved but the "monsters" are definitely rough around the edges.

jscheel 6y ago

I remember becoming a wiz on a MUD back in the day. It wasn't my introduction to programming, as I already had some experience, but it was still a fun way to continue my programming journey.

AaronM 6y ago

I had 7 days of time on the discworld mud. I was sad when I tried to login a few years ago, and found that my account had been wiped at some point.

bcrosby95 6y ago

I first started programming on a MUD back in the late 90s. I still code for a MUD to relax. There's something nice about adding features to a simple codebase you've developed on for 20 years. Also, when I learn a new programming language the first project I tackle is coding a MUD. They touch a lot of things: files, databases, networking, text manipulation, and scripting.

zipwitch 6y ago

As someone with a pair of nieces who are Roblox junkies and who did dabble with MUDs back in the day, I can assure you that Roblox has a ton of content that is put together by enthusiastic amateurs. And while it often has heart, soul, and seems fun for those playing, it definitely doesn't have excess polish. If anything, I'd say Minecraft content tends to be far more polished than Roblox content, even after allowing for relative graphics differences.