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1980: MUD
- fennecfoxen 6y agooh right I should log into my LambdaMOO account to check what's up, it's been a long time telnet lambda.moo.mud.org 8888 learned to program on that thing
- ntoll 6y agoMe too
- cmrdporcupine 6y agoplayed a huge part in my programming evolution, too. learned OO from programming in it, and then learned C from hacking on the server and various offshoots of it
- filchermcurr 6y agoLambdaMOO is mostly people being idle. There is, however, a spiritual successor called ChatMUD. It's based on a fork of a fork of the original LambdaMOO server called ToastStunt (forked from Stunt). It seems to have a bit more pep in its step if you're looking for a semi-active social / programming MOO. https://chatmud.com/ https://chatmud.com/ https://github.com/lisdude/toaststunt https://github.com/lisdude/toaststunt
- hderms 6y agoGreat article. Messing around with MUDs in the late 90s was probably one of the factors that got me deeper into computers. Graphical games were super impressive, but there was something really cool about playing in a multiplayer simulated world that, by virtue of the fact it was text based, you could envision the underworkings of a bit more easily.
- nickelcitymario 6y agoAs audio increasingly becomes a platform in-it-of-itself, experiences from the CLI world will become more and more relevant. Because audio as an interface has a lot more in common with the command line than it does with GUIs. If it doesn't already exist, I could see a serious market for audio-based MUDs.
- VadimPR 6y agoIt already exists. Modern clients like Mudlet (https://mudlet.org/ https://mudlet.org/) support both old (MSP) and modern audio protocols: https://wiki.mudlet.org/w/Standards:MUD_Client_Media_Protocol https://wiki.mudlet.org/w/Standards:MUD_Client_Media_Protoco... There's games like StickMUD that make use of this, too.
- em-bee 6y agothat seems to only go one way though. for a real audio based mud, the players voice input needs to be interpreted as commands but also sent to the other players in the room so you can have real voice based interaction.
- Mauricebranagh 6y agoStarfinder have done this on Alexa just say "Alexa Play Starfinder"
- em-bee 6y agoi wish i could play this on a real computer. not interesting in getting alexa or any other of these 'assistants'
- rjsw 6y agoI used to play on the Essex MUD from home using a 300baud accoustic coupler, this would have been 79-81.
- pjsg 6y agoI used to play the Essex MUD as well from probably 80-82 -- I can recall the huge speed boost when we got a 1200/75 dialup modem! I got to be a wizard (Gorpli) and I did meet a couple of the other wizards IRL. Fun times.
- capncleaver 6y agoWith a scrap of paper holding the PSS codes and login info I was introduced to MUD by 'Innocence the Witch', school computer lab admin by day. I played from 1982-84, usually ~5am-7am on weekdays and 2-7am through on the weekends. It was enchanting being in this imaginary world with other people. The PvP was exhilarating. The F50 article munged together Essex and MUD2 a little, iirc Essex went dark ~1984 and at launch MUD2 was a refactor, unplayably slow and expensive. It went dark quickly. I made some MUDs of my own... and that scrap of paper led to a startup career in MUDs and MMO development. I sometimes wonder what the formative experiences my kids are having in Roblox, Minecraft etc. will rustle up in their futures.
- newsclues 6y agoI played iconoclast in the early 2000s
- dvwallin 6y agoAfter 20 years I still play on Discworld MUD on a regular basis. I find there being a strong community - if a bit smaller than it used to be. The one thing I enjoy most with playing on the MUD (apart from the people) are the fact that I feel less limited in the game play compared to most graphical games.
- ycombinete 6y agoI’m just starting out in Discworld, and I have trouble interacting with the NPCs. For instance I’ve just signed on as a thief, but when I go to the guild building to train, I cant get OST the initial interaction with them. I’ve also been blown away by how friendly everyone I’ve encountered has been. It seems like a great community
- dvwallin 6y agoIn almost any room containing a named NPC you can simply type "say help" and they'll give you hints on how to continue. And yes, most people on Discworld are really friendly and helpful.
- ycombinete 6y agoThank you. I’m going to hop on now and try this out. edit: I tried "say help" but that didn't do anything. "help here" got me the help that I needed
- AaronM 6y agoWas really bummed when my character got wiped there.
- drummojg 6y agoI was very sad my character got scrubbed for not logging on enough. Alas and alack, another relic of life passes because of old age and inattention. The last time I'd logged on was the night PTerry died, and that was a fine capstone for a long career as a Feef on the Disc.
- 6y ago
- beardedwizard 6y agoShout out Cthulhumud
- v01dlight 6y agoIf anyone wants to try something less fantasy themed, I strongly recommend hackmud (https://store.steampowered.com/app/469920/hackmud/ https://store.steampowered.com/app/469920/hackmud/), in which you play as a recently sapient program in the ruins of a network long devoid of human users. The community is very savvy and have implemented some complex stuff in and out of game, including bridges between all the popular text channels and mirrors of them on Discord (https://discord.gg/h5K5fYuuMj https://discord.gg/h5K5fYuuMj), so you can monitor and even play the game without being logged in (to hackmud, you would still need to be on Discord).
- DoomHotel 6y agoI wrote a frontend for CompuServe's British Legends using Crosstalk Mk.4's scripting language CASL. It had a complete dungeon map and let me navigate using the PC's numeric keypad for directions. An onscreen keymap with labels for each number key showed where pressing that key would lead. It even randomized choices, so if NW and W both led to the same place it would pick one randomly if you hit either key. (This was to confuse wizards who could tell who you were by your habitual choices.)
- mattowen_uk 6y agoI used to mod /r/MUD on reddit - if you fancy getting back into MUDs that's a great place to start. For my sins, I became very addicted to Shades on Prestel back in the day. Due to this, I prefer MUDs that are not deep on class progression, and just easy fun. A lot of the still running MUDs have deep learning curves, due to some of them having been running for a good few decades. To the new or casual player, this makes them impregnable. Whereas I don't think we need to change the beauty of the text based medium, I do think that the genre needs updating to make new MUDs more accessible.... Even D&D finally accepted it needed to simplify again to gain new players.
- rocky_raccoon 6y agoHere I am, about 90% done with a completely custom approach to a classless system in a MUD, and you've got me worried that I'm overcomplicating things all of a sudden.
- samizdis 6y agoWow, Shades on Prestel (while using a BBC Micro). That brings back memories - especially of getting screamed at and grounded/penalised for racking up huge phone bills. I remember two characters getting "married" on Shades. A scene that was usually described as a derelict church with a grim, cold interior, was for the occasion bedecked with flowers etc - and rather than being empty save for a random player perhaps wandering in when my character was there, it was full of people. Date/time for the ceremony had been widely disseminated. Cracking game.
- mattowen_uk 6y ago> getting screamed at and grounded/penalised for racking up huge phone bills. Not just me then. XD
- gtr 6y agoI remember playing Shades an awful lot as a young teen. That was until my parents saw the phone bill!
- Mauricebranagh 6y ago
- bovermyer 6y agoSo basically the brutal Lord of the Flies-esque culture that dominates multiplayer survival games like Rust and Conan: Exiles is nothing new. From the article: > I worked out how to login (not easy), I worked out how to load the game and... I got killed. I tried again, I got killed again and eventually, when people were bored of killing me, I tried to talk to a wizard about how the game worked and was told to bugger off and then killed again. ...This was most people’s initial experience of MUD.
- ycombinete 6y agoI’ve been playing a bit of Discworld and Aardwolf MUDS lately. Just to try out the genre, and I’ve had the opposite experience. In Discworld, you have to assign yourself as a “player killer” in order to both kill or be killed by other players. Perhaps this is idiosyncratic to Discworld. I know early RuneScape has the same setup. I’m brand new to MUDs and 100% of my interactions have been ether helping or being helped by other players to learn and play the game.
- bovermyer 6y agoI'm speaking specifically of the original, and not of the thousands of MU*s that have come into being since. There are some MU*s that have no combat at all, and are closer to shared creative spaces than anything else.
- duskwuff 6y agoHoly shit, Aardwolf is still around? I think I remember playing that somewhere around 2001 -- incredible that it's still around.
- BugsJustFindMe 6y agoNot only is it still around, but according to http://mudstats.com/Browse http://mudstats.com/Browse it appears to be currently the largest free to play non-"adult"-themed MUD.
- markus_zhang 6y agoFor anyone who has had extensive experience in MUD and early MMORPG, including Ultima Online, is there anything you would like to be implemented in modern MMO and is technically possible? For example I heard from time to time that people claim UO is actually more complex than modern MMORPG, but because I don't play either I'm wonderig what's missing here.
- jakestevenson 6y agoIn my time with a MUD, my absolute favorite parts were: 1. Social interaction 2. Automation! Maybe not all MUDs allowed it, but the one I played was absolutely fine with you using specialized clients such as tintin++ and writing scripts. I started with smaller scripts to automate movement between zones and managing inventory, and I moved on to full bots in there that would take "spoken" commands from trusted players. From what I hear, that'll get you banned in most MMORPGs these days, which is a shame.
- markus_zhang 6y agoThank you. This is very interesting. I know some MMORPG provides you plugins for automation but many new games don't give you solutions for scripting. I'm wondering if there is any MMORPG that actually gives some serious scripting to players for building their own worlds and sharing with others. It's going to be a hell lot of job to balance out but could be really fun.
- duskwuff 6y agoIn older text-based gaming: MUCKs tended to be more oriented towards creation and social interaction than MUDs. Many MUCKs would allow players to create their own areas, with a limited degree of scriptability. In modern gaming: Second Life, VRChat, Roblox, et al.
- markus_zhang 6y agothanks, those are interesting games. I'll check out the MUCKs and see how they balance things (or maybe they just didn't care). The game Neverwinter Nights(2001) introduced a powerful editor so that players can create their own world and join servers. But those servers have to be separated because of different scripts. It would be really fascinating if somehow we can have a connection center (thinking the Sigil city in Planescape) and players can join different "worlds" which maybe have completely different sets of rules (but have the same meta rules to make the connection possible).
- real-dino 6y agoI played a bit of MUD II. Did anyone know how to get the 2 crowns? The one in the swamp vs the one in the tower? They forbid us from telling each other as it was one of the easiest ways to get experience in the game.
- fuball63 6y agoI'm hoping maybe some experience MUD players can help me out with this: every time I try to get into a MUD, the text just moves past the screen too fast and I feel like I miss important parts, and then I can't see it again. Or if I run a command, before I can interpret the output it flies off the screen in favor of some non important text. I can't imagine combat in text mode, trying to figure out what command to type while also trying to race against the buffer. I've tried several different MUDs over the years because I like text based games, but they never stick.
- rendall 6y agoThat's a matter of having a telnet client that has a screen buffer. I haven't tried this one, but try it? http://tintin.mudhalla.net/ http://tintin.mudhalla.net/
- fuball63 6y agoI haven't, I'm using Mudlet on Linux. It has a fairly long buffer, but it is just a lot of scrolling. Someone in another comment mentioned you can set up two buffers, so I'm trying to figure that out. I got through the training academy on CoffeeMUD last night, so far so good.
- Jtsummers 6y agoThere are some mud clients (I can't remember the one I used on Windows, but it did this) which parses out a lot of information and lets you have a multipane/window view of the text. This can help. It's also possible to turn many of the notifications off. Also, you usually start in something like a common room/town and those tend to be very active with people moving in and out constantly or carrying on non-shouted conversations. Once you get out of those areas the speed of text tends to drop off. Finally, with room descriptions you can always "look" again. I became very good at reading 1-3 lines of text before it disappeared, pulling it up, and starting right where I left off. But honestly that didn't happen too often. In combat, depending on the MUD and the class of character you may not need to type frequently during combat. Usually you will attack automatically once it begins. Spells, healing commands, and other things are all you need to type and usually not every round (which is about 1-3 seconds usually). Every MUD I played on had some form of alias, and if not the client did, which let me take a 5 word command down to 1-5 letters. `draw crysknife` became `dc` for my Fremen character. I had similar aliases for putting it away and drawing other weapons or switching to other attack strategies.
- uglygoblin 6y agoMy first experience with an online service was Prodigy sometime around 1995 or 1996 and one of the first things I stumbled across was the MUD Gemstone 3. It blew my mind that hundreds of people were all existing in a shared world. I directly attribute my love of computers and software development career to MUD's. Also, Gemstone is still running: https://www.play.net/gs4/ https://www.play.net/gs4/
- peddling-brink 6y agolong live styx.dk But seriously, if anyone knows how to reliably contact the admins that took it offline, I'd love to know.
- savingGrace 6y agoI couldn't focus on the article after I read about Tom showing up. How did Tom help him move the bookcase?
- alexellisuk 6y agoWho remembers nightfall? It still seems to be up at nightfall.org It's how I learned that telnet isn't encrypted many years ago :)
- boring_twenties 6y agoThe best MUD hands down was Armageddon. Oh shit, it still exists. I kind of wish I hadn't realized that.
- nickdothutton 6y agoWe have to go back.
- NateLawson 6y agoMy university had terminal labs in the early 90s, tables full of Wyse terminals hooked up to the central UNIX cluster. PCs and Macs were common in other labs, but a terminal lab was still a convenient place to check email or get on IRC between classes. I would log into two terminals next to each other in order to have a screen for IRC while coding on the other one. One early morning, I walked into a lab that was vacant except for one person. He was slumped over the keyboard with a hand around an empty Coke can. The amber screen was scrolling upward every few seconds: YOU ARE HUNGRY... YOU FEEL TIRED... > YOU ARE HUNGRY... YOU FEEL TIRED... >
- devindotcom 6y agoWhat a fun bit of history. Incidentally, I was looking into the possibility of hosting my own MUD a while back and it seemed rather complicated for someone without web deployment experience. I do wish there was a simpler way to do it and customize your own world for a few friends to play around in. I guess we could just invade a less-active MUD but it seems more up our alley to roll our own so we can make a few extra areas ourselves and so on.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- sedatk 6y agoTurkey had its share of MUDs in the 90's too. Turkish players would play on Bitnet on a MUD server hosted in Greece (IIRC), using 3270 terminals, before Internet arrived. There later came BizimMUD, a customized version of CircleMUD, hosted at Middle East Technical University in Ankara. I used to play there a lot back in 1995. There was permadeath and PvP was always open which made it quite exciting. Then, the last one I remember was opened up at ADANET, a local ISP in Ankara. It was a stock DikuMUD instance. It might be called "Darkwood" but I'm not sure. My favorite international MUD was Mirkwood, which was still up and running recently. I was also enamored by MUSH servers as how detailed they can be, but could never get to play them for long.
- StanislavPetrov 6y agoI spent many hours of my youth spending $6.25 (in 1987 dollars!) an hour to play British Legends on Compuserve at 300 baud (plus telephone fees, which were, by today's standards, extremely expensive). Compuserve used to charge you $12 an hour if you logged in at 1200 baud. Shoutout to Duris: Land of Bloodlust, which has been around for over 25 years and is still up and running. https://www.durismud.com/ https://www.durismud.com/