Todd Coleman). ==Early history== === Origins === Colossal Cave Adventure, created in 1975 by Will Crowther on a DEC PDP-10 computer, was the first widely used adventure game.
Also called Adventure, it contained many D&D features and references, including a computer controlled dungeon master. Numerous dungeon crawlers were created on the PLATO system at the University of Illinois and other American universities that used PLATO, beginning in 1975.
The game was significantly expanded in 1976 by Don Woods.
By 1978–79, these games were heavily in use on various PLATO systems, and exhibited a marked increase in sophistication in terms of 3D graphics, storytelling, user involvement, team play, and depth of objects and monsters in the dungeons. Inspired by Adventure, a group of students at MIT in the summer of 1977 wrote a game for the PDP-10 minicomputer; called Zork, it became quite popular on the ARPANET.
By 1978–79, these games were heavily in use on various PLATO systems, and exhibited a marked increase in sophistication in terms of 3D graphics, storytelling, user involvement, team play, and depth of objects and monsters in the dungeons. Inspired by Adventure, a group of students at MIT in the summer of 1977 wrote a game for the PDP-10 minicomputer; called Zork, it became quite popular on the ARPANET.
Zork was ported, under the filename DUNGEN ("dungeon"), to FORTRAN by a programmer working at DEC in 1978. In 1978 Roy Trubshaw, a student at the University of Essex in the UK, started working on a multi-user adventure game in the MACRO-10 assembly language for a DEC PDP-10.
Federation later left AOL to run on its own after AOL began offering unlimited service. === Other early MUD-like games === In 1978, around the same time Roy Trubshaw wrote MUD, Alan E.
Trubshaw converted MUD to BCPL (the predecessor of C), before handing over development to Richard Bartle, a fellow student at the University of Essex, in 1980.
It became the first Internet multiplayer online role-playing game in 1980, when the university connected its internal network to ARPANet. The original MUD game was closed down in late 1987, reportedly under pressure from CompuServe, to whom Richard Bartle had licensed the game.
Dragon's Gate was closed on February 10, 2007. In the summer of 1980, University of Virginia classmates John Taylor and Kelton Flinn wrote Dungeons of Kesmai, a six player game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons which used roguelike ASCII graphics.
The games were retired commercially in 2000. The popularity of MUDs of the University of Essex tradition escalated in the United States during the late 1980s when affordable personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled role-players to log into multi-line BBSs and online service providers such as CompuServe.
They founded the Kesmai company in 1982 and in 1985 an enhanced version of Dungeons of Kesmai, Island of Kesmai, was launched on CompuServe.
Klietz ported Milieu to an IBM XT in 1983, naming the new port Scepter of Goth.
GamBit's assets were later sold to Interplay Productions. In 1984, Mark Peterson wrote The Realm of Angmar, beginning as a clone of Scepter of Goth.
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 created and deployed a commercial gaming site, Gamers World.
These included Gods by Ben Laurie, a MUD1 clone that included online creation in its endgame, and which became a commercial MUD in 1988; and MirrorWorld, a tolkienesque MUD started by Pip Cordrey who gathered some people on a BBS he ran to create a MUD1 clone that would run on a home computer. Neil Newell, an avid MUD1 player, started programming his own MUD called SHADES during Christmas 1985, because MUD1 was closed down during the holidays.
They founded the Kesmai company in 1982 and in 1985 an enhanced version of Dungeons of Kesmai, Island of Kesmai, was launched on CompuServe.
A prominent early graphical MUD was Habitat, written by Randy Farmer and Chip Morningstar for Lucasfilm in 1985.
It became the first Internet multiplayer online role-playing game in 1980, when the university connected its internal network to ARPANet. The original MUD game was closed down in late 1987, reportedly under pressure from CompuServe, to whom Richard Bartle had licensed the game.
Avalon introduced equilibrium and balance (cooldowns), skill-based player vs player combat and concepts such as player-run governments and player housing. ==Popular variants== ===AberMUD=== The first popular MUD codebase was AberMUD, written in 1987 by Alan Cox, named after the University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
DikuMUD had a key influence on the early evolution of the MMORPG genre, with EverQuest (created by avid DikuMUD player Brad McQuaid) 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 and Island of Kesmai, founded Simutronics with Tom and Susan Zelinski.
These included Gods by Ben Laurie, a MUD1 clone that included online creation in its endgame, and which became a commercial MUD in 1988; and MirrorWorld, a tolkienesque MUD started by Pip Cordrey who gathered some people on a BBS he ran to create a MUD1 clone that would run on a home computer. Neil Newell, an avid MUD1 player, started programming his own MUD called SHADES during Christmas 1985, because MUD1 was closed down during the holidays.
In late 1988 it was ported to C, which enabled it to spread rapidly to many Unix platforms upon its release in 1989.
It was publicly released in November 1988.
The MUD was officially launched in 1989.
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. The Legend Lives was published by Yehuda Simmons in 1989.
In late 1988 it was ported to C, which enabled it to spread rapidly to many Unix platforms upon its release in 1989.
Though there never were many network-accessible Monster servers, it inspired James Aspnes 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 and TinyMUSH.
The original game came in at 1 KB in 1989, compared to 102 GB in January 2016. ===LPMud=== In 1989, LPMud was developed by Lars Pensjö (hence the LP in LPMud).
GEnie was shut down in the late 1990s, although Dragon's Gate was later brought to AOL before it was finally released on its own.
During the early 1990s, LPMud was one of the most popular MUD codebases.
Descendants of the original LPMud include MudOS, DGD, SWLPC, 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 [and slash] MUDs based upon its code.
After a short-lived instance of GemStone II, GemStone III was officially launched in February 1990.
The first Internet talker was Cat Chat in 1990. ===Educational MUDs=== Taking advantage of the flexibility of MUD server software, some MUDs are designed for educational purposes rather than gaming or chat.
However, with the increase in computing power and Internet connectivity during the late 1990s, 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, a term coined by Richard Garriott in 1997. == Development == Within a MUD's technical infrastructure, a mudlib (concatenation of "MUD library") defines the rules of the in-game world.
As of the late 1990s, a website called The Mud Connector has served as a central and curated repository for active MUDs.
MIST ran until the machine that hosted it, a PDP-10, was superseded in early 1991. 1985 saw the origin of a number of projects inspired by the original MUD.
An early version of Hourglass was also ported to the PC, named Vortex, by Ben Maizels in 1992. Although written specifically for Avalon: The Legend Lives, it went on to spawn a number of games, including Avalon: The First Age, which ran from 1999 to 2014.
Taking this a step further are MUDs devoted solely to this sort of conflict, called pure PK MUDs, the first of which was Genocide in 1992.
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.
MicroMUSE 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 MOOs, Diversity University in 1993, also the first educational MUD.
In 1994, Peterson rewrote The Realm of Angmar, adapting it to MS-DOS (the basis for many dial-in BBS systems), and renamed it Swords of Chaos.
Initially written in ARM assembly language on the Acorn Archimedes 440, in 1994 it made the leap from the venerable Archimedes to Debian Linux on the PC and later Red Hat where, other than shifting to Ubuntu, it has remained ever since.
MicroMUSE 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 MOOs, Diversity University in 1993, also the first educational MUD.
GemStone III became available on AOL in September 1995, followed by the release of DragonRealms in February 1996.
In 1995, The Independent reported that over 60,000 people regularly played about 600 MUDs, up from 170 MUDs three years prior.
Later, its 2-D graphical descendant Legends of Kesmai was launched on AOL in 1996.
The now defunct 1996 Age of Thrones and notably Achaea, Dreams of Divine Lands started life in Vortex prior to moving to its own Rapture engine.
GemStone III became available on AOL in September 1995, followed by the release of DragonRealms 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 the player the room or area they are standing in, listing the objects, players and non-player characters (NPCs) in the area, as well as all of the exits.
However, with the increase in computing power and Internet connectivity during the late 1990s, 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, a term coined by Richard Garriott in 1997. == Development == Within a MUD's technical infrastructure, a mudlib (concatenation of "MUD library") defines the rules of the in-game world.
An early version of Hourglass was also ported to the PC, named Vortex, by Ben Maizels in 1992. Although written specifically for Avalon: The Legend Lives, it went on to spawn a number of games, including Avalon: The First Age, which ran from 1999 to 2014.
The games were retired commercially in 2000. The popularity of MUDs of the University of Essex tradition escalated in the United States during the late 1980s when affordable personal computers with 300 to 2400 bit/s modems enabled role-players to log into multi-line BBSs and online service providers such as CompuServe.
Dragon's Gate was closed on February 10, 2007. In the summer of 1980, University of Virginia classmates John Taylor and Kelton Flinn wrote Dungeons of Kesmai, a six player game inspired by Dungeons & Dragons which used roguelike ASCII graphics.
Seraphina Brennan of Massively wrote that the MUD community was "in decline" as of 2009. ==Psychology and engagement== Sherry Turkle developed a theory that the constant use (and in many cases, overuse) of MUDs allows users to develop different personalities in their environments.
An early version of Hourglass was also ported to the PC, named Vortex, by Ben Maizels in 1992. Although written specifically for Avalon: The Legend Lives, it went on to spawn a number of games, including Avalon: The First Age, which ran from 1999 to 2014.
Hourglass continues to be developed as of 2016 and Avalon: The Legend Lives currently has 2,901,325 written words and 2,248,374 lines of game code (with 2,417,900 instructions).
The original game came in at 1 KB in 1989, compared to 102 GB in January 2016. ===LPMud=== In 1989, LPMud was developed by Lars Pensjö (hence the LP in LPMud).
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