MUDs first appeared in 1978, and their popularity escalated in the USA during the 1980s, when (relatively speaking) cheap, at-home personal computers with 300 to 2400 baud modems enabled role players to log into multi-line BBSes. Roguelike games were also becoming popular at that time.
In Europe at around the same time, MUD development was centered around academic networks, particularly at the University of Essex where it was played by many people, both internal and external to the University.
The MUD scene is still very much alive on the Internet, and can be accessed via standard telnet clients. Specialized MUD clients exist that give a more pleasant user experience.
The original MUDs drew their inspiration from paper-and-pencil based games such as Dungeons & Dragons; (hence their name), and the computer game Colossal Cave Adventure. The first MUD was probably created and written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University in the UK[1] although the book "Dungeon Master" by William Dear, and some other sources suggest there were earlier MUD games that the Essex authors never knew about.
A version of this first MUD is still running at www.british-legends.com and a version of its descendant MUD2 runs at www.mud2.com. The first popular MUD was AberMUD written by Alan Cox, also known as Anarchy, named after the University of Wales Aberystwyth. Over time variants have diversified into other models while retaining the textual format. For example, some variants are called MUCKs, MUSHs, LPMUDs, and MOOs.
A MUSH is often said to mean multi-player shared hallucination. MUSHes descend from the program TinyMUD. MUSHes date back to the early 1990s. They are more directly concerned with role-playing (acting) than MUDs, dispensing with the experience systems. Instead, players focus on creating their character's life as accurately as possible. Members of the MUSH family include PernMUSH, PennMUSH, TinyMUSH, TinyMUSE and TinyMUX.
A MUCK, which is an acronym of multi-user chat kingdom, is similar to a MUSH in that the emphasis is on player interaction, rather than action and questing. MUCKs and MUSHes differ from IRC as a chat medium in that they provide a world, character descriptions etc in order to flesh out role-playing chat.
A MUVE is a fairly recent term which is the acronym of multi-user virtual environment. Its goal is to simply have a less narrow or ambiguous acronym for the genre.
Other variants emphasize building by providing players with a powerful programming language (as in MOOs) to make their own objects and rooms, or function as elaborate chat systems with no fantasy trappings.
When referring to MUDs, MUCKs, MUSHes etc. all alike, the term MU* is often used.
A lesser known variant is the talker, typically based on ew-too, summink, sensi-summink, playground, and plenty of other code bases. The talker is essentially a MUD, with most of the complex bits of code stripped away, leaving just the communication level commands -- hence the name talker. People who use these tend to be called spods.
The spod tends to be something of a long term fanatic. Where many mudders may move on after a year or two, people who use talkers typically have been doing so for a decade or more. Talkers are signifigantly easier to run than an average MUD, since they don't incorporate very much artificial intelligence, and they are usually much more user friendly, since there is not often much fighting as a focus. In other words, whole families of husbands, wives, children, and siblings have been known to spod in certain circles.
They also use very little network traffic, and use simple protocols, making them ideal for setting up quietly at work. Talker applications predate MUDs by many years, although some of the early ones were used to play Dungeons & Dragons; over computer networks.
When speaking of Medievia, it should be mentioned there has been quite a bit of controversy about its origins. See KaVir's Medievia page for information.
Mudville Information site for the MajorMUD roleplaying game. Fiction, humor, and a related-items shop are part of this site. http://www.mmudville.com/
MUDcentral A site archiving and linking to a lot of Mud material, most of which is related to MajorMUD. http://www.mudcentral.com/
@Mud Information on classes, races, armour, weapons, spells, quests, maps, scripts. Also provides a forum and further resources. http://www.geocities.com/tidalwavex/
MajorMUD - Realm of Legends Home of the commercially available MajorMUD software and the Realm of Legends game (requires registration). http://www.majormud.com/main.html
Major Mud Products Merchandise including maps, MegaMUD and MMTerm clients plus original artwork. http://www.gameport.com/mudproducts/index.html
Adonis MajorMUD Page Listing of free or almost free MajorMUD games. http://members.tripod.com/~mindcrime_2/freemud.html
The MajorMud Boards SiteRing The webring for boards that have active, registered games of Major Mud. http://pub36.bravenet.com/sitering/nav.php?usernum=3056852504&action=list
The Major Mud Board List A growing list of registered BBS' that feature MajorMud on an easy-to-use table. http://www.majormudlist.com/
MegaMud Online! Megamud information, downloads, and paths. http://www.megamud.net/
GChaos's Guide Of The Real World Follow a non-sneaking paladin's development as he gains experience and levels. http://chaos_gd.tripod.com/games/mud/index.html
Doubtful's Maps Page Picks up where Raydar leaves off. Maps to most areas of the game. http://www.mudcentral.com/doubtful/index.html
Mudinfo.net A well-rounded MajorMUD information site with the scoop on quests, maps, ganghouses, monsters, and weapons. http://www.mudinfo.net/
Knowfear's MajorMUD Site Mainly paths for Megamud and maps, but promises of more to come. http://knowfearmud.freeservers.com/
The Bounty Hunters MajorMUD information page with information on items plus maps and captures. http://pages.sbcglobal.net/drakkhen/mud/
Winterhawk's Majormud Page Current maps of the Realm plus updated paths for Megamud. http://www.performancepcplus.com/majormud/index.htm
Mud Atlas Full of information, but it is not labeled as to which version. Appears to be out of date, but still useful. http://www.mudatlas.com/
MajorMUD Forums The official forum for MajorMud, hosted by Metropolis. http://www.metrobbs.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi
Bloodquest Forums Majormud Forums. Post a general question, or look for information by module. http://www.bloodquest2.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi
TurboSentry TurboSentry: World Top List for MajorMud realms and characters. See where you are in the world list of over 5000 characters! Email to add your realm for free, or let my bot in every two hours. http://www.turbosentry.net/
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