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MUD

MUD is an acronym for multi-user dungeon (or dimension, or even domain, as many would argue), a computer role-playing game that runs on a bulletin board system or Internet server.

Table of contents

1 Overview 2 MUD variants 3 Talkers and spods 4 RPIMUDs 5 Humor 6 MUD servers 7 Popular MU*s 8 Interesting MUDs 9 Derivatives 10 See also 11 MUD clients 12 External links

Overview

Many people may connect simultaneously to a MUD. Once connected, players control a character. They see textual descriptions of rooms, objects, other characters, and computer-controlled creatures or NPCs (non-player characters) in a virtual world. Players may interact with each other and the surroundings by typing commands that resemble plain English.

Most MUDs implement a fantasy world populated by elves, goblins, and other mythical beings. Players pretend to be knights, sorcerers, and the like. The goal of the game is to slay monsters and complete quests. Some MUDs have a science fiction setting. Most MUDs are run as hobby and are free to players. Still others, especially thoses which are based on MOOs, are used in distance education or to allow for virtual conferences. MUDs have also attracted the interest of academic scholars from many fields, including communications studies of MUDs, Sociological studies of MUDs, law, and Synthetic economies.

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.

MUD variants

Once computer power increased and Internet connectivity became ubiquitous, the graphical MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) developed. Unlike earlier MUDs, most MMORPGs are commercial ventures. Examples of MMORPGs include EverQuest (1999), Lineage (1998), and Ultima Online (1997). (See list of MMORPGs for more examples and MMORPG for more on this type of game.)

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.

Talkers and spods

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.

The spod has earned a place in the Jargon File.

RPIMUDs

Another lesser known variant of a MUD are RPIMUDs, Role-Play Intensive Multi-User Dungeon. RPIMUDs center themselves around playing out specific roles as if the role were real. Realisim is often blended in with fantasy in these types of MU*s. RPIMUDs are designed in a book format in that all the players are required to emote out what their character is doing. RPIMUDs are very different from other MU* because of this. In an RPIMUD, thieves must act like thieves, doing only what that character would do; Soldiers must act as if they were a soldier for the specific group they are a soldier in, and the rich act like a rich person would in the specific setting. RPIMUDs could be considered giant plays where the setting or world would be the theator, and the players the actors as well as the viewers. RPIMUDs are newer than MUDs in general, but have been around still for a long period of time.

Humor

• DikuMUD
• Merc
• CircleMUD
• AberMUD
• NiMUD

• The Isles Origination of Online Creation software
• SMAUG
• ROM (Not ROM)

• Amylaar
• Dworkin's Generic Driver
• MudOS
• LDMUD
• CDLib

• LambdaMOO
• PennMUSH
• TinyMUSH
• TinyMUX
• TinyMUCK
• Fuzzball MUCK
• ProtoMUCK
• GlowMUCK
• CoffeeMud

• Ancient Anguish
• BatMUD
• Elendor (MUSH)
• FurryMUCK
• Imperial DikuMud
• LambdaMOO
• MUME
• NannyMUD
• Realms of Despair (SMAUG Server author's mud)
• Realms of Wonder
• Simutronics
• SvenskMud
• Tapestries MUCK (aka Taps)
• TinyTIM
• Mudgik
• MOOMellow

• Achaea
• Advent of the Mists MUD
• Adventures Unlimited
• Aetolia
• Armageddon
• AstroMUD
• A.V.A.T.A.R MUD
• Avendar: Crucible of Legends
• DartMUD
• Discworld MUD
• Evermore
• False Realities
• Geas Mud
• Iconoclast
• Materia Magica
• Medievia
• New Moon
• QuestWar
• Realms of Chaos
• Rock:Crashed Plane
• Stick in the Mud
• Tempora Heroica
• Waterdeep: City of Splendors

Derivatives

• More information about MUD culture and history in the Jargon File
• For an academic look at MUDs, see Sherry Turkle's writings

• MonkeyTerm Monkey Term
• zMUDzMUD
• GMud GMud
• RoAClient RoAClient
• Pueblo Pueblo

• TinyFugue TinyFugue
• KMud Kmud
• MUDix, gMUDix MUDix, gMUDix
• Lyntin Lyntin
• TinTin++ TinTin++

• Mud Connector.com: Extensive list of available MUDs
• List of the "top" MUDs
• MUSH Manual, MUSH coding and MUSHes
• SMAUG MUDserver, an advanced version in the Diku-Merc-ROM lineage
• TinyMUX 2.1, a variant of TinyMUSH 2.0 which incorporates many of the distinctive features of PennMUSH, TinyMUSE, and other MUSH variants
• TinyMUSH 3.0, a variant of TinyMUX 1.6 which has been melded with TinyMUSH 2.4
• Mud Magic, MUD development and server origination
• Some history and reviews from Richard Bartle's "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games" report
• Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO
• MUD-Dev mailing list, mailing list for discussing all things related to MUD design and implementation (archives of past discussions)
• MUME A Tolkien-based MUD, one of the more popular of the genre

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