Multi-User Dimension


Multi-User Dimension

(games)(MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-UserDungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessiblevia the Internet or a modem. A MUD is like a real-timechat forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" likean adventure game and may include combat, traps, puzzles,magic and a simple economic system. A MUD where characterscan build more structure onto the database that represents theexisting world is sometimes known as a "MUSH". Most MUDsallow you to log in as a guest to look around before youcreate your own character.

Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with namesof MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and RoyTrubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in 1979. Itwas a game similar to the classic Colossal Cave adventure,except that it allowed multiple people to play at the sametime and interact with each other. Descendants of that gamestill exist today and are sometimes generically calledBartleMUDs. There is a widespread myth that the name MUD wastrademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died*on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartleexplicitly placed "MUD" in the PD in 1985. BT was upset atthis, as they had already printed trademark claims on somemaps and posters, which were released and created the myth.

Students on the European academic networks quickly improved onthe MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD,AberMUD, LPMUD). Many of these had associatedbulletin-board systems for social interaction. Becausethese had an image as "research" they often survivedadministrative hostility to BBSs in general. This, togetherwith the fact that Usenet feeds have been spotty anddifficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci ofhackish social interaction there.

AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nucleifor large hacker communities with only loose ties totraditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with thegrowth of Usenet in the early 1980s). The second wave ofMUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise socialinteraction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building asopposed to combat and competition. In 1991, over 50% of MUDsites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesisesthe combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems withthe extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greaterprogrammability and flexibility will doubtless continue.

The state of the art in MUD design is still moving veryrapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly)every month. There is now a move afoot to deprecate the termMUD itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety ofnames corresponding to the different simulation styles beingexplored.

UMN MUD Gopher page.

U Pennsylvania MUD Web page.

See also bonk/oif, FOD, link-dead, mudhead, MOO,MUCK, MUG, MUSE, chat.

Usenet newsgroups: news:rec.games.mud.announce,news:rec.games.mud.admin, news:rec.games.mud.diku,news:rec.games.mud.lp, news:rec.games.mud.misc,news:rec.games.mud.tiny.