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MUDs in 2019

v1rus

Arcane
Joined
Jul 14, 2008
Messages
2,253
Well, first of all - what exactly is a MUD? Yeah, I read wikipedias definition, googled it around, and im still confused. Pretty sure all I need is one of you old fuckers writing me a paragraph or two.

While we are on that topic - How exactly have Muds influenced modern mmorpgs? Dark Age of camelot is supposed to have lots of MUD influence, and DaoC is supposed to be the main inspiration before WoW.

Finally, are tehre MUDs worth a shit in 2019?
 
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
2,323
Location
Illinois
Well, first of all - what exactly is a MUD? Yeah, I read wikipedias definition, googled it around, and im still confused. Pretty sure all I need is one of you old fuckers writing me a paragraph or two.

While we are on that topic - How exactly have Muds influenced modern mmorpgs? Dark Age of camelot is supposed to have lots of MUD influence, and DaoC is supposed to be the main inspiration before WoW.

Finally, are tehre MUDs worth a shit in 2019?
A MUD's basically just a text-based MMORPG. The exact nature of it (And the gameplay involved) varies wildly between games. MUDs probably haven't influenced modern MMORPG's very much other than simply being a really early precursor, although there are likely some combat and grind-heavy MUDs out there that feel more modern-MMO. And for your finally, the one MUD I played the most of and really enjoyed is/was Discworld MUD. I assume it's still around in 2019, been a few years since I played last, I think my current and latest character still exists despite being over 20 years old now. Loosely based on the Discworld novels by Terry Pratchett, but most importantly it has some wide variety in characters/classes/playstyles (Uses a classless skill system but your guild/class determines what you can level up the easiest/cheapest, but even warriors can dip into magic with a hell of a lot of effort), a really great game world, and quests that are largely puzzle/adventure based rather than combat. Also pretty active, back in the day it typically would have 200+ people on at any given time, but now (Last I checked a year or two back) I think it sits around 50+ people on at any given time.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
Easiest way to find out what a MUD is is to play a few MUDs. For the most part MUDs are multiplayer text adventure servers in a shared world, usually with a lot of RPG mechanics on top. Earliest MMORPGs used to be called GMUDs (Graphical MUDs) at first. The particulars of MUD gameplay varies per server though because everyone is either modifying some stock MUD server code or running a server they wrote from scratch.
 

Bester

⚰️☠️⚱️
Patron
Vatnik
Joined
Sep 28, 2014
Messages
11,003
Location
USSR
or the most part MUDs are multiplayer text adventure servers in a shared world
What do you mean adventure? They're text-based MMOs with quests, grind, leveling, raiding and pvp. Except they're good. A lot of chat happens, because you always got your hands on the keyboard and are always typing something anyway, so might as well chat with your party.
 

Absinthe

Arcane
Joined
Jan 6, 2012
Messages
4,062
You're thinking of the adventure genre in the modern sense. "Text adventure" is a specific genre unto itself, and it consists of stuff like this:

You are standing in the library entrance. The librarian's desk is just before you. To the north, you see the bookcases, filled with inscrutable tomes. To the south lies the doorway to outside.
The librarian looks up from her book.
She asks: "Is there something you need?"

ASK LIBRARIAN FOR BOOK
"I'm sorry. That book is my personal property. I can't just give it to you." The librarian responds.
LOOK AT LIBRARIAN
The librarian seems immaculately dressed. She is reading a book.
LOOK AT BOOK
You look at the librarian's book. Unfortunately, you can't read the name.
INVENTORY
You look at your bag's contents:
You have one library pass in your bag.

GIVE PASS TO LIBRARIAN
"Don't worry. You're already cleared to enter the library." The librarian tells you.
GO NORTH
You are in the main hall of the library. You are surrounded by books. There is a table here for reading and there are some lovely windows further north. The library entrance lies south of here.

It's that kind of room-based text exploration design. And you get your options to respond, look at your inventory, go north, west, east, south, up, and down, and interact with people and objects in various ways. MUDs have health, mana, leveling mechanics, spells and skills and whatnot, usually some form of automap, autowalk, and a bunch of other features I can't be bothered to describe, but they follow the basic structure of text adventures.
 
Last edited:

Zeriel

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2012
Messages
13,379
Well, first of all - what exactly is a MUD? Yeah, I read wikipedias definition, googled it around, and im still confused. Pretty sure all I need is one of you old fuckers writing me a paragraph or two.

While we are on that topic - How exactly have Muds influenced modern mmorpgs? Dark Age of camelot is supposed to have lots of MUD influence, and DaoC is supposed to be the main inspiration before WoW.

Finally, are tehre MUDs worth a shit in 2019?

You're forgetting Everquest

Everquest was designed as a graphical MUD, complete with commands MUDs had (like look afair still doing something in Everquest). Everyone else copied Everquest, it's why WoW even has slash commands.
 

Norfleet

Moderator
Joined
Jun 3, 2005
Messages
12,250
Most games with any kind of chat console have slash commands. They're not emulating MUDs, MUDs didn't have slash commands, they had straight up commands and you had to to use one to indicate you wished to SAY something as opposed to doing something. Of which I guess saying something is a doing. Slash commands are an emulation of IRC, where saying something is the default action and the desire to do-something had to be denoted specifically. Since most MMOs use their chat window as their command console if they have one, and the default action of the chat window is to say a thing, some indicator must be prefixed to indicate that they wish to do a thing instead of saying a thing, and this particular style is cribbed from IRC.
 
Unwanted

Ghost Creations

Unwanted
Joined
Oct 17, 2019
Messages
1
If you want to see what a MUD is the best way is to Download SMAUG "http://www.smaug.org/" it has a windows version that you can play locally. Text Adventure games and Muds are very similar. Text Adventure is one person at home play and MUDs are the same but Multiplayer (hundreds) and online. It allows you to chat with people and interact with them like a community. I use to run a Major BBS back in the day (1993) and the games that were hot were all MUD type games. Tele Arena, Major Mud, Mutants, Kyrandia, Trade Wars to name a few.
 

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