From: Richard@tharr.UUCP (Richard Bartle) Subject: Early MUD history. Date: 15 Nov 90 19:00:55 GMT abermud@ed.ac.uk (Alan Cox) writes: > The history of MUDs all starts in the UK, about 1979. Roy Trubshaw, a > student at Essex University, started writing MUD, a game written in BCPL > on a DEC-10. Along with Richard Bartle, who tidied up the system and added > a very crude database compiler for it, they produced a very good combat > game for it. Since most of this "early history" stuff got passed down by word of mouth, here's how it "really" happened... The very first MUD was written by Roy Trubshaw in MACRO-10 (the machine code for DECsystem-10's). Date-wise, it was Spring 1979. The game was originally little more than a series of inter-connected locations where you could move and chat. I don't think it was called MUD at that stage, but I'd have to ask Roy to be sure. Roy rewrote it almost immediately, and the next version, also in MACRO-10, was much more sophisticated. This one was definitely called MUD (I still have a printout of it). The database (ie. the rooms, objects, commands etc.) was defined in a separate file, but it could also be added to during play. However, the result was that people added new rooms that were completely out of keeping with the rest of the environment, and, worse, added new commands that removed any spirit of exploration and adventure that the game may have had. In those days, memory was at a premium, and on Essex University's DEC-10 we had something like 50K maximum (36-bit words) to use. The game definition stuff took up too much memory, so Roy decided to ditch it. The program was also becoming unmanageable, as it was written in assembler. Hence, he rewrote everything in BCPL, starting late 1979 and working up to about Easter 1980. The finished product was the heart of the system which many people came to believe was the "original" MUD. In fact, it was version 3. I had been helping Roy with the game-side of things for some time, starting with suggestions for version 1. Roy was mainly interested in the programming side of things, rather than the design of rooms, puzzles and so on. When he left Essex, I took over full control. At that point, there was no objective for the players, and only primitive communication. There was no points-scoring system, there were no mobiles, no containers, and even some of the infrastructure was missing (eg. two people in a dark room, one with a torch: the other still couldn't see). In terms of lines of code, Roy gave me about 25% of what was in the final program (mind you, it was the most essential 25%!). I added all the stuff about getting to be a wizard (which was previously 'debug mode' so implementors - Roy and I - could test out new room complexes we'd added. Roy's reasons for writing MUD were twofold: to make a multi-player adventure game; to write an interpreter for a database definition language. The language he developed was rather crude, and I had to hack it to get it to do a lot of the things I wanted to do. This was partly because Roy didn't know the kind of things that would be needed from a game-design perspective, and partly because the multi-user aspect came to dominate the project. However, the core of the database definition language (MUD definition language - MUDDL) was all Roy's. I didn't add it, I added TO it. Although Roy had written the basis of the system, it wasn't really a game, nor was it completely usable. Sometimes, the implication is given that I merely modified his program, or tidied up a few loose ends, whereas actually I wrote most of it (and unwrote some of it!). At other times, there's the suggestion that Roy just knocked together a basic shell devoid of anything really original or interesting; again, that's incorrect - Roy pioneered MUD programming, and had to design everything from scratch. So the writing of that first MUD was basically a team effort, and the way Roy and I expect to see it described is "MUD was created and written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University in the UK", or words to that effect. At this time, there was an experimental packet-switching system (EPSS) linking Essex University to ArpaNet in the USA. In Spring 1980, we got our first few external players logging in and trying the game out (one of whom I met recently by complete chance in a hotel in Annapolis, MD). There's a reference to MUD in an article on Zork in the December 1980 issue of Byte. Interestingly, it also mentions an earlier multi-player version of Zork, but neither I nor Roy were aware of it at the time. I've never found any other references to it, so I don't know how MUD-like it was. MUD only had one database for the first couple of years, then I took out all the "generic" bits (eg. get/drop/quit commands, spells, common objects like doors & keys) and put them into a set of include files. I then wrote another game called Valley, using the MUD interpreter and the include files, but with another set of rooms and puzzles. Although I'm only a year younger than Roy, I was able to stay on at Essex and work on the system because I became a postgraduate (and, later still, a lecturer) there. Some undergraduate friends took the interpreter and include files (with my permission), and used them as a basis for their own games. The first of these was Rock (based on Fraggle Rock, the TV show), but others that spring to mind were BLUD (very deadly), UNI (a simulation of the University, with spoof monsters for the members of staff), and MIST (about which you know). After I left Essex, I let them run MUD for two or three years for old time's sake, but after a while its code was adulterated by a new bunch of well-meaning undergrads, so I took it away; people were getting a false idea of what the game was meant to be like (and besides, they'd removed my name from the arch-wizard list!). The original MUD is back now, I understand, and will remain there until the DEC-10 is switched off (if it hasn't gone already). The game was initially populated primarily by students at Essex, but as time wore on and we got more external lines to the DEC-10, outsiders joined in. Soon, the machine was swamped by games-players, but the University authorities were kind enough to allow people to log in from the outside solely to play MUD, so long as they did so between 2am and 6am in the morning (or 10pm to 10am weekends). Even at those hours, the game was always full to capacity. Thus, MUD became a popular pastime throughout the modem-using computer hobbyists of Britain. I also sent copies of the code to Norway, Sweden, Australia and the USA. I could go on, but then we stop being early days and start being present days, so I won't! Suffice to say that the original game was licensed to CompuServe, where it still runs to this day, labouring under the name of "British Legends". Richard Bartle. -- [tharr - *free* public access to Usenet in the UK. (0234) 261804] X-Andrew-WideReply: netnews.rec.games.mud X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail Received: via nntppoll with nntp; Fri, 20 Mar 1992 15:49:03 -0500 (EST) Path: andrew.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!galileo.cc.rochester.edu!ub!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!swrinde!gatech!pitt.edu!puff From: puff@gl.pitt.edu (Steven J. Owens) Newsgroups: rec.games.mud Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth Message-ID: <1081@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> Date: 20 Mar 92 19:41:33 GMT References: <29965@sdcc12.ucsd.edu> <1992Mar5.223402.26398@raven.alaska.edu> <22121.29bca9d5@amherst.edu> Sender: news+@pitt.edu Organization: University of Pittsburgh Lines: 59 In article <22121.29bca9d5@amherst.edu> pfcouvares@amherst.edu writes: >In article <1992Mar5.223402.26398@raven.alaska.edu>, wisner@steller.ims.alaska.edu (Bill Wisner) writes: >> >> I was one of the people Richard Bartle quoted in that paper in the >> section about Scepter, so... >> It was closer to pure role-playing than any Internet MUD I've seen. >> It had several concepts I've not seen in a multi-player game since, >> among them: >> >> * Combat was not automatic; you had to explicitly enter a combat >> command (kill, parry, thrust, etc) every round. This has actually been around in many MUDs - and players quite quickly set up their own macros to do the automatic commands anyway. >> * Every room had a random encounter table. Very few monsters were A random encounter table is pure role-playing? >> * There was a complete, easy-to-use world editor. This did not extend >> to creating commands, but any attribute of any object, room, monster >> or player could be changed, and new ones created on-the-fly while the >> game was running. This is also quite common. In fact, other than Abers, I don't really know of any mud where things can't be changed on the fly. Some of them, for example MOO (lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888) can do some pretty fantastic things. >> * It was impossible to earn wizardship or godhood. The maximum player >> level was 21; at that point, you simply could not advance any further. >> DM status (for they were called DMs, not gods or wizards) was >> controlled by a player bit, not by level. This is, surprise surprise, common also, although less common on the LPmuds. LambdaMOO is interesting, in that it is NOT an LP/Diku/Aber, but it DOES have a role-playing game system. GMs are defined as who has access to the rpg and can code objects that work with the rpg. The only way to 'earn' wizardship is to know your stuff and be sufficiently trust- worthy that, if the need arises, you will be asked to act as a wizard. >> It was also a hell of a lot of fun. > > I bet! This game sounds exactly like what I've always wished MUDding >could be. The closer to D&D, the better... Drop by lambda.parc.xerox.com 8888 and give it a try. >(the only additional suggestion that would be nice is for you to be able > to log on as a monster, as opposed to a character. That way you'd have > intelligent beasts running around not just dumb things that sit still > and get beat up) This, alas, is not available in the LambdaRPG, although I wish it was. Some other MOOs are planning to open soon, with a theme of player-vs-player competition. Steven J. Owens puff@unix.cis.pitt.edu X-Andrew-WideReply: netnews.rec.games.mud X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail Received: via nntppoll with nntp; Fri, 20 Mar 1992 18:43:43 -0500 (EST) Path: andrew.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!news.bbn.com!usc!wupost!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!uc.msc.edu!af.msc.edu!alan From: alan@af.msc.edu (Alan Klietz) Newsgroups: rec.games.mud Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth Message-ID: <1992Mar20.221515.20870@uc.msc.edu> Date: 20 Mar 92 22:15:15 GMT Article-I.D.: uc.1992Mar20.221515.20870 References: <1992Mar5.223402.26398@raven.alaska.edu> <22121.29bca9d5@amherst.edu> <1081@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> Sender: netnews@uc.msc.edu (Network News) Organization: Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. Lines: 31 In article <1081@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> puff@gl.pitt.edu (Steven J. Owens) writes: pfcouvares@amherst.edu writes: <>> <>> * Combat was not automatic < This has actually been around in many MUDs <>> * There was a complete, easy-to-use world editor. < This is also quite common. <>> * It was impossible to earn wizardship or godhood. < This is, surprise surprise, common The point is that these concepts originated in a game almost 13 years ago. I will be the first to admit that the technical capabilities of Scepter have long been superceded by many better MUDs. Remember, this game ran on a CDC mainframe with a 120K bytes of memory and 110 baud teletypes. <>> It was also a hell of a lot of fun. <> This game sounds exactly like what I've always wished MUDding <>could be. The closer to D&D, the better... People have often asked me what was the 'secret' that made the game so fun. The answer is that there wasn't any. The important aspects, careful attention to detail and game balance, are the same for any good MUD. -- Alan E. Klietz Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. 1200 Washington Avenue South Minneapolis, MN 55415 Ph: +1 612 626 1737 Internet: alan@msc.edu X-Andrew-WideReply: netnews.rec.games.mud X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail Received: via nntppoll with nntp; Sat, 21 Mar 1992 03:04:14 -0500 (EST) Path: andrew.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!rutgers!usc!wupost!gumby!destroyer!news.iastate.edu!aviator.cc.iastate.edu!michael From: michael@iastate.edu (Michael M. Huang) Newsgroups: rec.games.mud Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth Message-ID: Date: 21 Mar 92 06:45:23 GMT References: <22121.29bca9d5@amherst.edu> <1081@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> <1992Mar20.221515.20870@uc.msc.edu> <1992Mar21.023720.4152@acsu.buffalo.edu> Sender: news@news.iastate.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Iowa State University, Ames IA Lines: 29 In <1992Mar21.023720.4152@acsu.buffalo.edu> leet@acsu.buffalo.edu (Brian D. Leet) writes: >I have to belief that a certain factor in the impression that older MUDs were >"better" has to do with rising expectations of what a mud should be. I have >not played for that long and I by no means remember them (although I have >played monster). I have noticed however that many players expect to be >"entertained" by the mud. Maybe people have forgotten that you get out of the >game what you put into it. I strongly suspect that was what made the old muds >so enjoyable. Just my $0.02. "Older muds" are more "enjoyable" for the simple reason that the most chattering bunch on the net these days started playing sometime back then (in the "good ol' days"). When you're ignorant of the coding ways of the muds, you view everything as "magical", thus more enjoyable and entertaining (IMHO :) I can still remember the first mud I logged on and a wiz popped into the room. The rush that I got from watching him cloning items (not in those specific terms of course :) can never be forgotten. When you know how the codings work, the "magic" is then all gone. -michael Vincent's Hollow -- ============================================================================== Michael M. Huang 3107 West St. Apt. E #include HTCU, Ames Laboratories -&- Ames, Iowa, 50010 (515) 292-3752 PV Student Development Group X-Andrew-WideReply: netnews.rec.games.mud X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail Received: via nntppoll with nntp; Mon, 23 Mar 1992 14:57:03 -0500 (EST) Path: andrew.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!news.bbn.com!usc!wupost!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!mudhoney!alberti From: alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross) Newsgroups: rec.games.mud Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth Message-ID: <1992Mar23.190312.19907@news2.cis.umn.edu> Date: 23 Mar 92 19:03:12 GMT Article-I.D.: news2.1992Mar23.190312.19907 References: <22121.29bca9d5@amherst.edu> <1081@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> <1992Mar20.221515.20870@uc.msc.edu> <1097@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> Sender: news@news2.cis.umn.edu (Usenet News Administration) Organization: University of Minnesota, Minneapolis: CIS Lines: 60 Nntp-Posting-Host: mudhoney.micro.umn.edu In <1097@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> puff@gl.pitt.edu (Steven J. Owens) writes: >> The point is that these concepts originated in a game almost 13 years ago. > I beg to differ, the point is that the initial posting said that >these had not been seen on any internet muds. They ARE around. Well, of course those features are around. I'm not sure what a MUD would be if it didn't have those basic features. IRC maybe? > I'm not >running down Scepter, although some of what I've heard about "random monster >and random treasure" makes me suspect it's akin to old-style AD&D in some >ways. This should be slightly qualified: Subsets of the total monster database could be constructed and those subsets could be pointed at by various rooms. So you could make up a list of "cold" monsters, create an "ice castle", and the rooms in the castle would point at the "cold monsters" list. Additionally, the total treasures could be assigned a "cold treasures" list, and the monsters in the room could be assigned those lists. In the end you'd have an ice castle full of cold monsters bearing cold treasures. You could also create permanent monsters in a room, but once killed they stayed dead. >> People have often asked me what was the 'secret' that made the game so >> fun. The answer is that there wasn't any. The important aspects, >> careful attention to detail and game balance, are the same for any >> good MUD. > Sigh... so few people running muds these days really understand >that. I'd add that, for me, an extremely important aspect is who I'm >playing against. Playing against a real live intelligence is more fun >than beating on zombie-like monsters. I prefer, in order of preference: Exploring interesting new places; Solving puzzle adventures by processing clues; Competing against other players; Defeating tough monsters along the way. Note that monster chopping is last on the list, and IRC-style socializing and soap operas are not on the list at all. The successor to Scepter was Screenplay, which allowed fully programmable objects (not just monsters, but objects), trainable monsters who could be made almost indistinguishable from humans (I had a dog I trained to do tasks), and means of creating "stories" where rewards could be reaped by methods other than hacking and killing. Screenplay incorporated elements which NO MUD I've seen can match. Believe me, when I see a MUD of the quality Screenplay displayed, I'll let you know. Until then, Mr. Kleitz remains ahead of his time. -- Bob Alberti: Computer & Information Services U of MN |aka: Albatross| Unitar- Internet : alberti@boombox.micro.umn.edu |Metropolis BBS| ian/ Disclaimer : My employer does not mean what I say. |(612) 721-1870| Univer- Ingredients: 30% header, 30% quote, 10% comment, 30% cutesy signature.| salist! X-Andrew-WideReply: netnews.rec.games.mud X-Andrew-Authenticated-as: 0;andrew.cmu.edu;Network-Mail Received: via nntppoll with nntp; Tue, 24 Mar 1992 03:33:07 -0500 (EST) Path: andrew.cmu.edu!crabapple.srv.cs.cmu.edu!cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!rochester!udel!wupost!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!noc.MR.NET!uc.msc.edu!af.msc.edu!alan From: alan@af.msc.edu (Alan Klietz) Newsgroups: rec.games.mud Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth Message-ID: <1992Mar24.073338.26295@uc.msc.edu> Date: 24 Mar 92 07:33:38 GMT Article-I.D.: uc.1992Mar24.073338.26295 References: <1992Mar20.221515.20870@uc.msc.edu> <1097@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> <1992Mar23.190312.19907@news2.cis.umn.edu> Sender: netnews@uc.msc.edu (Network News) Organization: Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc. Lines: 65 In article <1992Mar23.220155.21016@news2.cis.umn.edu> alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross) writes: < Organization: IDA, Alexandria, VA Date: Fri, 27 Mar 92 22:12:14 GMT alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross) writes: =Screenplay incorporated elements which NO MUD I've seen can match. Believe = me, when I see a MUD of the quality Screenplay displayed, I'll let you know. >Okay... so what happened to Screenplay? =Alan Kleitz wrote Screenplay, but then the business which owned the =permissions was sold to a company in Virginia which eventually went =bankrupt and the owner went to jail on 18 counts of running a false =church out of his home to evade taxes (odd, since he lived in Falls Church). I'll add more to this historical tale, but first let's name names. The business which originally owned both Screenplay and Scepter was named "GamBit" and was located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Bob Alberti (Albatross) was one of its founders. Alan Kleitz worked for GamBit & was its chief programmer. The company in Virginia which bought GamBit and thus the rights to Scepter, Screenplay, etc, was called "InterPlay" (there are some complexities about that purchase that I won't go into here). InterPlay also ran a national interactive system called ProtoCall. So you know my relationship with all this, I worked for InterPlay on all 3 of InterPlay's systems (Scepter, Screenplay, and ProtoCall). ======================================================================== Screenplay was shut down LONG before InterPlay went out of business. Screenplay had a number of excellent features & good potential, but it was very incomplete and only partially documented. It did run & could show off its potential, but it was decided (after creating a monstrous to-do list, including some stability and language problems) that it would take too long to finish. Running is not the same as finished! InterPlay's president (Denny Flanders) did go to jail as Bob Alberti described, but that's not the main reason why InterPlay folded. InterPlay was in trouble long before Denny went to jail because its income was paltry and its outgo horrendous. At this point Scepter & Screenplay could (in theory) be picked up by someone, but there would be significant commissions (to pay back the many who lost money on InterPlay). There would be programming to do - significant for Screenplay & a good deal for Scepter. Finally, there would be a VERY steep learning curve for anyone who had not already worked with the code. Relatively little was documented (I tried to do some), and I'm sure much has been lost since. Alan Kleitz: >> People have often asked me what was the 'secret' that made the game so >> fun. The answer is that there wasn't any. The important aspects, >> careful attention to detail and game balance, are the same for any >> good MUD. To that I say Amen. --- David A. Wheeler (Formerly "Kaltor" on Scepter, Screenplay, InterPlay) wheeler@ida.org Disclaimer: The above does not reflect any official opinion of anything.