INFORMATION ON THE FIRST MUD DEVELOPMENT
INFORMATION ON THE FIRST MUD DEVELOPMENT
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]
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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
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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
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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
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In article <1081@blue.cis.pitt.edu.UUCP> puff@gl.pitt.edu (Steven J. Owens) writes:
<In article <22121.29bca9d5@amherst.edu> 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
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From: michael@iastate.edu (Michael M. Huang)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth
Message-ID: <michael.701160323@aviator.cc.iastate.edu>
Date: 21 Mar 92 06:45:23 GMT
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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 <michael@IASTATE.EDU>
3107 West St. Apt. E #include <disclaimer.h> HTCU, Ames Laboratories -&-
Ames, Iowa, 50010 (515) 292-3752 PV Student Development Group
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From: alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu (Albatross)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth
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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!
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From: alan@af.msc.edu (Alan Klietz)
Newsgroups: rec.games.mud
Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth
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Date: 24 Mar 92 07:33:38 GMT
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In article <1992Mar23.220155.21016@news2.cis.umn.edu> alberti@mudhoney.micro.umn.edu
(Albatross) writes:
<
<I'm sure Mr. Klietz can tell us if he still has a copy of the source around.
I still have a paper copy of the Screenplay source code, but no on-line
copy, and given that it's over 30,000 lines I'm not about to type it in :-).
Besides it was written in a language called Lo (which was a cross between
C and Lisp with strong typing) and I don't have the Lo compiler anymore.
Screenplay was a non-violent sequel to Scepter written in 1985 for
a Charles River 68000 UNIX box. The game featured various themes -
wild west, science fiction, mystery/detective, and so on but with much less
violence than Scepter. Here the monsters were intelligent -- you could
carry on a rudimentary conversation similar to an Infocom game. The
object of the game was to cooperatively solve puzzles and gain knowledge
rather than to accrue levels by killing things.
To give you a flavor of the code, here is an excerpt from the source.
It is part of the whisper command where it checks for the possibility
of eavesdropping:
Let eavesdropper be the node's content's first_thing.
While the eavesdropper exists, do
Begin
If the eavesdropper's type is user and the eavesdropper
is not me and the eavesdropper is not the other_person
and (random 1 to 10) is 10, then
Begin
write eavesdropper's mask, "You overhear %s",
(show_name me, definite, caps).
write eavesdropper's mask, " whispering to %s!\n",
(show_name other_person, definite, caps).
write eavesdropper's mask, "\"%s\"\n", txt.
End.
Let the eavesdropper be the next eavesdropper.
End.
Like I said, there's 30K lines of this stuff.
Automatons ("monster" was not politically correct) had heuristics
based on broad patterns of behavior: aggressiveness, propensity to wander,
attitude towards deception, and so on.
The database had a tree structure similar to LPmud, but the notation
was little-endian, e.g. coin@box@room.
The high-level language was Hi, an object-oriented database query/edit
language with embedded actions.
Hi scripts were checked for correctness at run time. Given that
the scripts were crash proof, authors were free to and indeed
encouraged to experiment with the live database. The authors created
some pretty neat stuff, such as a sadistic doctor's office like in
Little Shop of Horrors and a play-for-your-life game show a la Smash TV.
Screenplay was a deliberate effort to get away from RPG cliches
of its predecessor such as levels, hit points, and faux medievalism.
The only quest in Screenplay was to have a lot of fun.
--
Alan E. Klietz
Minnesota Supercomputer Center, Inc.
1200 Washington Avenue South
Minneapolis, MN 55415
Ph: +1 612 626 1737 Internet: alan@msc.edu
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From: wheeler@IDA.ORG (David Wheeler)
Subject: Re: history: VMS Monster, Sceptre of Goth
Message-ID: <1992Mar27.221214.1131@IDA.ORG>
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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.