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MUD Stuff

AmigaMUD  ToyMUD  CGMud

If you haven't already done so, please take a moment to read my brief conditions of use. Thank you.

What is a MUD?

MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon (or Dimension or Domain - take your pick). They are the predecessors to the current MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) such as Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, etc. Traditional MUDs were strictly text-oriented and were a lot like multi-player adventure games. MUDs often specialized in modelling real-world times or places, fictional places, etc. They range from "furry" MUDs, which are generally friendly places to PK (player killing) MUDs, which are often very agressive. Newer MUDs have added graphics, and non-text input methods, often appearing more like video games than adventure games.

I got "into" MUDs around the middle of 1990, so I'm pretty new at it compared to the real old-timers. I can't quite remember what it was that did it, but since I already had strong interests in both multi-player games (I had written a version of the old Peter Langston Empire game for the Amiga) and adventure games (I had written 3 RPG/adventure-type game systems, and two full adventure games for one of them), I took an instant liking to the concept of MUDs. However, since my liking of them was from the point of view of an implementor, my experience was then (and still is) almost non-existant from the point of view of a player. I've put lots of hours in play-testing my own systems, but no more than 6 or 7 hours total into other peoples' MUDs. So, on that scale, I'm a rank amateur at the business.

Both of my own MUD systems have descriptions and histories on their own pages, so I won't say any more here. They are AmigaMUD and ToyMUD. I am now giving away the current version of AmigaMUD (renamed to CGMud), including full ANSI-C source to the server, the full sources to the standard world, and the full Java client.

I'm also a long-time participant in the mud-dev mailing list. I think the moderator saw an early post of mine about AmigaMUD, and invited me in based on that. He must have thought I knew something about MUDs! Well, I do, now, after reading the mud-dev postings for a few years.


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