Sunday, May 14, 2006
MUD's, Moo's and MUSH's
MUDS
An MUD stands for Multi User Dungeon, which is a form of fantasy role-play similar in theme as the Lord fo the Rings and even Warhammer. They typically have monsters like trolls, orcs werewolves and various other ethereal and make-believe creatures. A good MUD will have many users connected to a server at once, who can then interact by ways of chat-room style text strings.
The MUD is almost always text-based, requiring the character to type the required action into a DOS-style command prompt. The first MUD was created in 1975 by James Crowther, who based his game on a caving trip he had enjoyed. This game was called Colossal Cave Adventure.
Blood Wars
The MUD i have had a (brief) go at is called BloodWars, which is a textual depiction of the time-old fight between Werewolves and Vampires.
Title screen for Blood Wars
Entering your information is simple enough, give yourself a name and apssword, choose your allegiance (werewolf or vampire) and finally choose your sex and you're away.
The game gives you a few tips such as basic commands, but you are largely left to scour the 'help commands' before you really feel like your getting anywhere. The first problem i seemed to have was that once i had put in my password, the text i typed in didn't actually appear on the screen. That aside, the game seemed fairly easy to get to grips with and before i knew it i was flying through the various areas.
Despite its text limitation the game has some good ASCII art for logos and so on, as is seen in the images i have posted here. Even a little ASCII map comes up each time you move, and you have to type in 'North, South', etc to move you little X marker.
Each time something happens in the game, such as a rabbit moving around or a new player entering an area, it is announced in real0time. This means that, although i didn't get to fight anyone, i would have really had to test my typing skills in order to win.
MOO's
MOO's are very similar to MUD's except that they are 'object orientated'. This means that whilst a standard MUD enables users to createtheir own areas and manage their property, MOO's do the same with objects. The user can pick up items and modify them, combine them or even create their own.
The name that cropped up the most in my research was LambdaMOO. This is the original MOO server, and is based around creator Pavel Curtis's home in california. It is free to anyone who has an institutional e-mail address, i.e. scholsl and so on. As i don't have one of these, i was unable to actually play it, but i have found a suitable alternative;
Dragon's Dusk
Dragon's Dusk is a MOO that puts you in the role of a variety of humanoid characters, and is a continuation of of the 'Pern' legacy, from Anne McCaffery's 'Dragonriders of Pern'. Pern is a mystical planet, under attack from aliens and setllers from Earth used genetically-modified dragons to combat them.
This MOO doesn't seem to frill itself wtih ASCII, or any visual stimuli whatsoever! I found the controls (i.e. commands) to be hard to understand (particularly the format) and again this MUD suffered from a feeling of loneliness...having checked the official site, i found i was the only one online!
The movement commands are simplified, simply ytping 'N' can get you to go north and 'S' for south and so on. The descriptions of each area you enter are detailed, and the action strings are logical, i.e. it's clever enough to realise that 'here' means where you are at the time of typing.
Title, dialogeu and instructions for Dragons Dusk
The is MUD uses turn-based combat in that once you;ve typed something for your character to do, you then must wait for your opponent to respond.
Overall this game did look more intersting than Blood Wars, but Dragons Dusk does a have a series of novels behind it for inspiration.
MUSH's
Mush stands for Multi User Shared Hack, and is the same as a MUd except it has more of a focus on its participants attitude. A MUSH is essentially a 'society emulator' and is much more peacful than typical battle-friendly axe-wielding MUD's.
Immortal
Immortal was the only decent looking MUSH i could find, however having played the MUSH for about 15 minutes i realised that it was going to be very difficult.
Hoever after having trawled through a few of the help ptions i found that the reason i was having so much trouble was due to me signing in as a guest.
This MUSH looks like one i would actually like to play properly, it seems to have had a fair few players on it, though the only area i could access as a guest was the 'graveyard' which allowed me to view how other players had died. Given the lengthy descriptions on the deceased's tombstones, it would seem that very heavy character development was a trademark of this game, his tombstone depicts everything from his mourners, his ancestors and even the clothes he died in!
Again, i couldn't see the text i was typing which leads me to believe that this MUSH uses the same code as BloodWars. Also, there is no ASCII art again, but relevant information is seperated through clever use of colours and punctuation.
The Future......
The World of Warcraft community is so big that the Terms and Conditions section of the website alone must take up over 40 pages. These include not using affixes like 'Lord' or 'King', and not to use names of celebrities for defamatory reasons. They obviously take this very seriously.
Many of these MMPOG's cost monthly subscriptions to use (which exists in the case of some MUD's as well), in addition to buying the required software. Given the increased technical ability of these software packages, there are many other options available in character development such as professions like fisherman, blacksmith and so on. World of Warcraft contiunues the tradition of ancient fantasy elements (dwarves, elves and trolls etc. and from what i gather has an ever-increasing sprwaling universe to explore and interact with. Due to the advanced nature of these games, the community is signifacntly bigger, and if i didn't have to pay the subscription fee i would probably be invloved myself!
George Lucas, never one to miss out on a quick buck, soon released Star Wars: Galaxies which, thoguh not as successful, has a strojng base of fans and has inspired features like a complete player-run economy.
Every item and piece of technology is created by players who find raw materials around their chosen planet. The game also has typical movie ties, with familiar relics and locations from the lengthy Saga.
Fight scene from Star Wars: Galaxies
Due to its significantly higher busget, the MMPOG has much more potential for innovation and given the cost of connection per month, the funds probably won;t stop oming in for a long time. Whilst these games don;t seem to make the headlines and aren't given that much attention in the gaming world either, they are a constant source of revenue for software developers and therefore deserve to have a lot of time and effort put into their expansion.
An MUD stands for Multi User Dungeon, which is a form of fantasy role-play similar in theme as the Lord fo the Rings and even Warhammer. They typically have monsters like trolls, orcs werewolves and various other ethereal and make-believe creatures. A good MUD will have many users connected to a server at once, who can then interact by ways of chat-room style text strings.
The MUD is almost always text-based, requiring the character to type the required action into a DOS-style command prompt. The first MUD was created in 1975 by James Crowther, who based his game on a caving trip he had enjoyed. This game was called Colossal Cave Adventure.
Blood Wars
The MUD i have had a (brief) go at is called BloodWars, which is a textual depiction of the time-old fight between Werewolves and Vampires.
Title screen for Blood Wars
The game gives you a few tips such as basic commands, but you are largely left to scour the 'help commands' before you really feel like your getting anywhere. The first problem i seemed to have was that once i had put in my password, the text i typed in didn't actually appear on the screen. That aside, the game seemed fairly easy to get to grips with and before i knew it i was flying through the various areas.
Despite its text limitation the game has some good ASCII art for logos and so on, as is seen in the images i have posted here. Even a little ASCII map comes up each time you move, and you have to type in 'North, South', etc to move you little X marker.
Each time something happens in the game, such as a rabbit moving around or a new player entering an area, it is announced in real0time. This means that, although i didn't get to fight anyone, i would have really had to test my typing skills in order to win.
Options and dialogue in Blood Wars
I found this game a little boring, as no matter how much wandering around i did, all i managed to find was a large menagerie of rabbits (in various sizes, granted) I did lay waste to a few of them but they kept running away. However the areas i entered had nice, atmospheric descriptions to them and set the mood nicely.MOO's
MOO's are very similar to MUD's except that they are 'object orientated'. This means that whilst a standard MUD enables users to createtheir own areas and manage their property, MOO's do the same with objects. The user can pick up items and modify them, combine them or even create their own.
The name that cropped up the most in my research was LambdaMOO. This is the original MOO server, and is based around creator Pavel Curtis's home in california. It is free to anyone who has an institutional e-mail address, i.e. scholsl and so on. As i don't have one of these, i was unable to actually play it, but i have found a suitable alternative;
Dragon's Dusk
Dragon's Dusk is a MOO that puts you in the role of a variety of humanoid characters, and is a continuation of of the 'Pern' legacy, from Anne McCaffery's 'Dragonriders of Pern'. Pern is a mystical planet, under attack from aliens and setllers from Earth used genetically-modified dragons to combat them.
This MOO doesn't seem to frill itself wtih ASCII, or any visual stimuli whatsoever! I found the controls (i.e. commands) to be hard to understand (particularly the format) and again this MUD suffered from a feeling of loneliness...having checked the official site, i found i was the only one online!
The movement commands are simplified, simply ytping 'N' can get you to go north and 'S' for south and so on. The descriptions of each area you enter are detailed, and the action strings are logical, i.e. it's clever enough to realise that 'here' means where you are at the time of typing.
Title, dialogeu and instructions for Dragons Dusk
Overall this game did look more intersting than Blood Wars, but Dragons Dusk does a have a series of novels behind it for inspiration.
MUSH's
Mush stands for Multi User Shared Hack, and is the same as a MUd except it has more of a focus on its participants attitude. A MUSH is essentially a 'society emulator' and is much more peacful than typical battle-friendly axe-wielding MUD's.
Immortal
Immortal was the only decent looking MUSH i could find, however having played the MUSH for about 15 minutes i realised that it was going to be very difficult.
Hoever after having trawled through a few of the help ptions i found that the reason i was having so much trouble was due to me signing in as a guest.
This MUSH looks like one i would actually like to play properly, it seems to have had a fair few players on it, though the only area i could access as a guest was the 'graveyard' which allowed me to view how other players had died. Given the lengthy descriptions on the deceased's tombstones, it would seem that very heavy character development was a trademark of this game, his tombstone depicts everything from his mourners, his ancestors and even the clothes he died in!
Again, i couldn't see the text i was typing which leads me to believe that this MUSH uses the same code as BloodWars. Also, there is no ASCII art again, but relevant information is seperated through clever use of colours and punctuation.
The Future......
Through reading this article, i should imagine you know where this is leading. The 30-yr-old text-based role-playing community (or at least some of them) must have eventually got sick of all the typing (or more liklely suffered reptitive strain injury of the hands) and decided to move MUD's into £d graphics. This gave birth to the MMPOG (Massive Multi-player Online Game), the most notorieous of which being World of Warcraft.
Scene from World of Warcraft
Scene from World of Warcraft
The World of Warcraft community is so big that the Terms and Conditions section of the website alone must take up over 40 pages. These include not using affixes like 'Lord' or 'King', and not to use names of celebrities for defamatory reasons. They obviously take this very seriously.
Many of these MMPOG's cost monthly subscriptions to use (which exists in the case of some MUD's as well), in addition to buying the required software. Given the increased technical ability of these software packages, there are many other options available in character development such as professions like fisherman, blacksmith and so on. World of Warcraft contiunues the tradition of ancient fantasy elements (dwarves, elves and trolls etc. and from what i gather has an ever-increasing sprwaling universe to explore and interact with. Due to the advanced nature of these games, the community is signifacntly bigger, and if i didn't have to pay the subscription fee i would probably be invloved myself!
George Lucas, never one to miss out on a quick buck, soon released Star Wars: Galaxies which, thoguh not as successful, has a strojng base of fans and has inspired features like a complete player-run economy.
Every item and piece of technology is created by players who find raw materials around their chosen planet. The game also has typical movie ties, with familiar relics and locations from the lengthy Saga.
Fight scene from Star Wars: Galaxies
Due to its significantly higher busget, the MMPOG has much more potential for innovation and given the cost of connection per month, the funds probably won;t stop oming in for a long time. Whilst these games don;t seem to make the headlines and aren't given that much attention in the gaming world either, they are a constant source of revenue for software developers and therefore deserve to have a lot of time and effort put into their expansion.
// posted by PashionConscious @ 3:09 PM 
