From: st17k@rosie.uh.edu (Bowers, Michael)
Newsgroups: alt.cyberpunk
Subject: Re: CyberMUCK  was Re: Virtual meeting places
Date: 24 Jan 1993 13:36 CST
Organization: University of Houston
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: rosie.uh.edu
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

In article <1993Jan23.171353.13816@uumeme.chi.il.us>, drac@uumeme.chi.il.us (Bruce Maynard) writes...
>Someone around here wanna do a bunch of us a favor, & define "MUD" ?
From The Online Jargon File, v2.9.11, Jan 1, 1993:

:MUD: /muhd/ [acronym, Multi-User Dungeon; alt. Multi-User
   Dimension] 1. n.  A class of {virtual reality} experiments
   accessible via the Internet.  These are real-time chat forums with
   structure; they have multiple `locations' like an adventure game,
   and may include combat, traps, puzzles, magic, a simple economic
   system, and the capability for characters to build more structure
   onto the database that represents the existing world.  2. vi. To
   play a MUD (see {hack-and-slay}).  The acronym MUD is often
   lowercased and/or verbed; thus, one may speak of `going
   mudding', etc.

   Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names of MU-
   form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw on the
   University of Essex's DEC-10 in the early 1980s; descendants of
   that game still exist today (see {BartleMUD}).  There is a
   widespread myth (repeated, unfortunately, by earlier versions of
   this lexicon) that the name MUD was trademarked to the commercial
   MUD run by Bartle on British Telecom (the motto: "You haven't
   *lived* 'til you've *died* on MUD!"); however, this is
   false --- Richard Bartle explicitly placed `MUD' in PD in 1985.  BT
   was upset at this, as they had already printed trademark claims on
   some maps and posters, which were released and created the
   myth.

   Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on the
   MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD, AberMUD, LPMUD).
   Many of these had associated bulletin-board systems for social
   interaction.  Because these had an image as `research' they
   often survived administrative hostility to BBSs in general.  This,
   together with the fact that USENET feeds have been spotty and
   difficult to get in the U.K., made the MUDs major foci of hackish
   social interaction there.

   AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988 and
   quickly gained popularity in the U.S.; they became nuclei for large
   hacker communities with only loose ties to traditional hackerdom
   (some observers see parallels with the growth of USENET in the
   early 1980s).  The second wave of MUDs (TinyMUD and variants)
   tended to emphasize social interaction, puzzles, and cooperative
   world-building as opposed to combat and competition.  In 1991, over
   50% of MUD sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which
   synthesizes the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems
   with the extensibility of TinyMud. The trend toward greater
   programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue.

   The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very rapidly,
   with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly) every month.
   There is now (early 1991) a move afoot to deprecate the term
   {MUD} itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of
   names corresponding to the different simulation styles being
   explored.  See also {BartleMUD}, {berserking}, {bonk/oif},
   {brand brand brand}, {FOD}, {hack-and-slay}, {link-dead},
   {mudhead}, {posing}, {talk mode}, {tinycrud}.


Basically, a text-based "VR" of sorts.  In reality, however, a net-chat system
with some structure.  I'd tell you a couple to try out, but I kicked the habit
a year ago :-).

You could try out the rec.games.mud.{admin|announce|misc|lp|diku|tiny} groups,
but be warned that noise is VERY high there, and attempting to read it for an
extended length of time can cause your eyes to glaze over.

Mike
-----
My .sig was crashed by a .sig virus.

>-- 
>* The above are the meanderings of a demented soul. | drac@uumeme.chi.il.us
>* Long live Dementia!  8-{)}                        | Bruce Maynard
>*-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*