<!-- MHonArc v2.4.4 --> <!--X-Subject: A perspective out of time - the mudreport document --> <!--X-From-R13: pynjNahyy.arg --> <!--X-Date: from major.globecomm.net [207.51.48.5] by mx01.ny.us.ibm.net id 859310424.73286-1 Tue Mar 25 17:20:24 1997 --> <!--X-Message-Id: 333807ab267b002#msgSFO01,schwab.com --> <!--X-Content-Type: text/plain --> <!--X-Reference: 199703220445.EAA16511#out1,ibm.net --> <!--X-Head-End--> <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <title>MUD-Dev message, A perspective out of time - the mudreport document</title> <!-- meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow" --> <link rev="made" href="mailto:claw#null,net"> </head> <body background="/backgrounds/paperback.gif" bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000" link="#0000FF" alink="#FF0000" vlink="#006000"> <font size="+4" color="#804040"> <strong><em>MUD-Dev<br>mailing list archive</em></strong> </font> <br> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] <br clear=all><hr> <!--X-Body-Begin--> <!--X-User-Header--> <!--X-User-Header-End--> <!--X-TopPNI--> Date: [ <a href="msg00206.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00218.html">Next</a> ] Thread: [ <a href="msg00168.html">Previous</a> | <a href="msg00155.html">Next</a> ] Index: [ <A HREF="author.html#00207">Author</A> | <A HREF="#00207">Date</A> | <A HREF="thread.html#00207">Thread</A> ] <!--X-TopPNI-End--> <!--X-MsgBody--> <!--X-Subject-Header-Begin--> <H1>A perspective out of time - the mudreport document</H1> <HR> <!--X-Subject-Header-End--> <!--X-Head-of-Message--> <UL> <LI><em>To</em>: Multiple Recipients of MUD Design Mailing List <<A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A>></LI> <LI><em>Subject</em>: A perspective out of time - the mudreport document</LI> <LI><em>From</em>: <A HREF="mailto:claw#null,net">claw#null,net</A></LI> <LI><em>Date</em>: Tue, 25 Mar 97 08:22:48 -0800</LI> <LI><em>Reply-to</em>: <A HREF="mailto:claw#null,net">claw#null,net</A></LI> </UL> <!--X-Head-of-Message-End--> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-Begin--> <HR> <!--X-Head-Body-Sep-End--> <!--X-Body-of-Message--> <PRE> On 03/21/97 at 04:23 PM, Nathan Yospe <yospe#hawaii,edu> said: >The document Chris mentioned (See Gods) turned out to be a somewhat >dated and extremely enlightening piece of work. It should also be read with the awareness that it was written as a marketing pice to sell MUD2. Its pretty obvious when you read the MUD2 section, and Bartle makes no bones of it, but it does lead to a lot of damning with faint praise and glossed over features of competitors. >As I didn't come into >the world of MUDs until late 1994 (having tried Deeper Trouble at the >behest of a then DT wiz in 1993 and having found it lacking) much of >what the document (UK centric and dated ~1990, it appeared... also >phone centric, with little significance taken to the internet) was >new to me, and rather interesting, expecially in light of the >discountive predictions for LP and TinyMUD lines (and we all know >what the real breakdown is, sad to say... LP, Tiny, and Diku, a cheap >hardcode clone) As I've probably mentioned here before I started with dial-up MUDs (Shades and SXMUD/MUD1 specifically), not knowing that anything like the 'net even existed. I worked a chunk with Pip Caudrey (MirrorWorld et al) on most of the early dial-up MUD servers. Heck, at that time we were talking dreamingly of setting up PSS connections to the US so them bloody yanks could access our games in England... >I find it interesting how many advanced concepts were being tackled >even back then (though their willingness to give credit for as yet >unaccomplished claims was amusing) compared to now... Yeah right. Care to comment on Medeivia and Vryce's vaunted claims for all the things he does "that nobody has ever done before". (sic) Or all the other DIKUs running without credits, the endless new MUD advertisements claiming that they are the first ever to implement global channels, auctions, rolling resets, or some othre age-old drivel. Nothing has really changed on that score. Its just the cast of characters was a lot smaller back then. >...where I suspect >we (the members of this list) make up a sizable portion of the >groundbreaking efforts. What exactly happened? I know some of you >have been involved in this for longer than I. Any thoughts? Very few MUD server authors manage to stick with the effort long enough to come out with a professional product. Most end up married, with kids, and a job that conspire to convince them that MUDding is no longer that important. Look at it this way: How many MUD servers can you think of that were developed by people __NOT__ in college? Next up of course is to count the percentage of games set up an run by non-college students, and running on non-school equipment. Even for the sites that don't have a .edu domain, there are a gawd awful lot of them that are really just DNS entries pointing inside of a college domain (cf cold.org). >I suppose, from the perspectives provided in the documents, that most >of it has been done before, if crudely, and often as part of a failed >package. Mention of discreet gridding and coordinate systems, >economics, and sophisticated language implementations are made... and >yet there are Dikus out there, and most of the mentioned muds are >gone (except MUD1, MUD2, Dirt, Shades, and some of the Tinys and >LPs... none of which have particularly impressed me.) Almost all of the source mentioned was proprietary. Few to none of the original authors continued into the internet or net-connected server world. Of course almost all the games mentioned are English (the original hotbed of MUD development), and had very little to no exposure to the rest of the world. Ergo. There was no cross-pollination. The not-invented-here syndrome bit big time. Most had never even heard of the English efforts, or even thought that anyone might have ever attempted anything in the area before. Heck -- why do you think its so tough for the DIKU crowd to realise that most of the features they are so gawdamned proud of as examples of ace programming by their pet Imps can be done by a dead drunk LP Imp crushing his sotted face into the keyboard as he falls over unconcious? >Or was the >document naive or simply viewing through lenses of a less discerning >nature than we are today? Not really. It paints a slightly rosy picture of the state of the art at that time (which was pretty crude all told), as a way of making MUD2 seem even rosier as a diamond among mere gems as vs a shinier pebble among dull stones. There was very little to no polish in games then. Originality however was at an all time high -- there were no two games alike. NIH ruled rampant -- unfortunately causing most of the advances to die where they were born. Things are a lot glossier now. Games tend to be more consistant, slicker, more of the corners are painted, the grammar is more often correct, the parsers actually attempt to do real work, the MUD worlds are a lot more complex, and they're more stable. (We thought a game that had to be rebooted once a day was doing pretty damned well). Things are a LOT slicker now. However the rate of change has also fallen off. MUDs were constantly and rapidly advancing back then. Most MUD attempts had star-high goals (as you read), ran on bottom-end hardware is high school kid's bedrooms (most of us MUD server authors were between 14 and 19 years old), and were convinced that they would be the ones to achieve them, beating out all others. There were people working on full AI's for MUD mobiles, fully interactive worlds, OO, and all that rot. Frankly, now the public MUD advancement push seem to be mostly for a gorier message than, "The cityguard *TOTALLY* obliterates you with his slash!" Its been a long time since I've seen a MUD author come up with something radically new, tho there have been some who tried (Stephan White, Dave Engberg, etc). But I see very few new apples on the tree and an awful lot of apple polishing going on. Its now the game of having a slightly spiffier version of what everyone else has too under the excuse that users want familiar games with familiar areas so they won't get lost. Why is it the only truly original, non-variation-on-a-theme, MUD I can think of within the last 3 - 4 years is Tron? Bloody hell, even MUD++ is attempting to be Merc clone, and Mordor and Circle didn't even try to have a new idea -- they just aped the flow. </peeve> >Whatever the case... somehow we ended up >with Nightmare LP, Circle, and ROM. Bleah. Sad, isn't it? <<Sorry the french above>> -- J C Lawrence Internet: claw#null,net ----------(*) Internet: coder#ibm,net ...Honourary Member of Clan McFud -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith... </PRE> <!--X-Body-of-Message-End--> <!--X-MsgBody-End--> <!--X-Follow-Ups--> <HR> <!--X-Follow-Ups-End--> <!--X-References--> <!--X-References-End--> <!--X-BotPNI--> <UL> <LI>Prev by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00206.html">Re: Resets and repops (a really short post) <= hah!</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by Date: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00218.html">Re: Resets and repops</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Prev by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00168.html">A perspective out of time - the mudreport document</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Next by thread: <STRONG><A HREF="msg00155.html">Garbage Collector</A></STRONG> </LI> <LI>Index(es): <UL> <LI><A HREF="index.html#00207"><STRONG>Date</STRONG></A></LI> <LI><A HREF="thread.html#00207"><STRONG>Thread</STRONG></A></LI> </UL> </LI> </UL> <!--X-BotPNI-End--> <!--X-User-Footer--> <!--X-User-Footer-End--> <ul><li>Thread context: <BLOCKQUOTE><UL> <LI><STRONG>Re: Mixture</STRONG>, <EM>(continued)</EM> <ul compact> <LI><strong><A NAME="00264" HREF="msg00264.html">Re: Mixture</A></strong>, Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</a>, Mon 31 Mar 1997, 12:06 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00269" HREF="msg00269.html">Re: Mixture</A></strong>, claw <a href="mailto:claw#null,net">claw#null,net</a>, Tue 01 Apr 1997, 09:43 GMT </LI> </ul> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00187" HREF="msg00187.html">Old missing posts from old list</A></strong>, coder <a href="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</a>, Mon 24 Mar 1997, 01:30 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00168" HREF="msg00168.html">A perspective out of time - the mudreport document</A></strong>, Nathan Yospe <a href="mailto:yospe#hawaii,edu">yospe#hawaii,edu</a>, Sat 22 Mar 1997, 10:19 GMT <UL> <li><Possible follow-up(s)><br> <LI><strong><A NAME="00207" HREF="msg00207.html">A perspective out of time - the mudreport document</A></strong>, claw <a href="mailto:claw#null,net">claw#null,net</a>, Wed 26 Mar 1997, 01:20 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00155" HREF="msg00155.html">Garbage Collector</A></strong>, Artur 'Revinor' Biesiadowski <a href="mailto:abies#pg,gda.pl">abies#pg,gda.pl</a>, Fri 21 Mar 1997, 06:12 GMT <LI><strong><A NAME="00156" HREF="msg00156.html">EVOLUTION response</A></strong>, claw <a href="mailto:claw#null,net">claw#null,net</a>, Fri 21 Mar 1997, 05:44 GMT <UL> <li><Possible follow-up(s)><br> <LI><strong><A NAME="00172" HREF="msg00172.html">Re: EVOLUTION response</A></strong>, Jon A. Lambert <a href="mailto:jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com">jlsysinc#ix,netcom.com</a>, Sat 22 Mar 1997, 14:20 GMT </LI> <LI><strong><A NAME="00208" HREF="msg00208.html">Re: EVOLUTION response</A></strong>, claw <a href="mailto:claw#null,net">claw#null,net</a>, Wed 26 Mar 1997, 01:43 GMT </LI> </UL> </LI> </UL></BLOCKQUOTE> </ul> <hr> <center> [ <a href="../">Other Periods</a> | <a href="../../">Other mailing lists</a> | <a href="/search.php3">Search</a> ] </center> <hr> </body> </html>