#0017 M.U.D.

Today... Was a surprise. I honestly didn't expect to see these games for at LEAST another 15 years. Yet, here it is, I'm looking at it, I'm playing it. Today I played M.U.D. (Multi User Dungeon) a text based RPG developed by Essex University students Roy Trubshaw, and Richard Bartle on a holy crap massive computer, the DEC PDP-10 in 1980. It is, and I kid you not, the world's first virtual world, and the world's first MMORPG. That's right, here in 1980, we have an Internet Multiplayer Online Role-playing game.

No this isn't my screenshot, but it is exactly what I ended up doing in the end.

Okay, the history for this game is a little confusing, but I'll do my best to keep it brief.

MUD began production in 1978 at Essex University, England on a DEC PDP-10 using the MACR0-10 assembly language. The game was finished in 1980 and became the first MMO as Essex University connected it's internal network to the ARPnet, one of the world's first operational packet switching networks, and the first network to use TCP/IP. Basically, it's the grand daddy of what is now the modern internet.

The University allowed access to it's DEC-10 via British Telecom's Packet switch stream network during the normally idle times between 2am and 8am. And became a fairly popular game around the world, even having a several magazines articles wrote about it, and ran for many years on the University's computers. MUD was then licensed to CompuServe in the mid 80's where it ran, still fairly popular until 1999.

So yeah, this game was a big deal, not a big deal as in cultural phenomena like Space Invaders, but a big deal in that there were some hard core fans, people really played this game for a long time! Almost double that of how long WoW has been around. So what do you do in this text based MMO? You adventure through a large virtual world filled with secrets, mysterious puzzles, and dangerous monsters in a quest to become a Wizard or Witch. To become a “wiz” you must earn 102,400 points. Points are earned by either “Swamping treasure” which I think means finding treasure and dropping it in the swamp... For some reason.. Or, killing the game's creatures or other players. So yeah, this ancient MMO was ruthlessly PvP, not unlike games such as DAYZ.

So! The big question is, how did I like the game? Welllllll... Let me just walk you through my experience of the game.

When I first log on I find myself in an Elizabethan tearoom, with exposed oak beams and soft, velvet-covered furnishings. At first I thought this was a strange choice for an adventure game. A cozy tearoom doesn't exactly scream “ADVENTURE”. Then I remembered that this game was British, so, you know, tea. When I left the tea room I was flung into a strange, timeless realm full of dense forests, swamps, rivers, caves, everything you could ask for in a fantasy RPG, but as I wondered around gathering branches and imagining I'm looking at beautiful scenery, I noticed something strange, like something was just not quite right about this place. What's the most important part of a Multiplayer game? Especially a PvP MMO? Multiple players! That's right, nobody was playing. Not a single other person. It kind of took all the magic out of it. Like when all your friends are home sick from school and you try to play Wizards all by yourself at recess. So after about 30 min of wandering around killing the poor random animals that happened to cross my path, I decided that this probably wasn't going to get much better flung myself off the closest cliff and logged out.

So, with all that in mind, did I like the game? No. It was really boring. But that doesn't mean the game isn't good. In fact, this testimony from a guy who used to play it back in it's heyday makes it sound like the game was a blast! So no, I can't judge it too harshly, especially given the game's legacy. But I just wish I could have played the game with actual people.

Up next, just in time for the recent SSB4 announcement: PacMan!