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Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

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Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#21

Post by totetsu »

sharedfrog wrote: post #8
bemmu wrote: post #5

Now it makes sense. I used to be a wizard in a MUD. I enjoyed coding there, as I can interact in realtime with others on the server while they play around with my code. Now I just released my first Roblox game. I enjoyed coding there, as I can interact in realtime with others on the server while they play around with my code.

> I used to be a wizard in a MUD. Not Discworld MUD[1], by any chance? [1] http://discworld.starturtle.net/lpc/

Quow's mush client Discworld plugins package has made it very easy to jump back on to the disc.

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#23

Post by em-bee »

warpspin wrote: post #3

It is a pity the article dismisses the whole eco system around LPMuds that much by basically only including them in that screenshot from Bartle's book. They were an interesting middle ground between the Diku-likes (think: precursors to Diablo) and the MOOs, being online programmable in an object-oriented C dialect called LPC which today lives on in e.g. the Pike programming language.

yup, that's how i got into it. lpmuds were the first to have builtin ftp and later http servers, because they were just other protocols and their programmability made them easy to add.

when i explored webdevelopment and discovered this webserver written in µlpc, i was elated to discover that i already knew the language from mud programming.

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#24

Post by em-bee »

warpspin wrote: post #3

It is a pity the article dismisses the whole eco system around LPMuds that much by basically only including them in that screenshot from Bartle's book. They were an interesting middle ground between the Diku-likes (think: precursors to Diablo) and the MOOs, being online programmable in an object-oriented C dialect called LPC which today lives on in e.g. the Pike programming language.

lpc/pike is a runtime compiled language much closer to python and java than to c. it is as much of a c dialect as javascript is a java dialect. other than c-style syntax they don't have much in common.

the best part of lpc/pike is that it compiles code in units of classes. that is, each file is a class, the filename being the classname. the compiled class would then be used to instantiate objects, and here comes the kicker:

in order to add or update objects in the mud world it was necessary to compile classes at runtime without restarting the game. so when a coder made a change to an object, the game would recompile the class, replace what it had stored, and new instances of that object were created from the new class. old objects lived on until they were destroyed.

lpmuds were the ultimate example of making and testing changes to a live server in production

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#25

Post by codeulike »

waprin wrote: post #6

MUDs are what got me into programming. I was obsessed with them as a kid, although they were associated with DnD which was considered satanic so I had to hide them from my parents and teachers, who both forbid me from associating with DnD or MUDs. Besides playing them, I actually spent more time as a "builder" than a "coder", which was an intermediate step in the hierarchy. As a builder, I would write hundreds of roo…

I'm not sure if there's any experience like it left on the internet

Multiplayer AI Dungeon?

Powered by GPT2

https://aidungeon.page.link/?link=https://play?playPublicId=...

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#26

Post by l33tman »

I somewhat fail to see the connection between Roblox and MUDs but FWIW one of the most well known MUDs of the 90's is still up and running, M.U.M.E (Multi-Users in Middle Earth). It was a Diku derivative but with its own online language for the wizards to code in, designed by a compiler PhD, at the time it was state of the art.

MUMEs attraction was that it was difficult and run with attention to details and RPG.

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#27

Post by ricotijsen »

endgame wrote: post #11

Surprised to not see the Iron Realms MUDs mentioned in the article. I've seen the CEO around here in the past, but can't remember his username or if he still posts.

As a former coder for Achaea, I was surprised as well. You mean Matt Mihály.

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#28

Post by Hitton »

VadimPR wrote: post #7

MUDs are still thriving to this day. I work on Mudlet ( https://mudlet.org ) which is a popular FOSS client to play them with.

Mudlet is great, thanks for your work. It's a pity though that it took nearly until MUDs are dead to such good client appear. I'm rather sure that if comparable clients existed 20 or maybe even 10 years ago, MUDs wouldn't be in this state.

Re: Roblox is a MUD: The history of MUDs, virtual worlds and MMORPGs

#29

Post by dwheeler »

Wow, it even includes Scepter of Goth!

I maintained Scepter of Goth, but because it's no longer available it's now often forgotten. I'm very happy to see it included.

I think one of the key tricks and Scepter of Goth was the follow command. As a text adventure, you could say "follow X" and from then on, whenever X moved then you would move with X. That was a key trick to making it easy to create parties so they could go adventuring.

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