Live data from Hacker News

Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

news.ycombinator.com

31–40 of 141 posts

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#31
Every now and then I am reminded that there are still new people coming to Tapestries (a furry muck, est. 1991) and it kind of amazes me.

Me, I decided to take the creative energy that was going into all-night scenes and put it into drawing comics instead. But the mu*s just keep going along. It’s not like they take much in the way of computational resources nowadays.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#32
post #30

Awesome. Why didn't MUDs ever go rogue-like ... with simple 2D tile-graphics? I think a few tried and failed, but wondering why that was. Seemed like everyone jumped to Everquest(crack) when it hit the scene, we seem to have skipped the 2D.

We played MUDs through BBSs. It was a different experience than the internet. Everything was text. You dialed up someone’s house and created an account to join a community which gave you access to a specific set of resources. The people playing the game with you were usually people in your area code. Upgrading from ASCII to graphics would mean kicking out all your friends with older modems, those with poor phone line…

Also, time was valuable. You only got so many minutes per day on a BBS before you would get disconnected. You wouldn’t want to waste your time waiting for images to load.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#33

Awesome. Why didn't MUDs ever go rogue-like ... with simple 2D tile-graphics? I think a few tried and failed, but wondering why that was. Seemed like everyone jumped to Everquest(crack) when it hit the scene, we seem to have skipped the 2D.

Some probably could, some of them probably wouldn't translate super well 1:1 and you'd lose part of the game in the transition.

I also think one of the great parts of developing a MUD as a developer is that you don't need to be good at graphics. Just code and writing.

Modern day MUDs contain a large portion of blind/sight-impaired people so moving towards a graphic based game might turn away most of your players. As it's pretty much the only kind of multiplayer game you can play as a blind person.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#34
Nice! My favorite were always the LPMuds... I'm not sure what variants are related to those these days. I used to play FrontierMud a lot back in the day. Still remember the admins shouting about the upcoming lag trains. My favorite memory was when a buddy figured out how to make Jason from Friday the 13th. He'd put on a hockey mask, wield a chainsaw, somehow cut off my arms, and then start hitting me with my own arms while telling me to stop hitting myself.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#36
I’ve lurked here (HN) a long time waiting for a MUD related post! I remember making great friendships and developing my communication skills and personality through MUDs (pHANTASM and then Rifts) in the mid-nineties. Neither game ever developed a huge player base, but man was it fun! The imagination that was unlocked through text-based games, at least for me, was immensely fun. I got great book recommendations from the older players, and felt accepted being a gamer/MtG player/general nerd at a time when it was emphatically NOT considered cool. Times have sure changed.

I remember staying up until all hours of the morning, reconnecting repeatedly over my dial-up connection, just to goof-off on Rifts. Even though I never met him, the first friend I knew that died who I felt close to was from that game - we were in a clan together and spent countless hours gaming and chatting about being teens. I had forgotten about that until just now. Life moves quickly.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#37
a question on maintenance and all that. what kind of machines are required to maintain these? the client talks about flash and or websockets, so some sort of servers have to be maintained... I know servers are fairly cheap now.. that would be a cool story too..

If its been running for 30 years, how much memory/storage does the world take?

I had a Java programming examples book and it had a simple MUD implemented in a RMI, it was kinda neat and i always wanted to build a game out of it...

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#40

Awesome. Why didn't MUDs ever go rogue-like ... with simple 2D tile-graphics? I think a few tried and failed, but wondering why that was. Seemed like everyone jumped to Everquest(crack) when it hit the scene, we seem to have skipped the 2D.

Discworld MUD has this when you venture outside the main cities and end up in the wilderness. It's a huge world, look at these player made maps: http://dw.daftjunk.com/
Post reply on HN