Live data from Hacker News

The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

andrewzigler.com

71–80 of 83 posts

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#71

Building a MUD engine is quite an endeavour in itself. Let alone the game! A good way to test your skills in networking, parsing, databases, and data structures. I’ve been chipping away at one on my stream using Haskell. Experimenting with Lua integration, parsing, networking, STM and concurrency… currently hacking on Entity Component Systems and unboxed vectors and all kinds of stuff. Thing is you can start small. S…

Thank you for posting this! I just finished a MUD engine and I was looking for a way to expose it to a small community of technically minded folks.

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#72
post #15

Between this and the previous MUD post about LLM MUDs I'd love to see a comeback. A few months ago I tried out my old (1999-2004) hang, wocmud.org Some of the quests were still sometimes broken. auto attacking mobs were still unfairly strong. But, there were a couple people more than willing to help me get my gear back from my corpse. They helped me remember the areas, quests, syntax, etc that I had BURNED into my me…

I'm glad it sparked something. Really cool to see not just the nostalgia, but the active projects/games, and the feature requests. Original Post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49008538

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#73

Every time another nostalgia post comes along for MUDs people start replying with the name of a small MUD they enjoyed but I’m surprised how rare it is to see Iron Realms MUDs mentioned. I’m almost certain they are the largest MUD development company to exist. I played two of their MUDs — Achaea and Lusternia. The sheer imaginative scale of these worlds and engines are unmatched by even today’s standards. (And they s…

You just reminded me of Star Wars Roleplaying on Habbo Hotel when I was a preteen circa 2006. Habbo Hotel was basically an IRC and MUD with user-created hotel rooms. The Sith and Jedi orders were popular "rooms" in Habbo, and would often rise to the top and bring an influx of users– mostly teenagers.

But they were clearly gated, like a nightclub. There were those who were "in" the Jedi Temple or Sith academy, and those who were out. This creates a sort of exclusivity, and people would naturally want to join the Jedi Temple or Sith Academy. They'd have to agree to a set of rules written on a sticky note on the room's wall, and dress the part.

Sometimes all hell would break loose when a Sith Warrior or Inquisitor would come and attack the Jedi Temple. They were legally allowed to do this, as long as people were online to witness it.

It was really interesting how they battled each other with just text chat. They had specified rules where you'd have to type out five action lines (minimum of 5 words) after an attack in order to maime or kill someone. At any point in those five lines, the defender could use 2 lines to repel the attack. To add a complication, the actions had to be coherent with each other.

So it ended up being a lot of;

Sith: Jedi filth! Hiding in your temple, while the universe suffers. I will free them of you!

Jedi: Your oppression ends here, Sith!

Sith: swings lightsaber towards your body

Sith: it connects with your neck

Sith: it cuts through the muscle

Jedi: swings lightsaber at lightsaber (illegal: 4 words)

Jedi: it parries your lightsaber away

Sith: it connects through the bone (illegal: parried)

Of course, these would often devolve into long OOC (out of character) arguments, and this drama would bring in even more of a crowd. It was chaotic, and a whole bunch of fun.

It wasn't just RP fighting though. They would have all the Jedi initiates wear "robes" and hang out in rooms decorated like a Jedi temple. Then the Jedi Masters would conduct lessons and we'd have to memorise the Jedi code.

I still remember the Sith code. I had to memorise it and recite it at random times to the Sith Lords. When I graduated from that, I ended up teaching it myself to several acolytes.

"Peace is a lie, there is only passion. Through passion, I gain strength. Through strength, I gain power. Through power, I gain victory. Through victory, my chains are broken. The Force shall free me."

Pretty fun times.

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#74
I spent so many hours playing MUDs. I haven't found a type of game that comes close to the immersion and community of MUDs. I checked in on my old MUD a few years ago. Still there like an old friend. But, it was a ghost town. Maybe 10 active players at peak hours. It was maybe 100 in the day.

One of my early programming forays was being a wizard for a MUD I enjoyed. A code base that allows small communities to pop up around building and playing a world together is something I have not seen since my MUD days. It is my hope that Hytale, with its integrated modding tools and server, will fill the niche of community developed game worlds.

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#75
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply untrue. There have been hundreds of MUD clients and many of them were not purely text based at all. Many had images and map screens built in.

MUDs are text based. Some of the clients can have graphical features but the basic way to interface with the MUD itself is with text.

Tho it wasn't unheard of for some MU* games to have ascii graphics in the telnet stream

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#76
We had a MUD at our university and many of us contributed to it as well as playing/hanging out there. The university was quite strict in terms of the use of central resources (mostly VAX VMS 6000 and 8000 series, already pretty long in tooth). I later learned that the faculty decided to permit the MUDs consumption of scarce resource because they considered the development work a valuable lesson in itself on maintenance of a large code base and division of labour.

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#77
post #17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you mean wotmud.org, and I always look for someone to mention this one in MUD threads, but rarely see it. Man I was hooked on that game in high school. Joined the Lion Wardens, multiple high level characters, knew the zones. Nothing has come close since then. That feeling of leveling in a safe zone when your screen fills with red names of opposing faction characters and you just get deleted and lose all your…

nope! wocmud, worlds of carnage. `telnet wocmud.org 4000` or https://www.wocmud.org/welcome.php I think wocmud is one of the smaller muds out there but for whatever reason my brother and I were obsessed! I learned about Wheel of Time much later in life so I missed out on WoTMUD

Wotmud is still going strong. Come join the discord!

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#78
post #16
post #15

Between this and the previous MUD post about LLM MUDs I'd love to see a comeback. A few months ago I tried out my old (1999-2004) hang, wocmud.org Some of the quests were still sometimes broken. auto attacking mobs were still unfairly strong. But, there were a couple people more than willing to help me get my gear back from my corpse. They helped me remember the areas, quests, syntax, etc that I had BURNED into my me…

I'm sure you mean wotmud.org, and I always look for someone to mention this one in MUD threads, but rarely see it. Man I was hooked on that game in high school. Joined the Lion Wardens, multiple high level characters, knew the zones. Nothing has come close since then. That feeling of leveling in a safe zone when your screen fills with red names of opposing faction characters and you just get deleted and lose all your…

My first character was a Lion Warden too. :)

I always get a kick out of running into another wotmud alumni in the wild.

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#79

Man, I hadn't made the connection between my historical MUD experience (shout out Dark and Shattered Lands!) and my relative comfort in TUIs despite my somewhat non-technical background. My son is turning 7 this year and I'd love to get him into something like DSL....it was such a valuable experience for me across a variety of aspects -- obviously reading/typing certainly, but also strategy & problem solving, math, i…

DSL was my jam back in the day. Even though it was quite large and popular, I almost never see it brought up in these discussions which has always made me think I was dreaming up those years of playing it stealthily at school

Re: The case for MUDs in modern times (2018)

#80
post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Simply untrue. There have been hundreds of MUD clients and many of them were not purely text based at all. Many had images and map screens built in.

MUDs are text based. Some of the clients can have graphical features but the basic way to interface with the MUD itself is with text.

HTTP is a text based protocol, nobody is arguing websites are muds.

Let's skip the strange purity tests and engage in good faith discussion.

Post reply on HN