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Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

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Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#83

Post by StavrosK »

Oh man, MUDs were magical. I annoyed my parent to no end by tying up the phone line. Most of my best friends today are people I met on the MUD in the 90s, and we still keep in touch every day. It was amazing to be logging in and basically be living another life in a vibrant world.

I frequented one called Realms of Despair, unfortunately it's only got a few tens of people logged on at any time now.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#84

Post by bovermyer »

Fezzik wrote: post #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 t…

Is this the Rifts MU* that was based on the tabletop RPG Rifts? If so, I played it for a few months back in the day.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#85

Post by bovermyer »

gwbas1c wrote: post #77

That's approximately 3.2 hours a day. (20000 / 17 / 52 / 7) Yikes! I wish I had 3.2 hours a day to spend on hobbies.

This calculation doesn't take into account weekends or holidays offering larger quantities of free time.

Also, if you actually wished you could spend 3+ hours on hobbies a day, you'd do something about it.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#86

Post by bovermyer »

I lost a lot of time to MU*s back in the 90s.

My final project in AP Computer Science in high school was a single-player text adventure that mimicked some of the mechanics of MUDs. Sadly, we had to turn in the source code rather than demo it, and it refused to compile on the teacher's computer. He still gave me an A, though, based on the source alone.

I really, really wish I still had that source code...

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#88

Post by duwease »

Used to play a MUD called 'After Hours' from 95-97. It was not 'adult-oriented', as the name would imply, although that may be why my teenaged self chose it in the first place. Good times back in those days when I could still stay up late and function during the day! Met cool folks, learned to code in a fashion, sometimes I'd get sent cool indie movies on VHS that I would never ever had heard about in my small town otherwise.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#89

Post by DonHopkins »

I was lucky enough to play the original MUD1 at Essex over the ARPANET! I was on the old INFO-MUD@MC ARPA mailing list, and somebody from Essex University (probably Richard Bartle) posted instructions and an invitation to log into the original MUD1 running on a PDP-10 at the University of Essex via the ARPA/UK gateway at ARPA host address # 42 (NCP host addresses only had 8 bits in those days).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD1

In 1980, Roy Trubshaw created MUD version 3 in BCPL (the predecessor of C), to conserve memory and make the program easier to maintain. Richard Bartle, a fellow Essex student, contributed much work on the game database, introducing many of the locations and puzzles that survive to this day. Later that year Roy Trubshaw graduated from Essex University, handing over MUD to Richard Bartle, who continued developing the game. That same year, MUD1 became the first Internet multiplayer online role-playing game as Essex University connected its internal network to the ARPANET.

Here's a scan of the notes I took (back in the 80's, not sure which year exactly), scribbled on one of the coffee-stained pages of a Zork map.

https://i.imgur.com/ZL7Bl24.jpg

    @O 42
    %CON ESX TORUS EPSS 52200300
    LOG 1776,1776
    Password BUZBY
    TY GUID.TXT -Intro
    RU DSKB:MUD[2011,2653]
    K/P or K/B Logs off
I shared that scan with Richard Bartle recently, and he commented: "Blimey! That's a find! The password was BUZBY because that was the name of the bird being used by BT (or was it still the Post Office?) in their advertising."

The source code to MUD1 has been recovered and released, and possibly there's still a version running (but it seems to be down, now).

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/05/02/mud1_open_source_re...

http://british-legends.com/CMS/

http://www.mud2.com/CMS/index.php/play-the-game

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