As others have said, I also learned coding on a MUD - the one linked to in this thread, actually. LPC and the TMI codebase, and having something I was passionate about to work on, was a great way to get started with C-based programming. What I learned there easily translated to doing web work with PHP and then later to real-word app dev with C++ and C#. Thirty years, hundreds of thousands of lines of code and several dozen in-game projects later, I'm still there as an admin. It's a funny old world.
The Two Towers MUD
91–100 of 112 posts
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#92It was really fun watching the MOO and MUD and MUSH as the beginnings of the online, real time classroom and forums before the internet services and web servers really took off. All that was needed was Telnet which came with just about every computer. No browser needed. I think what killed it for growth was all the rules that needed to be read and followed before discussion could take place. IRC was much simpler
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#93I owe my career in programming to a MUD. That's really where I learned to code (mainly by staring at and trying to debug tonnes of really bad code other clueless newbies like myself had written). That it turn, got me a spot as a sort of hang-around at a local ISP/consultancy shop whose staff intersected a lot with the people running the MUD. They eventually decided to hire me when a suitable contract showed up. All i…
Same here , I got addicted to a mud called realms of despair , smaug codebase, a derivative of Dikumud, I then ended up helping run a pretty popular server on the same codebase with some friends I met on the server. Bought a "learn c++ for dummies book" (even though it was programmed in c) and started modifying the server and the rest was history ;) I guess I was 14 at the time and I haven't stopped programming since…
I would be interested in watching "Claude plays with MUD," you should do it!
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#94Does anyone remember that type of early web form multiplayer games where you'd allocate resources by percentages and then fight against other 'countries' in turn based games? Do those still exist?
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#95Used to be an immortal (admin/main dev) in Solace MUD based on dragonlance. It's actually running now apparently, revived after some years offline.
It was funny how myself and my friend became imms there - we offered a patch to fix a real bug to then-admin who couldn't code a thing because he inherited the project, injecting a security hole so we could stream source code through the mud itself, lol. Lots of stuff learned, lots of hacks, tons of dirty C code. Test it all in production, on real people.
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here , I got addicted to a mud called realms of despair , smaug codebase, a derivative of Dikumud, I then ended up helping run a pretty popular server on the same codebase with some friends I met on the server. Bought a "learn c++ for dummies book" (even though it was programmed in c) and started modifying the server and the rest was history ;) I guess I was 14 at the time and I haven't stopped programming since…
I would be interested in watching "Claude plays with MUD," you should do it!
I had ChatGPT play The Two Towers and have screenshots. It was surprisingly good at it, but after the first session (max message limit reached), it was unable to pick up where it left off. It started describing rooms TO me instead of responding to rooms I was describing to it...
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
Same here , I got addicted to a mud called realms of despair , smaug codebase, a derivative of Dikumud, I then ended up helping run a pretty popular server on the same codebase with some friends I met on the server. Bought a "learn c++ for dummies book" (even though it was programmed in c) and started modifying the server and the rest was history ;) I guess I was 14 at the time and I haven't stopped programming since…
I would be interested in watching "Claude plays with MUD," you should do it!
Just last Friday I was doing some cut&paste proof of concept of "Gemini plays Genesis MUD".
I gave Gemini a little prompt and just started pasting the game output into Gemini and the commands from Gemini back into the MUD. It managed to create a character, do the tutorial and started doing some initial skill training before I got tired of all the cut&paste.
Would be fun and interesting to let it completely loose in a similar environment.
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Me too. Every now and then I think of going back, but ever since Aardwolf I've had a personal rule that a game has to have an end. Which has successfully kept me away from all MMORPGs and other endless time sinks.
My rule is that a game needs to have an end (or at least a realistically achievable goal to work towards), or it needs to be a social experience that I exclusively play with my friends.
That's a good clarification. I do play with friends role playing campaigns that technically do not have an end, as the game master just builds the story forward. But I still put it to a same category as board games.
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
There was a Battletech MUD??? That's so cool :) MechWarrior 2 is what got me into it as a kid
There were several, all based off of the same live action map/cockpit/etc code. The granddaddy was 3025, followed. T 3056 - these were attenpting to portray the entire BT universe. So you’d sign up, join a faction, be assigned to a unit, train with your peers, and eventually go off to fight (though I don’t think either ever reached that point). World level scenario based spinoffs started to appear. Planet level battl…
Wow, I spent many hours on those Battletech Muds. It did have a cool realtime battle system but the faction vs faction wars never happened as far as I remember. There were several offshoots, including some that did 24/7 "live" battles that focused on one planet which was much more scalable. Organizing a scouting expedition was pretty fun. There was a Solaris world too. I ran the Kurita mechwarrior school for a while, doing new pilot training, and I was one of the people who could log in to the TK faction leader account. But then I graduated and got a job haha.
Re: The Two Towers MUD
#100Does anyone remember that type of early web form multiplayer games where you'd allocate resources by percentages and then fight against other 'countries' in turn based games? Do those still exist?
I used to play one of those back in 1999 or so, and amazingly it still seems to be going! Now on season 107…
https://utopia-game.com/shared/
Terrifically addictive back when entertainment was scarce — I can’t imagine spending much time on such a thing these days. But it reminds me a bit of idle games.