Around 1940s the first machine that manipulated data was created and named computer. Since then computers have grown to be more than just data storage and used for research. It became its own environment. Many inventors took this tool to create something they can be entertained by. It took several years later to create the first games that is recognized today as MUD.
Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University, in the UK were the creators in 1978. MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) has grown popular. Its a multi-player game that combines elements of role-playing games. Internet server allows you to run this text-driven game.
In a virtual world, players read descriptions of different rooms, objects, event, other characters and computer controlled creatures. The goal is for players to interact with each other in a fantasy world populated by elves, goblins, dwarfs, halfing and other mythical or fantasy based races. The players have the opportunity to slay monsters and explore a mystical and fantasy world. They complete quests and go on adventures.
MUD's original idea of the fantasy setting where from the old game Dungeons and Dragons. Although most are common to this setting, many others are science fiction based universe such as popular books, movies, animations, to name a few. In the MUD world not all are games, they also have a MOO (MUD, Object-Oriented) and its used for distance education or virtual conferences. Many scholars are using this server part of MUD. There is MUD Chat, where players can conversed and share experiences and ideas for the games.
To play a MUD game, players have the opportunity to create a screen name and a profile. While creating your profile the players start to role play. In the fantasy world players have to gain specific skills or powers to be able to advance and eventually win the game. MUD players find it disorienting to interact with someone whose gender is unknown, but a problem arise for females. Females tend to be harassed. "MUD administrators report that women gender-swap far less frequently than men." Females are constantly being approach by male players and it can be bothersome. Gender swap is also used by males who want to win the game and knows that with a female name , other experienced players would help them do so.
Where games are present, the tendency to associate in or form social groups is inevitable. Skeptics have always always wondered on groups emerge in a computer environment. Players tend to create groups because they have the same flavor and style of role play environment. Many of these groups grow to the point were they feel a family connection. They foster a sense of personal responsibility in their players and they take ideas and implement then right away; as it fit MUD. If a player does not fit into their ways of a family community, many are asked to move and/or leave. The MUD players have their own escalation scheme for encouraging and sometimes demanding, conformity about various rules of conduct.
In an article, Building a Sense of Family Community, Alaire explained how they built the sense of family community by encouraging regular players in staff meetings. She comment that players should be themselves even though they are role playing. Alaire said, "If you desire quality over quantity as we have at Southlands, this is a simple list of ways to get it. I've never met a more talented group of role players in my life and I'm so grateful for the experience at this point that I would recommend these things to anyone." An excellent bond can be formed.
All is well when people enter MUD to feel involved and play a good game. Unfortunately, there are several individuals that their goals are to put a dent in the close communities. In another article, Corruption in the Community, Cloic expressed how the MUD community have been changing and not for the better. He states that many players have been using their skills and/or privileges for other means. There has been a lot of corruption and loss of integrity in the MUD communities since the 1990s. Don't get alarmed. Tom from the article, Back to the Basic: Approach to Design of Descriptions, have discovered some simple, yet forgotten, strategies for attracting and keeping different types of players through appropriate room descriptions. Its very informative and can help does newbies.
On another note, there are many games in MUD that are very interesting and popular. Lawrie states that Adventure, Zork, AberMUD, Tiny Mud, LPMUD and MOO are just some of the original games. Adventure was the first widely used game in 1973. Aork later followed in 1977. Then, AberMUD and Tiny MUd intreged many in 1988 and 1989. LPMUD was the first extensible game in the early 1990s. Moo extended the concept of configurable MUD with a built-in object-oriented language.
I was very curious and started looking into MUD games to see with ones I would like to play. There are numerous games to choose from and is very overwhelming. For my three real-world example, I register and created a profile in three different MUD games available.
The first one was Lands of M'davian. Its a medieval fantasy were you can do numerous activities. I played with bows and range firing. Look around on some of their hometown and player arenas through a automap. It was nice. Its a free MUD so you can enjoy http://mdhavian.servegame.org/.
The second game was Caerlon. Its also a medieval fantasy and the cool part of this one was that religious system was offered. Targeting every group. I saw many amazing arenas, played war tournaments (I lost), and played freeze tag. This game is also free http://www.caerlon.com/.
The last game I participated on was Star Wars: Galactic Insights. I chose this one because my son likes star war and wanted to play with me. All of the characters of the movies played a role in the game. You had to follow Jedi's order and I was in training to be a jedi. It was pretty cool and also free http://swgi.genesismuds.com/.
* All articles used in this presentation were from website: www.mudconnects.com.
