Talk:Multi-user dungeon/Archive 1

Battletech link removed
I removed the link to BattleTech 3065 because it struck me as being an advertisement for a particular game, and did not contribute to understanding the topic. Doug Pardee 19:33 Feb 22, 2003 (UTC)

Medievia and copyright theft
Medievia is probably only interesting in that it is the mud most cited as one built from an act of copyright theft. Copyright theft?


 * What is probably meant by this statement is copyright infringement. Bjsiders 17:01, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Ancestor of first MUD?
The article says:
 * The first MUD was created and written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University in the UK [1]: a version of this first MUD is still running at www.british-legends.com and a version of its ancestor MUD2 runs at www.mud2.com.

Isn't this a contradiction? How can the first MUD have an ancestor? -- Timwi 14:10, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * Fixed, almost certainly meant to say "descendant". --Mrwojo 14:48, 14 Feb 2004 (UTC)

CDlib not a server
The page lists CDlib under the Server heading. But isn't CDlib a mudlib (for LPMud)? IIRC, CDlib is short for "Chalmers Dataförening lib", or somesuch. Enfors 22:26, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

PVP/Godwar
I went ahead and elaborated a little on the godwars scene. Anyone care to expand it a little more. I would have listed some other notable dirivitives such as Utopia and Lords of War, however it doesn't seem proper to address the codebases without giving credit to the developers. The only real names I knew Off hand were that of Kavir, Jobo, Tanara and Tetsuru. If anyone can elaborate more on any Unique developments of godwars and can credit the authors of the code please do so. That doen't mean list 50 stock dystopia muds. Just codebases please;).

Intresting MUDs POV?
Isn't "Interesting Muds" POV? Why are they interesting? Krik 12:05, 28 May 2004 (UTC)


 * I think this section is less of a list of "interesting MUDs" and more of a list of random uninteresting MUDs anons keep adding themselves to with no explanation. Unless anyone objects, I'll remove all the URLs (not articles) from that list. &mdash;Lady Lysiŋe Ikiŋsile | Talk 06:35, 2004 Jul 23 (UTC)


 * And so done. &mdash;Lady Lysiŋe Ikiŋsile | Talk 05:54, 2004 Jul 24 (UTC)

Networked zork circa 1979
Although this might not be believed, I played a multiuser version of ZORK on a corporate networked system, back around '79 or the very early eighties. I was a child, then, with permission to use my mom's work computer because I was very ill. This was using a telephone hookup to a paper spouting computer that had no screen, just a scrolling printer. If the history of MUD is limited to the "internet" without consideration of corporate and government predecession, a wealth of invention and experimentation might be lost. I am not quite sure how this commentary stuff works, and I hope I'm doing this right.
 * I believe you, but it certainly wasn't ZORK. A version of ADVENT in PL/1 using Wylber was available on IBM SHARE tapes and was running on many corporate machines.  I installed it myself at several companies (sysadmins in the 80's could get away with goofing off ;-) ).  Mainframers also wrote some very small adventure games themselves.  None of which to my knowledge were multiplayer games though. Jlambert 14:35, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Delete RPIMUD?
I never heard of this before; Google gives only two links (to other definition pages). Should it be deleted? Pastinakel 13:52, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Maybe. It's a term of recent vintage (circa 2001) that was used by a handful of mud admins using code descended from Artic to describe their newly discovered role-playing style. (i.e. Harshlands and Armegeddon). I've had trouble finding any definition (nay "clear" exposition) of the term in the rec.games.mud.* heirarchy. It's a very provincial territorial and flameworthy term, much like MU* was, and intended to differentiate a handful of games from "all those other muds". I've updated the entry to correct the erroroneous statement on how Mushes operate. - Tyche
 * Yes, it doesn't meet WP:N or WP:RS. Its own article was deleted as a WP:neologism, and so I've nuked it from this article.  If anyone puts it back without a non-self-published citation, it should be deleted again. Jclemens (talk) 14:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

MUD History
It may be worth mentioning that MUD is actually the name of the original game which has been expanded to the genre of games, much in the same way that vacuum cleaners are called hoovers (at least in the UK the are!)

In addition, MUSE (Multi User Entertainment Ltd, who still license MUD) consider MUD2 to be the same game as MUD, just a different version - MUD2 is actually MUD version 4E. Therefore descendant, as mentioned above, is arguable. British Legends is essentially a branch of an old version of MUD with minor modifications for an American audience.

Information about this can be found here and general background to the history can be found here.

I would update the page myself, but it would almost certainly be biased as I am involved with the game.


 * I updated it a bit, but I'm sure you can clarify things further without introducing bias. --Thoric 19:49, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Notable muds?
Is it reasonable to include an article on Aardwolf MUD? It is the most popular MUD in history, and has had over 4,000 users on at a time (with a verified average of 400-500), thus meeting the requirements for WP:WEB. I am not sure if it has any importance historically however. For most of the past 10 years, it has had 2-3 times the popularity of the nearest competitor. Isn't that a good comparison with LambdaMOO, the most popular MOO by miles? At minimum, I think that the article should include some reference to MUDs that had historical importance within the development of MUDs - such as the first ever mud, and so forth, and that such things may warrant their own articles (in accordance with Wikipedia policy, to avoid congestion in the main article). I know that we are trying to avoid advertising, but if they are of historical importance, and already the most popular in history, I don't see how advertising suggestions are relevant. Zordrac 20:07, 28 November 2005 (UTC)
 * Certainly. There are quite a few articles on specific MUDs already, just link it into the appropriate category.  Although, as mentioned above, the MUD article shouldn't link directly to specific MUDs.  --Thoric 21:25, 28 November 2005 (UTC)


 * "It is the most popular MUD in history " - this a perfect example of biased POV coupled with a useless source. See Neutral_point_of_view and Verifiability.  I can tell you right now it certainly isn't "the most popular MUD in history".  If you are interested in doing the research, do it. ;-) Jlambert 14:46, 16 February 2006 (UTC)


 * By writing "I can tell you right now it certainly isn't "the most popular MUD in history"." you seem to be biased, too. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 172.158.140.139 (talk) 10:26, 24 February 2007 (UTC).

Oubliette
I've finally, after all these years, managed to play Oubliette via the PLATO emulator at cyber1.org. I agree that it's a candidate for being a MUD, but doesn't it lack the necessary persistence? Its communication features aren't as impoverished as I'd been led to believe, but still, they're quite marginal. What exactly makes it a MUD? RichardBartle 20:23, 3 December 2005 (UTC)


 * Oubliette had persistence in that your character state would persist when you left the game and came back again. The dungeon state persisted as long as the computer was up, but not between reboots which happened nightly.   Oubliette completely fits the description in the current Wikipedia definition of a MUD, except it had simple 3D graphics and not pure text, and the commands were not in English but with keys (e.g. s alito (next) to cast the spell alito).  It also had a strong real-time component in that very fast typing was required to slay some of the monsters. Scottfsmith 04:06, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Last 2 edits
Last 2 edits have some minor improvements at the expense of having ads and some unrelated stuff as well. Because of the minor improvements, I don't want to just revert it all, and don't have time to pick out what's better and what's worse. Someone else please do it :P Atari2600tim 17:45, 11 January 2006 (UTC)


 * The term RPI is certainly disputed since it's a badly defined concept where I doubt anyone can get a valid source for. I shortened it up since it was dominating the rest of the article in size. Before my edit it said the same thing twice or thrice at a couple of places. While I may have taken out too much it's probably an improvement.


 * While at it, a seperate article / category for mud directories might be appropriate. --Scandum 18:26, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

Intermud
Why is Intermud included as a link? From what I understand, this is pretty much limited to MUDOS, not MUDs overall. Kugrian 12:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It runs on MUDs fine, and is included in many stock MUDs such as SmaugFUSS. --Zeno McDohl 15:49, 19 February 2006 (UTC)
 * Info about MUD-MUD chatting for AberMUDs and MUSHes and some others also are in there (article isn't only about I3). --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 00:09, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Reverts
Please look at diffs before doing wholesale reverts. The anon doing recent reverts changed TWO things based on their feelings about ONE thing, due to reverting past 2 edits, thus losing the intermediate changes (specifically, I agree with Jlambert that repeating the name of the person and the name of his game later in the article is worth doing, so that a reader doesn't have to scroll up to see who's being talked about). If anon people can't be bothered to integrate valid edits into things that they are wanting to change (often reintroducing typos and fixed errors and such), then don't be too offended when your wholesale reverts are simply undone completely, including the part that you intended to change. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 22:09, 21 February 2006 (UTC)
 * It would probably be a good idea to add a comment into the code before that part, saying to discuss it here first. --Zeno McDohl 04:01, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
 * I don't believe rational discussion possible with Locke, the author of NiMud (which is who those editors are). But assuming that occurred, my position would be that the 6th or later DikuMud to have online creation code or the 2nd or later MercMud to have online creation code, however you look at it, is not at all significant to this particular page.  I agree with Atari2600tim; that it's Merc lore.   Jlambert 05:13, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Any interested mudders who wish to comment on this user's behavior, pro or con, should go here... Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/Young_Zaphod -- Jlambert 00:34, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

MUD userbox?
I can't seem to find a MUD userbox. Would anyone mind making one? --Zeno McDohl 22:57, 5 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I went and created one. Waiting to see if it's selected. --Zeno McDohl (talk) 18:02, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Current article status
I think that the article is currently very close to being a good article. The major problem, as it is, is referencing the article. This is difficult for a field such as MUDs, though, because although it attracts academic attention, AFAIK there have been no authorative tellings of the history of online text gaming. Another thing I would like to do is add an 'academic interest' section, loosely smmarising or overviewing the various studies undertaken on MUDs, and once that this is written, the article will be sufficiently 'broad' for GA at least. In summary: new section good, references better. Once we can get a better coverage of references and a better analysis of studies on MUDs, I'll nominate it for GA status. -- Sam Pointon  United FC 15:50, 10 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Followng up on this, here're some verifiable sources that I'm going to put here lest I forget about them:
 * - published.
 * - research paper, published.
 * - contains a list of published MUD-related works.
 * -- Sam Pointon  United FC 16:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Future of MUDs
I don't think this section is encyclopedic. "Who can say?" sort of points that out. --Zeno McDohl 17:05, 15 April 2006 (UTC)


 * I agree. I think the entire section is editorializing with text muds being under "fierce assault" from graphical games.  Lastly, even the earliest text muds have contained elements of graphics and sound.  Jlambert 00:35, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Mudlists commented out
Any reason the mudlists.com link was commented out? -Zeno McDohl 02:23, 19 April 2006 (UTC)
 * I noticed it had been the subject of a bunch of linkspam on other pages, and it didn't seem to offer anything that wasn't done better by the two other lists that were linked. Ehheh 14:38, 19 April 2006 (UTC)

Stubs
I stubbed out a few mudauthor articles to clean up a few broken links/missing articles. There's a lot of work along this line that could be done, but I'm concerned that we may run into notability problems. I'm going to stop with the 4 that I've added and see if we can't flesh those out into useful articles. Bjsiders 18:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)


 * The MUD author articles I created were speedy-deleted, except for one. It seems like we've got some link pollution on this page, and most of these broken links aren't going to warrant their own independent articles.  I've gone through and removed most of them, and modified a few to link to existing content. Bjsiders 13:16, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Image is incorrectly captioned/Diversification needed
The image captioned "A MUD logon screen" seems to be linked to a screenshot of a MUCK logon screen. In the context of this article, MUCKs and MUSHes are a subset of MUDs, but I feel it might be important to touch on why they are different: specifically the lack of a built-in combat system in MUCK and MUSH code bases. They're not really games as much as they are social arenas. Amethe 22:49, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * We could have a discussion of some of the complexities arising from the terms in use, but from what I've seen there's almost an element of nationalism to all this. It's not suprising, considering how immersed it's possible to get in MUDs, but I don't think we need to complexificate the image's caption, which in my book should be as short as possible, to explain why it's a MUCK specifically when MUD is a perfectly good description as it is. --Sam Pointon 23:08, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * In a way I agree. It's all the same animal because it's all descended from the same animal. It's a bit of a nitpick on my part I guess. We don't need to outline what each and every term means; that's what the TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH articles are for. I thought I would throw the possibility out there, if a few words would simply put that they're referred (at least among any discussion on them I've seen) differently and run differently. Especially since this page is a redir from MUCK. Instead, I believe I will expand TinyMUCK. I just noticed it is a stub. Amethe 23:43, 16 June 2006 (UTC)


 * Soooo, Taking a picture of an ape, calling it Human would be acceptable (I'm well aware that we're not descendede from apes and just have a common ancestor. Lack of a better way of putting this.)? A mud is a mud, a muck is a muck, and a mush is a mush. A human is a human, an ape is an ape, and a christian is a christian —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Godloveslamb (talk • contribs).


 * That's a flawed analogy. This is more like taking a picture of a human and labeling it Primate which would be perfectly legitimate. Anyway, if you're concerned about it, I suggest making a screenshot of the Bartle's original MUD (the article has a link to a running server) and using that instead. -Ehheh 13:59, 20 June 2006 (UTC)

Criteria for 'historical interest'
Following on from someone trying to insert Medieva into the historical MUDs ext links section, I think we need some solid criteria for what to include there. My proposal: the game must be at least one of these:
 * one of the first (ie, launched within ~3 months, or was in the first 20 or so to be put up) of a major breed of codebase.
 * a particularly venerable game (pre-1988ish is what I'm thinking here), along with some other important innovation or claim to importance.
 * was a pioneer in a particularly important aspect of gameplay or design (this is a bit vague, wrt 'important aspect').

and, of course, must be up and running. For the technical firsts, it may be a copy of the original game, but if it's just an ancient MUD it has to have been more or less continuously up since creation. Thoughts? --Sam Pointon 23:15, 26 June 2006 (UTC)


 * I personally don't think we should list any MUDs here (beyond MUD2 perhaps)... that's what MUD lists are for. If we're going to make a "List of notable MUDs", then it should be an article in itself, and not a subsection of this article.  Do note that it will be hard to keep that list from being spammed.  --Thoric 00:05, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Commercialization
It should be noted that the original MUD was commercial. From what is said in there currently, it appears that commercialization wasn't the original intent of muds, which it was. I'd add it in myself, but I'm no writer. PR Baram 16:35, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The original MUD was a student project run on university equipment, wasn't it? I've never heard of money changing hands over it before. Sure, it was eventually brought on to Compuserve, but that wasn't the original intent and it's at best a footnote. Ehheh 17:02, 9 July 2006 (UTC)
 * As a student (and eventually a MUD-wizard) at Essex during the early days (Hi Richard!), I can confirm that MUD1 was in no way commercial. Gwynevans 21:08, 7 July 2007 (UTC)
 * Article does reference commercial version of M.U.D. IMO, "original intent of muds" is nonsense phrase as motivations vary.  Jlambert 02:38, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Things To Be Done
Broken links like this need to be fixed/removed. p00rleno 17:38, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

This article is NOT a MUD-list
Please do not add your favorite MUD to this article. Writing an article about your favorite MUD is fine and dandy, but adding a link to it here is not. --Thoric 23:08, 26 June 2006 (UTC)
 * Let me add that writing a wikipedia article about your favorite MUD is not fine and dandy. Wikipedia isn't a place for MUD websites. The MUD must be notable (have a cultural impact and been the subject of non-trivial published works) to have an article written for it. --JRavn 17:01, 21 July 2006 (UTC)
 * The notability of a MUD should also be based upon such factors as longevity (contiguous years of operation), size of player base, as well as its influence upon the MUD community. Regardless, this article is not the place to discuss specific MUDs.  --Thoric 19:23, 21 July 2006 (UTC)

Shorten the intro
For the sake of readability, does anyone else think the summary needs to be shortened? I think that it could be cut to maybe a paragraph at most, and the rest could be moved to an Overview section. I think a new reader should be able to just quickly read over the summary and get a fast overview of the topic, which I feel isn't possible right now - there's too much verbiage. --JRavn 19:50, 26 July 2006 (UTC)

Citations needed
I hate to be a pita about citations, but this article is filled with lots of statements that I just can't find any reliable sources for. One such line is "MUDs have also attracted the interest of academic scholars from many fields, including communications, sociology, law, and synthetic economies". Ok, I have found sources showing the sociology connection to MUDs, but I have found nothing for law, synthetic economies, or communications. That leads me to believe that this is just original research that someone pulled out of nowhere. Also, I'm not sure where a good chunk of the history comes from. The only authoritative source for MUD history I've found is in Alan Cox's article in Interactive Fantasy 2 and some random usenet postings (Bartle's postings could be considered reliable). Most of the history is ok, but a lot of it I can't find sources for. If the original author could post citations for the history and the third paragraph of the summary, that would be great. Otherwise I'd like to remove or rework these sections. I feel this is also needed to get the external link section in order. --JRavn 20:36, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

MUCK
"MUCK" redirects here, but then isn't mentioned in the actual article (Why do people do this?). What does MUCK mean? BrokenBeta &#x5B;talk · contribs&#x5D; 16:42, 16 September 2006 (UTC)


 * A MUCK is a type of Mud Server, derived from TinyMUD. TinyMUCK has it's own article (well, stub). I'll change the MUCK redirect to go there. Ehheh 16:53, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Criteria
I am curious, it has been stated above that the only actual game that whould be listed is, MUD1 ro MUD2... I agree with this, but as an active MUDer... I get a little frustrated when I see MUDS with pages on here (Medieva) that have little more claim to fame than the one I play, or other.... yet the page for mine was deleted mounths ago, but was quite more in depth and complete than theirs. I don't really wish to jab out at any particular page... but I really think that WIkipedia needs to either....

a: Allow only two or three of the most important, and orginal (as in the first MUDs, not unique ones) MUDs to have pages... or b: Allow every MUD to have a page, and redirect the energy currently being thrown at speculating on the importance of one MUD over another, into creating a set of solid, non-commerical, and quality pages on many MUDs.

Those are just my thoughts, but I would also offer The MUD Connector Top Ten as a criteria for picking MUDs for Wikipedia... perhaps the top 1 or three or five there can be allowed a WIki... and deleted if they fall off the top 1,3, or 5. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 67.189.22.191 (talk • [[User:Troft|Troft]:


 * But it is hard to judge which MUDs are the most important, as MUD rankings tend to vary a lot based on the individual MUD campaigns to increase their ranking in such listings. -- ReyBrujo 16:31, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I would agree that that isn't the greatest way to judge it, but I think it might be a tad better than the unclear and seemingly arbitrary system we have now with some MUDs being given a rough claim to fame and others ignored... I would say we need a more rigid set of guidlines, there are alot of MUDs out there, and all of them have done something of note... so I would say that the "noteworthy" criteria is outdated.  [[User:Troft|Troft]


 * Since there no notability guidelines for MUDs, maybe we can link to articles used to build the article, and remove all links to MUD themselves, replacing them with Wikipedia articles. If a MUD does not have an article, then it should not be linked here. -- ReyBrujo 21:14, 11 November 2006 (UTC)


 * I would agree, that sounds like a goood start, but my only other thought would be that, perhaps instead of having several separate pages for individual MUDs, we just have a short section at the end of the MUD page with a short grouping of MUDs of note, with a sentance or two on them (because that is all that is notable, ex: was established in 1986, as opposed to something more like an advertisment, i.e. was established in 1986 and is based upon Dragonlance, has five base classes, eight races, four kingdoms and three islands to thrive upon.). And as far as links go, perhaps just a link to the MUD Connector, or MudMagic... I still think we need to link to every MUD or none. Troft 20:17, 12 November 2006 (UTC)Troft


 * If you want to make the inclusion standards for articles on MUDs more consistent (which would certainly be a helpful thing if it can be achieved) you should either start a new page (something like Notability (MUD) or Notability (Online Game) and see if you can get it to guideline status. Or you could try to get a paragraph added to WP:WEB, perhaps - try starting a discussion over on that guideline's talk page. You can certainly hash some stuff out on this talk page, but it's doubtful that AFD participants would feel bound by it in any way. Ehheh 20:44, 12 November 2006 (UTC)


 * Notable MUDs do not belong in this article because it would be far too difficult to maintain a manageable and reasonable list. Any MUD which is notable is welcome to its own article placed within the appropriate category.  Ranking on a MUD list is not in itself significant criteria, as it should be noted that a good number of significantly notable MUDs would not make the top 100 on such lists, as they have fallen into obscurity -- yet are most certainly notable enough for a Wikipedia article, and  due to their current status of literally becoming "history", producing articles about these particular historical MUDs is quickly becoming an important task.  --Thoric 20:12, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

MUDs of historical interest
This section in the external links seems to attract a lot of people trying to do promotion, and I'm not sure it's really in line with the External links policy. What do people think of removing this section, and moving the one link that's really fairly important (british-legends.com) to be an inline link in the article text? - Ehheh 14:56, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * That sounds good; complete agreement. --Atari2600tim (talk • contribs) 20:46, 29 November 2006 (UTC)
 * I've made the change. - Ehheh 21:55, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

TinyMUD and diversification

I think the whole Avalon stuff is not right there. Should be in an extra category.


 * I'm not sure what the Avalon information is attempting to say or suggest with the "isolation" commentary. I'm not sure they are even supportable.  European programmers work differently than other programmers?  The principals of Shades being isolated from other muds?  What?? Jlambert 16:01, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

MUD History and such
Could MUD history and evolution and such be moved into another article, as well as other things? This entry is getting to be a bit cumbersome. --Rahennig (talk) 23:41, 20 August 2008 (UTC)


 * Maybe we could take a stab at cleaning it up a bit first. Weed it a bit. --Sydius (talk) 23:52, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Remove the "Psychology of MUDs" section
This section is irrelevent to the subject being discussed. On the wikipedia entry under Lions, you don't see talk about a person who thought he was a Lion. The second paragraph does not make any sense at all, the part about the Turing Test has nothing to do with MUDs, and the thought that tricking someone into thinking that you're a "bot" suddenly allows you to have sexual activity online thereby raping and violating the privacy of someone is absolutely absurd.
 * It could well be expanded from just the Turkle article. For some reason MUDs became a rather studied phenom among Psych majors who produced a lot of papers. I don't have any interest in the subject myself, nor any objection to section.  Jlambert


 * I will agree with the initial comment at least to the extent that the majority of the second paragraph seems highly irrelevant, and would be better suited for an article regarding AI, or cybersex. At any rate, it seems rather inappropriate to be bringing up the latter topic in this article, especially solely under the context of AI. --CnEY?! 06:47, 24 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think the section is inappropriate, particularly the second paragraph. --Sydius (talk) 19:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)


 * I went ahead and removed the second paragraph. --Sydius (talk) 23:59, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Psychology of MUD
This sentence isn't exactly encyclopedic: "Turkle wonders aloud if this could be considered." Does she really wonder aloud; continuously? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.170.4.2 (talk) 22:03, 1 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I agree. --Sydius (talk) 19:16, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

Iron Realms Entertainment
I think that some mention of IRE is merited, at least under the 'commercialization' section. IRE is certainly the largest, most successful provider of commercial MUDs. Leoniceno (talk) 22:19, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see any reason why not, but it would be good to get a non-blog, non-IRE source for that, lest it look like an ad. Jclemens (talk) 23:50, 3 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I definitely think that IRE should be mentioned on an article about MUDs. I dug up a source [|here] and here.  IRE also received press from Computer Gaming World on September 14, 2004 about Gleam as well as a mention on air by Leo Laporte on TechTV on the same subject.  I'm not sure that I believe that IRE is the largest, most successful provider of commerical MUDs when compared to Simutronics which owns things such as Gemstone IV, Hercules and Xena muds, and Dragonrealms.

I haven't added anything to the article since I made a booboo the first time I tried to contribute. Hopefully, this information will help in some way. Kallimina (talk) 17:17, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

Take Two -- This article is not a MUD-list
Again, this article is not a MUD list. The only MUD that should really be mentioned is the original MUD. I'm not sure why Avalon has specific mention (let alone several sentences). It is a slippery slope that leads to everyone wanting to get their MUD mentioned as they feel theirs is more notable. Well, for this article, the original MUD is the only one relevant. Mentioning public MUD code bases also makes sense, since hundreds of MUDs use them, but there is really no place in this article for naming specific MUDs. --Thoric (talk) 00:33, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * I disagree that NO muds should be mentioned by name, but I can agree that only MUDs that have notable articles of their own should be included here. To that end, I trimmed off a good bit about a couple of redlinked muds, and tried to balance the coverage to avoid WP:UNDUE. Jclemens (talk) 02:43, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * My MUD has a notable article of its own, but I would not put its name into the MUD article -- even though it is the parent MUD of a publicly released code base -- because this article is not a MUD list, notable or otherwise. There are already categories for MUDs, and if a "List of Notable MUDS" article is recommended, then it would be acceptable for the MUD article to link to it.  --Thoric (talk) 02:49, 4 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Nor is my notable MUD linked here, either, and I'm fine with that. Allow me to expand a bit:  The MOST notable muds that played a key part in the development of the genre, such as the first Diku or MUSH, should be included here. "Normal" notable muds should not.  Think my recent edits have gone far enough in trimming? Jclemens (talk) 03:17, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

MU* ?!?
Does anyone else think the categories should be renamed to MUD games and MUD servers ? As far as I know MU* is commonly used to refer to TinyMUD derivatives. Lets have a vote and see how the consensus stands. --Scandum 17:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * support per above. --Scandum 17:00, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * comment: The "*" in MU* is a wildcard (DOS/Unix shell style wildcard), meaning anything, thus MU* is inclusive of MUDs, MUSHes, MUCKs and also MOOs since MOO expands to "MUD Object Oriented". MUD is exclusive to MUDs.  --Thoric (talk) 21:25, 10 July 2008 (UTC)
 * The term MU* has a dual meaning depending on who you are talking to. That's referenced in the TinyMUD section with, "Some use the term MU* to refer to TinyMUD, MUCK, MUSH, MUSE, MUX, and their kin; others simply allow the term MUD to apply universally.", but probably phrased poorly.  Then again so does MUD as some have used the term MUD to refer to non Tiny family MU*s.  I don't see why multiple categories can't be used.  BTW, good job on the article. Jlambert (talk) 06:18, 11 July 2008 (UTC)


 * Thanks. How would you propose to organize multiple categories? --Scandum 12:41, 11 July 2008 (UTC)
 * This discussion seems to belong in Category_talk:MU* games. Modifying that category is outside of the scope of the MUD article.  Again, MU* is inclusive of MUDs, as MUSHes, MUCKs, MUX, etc, etc are all based on MUDs (even if indirectly).  --Thoric (talk) 01:04, 12 July 2008 (UTC)
 * No, this is the correct place to have this discussion given nobody is watching the MU* categories, feel free to make a mention of this discussion in the MU* games category if you feel it's important.


 * As per Wikipedia policy, could you provide some notable sources using the term 'MU*', or if someone knows how to search for a literal * in google I can have a look at finding the exact origin and meaning of the term. As Jlambert pointed out, MU* is apparently used to reference to TinyMUD derivatives, from what I gathered most custom codebases self identify as MUDs. --Scandum (talk) 00:40, 13 July 2008 (UTC)


 * I was certain that MU*'s are a subset of MUDS, not the other way around. I mean, the first MUD codebase that made people make them themselves (Barring MUD1 and MUD2) was AberMUD. that spawned DikuMUD and LPMUD, both MUDs, and TinyMUD, a MU*, which spawned TinyMUSH and MOOs, also MU*s.
 * All information taken from Richard Bartle's Book "Designing Virtual Worlds" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.7.229 (talk) 18:20, 12 March 2010 (UTC)

Archived
I went ahead and archived most of this talk page, as it was huge. If I removed something relevant, feel free to move it back. I tried to only move the old stuff. --Sydius (talk) 19:33, 4 August 2008 (UTC)

PLATO
Is this relevant? Oubliette is covered in the Avatar (computer game) article, and Avatar itself doesn't self identify as a mud, instead it calls itself "a text-based & graphics-based multi-user highly interactive role-playing computer game". --Scandum (talk) 00:01, 8 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd think it's relevant. As far as I can tell from this article and the one on Avatar, Oubliette was the first MUD, and Avatar qualifies even though the marketers don't call it a MUD.  Unless I'm missing something in the definition.  (I used to see people playing those games when I was at Illinois in the mid '80s.) &mdash;JerryFriedman  (Talk) 23:04, 13 April 2009 (UTC)


 * I've always found it hard to know where you draw the line. Certainly people used conferrencing systems on early computers to play RPGs, and some of those included tools to assist the playing. The leap from that to TinyMUD style consensual gaming in a shared environment isn't very big. I'm sceptical you can thus talk about "the first MUD" without picking a set of definitions that themselves pick a 'winner'.


 * The article I suspect would do far better to have a family tree diagram showing the different independant strands of UK and US development. Alan Cox (talk) 12:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)


 * MUD trees has at least some of that. Re Oubliette, I seem to recall Bartle saying that he didn't consider it a MUD because it lacked a shared world between users. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 14:50, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Roguelikes
Should roguelikes that do not self identify as MUDs, and aren't referred to as such in sources, be included in this article?

I also think this article tries to make the MUD genre an umbrelle genre while it isn't. Early history indicates that a MUD is a game that resembles MUD1, a multi-user virtual world described in text. In that regard a 'virtual MUD' is an oxymoron. I think it'd improve the article to define MUDs more clearly (right now the intro is a bit of a blur), and if MUDs had an impact on modern online game developments that could be dealt with in a seperate chapter. --Scandum (talk) 15:47, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * No I don't think roguelikes should be included in general. Island of Kesmai doesn't really self-identify as anything, perhaps because it debuted on CompuServe a couple of years before British Legends and "MUD" was not yet a genre label?  It was a multi-user virtual world both described in text and a ascii map display, the authors describe as being inspired by Rogue.  I should point out the text is minimal; no more than 30 characters for objects and mobiles. Jlambert (talk) 17:37, 9 January 2009 (UTC)


 * I think MirrorWorld (1985) was the first MUD1 inspired mud in the USA. There was a boom of MUD1 clones in 1985, possibly due to micronet looking for a commercial MUD1 clone they could run. I guess it's tricky to classify Kesmai till there are more sources for the actual article. --Scandum (talk) 23:25, 9 January 2009 (UTC)

A divorce in cyberspace
I created the Category:Multi-User Dungeons category to group the Category:MU* games, Category:MU* servers, and Category:MUD clients directories and some random articles closely related to the subject. However, I've been notified that MUSHes don't wish to be associated with MUDs, and though they for now peacefully coexist with BadMUD, MUD1, SlothMUD, and other such creatures, they under no circumstance wish their category to be branded with the label 'MUD' - though I question if Shangrila would mind being associated with dungeons.

It's been agreed on the talk page where the conversation took place - Category talk:MU* games - to force a split. Given the strong dislike of mush players to be identified with muds and the argument that mushes are notably different from muds I guess a split will avoid future edit conflicts. The big question is which of the two is going to get TinyMUD?! I'll assume shared categorization will do. --Scandum (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Not much technical information
I think the article could benifit from some more technical information (such as port numbers, protocols, etc.), because right now its mostly more of a definition. I came to this article looking for information I could use making a MUD, but all I got was the history of MUDs, which is really no help at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.63.161.39 (talk) 03:37, 21 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I tend to think that sufficient technical information to be really useful in creating a MUD would be out-of-scope for Wikipedia, and belongs more on the external resource sites listed. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 05:35, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

VAXMUD
No mention of VAXMUD? It was running on the joint academic network as early as late 1988. I know because I used to play it. It ought to be included in the history section alongside AberMUD. 213.114.8.106 (talk) 10:23, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Are you talking about the VAX MUD that Richard Bartle talks about here: http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/incarns.htm ? I don't know much about it other than the what's at the link. Jlambert (talk) 19:15, 28 January 2010 (UTC)

It was a rather strange VMS based MUD in several incarnations, not sure it ever really caught on 81.2.110.250 (talk) 15:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

AMP
(Adventure for Multiple Players)

Another one that is missing from the early days of X.25 commercial networks - had a second stage game based on a MUD implementation of Colossal Cave which worked very well. 81.2.110.250 (talk) 15:45, 24 June 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the proposal was Not moved. No consensus that this meaning isn't WP:PRIMARYTOPIC for "MUD" or that hatnote to dab page isn't sufficient for all meanings and capitalizations. DMacks (talk) 09:13, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

MUD → Multi-user dungeon —. The word "Mud" is highly ambiguous (see Mud (disambiguation)), and even the capitalised form is ambiguous: Master of Urban Design, Municipal Utility District, MUD Coffee, and a form of signalling in contract bridge. But even without the ambiguity, MUD is simply an obscure abbreviation, a piece of jargon which will no doubt be instinctive to anyone involved in on-line gaming, but for others it will be somewhere between non-obvious and impenetrable. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:48, 8 March 2010 (UTC) For all the talk of backronyms, there is no mention of them in the article, and nobody has offered a reliable source for those claims. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 16:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC) "Facts that are well known to me" is just an assertion. References are evidence to support your views -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC) Do you have any evidence for that assertion that about as many people say "Multi-User Dungeon" rather than "MUD"...? Amongst those close to any subject, acronyms and abbreviations are widely used as a form of shorthand, but the world does not consist solely of those immersed in any subject. I have found this several times on the topics I am most familiar with, where an acronym which I had assumed was common currency turned out to be completely obscure to others. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 20:00, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * See also related category discussion at Categories for discussion/Log/2010 March 6. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 14:50, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. MOO, TinyMUCK, and MUSH are at the "acronym" as the article name.  Like MUD, each lists multiple possible origins, many of which appear to be backronyms. MUD has at least two major ones: with D standing for dungeon (most likely the original, IMHO, but RSing might be challenging) and domain. Jclemens (talk) 16:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually the current version of this article lists no other possible origins for the name, and the word "domain" does not even appear in the article. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:19, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Argument from personal unfamiliarity not compelling. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 19:02, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Straw man. There is no "personal unfamiliarity" argument in the nomination (not least because it would be untrue; I first heard of a MUD in the 1980s). However, while the acronyms and jargon familiar to those with sufficient expertise in a particular topic to write articles on it, it is important to remember that Wikipedia is written for a general audience rather than a specialist one, so editors should not assume that a reader has any familiarity with the topic. Using an obscure acronym as the title for an article does not help the general reader. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:18, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I guess all the pooh-poohing dismissive language about the obscurity and nigh-unto-non-notability of the topic, in both discussions, serves some other purpose, then. In any event, indicating to the general reader that the commonly used name of the topic is "Multi-User Dungeon" rather than "MUD" is actually misleading.  The acronym has primacy to the point that there are multiple backronyms for alternate political positions regarding what the acronym should stand for in the backronymist's perfect world.  This seems to me to indicate that MUD is the real name of the topic. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 08:50, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Please stop attributing to me views which I do not hold and have not advocated. I did not say the topic is obscure, I said that the aconym is obscure, and I did not suggest or imply that the topic is non-notable.
 * Perhaps if I rephrase. It may be better if you did not attempt to make your point about article renaming through the use of dismissive language about the topic.  There, does that help?  As to the backronyms, I need an RS to include material in the article; I don't need an RS to make assertions about facts that are well-known to me through my extensive experience of the topic, within a Wikipedia bureaucratic discussion. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 15:21, 10 March 2010 (UTC) 16:02, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I have not used dismissive language about the topic. I have commented on the obscurity of the jargon to anyone not already familiar with the subject.
 * So in the absence of RS authority in black and white, subject matter experts are wrong and you're right. Wow, that's respectful. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 19:02, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * WP:CIVIL, please. Per WP:V, it's a matter of policy that wikipedia relies on RS, not on anybody's self-proclaimed expertise. Respect is a two-way street, and if you have the expertise you claim then I am surprised that you take offence at a request for some references. Thank you for adding refs to the articles which confirm the existence of the backronyms, but none of them amounts to any see no evidence that either of them is common enough to dislodge "Multi-User Dungeon" as the commonnanme. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 19:49, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * For "Multi-User Dungeon" to be "dislodged" as the commonname, it would have to have ever been the commonname, rather than MUD being the dominant term, used as a standalone noun in every conceivable way (including being verbed, forming derived terms "mudding", "mudder", "mudflation", "mudlist", "mudsex", etc ad infinitum), for the past 30 years. I don't take offense at your request for references, I take offense at your supercilious attitude ("looks like bad capitalisation of the stuff made from wet clay", "an obscure abbreviation, a piece of jargon") that barrels in saying that subject matter has to be rearranged because it's somehow inappropriate for an article to have a name that is the common name of its topic that isn't self-explanatory to people unfamiliar with it, and of course this is the right of things since it's just a "non-obvious and impenetrable" term that people not "involved in on-line gaming" don't know.  I know that if I talk about the attitudes underlying that sort of language, you'll do a bunch more dodging about how you didn't say that, so I'll just note that they're extremely ugly.  Moving on, do we need to rename Fasciitis because people who don't know the term don't know the term and it looks like a misspelling of something else?  Or can we say that, in fact, this article exists in part to explain to people what a MUD is? &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 20:32, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * If respect is a two-way street, you opened this proposal driving in the wrong lane. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 20:54, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You are quite entitled to disagree with my nomination or even to regard it it as deeply mistaken, but your belated explanation that you took a requested move nomination as personal disrespect to yourself explains a lot of your subsequent personalisation of the disagreement. Time to put WP:OWN on your reading list, and please do try to remember that you and this article are different entities. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 21:27, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Hey, I guess it's my turn: that's not what I said. I didn't make it about me; I was describing your lack of respect toward the topic.  (Yes, you insist that all your dismissiveness is saved for the term, not the topic.  Hopefully it's clear to you by now that the term refers to the topic.)  Really, do you think you would have approached the proposal with language like that if it had been, say, an abbreviation for somebody's church that was to be renamed? &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 21:39, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Chill a bit, and do try to WP:AGF: this is a discussion about terminology, not about the merits of the topic. (It's a monumental leap of bad faith to translate a comment on the obscurity of a wikipedia article as some sort of attack on a topic which is dear to you). Yes, of course the term refers to the topic, and if you had followed the discusion you would see that I had never dipsuted that tautological point. And yes, if a similarly obscure acronym was used to refer to a church, deity, political party, sexual disease, trade union, football club, electronic component, military formation, piece of legislation, or whatever I would also have described it as "an obscure abbreviation, a piece of jargon". -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:18, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * You're right, I haven't sufficiently AGFed. I apologize, and will attempt to chill out a notch or two.  I am certain that your intent in this is to improve Wikipedia, not to do anyone any harm, and that the harm and potential harm I perceive are the result of attitudes you are likely unaware you hold, not your fundamental objectives.  May I ask whether you have looked for evidence that "Multi-User Dungeon" is the common name of the topic, before proposing the rename (which I would suggest might have been sensible) or at any time afterward?  If so, are you going to produce that evidence at any time?  If not, can you tell me why people who oppose the rename seem to be held to a higher standard of RS substantiation for support of their position than that which you meet?  Either way, can you see why it might have appeared to me that you were treating the topic in a cavalier fashion? &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 02:01, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Some quick investigation indicates that I can RS at least two versions of the acronym. I own one of the sources and am having the other one shipped to me presently; will make appropriate edits when available. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 15:34, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The existence of backronyms is not of itself any evidence of how the term originated, nor is it evidence of what the WP:COMMONNAME is. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 18:17, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The existence of backronyms which compete with any success against the actual acronym is evidence that the acronym has a great deal more currency than any expansion of it. WP:COMMONNAME strongly suggests that MUD is the correct name of the article, since about as many people say "Multi-User Dungeon" rather than "MUD" as refer to the Venus de Milo as "Aphrodite of Melos". &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 18:57, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * The existence of backronyms demonstrates nothing of the sort: it merely shows that the acronym is widely-enough known in some circles for the backronym to have enough meaning to gain some traction in those circles.
 * For evidence, I have Playing MUDs on the Internet, ISBN 0-471-11633-5, in which the term MUD is used hundreds or thousands of times and an expansion is provided for the acronym once (the expansion given being "Multiuser dimension"). But as far as I can tell, what you're saying is a form of "we need to do X because people who aren't familiar with the topic aren't familiar with the topic", which like all tautological arguments is nonsense. Can you provide evidence that people who are unfamiliar with MUDs are more familiar with the term "Multi-User Dungeon" than the term "MUD"? &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 20:13, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Let's also note that the aforementioned book, which is written for a general audience, is titled Playing MUDs on the Internet, not Playing Multi-User Dungeons on the Internet or anything else. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 20:48, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Also note that the 'D' may also stand for Dimension (I believe this one is more common than Domain).  As the term, "MUD" is far more commonly used than the phrase, "Multi-User Dungeon" (or "Dimension"), people not involved in online gaming would be even less likely to have come across it.  --Thoric (talk) 22:51, 8 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Note that MUD is the common usage in most of the source material for this article. Jlambert (talk) 01:33, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Comment Dimension and Domain are backronyms primarily popularized in the TinyMUD branch. I think those backronyms  are covered in the TinyMUD or TinyMUSH article, though I don't think  there are any reliable secondary sources for their origin and  popularity. MUD does stand for 'Multi-User Dungeon' and all the cited material  points toward that. Btw, the correct long article name would be Multi-User Dungeon  (different capitalization). It's probably wisest to change the article name now, and have MUD link to Multi-User Dungeon for a couple of years until some bored admins force it to become a disambiguation page, as per Wikipedia article naming guidelines. This is pretty much a done deal. --Scandum (talk) 03:58, 9 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't feel it's appropriate for a dogmatically followed "Wikipedia Way" to be allowed to distort subject matter. It's Wikipedia's job to adapt to represent subject matter correctly, not the other way around. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 19:06, 10 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oppose the move. To quote the book 'Multiplayer game programming' by Todd Barron, "The common term used to describe these games is MUD." - MrOllie (talk) 20:16, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Oh, that's a helpful quote. Let's reference that one, shall we... &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 21:02, 11 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Wikipedia is not written for a readership composed of programmers. -- Brown HairedGirl (talk) • (contribs) 00:22, 12 March 2010 (UTC)
 * We do not have special words to refer to MUDs for programmers that are different from those for non-programmers. &mdash;chaos5023 (talk) 02:03, 12 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.