Multi-User Dimension
Multi-User Dungeon

    (MUD) (Or Multi-User Domain, originally "Multi-User
   Dungeon") A class of multi-player interactive game, accessible
   via the Internet or a modem.  A MUD is like a real-time
   chat forum with structure; it has multiple "locations" like
   an adventure game and may include combat, traps, puzzles,
   magic and a simple economic system.  A MUD where characters
   can build more structure onto the database that represents the
   existing world is sometimes known as a "MUSH".  Most MUDs
   allow you to log in as a guest to look around before you
   create your own character.

   Historically, MUDs (and their more recent progeny with names
   of MU- form) derive from a hack by Richard Bartle and Roy
   Trubshaw on the University of Essex's DEC-10 in 1979.  It
   was a game similar to the classic Colossal Cave adventure,
   except that it allowed multiple people to play at the same
   time and interact with each other.  Descendants of that game
   still exist today and are sometimes generically called
   BartleMUDs.  There is a widespread myth that the name MUD was
   trademarked to the commercial MUD run by Bartle on British
   Telecom (the motto: "You haven't *lived* 'til you've *died*
   on MUD!"); however, this is false - Richard Bartle
   explicitly placed "MUD" in the PD in 1985.  BT was upset at
   this, as they had already printed trademark claims on some
   maps and posters, which were released and created the myth.

   Students on the European academic networks quickly improved on
   the MUD concept, spawning several new MUDs (VAXMUD,
   AberMUD, LPMUD).  Many of these had associated
   bulletin-board systems for social interaction.  Because
   these had an image as "research" they often survived
   administrative hostility to BBSs in general.  This, together
   with the fact that Usenet feeds have been spotty and
   difficult to get in the UK, made the MUDs major foci of
   hackish social interaction there.

   AberMUD and other variants crossed the Atlantic around 1988
   and quickly gained popularity in the US; they became nuclei
   for large hacker communities with only loose ties to
   traditional hackerdom (some observers see parallels with the
   growth of Usenet in the early 1980s).  The second wave of
   MUDs (TinyMUD and variants) tended to emphasise social
   interaction, puzzles, and cooperative world-building as
   opposed to combat and competition.  In 1991, over 50% of MUD
   sites are of a third major variety, LPMUD, which synthesises
   the combat/puzzle aspects of AberMUD and older systems with
   the extensibility of TinyMud.  The trend toward greater
   programmability and flexibility will doubtless continue.

   The state of the art in MUD design is still moving very
   rapidly, with new simulation designs appearing (seemingly)
   every month.  There is now a move afoot to deprecate the term
   MUD itself, as newer designs exhibit an exploding variety of
   names corresponding to the different simulation styles being
   explored.

   <UMN MUD Gopher page>.

   <U Pennsylvania MUD Web page>.

   See also bonk/oif, FOD, link-dead, mudhead, MOO,
   MUCK, MUG, MUSE, chat.

   Usenet newsgroups: <news:rec.games.mud.announce>,
   <news:rec.games.mud.admin>, <news:rec.games.mud.diku>,
   <news:rec.games.mud.lp>, <news:rec.games.mud.misc>,
   <news:rec.games.mud.tiny>.

   (1994-08-10)