Roy Trubshaw

''Multi-User Dungeon'', or ''MUD'' (referred to as ''MUD1'', to distinguish it from its successor, '' MUD2'', and the MUD genre in general), is the first MUD.

History

MUD was created in 1978 by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at the University of Essex on a DEC PDP-10.Sloane, Sarah (2000) ''Digital Fictions: Storytelling in a Material World'', Ablex Publishing Corporation, , p. 168Slator, Brian M. et al "From Dungeons to Classrooms: The Evolution of MUDs as Learning Environments", in Jain, Lakhmi C., Tedman, Raymond A. & Tedman, Debra K. (eds.) (2007) ''Evolution of Teaching and Learning Paradigms in Intelligent Environment'', Springer, , p. 121-2 Trubshaw named the game ''Multi-User Dungeon'', in tribute to the ''Dungeon'' variant of ''Zork'', which Trubshaw had greatly enjoyed playing. ''Zork'' in turn was inspired by an older text-adventure game known as ''Colossal Cave Adventure'' or ''ADVENT''.

''MUD1'' was written in the domain-specific programming language Multi User Dungeon Definition Language (MUDDL). Its first version was written by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw in BCPL. It was later ported to C++ and used in other MUDs such as ''MIST''.

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.

In 1983, Essex University allowed remote access to its DEC-10 via British Telecom's Packet Switch Stream network between 2 am and 7 am each night. MUD became popular with players around the world, and several magazines wrote articles on this new trend.

Between 1984 and 1987, MUD was hosted on the DEC-20 of Dundee College of Technology which was one of the few institutions to allow outside access.

In 1984, Compunet, a UK-based network primarily for Commodore 64 users, licensed MUD1 and ran it from late 1984 until 1987, when CompuNet abandoned the DEC-10 platform they were using.

Trubshaw and Bartle (with the assistance of Simon Dally) subsequently formed the company Multi-User Entertainment Limited, and proceeded to work on MUD version 4, also known as '' MUD2'' (released in 1985). MUD2 was intended to be run as a service for British Telecom.

In 1987, MUD1 was licensed by CompuServe, who pressured Richard Bartle to close down the instance of MUD1, better known as 'Essex MUD', that was still running at Essex University. This resulted in the deletion of the MUD account that October. This left ''MIST'', a derivative of ''MUD1'' with similar gameplay, as the only remaining MUD running on the Essex University network, becoming one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity. ''MIST'' ran until the machine that hosted it, a PDP-10, was superseded in early 1991.

''MUD1'' ran under the name ''British Legends'' until late 1999 and was retired along with other software during CompuServe's Y2K cleanup efforts.

In 2000, Viktor Toth rewrote the BCPL source code for ''MUD1'' to C++ and opened it alongside ''MUD2'' on British-legends.com.

In 2014, with permission from the authors of ''MUD1'', the C++ reimplementation of ''MUD1'' was deposited within the archives of Stanford University for historical purposes.

In 2020, the full source code for the PDP-10 implementation of ''MUD1'' (as of 1986) was released on Github (with permission from the authors), under the GPL v3 license.

Reception

''Computer Gaming World'' in 1993 called ''British Legends'' on CompuServe as a "typical text-based multi-player role-playing game" with an emphasis on magic.

References

External links

The British Legends website

Richard Bartle's MUD related website

Michael Lawrie's MUDDL Manual

Source code of ''MUD'' on GitHub

{{MUDs

MUD games
Mainframe games
1978 video games
Science and technology in Essex
University of Essex
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Video games with available source code