Infinity (LPMud)

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Infinity
Infinity LPMud logo.png
Developer(s) Peter William "Django" Friedman, Bill "Mutara" Mackiewicz, project community
Engine LDMud
Platform(s) Platform independent
Release 1992
Genre(s) Cross-genre MUD
Mode(s) Multiplayer

Infinity is a MUD, a text-based online role-playing game, founded in 1992 by Peter William "Django" Friedman and Bill "Mutara" Mackiewicz. [1]

A MUD is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat. Players can read or view descriptions of rooms, objects, other players, non-player characters, and actions performed in the virtual world. Players typically interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language.

Contents

Game characteristics

Infinity's setting has both fantasy and science fiction elements, and is set in an eponymous city from which alternate timelines can be entered. [2] The game's conflict consists of the inhabitants' battles against an evil sorcerer, with socializing and questing major activities. [3]

Fantasy genre of literature, film, television and other artforms

Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction set in a fictional universe, often inspired by real world myth and folklore. Its roots are in oral traditions, which then became literature and drama. From the twentieth century it has expanded further into various media, including film, television, graphic novels and video games.

Science fiction Genre of speculative fiction

Science fiction is a genre of speculative fiction, typically dealing with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, and extraterrestrials in fiction. Science fiction often explores the potential consequences of scientific other various innovations, and has been called a "literature of ideas."

A quest, or mission, is a task in video games that a player-controlled character, party, or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward. Quests are most commonly seen in role-playing games and massively multiplayer online games. Rewards may include loot such as items or in-game currency, access to new level locations or areas, an increase in the character's experience in order to learn new skills and abilities, or any combination of the above.

The MUD allows player killing in its Arena, a single room where normal rules about player versus player conflict do not apply. [3]

Player(s) versus player(s), better known as PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between two or more live participants. This is in contrast to games where players compete against computer-controlled opponents and/or players, which is referred to as player versus environment (PvE). The terms are most often used in games where both activities exist, particularly MMORPGs, MUDs, and other role-playing video games. PvP can be broadly used to describe any game, or aspect of a game, where players compete against each other. PvP is often controversial when used in role-playing games. In most cases, there are vast differences in abilities between experienced and novice players. PvP can even encourage experienced players to immediately attack and kill inexperienced players. PvP is sometimes called player killing.

Technical infrastructure

Infinity is an LPMud running on the LDMud game driver, with a mudlib derived from LPMud 2.4.5. [2]

LPMud, abbreviated LP, is a family of MUD server software. Its first instance, the original LPMud game driver, was developed in 1989 by Lars Pensjö. LPMud was innovative in its separation of the MUD infrastructure into a virtual machine and a development framework written in the LPC programming language.

Related Research Articles

DikuMUD is a multiplayer text-based role-playing game, which is a type of MUD. It was written in 1990 and 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Stærfeldt at DIKU —the department of computer science at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Online creation, also referred to as OLC, online coding, online building, and online editing, is a software feature of MUDs that allows users to edit a virtual world from within the game itself. In the absence of online creation, content is created in a text editor or level editor, and the program generally requires a restart in order to implement the changes.

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<i>Discworld MUD</i> video game

Discworld MUD is a popular MUD, a text-based online role-playing game, set in the Discworld as depicted in the Discworld series of books by Terry Pratchett.

Nightmare LPMud, founded in 1992, was one of the oldest continually running LPMuds still played until its closure on September 12, 2005. Its roots go back to the original LPMud, Genesis LPMud, when Forelock of Genesis along with some students at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine founded Orlith in 1991. This MUD lasted only a year before forking into two rival MUDs, Nightmare and Phoenix. The final incarnation of Nightmare opened October 31, 1992, run by George "Descartes" Reese. It was hosted at nightmare.imaginary.com.

LPC is an object-oriented programming language derived from C and developed originally by Lars Pensjö to facilitate MUD building on LPMuds. Though designed for game development, its flexibility has led to it being used for a variety of purposes, and to its evolution into the language Pike.

MudOS is a major family of LPMud server software, implementing its own variant of the LPC programming language. It first came into being on February 18, 1992. It pioneered important technical innovations in MUDs, including the network socket support that made InterMUD communications possible and LPC-to-C compilation. Its name reflects its focus on separation of concerns between game driver and mudlib. FluffOS is Discworld MUD's fork of MudOS, and still being developed.

Lars Pensjö of Sweden is the original author of the LPMud MUD engine and the LPC programming language, and is one of the founders of Genesis LPMud, notable for their part in the history of MMORPGs as well as the Pike programming language. He attended Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden, from 1980 to 1984. He was a member of the as of 2008 defunct Chalmers Datorförening ("CD"), after which the CD gamedriver and mudlib were named.

<i>Genesis LPMud</i> 1989 video game

Genesis LPMud, a multi-player computer game, is the original LPMud founded in April 1989 by Lars Pensjö, now running on CD gamedriver and mudlib, and previously hosted by Chalmers Computer Society, though hosting has since been moved to a dedicated, private server. Medieval fantasy is the general theme. Roleplaying is expected.

TinyMUCK or, more broadly, a MUCK, is a type of user-extendable online text-based role-playing game, designed for role playing and social interaction. Backronyms like "Multi-User Chat/Created/Computer/Character/Carnal Kingdom" and "Multi-User Construction Kit" are sometimes cited, but are not the actual origin of the term; "muck" is simply a play on the term MUD.

<i>Threshold</i> (video game) roleplaying enforced MUD

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<i>Lost Souls</i> (online game) 1990 video game

Lost Souls is a MUD, a text-based online role-playing game set in a medieval fantasy world. It has an extensive history of technical innovation in its field and has received critical praise.

DGD, Dworkin's Game Driver, is an LPMud server written by Felix A. "Dworkin" Croes. DGD pioneered important technical innovations in MUDs, particularly disk-based object storage, full world persistence, separation of concerns between driver and mudlib, runtime morphism, automatic garbage collection, lightweight objects and LPC-to-C compilation.

Genocide is a MUD, a text-based online game, focused exclusively on player-killing. Founded in 1992, it was influential as the first such "pure PK" MUD, and has met with positive critical response.

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<i>Nuclear War MUD</i> 1992 video game

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References

  1. ↑ "Infinity Lore". Infinity LPMud. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
  2. 1 2 "Infinity LPMud". Infinity LPMud. Retrieved 2010-09-14.
  3. 1 2 Greenman, Ben; Maloni, Kelly; Cohn, Deborah; Spivey, Donna (1996). Net Games 2. Michael Wolff & Company, Inc. p. 245. ISBN   0-679-77034-8. Infinity LpMUD For more than three years, adventurers have roamed a village trapped between time zones in a place called Infinity. In a never-ending battle against the evil sorcerer, MUDders socialize with friends and solve quests. If you'd like to kill, head to the Arena (a single room without rules). Check the Website for more information and copies of the MUD newspaper.
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