LegendMUD

Last updated
LegendMUD
LegendMUD Logo.png
Developer(s) Project community
Producer(s) Ruth Williams
Todd McKimmey
Mike Weatherbee
Designer(s) Raph and Kristen Koster, Rick and Sherry Delashmit [1]
Engine DikuMUD
Platform(s) Platform independent
Release1994
Genre(s) Historical fantasy MUD
Mode(s) Multiplayer

LegendMUD is a text-only MUD game founded by a group of friends including virtual world designer Raph Koster. It features historically significant story elements and award-winning [2] [3] gameplay. It opened publicly on February 14, 1994. [4] [2] It has received critical praise for its research and attention to detail in reconstructing past cultures within the game context. [5]

Contents

Game characteristics

A screenshot of LegendMUD's login screen LegendMUD login screenshot.png
A screenshot of LegendMUD's login screen

The thematic structure of LegendMUD is based on a literal interpretation of historical legend, with content based on real locales at various points in history, but with mythological elements included as concrete reality. [4] [5] LegendMUD was derived from DikuMUD. At present, it features over 8,000 rooms contained within 60 areas. [4]

LegendMUD features several innovations, one of which was that players were not required to select a character class, such as mage or warrior. [1] Rather, a skill system is used, which has been noted as extensive and original. [5] The player selects a hometown affecting the types of skills which are then possible to learn. For example, a character from the industrial period in San Francisco has the opportunity to learn about guns, but cannot learn magic. In contrast, a character from ancient period Ireland is capable of learning druidic skills, but can never learn about more modern ideas such as field surgery. [5]

To further innovate on the learning of skills, the character must through interaction with non-player characters learn whatever that NPC had to teach, with some of these requiring a small form of quest.

History

In October 1995, LegendMUD was selected as The Mud Connector's Mud of the Month. [3]

Koster wrote "A Story About a Tree", a short essay and epitaph about the death of a LegendMUD player named Karyn. An investigative journalist later disproved evidence of Karyn's death. [6] Richard Bartle considered the incident to be a key event in the development of virtual worlds' ethics, similar to "A Rape in Cyberspace".[ verification needed ] The 'death' demonstrated that people can develop feelings for each other via the virtual world medium, thus experiencing real emotions about somebody they've never met, even an entirely fictional persona. A Story About a Tree is considered as a major counterargument against the "it's just a game" point of view on virtual worlds. Furthermore, it showcased that while being a very real object of grief to one party, it can indeed remain just a game for another. [7]

Related Research Articles

A multi-user dungeon, also known as a multi-user dimension or multi-user domain, is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based or storyboarded. 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, and non-player characters, and perform actions in the virtual world that are typically also described. Players typically interact with each other and the world by typing commands that resemble a natural language, as well as using a character typically called an avatar.

In multiplayer online games, a MUSH is a text-based online social medium to which multiple users are connected at the same time. MUSHes are often used for online social interaction and role-playing games, although the first forms of MUSH do not appear to be coded specifically to implement gaming activity. MUSH software was originally derived from MUDs; today's two major MUSH variants are descended from TinyMUD, which was fundamentally a social game. MUSH has forked over the years and there are now different varieties with different features, although most have strong similarities and one who is fluent in coding one variety can switch to coding for the other with only a little effort. The source code for most widely used MUSH servers is open source and available from its current maintainers.

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.

AberMUD was the first popular open source MUD. It was named after the town Aberystwyth, where it was written. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane based at University of Wales, Aberystwyth for an old Honeywell mainframe and opened in 1987.

DikuMUD is a multiplayer text-based role-playing game, which is a type of multi-user domain (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.

<i>Ancient Anguish</i> 1992 video game

Ancient Anguish, abbreviated AA, is a fantasy-themed MUD, a text-based online role-playing game. Founded in 1991 by Balz "Zor" Meierhans and Olivier "Drake" Maquelin, it opened to the public on February 2, 1992. It is free-to-play, but has been supported by player donations since 1994.

Player versus player (PvP) is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. This is often compared to player versus environment (PvE), in which the game itself controls its players' opponents. The terms are most often used in games where both activities exist, particularly MMORPGs, MUDs, and other role-playing video games, to distinguish between gamemodes. 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 players. PvP can even encourage experienced players to immediately attack and kill inexperienced players. PvP is often referred to as player killing in the cases of games which contain, but do not focus on, such interaction.

LPMud, abbreviated LP, is a family of multi-user dungeon (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 programming language LPC.

A persistent world or persistent state world (PSW) is a virtual world which, by the definition by Richard Bartle, "continues to exist and develop internally even when there are no people interacting with it". The first virtual worlds were text-based and often called MUDs, but the term is frequently used in relation to massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and pervasive games. Examples of persistent worlds that exist in video games include Battle Dawn, EVE Online, and Realms of Trinity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Raph Koster</span> American video game designer and entrepreneur

Raphael "Raph" Koster is an American entrepreneur, game designer, and author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design. Koster is widely recognized for his work as the lead designer of Ultima Online and the creative director behind Star Wars Galaxies. From 2006 until 2013 he worked as the founder and president of Metaplace producing a Facebook game platform.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Online text-based role-playing game</span> Role-playing game type

An online text-based role playing game is a role-playing game played online using a solely text-based interface. Online text-based role playing games date to 1978, with the creation of MUD1, which began the MUD heritage that culminates in today's MMORPGs. Some online-text based role playing games are video games, but some are organized and played entirely by humans through text-based communication. Over the years, games have used TELNET, internet forums, IRC, email and social networking websites as their media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Bartle</span> British writer, professor and game researcher

Richard Allan Bartle is a British writer, professor and game researcher in the massively multiplayer online game industry. He co-created MUD1 in 1978, and is the author of the 2003 book Designing Virtual Worlds.

A mob, short for mobile or mobile object, is a computer-controlled non-player character (NPC) in a video game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, every and any such character in a game may be considered to be a "mob", or usage of the term may be limited to hostile NPCs and/or NPCs vulnerable to attack.

Permadeath or permanent death is a game mechanic in both tabletop games and video games in which player characters who lose all of their health are considered dead and cannot be used anymore. Depending on the situation, this could require the player to create a new character to continue, or completely restart the game potentially losing nearly all progress made. Other terms include persona death and player death. Some video games offer a hardcore mode that features this mechanic, rather than making it part of the core game.

Sequent was a DikuMUD derivative codebase developed by Raja Kushalnagar. It was a text-based online role-playing game that was an accessible DikuMUD based MUD. It added several new playing areas with shorter text descriptions that was designed to be accessible to users with sensory disabilities. It also supported more players online at the same time by being hosted on a Sequent multi-processor machine at the University of California, Berkeley, and was first started in March 1991.

<i>GodWars</i> 2002 video game

GodWars is a family of MUD engines derived from Merc, created in 1995 by Richard Woolcock, also known as "KaVir". GodWars' setting is influenced by White Wolf's World of Darkness.

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>Avalon: The Legend Lives</i> Fantasy multi-player role-playing game

Avalon: The Legend Lives is a text-based online multi-player role-playing game world that was first released on 28 October 1989 at the gaming convention Adventure 89. It has maintained a near-continuous on-line presence with consistent and intact persona files and player history since the late 1980s. Until regular outages began occurring in 2023, it was the longest continuously running online role-playing game in history.

<i>AVATAR MUD</i> 1991 video game

A.V.A.T.A.R. MUD is a free, online, massively multiplayer, fantasy, text-based role-playing game, set in a real-time virtual environment. It combines elements of role-playing games, hack and slash style computer games, adventure games and social gaming.

References

  1. 1 2 Bartle, Richard (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds . New Riders. p. 21. ISBN   0-13-101816-7. That people did play is a tribute to the game's design team, led by Raph Koster. Raph had a background in virtual world design, having worked on 1992's Worlds of Carnage (the first DikuMUD to have an embedded scripting language) before moving on to found LegendMUD in 1994 with Kristen Koster (his wife), Rick Delashmit, and others. [...] LegendMUD was itself an innovative game, boasting a number of features to promote role-playing that had never been implemented before. For example, unlike other DikuMUD derivatives, LegendMUD was classless (players don't elect to be fighters, magic-users, healers, thieves, or whatever); this concept was to shape the design of Ultima Online powerfully. The wide-ranging playing experience of the designers meant that they could draw on ideas from many other codebases, too.
  2. 1 2 Scott, Ryan (April 2006). "The CGW Interview: Raph Koster". Computer Gaming World. No. 261. p. 37. Archived from the original on 2008-11-23. 1994: The award-winning LegendMUD, codesigned by Koster, launches (www.legendmud.org – still active today).
  3. 1 2 "October '95 Mud of the Month". The Mud Connector . Archived from the original on 2010-01-03. Retrieved 2010-04-07.
  4. 1 2 3 "LegendMUD: An Overview". LegendMUD Official Website. Archived from the original on August 4, 2008. Retrieved April 14, 2010. LegendMUD is a text-based virtual world, or MUD (Multi-User Dungeon) based on "the world the way they thought it was". It's history with a twist: the game's world and its areas are based on real places on earth, but whatever the people of that age believed in is real on Legend. [...] LegendMUD opened officially on February 14, 1994, and has been operating continually since then. It was derived from DikuMUD, though it has been heavily modified over the years to the point where its codebase is now almost completely customized. As of Spring 2007, Legend has over 8,000 rooms making up over 60 areas.
  5. 1 2 3 4 Towers, J. Tarin; Badertscher, Ken; Cunningham, Wayne; Buskirk, Laura (1996). Yahoo! Wild Web Rides. IDG Books Worldwide Inc. pp. 162–163. ISBN   0-7645-7003-X. LegendMUD allows you to adventure through several ancient lands and historical eras to experience the world as the people of the past viewed it. This is travel through history the way it was meant to be! You can choose from several great time periods like Celtic Ireland, medieval Germany, and even an Arabian nights setting. Your hometown will affect your stats and determine what your character can learn based on the beliefs of the population at the time. Those of a more ancient period are more adept at magic, while abilities in a later industrial era will lean toward technology. ¶ Don't worry about being stuck exclusively in the time period you've chosen – no doubt you'll want to explore all areas of this great MUD. Luckily, it allows time travel between eras so you won't miss a thing! The skills available for your character are numerous and original, and the combat is fast and exhilarating. If you get stuck on something, there's a universal chat channel you can use to ask for help from the midsized player base. You usually end up getting the helpfiles recited back to you, but the players are certainly not a rude bunch. Also, make sure you rent instead of typing quit or you'll drop all your stuff. Equipment is level restrictive, so don't expect to be hanging on to very fancy weapons at the first level. ¶ It would be really great if more coders took the immense time and effort to study cultures of the past and put them into virtual worlds like this one. LegendMUD seems to be doing well and is becoming more popular all the time. There's no doubt we'll soon see more time periods. And there's an added benefit with this game – you can always justify the time you waste mudding by telling yourself and others that it's educational.
  6. ↑ Spaight, Tracy. "Who killed Miss Norway?". salon.com. Archived from the original on 2009-01-29. Retrieved 2008-04-01.
  7. ↑ Bartle, Richard (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds . New Riders. pp. "Chapter 8. Coda: Ethical Considerations", "Yourself". ISBN   0-13-101816-7.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.