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.
An aspect of online creation that separates it from "mere game play" is that online creation systems can generally be used to create new content— new objects, new locations, new creatures — rather than simply creating instances of predefined items in the game world. Some have observed that certain forms of online creation — notably those associated with creating new commands — can threaten the stability of the server. [1]
The first publicly available MUD that featured in-game creation of the game world was Skrenta's 1988 Monster. [2]
"Monster allows players to do something that very few, if any, other games allow: the players themselves create the fantasy world as part of the game. Players can create objects, make locations, and set up puzzles for other players to solve. Game mechanisms allow players to:
- Create and describe new objects and locations
- Specify how game objects function
- Provide text descriptions for events that may happen
Further modifications could be made via the menu-based Customize command.
For rooms, the name, primary and secondary descriptions could be changed. A mystery message could be added to a room that would be displayed when a magic object was brought into a room by a player. Trapdoors could be created to bounce players to a named exit (triggered by a random chance) or for bouncing dropped objects to another room.
For exits, one could set multiple aliases (i.e. n|north|road) as well as extended descriptions. Player traversal of exits could be blocked or allowed if a magic object was defined on the exit. Success and failure messages for attempted traversal could be defined as well as the messages other players saw when a player entered or came out of an exit. Exits could be marked concealed and/or flagged as doors to require the player to attempt to open a door or search the room for concealed exits.
For objects, one could edit the description, the article to be used with it (i.e. 'a', 'an', 'some'), and an extended description shown upon closer examination. A magic object or magic room could be defined that would allow or prevent an object from being picked up or used unless inside a specific place. Like exits, success and failure messages could be defined for 'getting' or 'using' an object. An object's type could be set which allowed pre-programmed behavior.
Other MUD-like systems that allow creation of online content have followed. Some of these are simply alternative implementations, and others provide significant new features.
Monster heavily influenced the design of TinyMUD. [3] TinyMUD was an attempt to create a "stripped-down" version of Monster with just object creation and locking. [4] As time went on some of the functionality that was deliberately left out was reinvented. [5]
TinyMUD itself inspired an entire family of MUDs based entirely on the premise of allowing users to build online. Among those subsequent MUDs are TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH.
TinyMUCK [6] added the following features to the "online building" interface: the ability to write and modify multi-user Forth programs online, the ability to attach these programs to things — such as objects, rooms and players — and the ability to delete objects online. TinyMUSH's online creation language is more Lisp-like in nature.
For example, LPMud tries to avoid the stability risks by abstracting the system into a virtual machine which is protected from mistakes made in objects written in the game's LPC programming language. Other MUDs that shipped with online creation features include LambdaMOO, and CoolMUD.
Diku and Merc MUDs did not originally support online creation capabilities — DikuMUD was specifically designed to be a better AberMUD, which was notorious for having a hard-coded world. [7] A number of different packages were created to add online creation capabilities, the first of these was Armageddon for DikuMUD by Dan Brumleve, Nasri Hajj, and Santiago Zorzopulos, which allowed builders to create zones, rooms, exits, objects, and mobiles interactively through a VT100 menu, or command line driven, interface. [8] Their online creation system was added to the DikuMUD derived SillyMUD codebase, released in 1993. [9] The Merc derived codebase The Isles, released in 1994, also featured online creation. [10] SMAUG, a descendant of the Diku and Merc branches, included a feature called Online Building. [11]
Online creation does not only exist in the text-based MUD context. For example, A Tale in the Desert is a massively-multiplayer online role-playing game. [12] From within the game's client, players can engage in certain limited forms of creation (such as the development of fireworks, sculptures, or games for other players to play). [13] Similarly, Second Life is a 3-D virtual world which provides its users with tools to modify the game world and participate in an economy, trading user content created via online creation for virtual currency. [14] Cube and its successor, Sauerbraten are first-person shooter engines designed for online creation.
According to an article at The Guardian :
It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it. [15]
The principals of Second Life have indicated that over 60% of their users are active content creators. [16]
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.
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 intercourse 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.
AberMUD was the first popular open source MUD. It was named after the town Aberystwyth, in which 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.
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.
The MUD trees below depict hierarchies of derivation among MUD codebases. Solid lines between boxes indicate code relationships, while dotted lines indicate conceptual relationships. Dotted boxes indicate that the codebase is outside the family depicted.
Player(s) versus player(s), better known as PvP, is a type of multiplayer interactive conflict within a game between human players. 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.
A MUD client is a computer application used to connect to a MUD, a type of multiplayer online game. Generally, a MUD client is a very basic telnet client that lacks VT100 terminal emulation and the capability to perform telnet negotiations. On the other hand, MUD clients are enhanced with various features designed to enhance the gameplay of MUDs.
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.
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.
A mob, short for mobile, is a computer-controlled non-player character (NPC) in a computer game such as an MMORPG or MUD. Depending on context, every and any such characters 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.
MU* is an abbreviation which refers collectively to a family of text-based multi-user virtual world servers comprising:
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.
TinyFugue, or tf, is a MUD client, primarily written for Unix-like operating systems. It is one of the earliest MUD clients in existence. It is a successor to the earliest MUD client, TinyTalk, through a never-officially-released improved version called TinyWar. It was developed by Ken Keys until 2008. Like the name suggests, it is primarily geared toward TinyMUD variants, but can easily be used or adapted for most other MUD types.
A MOO is a text-based online virtual reality system to which multiple users (players) are connected at the same time.
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.
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 gameplay. It opened publicly on February 14, 1994. It has received critical praise for its research and attention to detail in reconstructing past cultures within the game context.
Wizard is commonly used in MUDs, particularly LPMuds, AberMUDs and MU*, as a term for the MUD's developers and administrators. The usage originates with Richard Bartle's original MUD1 and MUD2. It is frequently abbreviated "wiz", which is sometimes used as a verb; to wiz is to become a wizard. The plural of "wiz" is "wizzes".
An immortal, in MUDs and particularly DikuMUDs, is an administrator and/or developer of the game, often a player who has achieved "immortal" status by achievements within the game world. It is frequently abbreviated "imm" or "immort". Some MUDs have an option for players who have become immortals to "remort", returning to mortal status with advantages.
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.
Monster (by Rich Skrenta at Northwestern University) was unusual in that it was written independently of the general MUD1 hierarchy. Its main innovation was the facility to create elements of the virtual world from within the world itself. This was something that had been removed from MUD1 in the switch from version II to version III.
DikuMUD [...] was designed purely as a better AberMUD, and made no reference to either TinyMUD or LPMUD. Whereas these other two games had moved toward allowing on-the-fly changes to be made to the virtual world, DikuMUD's designers went in the opposite direction and hard-coded everything they could.
Yeh, that's right.... You can do zone files on-line.... Just load all your mobiles, give them equipment, "zsave," and POOF! Instant zone file.
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