Still a very alive little subculture in games such as Gemstone IV by simutronics. We've been having numbers over 700 characters most days this week. Way more than you'd think for such an old game!
I'll always think of Scepter as the first MUD, since it was local to me. One of those other ones developed at the same time without knowledge of the others.
Also worth mentioning the LPMud engine, this was used in what was a very popular MUD running at the university of Warwick in the 1989- period. It was then cut down by one of the students and became what's thought to be the very first online chatter CatChat, and then rewritten by another student from scratch to become the second and very popular chatter "Cheeseplant's House", that chatter supported 100+ active connections and was very busy, and just after I'd left the university I think it was the first ever Internet communications system shut down by a police raid.
Reminds me I've often thought it'd be worth laying down the unusual story of multiuser gaming's paradigm shift (from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s) as Bartle and Trubshaw's Essex MUD and a particularly British timeline of online multiplayer MMORPG progenitors were marginalized almost out of existence in the UK (as RB often testifies); and how that shutout of precocious British lineage - in stark contrast to the nurture it received in America - meant that by the early 90s, British dev experience had migrated West, to cross-pollinate with US MMORPG precursors and Silicon Valley creative-entrepreneurial ambition. This unusual confluence of talent with new internet opportunity was a major catalyst in the explosion of gaming popularity heading towards the new millennium, a key building block in today's all-conquering games industry behemoth.
I'm no expert but it's a cool part of the history I've gleaned from interviews and articles but not seen written up in full for posterity.
I met Mr. Bartle at my first industry event back in 2005 where he gave a talk about the development of MUD and how terms that are commonplace today, such as mobs, originate from it. Great talk and was very cool to chat with him.
Still a very alive little subculture in games such as Gemstone IV by simutronics. We've been having numbers over 700 characters most days this week. Way more than you'd think for such an old game!
I'll always think of Scepter as the first MUD, since it was local to me. One of those other ones developed at the same time without knowledge of the others.
Also worth mentioning the LPMud engine, this was used in what was a very popular MUD running at the university of Warwick in the 1989- period. It was then cut down by one of the students and became what's thought to be the very first online chatter CatChat, and then rewritten by another student from scratch to become the second and very popular chatter "Cheeseplant's House", that chatter supported 100+ active connections and was very busy, and just after I'd left the university I think it was the first ever Internet communications system shut down by a police raid.
Good interesting article.
Reminds me I've often thought it'd be worth laying down the unusual story of multiuser gaming's paradigm shift (from the mid 1980s to mid 1990s) as Bartle and Trubshaw's Essex MUD and a particularly British timeline of online multiplayer MMORPG progenitors were marginalized almost out of existence in the UK (as RB often testifies); and how that shutout of precocious British lineage - in stark contrast to the nurture it received in America - meant that by the early 90s, British dev experience had migrated West, to cross-pollinate with US MMORPG precursors and Silicon Valley creative-entrepreneurial ambition. This unusual confluence of talent with new internet opportunity was a major catalyst in the explosion of gaming popularity heading towards the new millennium, a key building block in today's all-conquering games industry behemoth.
I'm no expert but it's a cool part of the history I've gleaned from interviews and articles but not seen written up in full for posterity.
I met Mr. Bartle at my first industry event back in 2005 where he gave a talk about the development of MUD and how terms that are commonplace today, such as mobs, originate from it. Great talk and was very cool to chat with him.
Lol, call a2206411411 longin 2653,2653 username: Elite...
Copyediting note: "But as he first took the reigns of the project..." should be "reins."