[MUD-Dev] Re: A brief introduction.. ok, you got me: an introduction

[Nathan Yospe]

On Fri, 16 May 1997, Adam Wiggins wrote:

:> >From what I have seen of what is posted to this list, it seems
:> to be much more high-level than I have got to yet. Also, I really do consider 
:> my TinyMUD-only experiences to be a real disadvantage, so I've tried to get
:> into LP- and DIKU-based muds, with varying degrees of success. Perhaps I might
:> be invited by one of you to visit your mud, and have a look around?

If you are interested, I can relaunch Singularity 1. Its a ROM.... pretty
standard mechanics, though tweaked enough that anyone who had only played
dikus would find it strange, and very nonstandard setting..... as it has
been down, with all of my attention on other things, for well nigh eight
months, I cannot guarantee players even if I have it running...

:Actually, I'm not aware of anyone here that is actually running a fully
:functioning mud (of course, define 'fully').  Correct me if I'm wrong.
:We were actually functional as a hack-n-slash mud for a while, but that's
:before we started going crazy with our zany ideas about realism and
:originality.  (When we were still in the 'playable' stages, we thought
:we were being wild and crazy by having hitpoints dependant only on
:constitution and not going up with levels.  Now we don't have levels *or*
:hitpoints at all...)

Yeah, same goes for me. Version one of Physmud++ still _played_ a bit like
a diku. At version six, I bear more semblance to infocom games, but very
little of that. I don't know what, exactly, I resemble, aside from my own
concept of an ideal mud.

:Secondly, as to being 'high-level'...you need to understand what it is
:you want to be doing, in general, in order to write tools (the low-level
:stuff) which will allow you to do that.  I've had whole designs trashed
:which I thought were carefully created, just by having an outside party
:say, "Yeah, but what about when you want to do <insert functionality here>?"
:Plus, the stuff that goes around on this list is just plain interesting
:even if it has no relevance to what you yourself are doing.

Not to mention there are always these gems that pop up and smack you in
the back of the head...

:As to good muds, there are suprisingly few of them considering that there
:are so many muds in general (there's like 750 registered in the mud
:connector right now).  Here's some suggestions:

:Diku: Arctic - mud.arctic.org 2700, Tera - ?, Aturian Dynasty - ?
:LP: DartMUD - dartmud.com 2525, Lost Souls - ?
:original: YaMUD - heather.greatbasin.com 6789 (all skill based!)
:MUSH: Shadowrun (never played it but heard it's good) - ?

:Sorry I don't remember add the addresses, haven't actually played any of
:these except for arctic and dartmud recently.  I'm sure they're on the
:mud connector, or Doran's mudlist.

A couple recommended muds of my own:

Iconoclast (circle) - seeker.hermesnet.net 7777

and ones that were extraordinary while they existed:
Singularity 1 (rom) - mud.hawaii.edu 9000 (down) (plug!) (plug!)
Imperium Gothique (Diku), Steel and Darkness (Diku/original)

the last two were written by one Markku Nylander (Newt) who also worked on
the NiMud project, one of the more innovative merc derivatives. Had he not
retired from mud development, he would have been my first nominee for this
list. *sigh* A shame.

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Nathan F. Yospe - University of Hawaii Dept of Physics - yospe at hawaii.edu