Multi-User Role-Playing Environments

Stuff that's starting to get filled in here:

  • A brief history of MUDs, MUSHes, and MURPEs (the following is based on the first chapter of Richard Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds):
    • Bartle's First Age (1978-1985)
      • MUD1, originally called MUD
      • ROCK, based on Fraggle Rock
      • MIST, more anarchic version of MUD1
      • BLUD, more bloody version of MUD1
      • UNI, "Hey, what if the CS department was a swords-and-sorcery virtual world?"
      • Sceptre of Goth by Alan Klietz
    • Bartle's Second Age (1985-1989)
      • Island of Kesmai by Kelton Flinn and John Taylor
      • Shades by Neil Newell
      • Gods by Ben Laurie
      • MirrorWorld? by Pip Cordrey and friends
      • Federation II by Alan Lenton
      • MUD2
      • AberMUD
      • Gemstone by David Whatley and Simultronics
    • Bartle's Third Age (1989-1995)
      • TinyMUD, based on AberMUD
      • LPMUD, based on AberMUD
      • DikuMUD, based on AberMUD
      • Void by Clive Lindus
      • Circle, based on DikuMUD
      • Silly, based on DikuMUD
      • Merc, based on DikuMUD
      • Rivers of MUD (ROM), based on Merc
      • Envy, based on Merc
      • many others, based on various combinations of the above
      • TinyMUCK, based on TinyMUD
      • MOO, MUD, Object-Oriented, based on TinyMUCK
      • LambdaMOO, based on MOO
      • CoolMUD, based on MOO
      • ColdMUD, based on CoolMUD
      • TinyMUSH, based on TinyMUD
      • NeverWinter? Nights
      • Gemstone II
      • Dragon's Gate
      • LegendMUD
    • Bartle's Fourth Age (1995-1997) The Business Age
      • Gemstone III
      • Federation II
      • NeverWinter? Nights
      • many others who went broke when the www put online services out of business if they didn't shift to web-based business models
      • Kingdom of the Winds in Korea
      • Meridian 59
    • Bartle's Fifth Age (1997-2003)
      • Ultima Online
      • Lineage in Korea
      • EverQuest?
      • Asheron's Call
      • Phantasy Star Online
      • Dark Age of Camelot
      • The Sims Online
      • Anarchy Online
      • Shadowbane
      • Eve Online
      • and all of the others trying to cash in
  • Links to some influential stuff
  • Richard Bartle predicts graphically based games will stay behind text based games for some time because of the following advantages. FaerieMUD should try to make sure the hooks we put in to allow for a graphical client do not interfere with these advantages:
  • Resource links

— Ged The Greys Hain - 19 May 2000
— Scotus - 17 Aug 2003