INTRODUCTION

by Richard Bartle

The original MUD was conceived, and the core written, by Roy Trubshaw in his final year at Essex University in 1980. When I took over as the game's maintainer and began to expand the number of locations and commands at the player's disposal I had little inkling of what was going to happen. First it became a cult among university students. Then, with the advent of Packet Switch Stream (PSS), MUD began to attract players from outside the university - some calling from as far away as the USA and Japan!

MUD proved so popular that it began to slow down the Essex University DEC-10 for other users and its availability had to be restricted to the middle of the night. In other places with DEC-10 systems to whom I lent a copy of MUD the story was the same - restrictions were imposed at Aberdeen and Oslo Universities.

Even this did little to quell enthusiasm for the game. By the time we had thirty people playing simultaneously at 3am at Essex, with every line into DEC-10 full, Roy and I realised that we had to bring the game onto a dedicated system.

The result is a new version of MUD, which we have completely rewritten from the ground up, taking into account all the lessons learned from around forty thousand hours of playtesting which the original MUD has at the time of writing had.

The new MUD contains all of the old MUD, plus part of VALLEY, the mini-MUD developed when DEC-10 core was too precious to enable MUD to be mounted, plus about the same number of locations again - about a thousand rooms in all. At the time of writing it is about to go online on a British Telecom owned VAX in London. Meanwhile the earlier version continues to flourish on Compunet and at Essex University.

The main technical difficulties between the new and the old MUD is that the new one is virtually machine independent. It no longer needs a DEC-10 to mount it. From the players' point of view the main distinguishing features are that the new one contains a vast number of new spells, some of which are described later in this book, and also it enables players to communicate with machine-generated characters. Quite why, in a multi-player game where you can chat to your fellow human beings, people should want "intelligent mobiles" is difficult to understand. But in a recent poll of existing MUD players it was top of the list of desired innovations.

MUD has never been "frozen". I have always enjoyed adding new areas to it, and new commands and spells. Some of these prove popular and become permanent features of the game, others are quietly dropped. So don't be surprised if you find yourself in a familiar room and mysteriously a new "exit" has appeared. Take a look...

I also welcome feedback, comments and suggestions from MUD players, so feel free to write to me at MUSE (there's a facility on most computers running MUD enabling you to do this electronically and, yes, we can also handle good old "snail mail" if you don't yet have a modem). I don't guarantee to be able to act on all your suggestions or to be able to answer every letter individually, but I'll be doing my best to act on sensible suggestions and to make note of any comments you make or "bugs" you think you've uncovered (previous experience suggests that if anything can go wrong with a system, MUD players will discover it!).

Despite the many violet goings-on in MUD, the fighting, cheating, stealing, arguments, and so on, I have always appreciated the tremendous camaraderie amongst MUD players. Indeed, some people I know count other MUD players amongst their best friends - even though they may never have met them! It's my own hope that this spirit will continue as the popularity of the game increases.

MUD is a game and its enjoyability is largely determined by the people who play it. So, whether you like to use MUD as a social club, swapping jokes and anecdotes with others, or whether you are more interested in behaving like a hooligan - rushing around attacking everyone and eveything in sight - makes no difference. The object is to have fun! I hope some of the spirit comes across in Duncan Howard's book and will continue as MUD develops commercially.

Richard Bartle, 1985
c/o MUSE Ltd.,
6, Albermarle Way,
London EC1V 4JB

The author and publishers are grateful to Sunshine Publications Ltd for permission to use material originally written by Richard Bartle for the magazine MicroAdventurer.