(3/7/2008)
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Text Based Games to Play Online!
* Black Nova Traders! This is a multi-user, turn based game that totally rocks! You're an intergalactic wheeler and dealer in charge of the fates of billions as you blast your way across the universe, conquering, ruling, and destroying the planetary systems of other online players like yourself! Set up entire planetary economic systems and watch yourself become rich off your planet's exports and trade agreements, buy, sell, and command fantastic starships and weaponry to achieve your goals! Make wise investments in the intergalactic banking system and become wildly wealthy! Plan your attacks well, and steal the riches of your neighbors after the idiots became wildly wealthy and didn't have the foresight to protect their planets! Do you have what it takes to become an intergalactic trader or conqueror? Why not find out!
Text Based Game Downloads!
* GMud32 : The GMud32 program is a mud gaming client, which is used as an alternative to the standard telnet interface. It has many useful features, and is simple and easy to use.
* JMC : JMC is a mud gaming client, which is used as an alternative to the standard telnet interface. It has many advanced features, and is designed with superior functionality to such basic clients as GMud32.
3D Graphical Game Downloads!
* Forgotten Worlds : You are an archeologist specializing in extraterrestrial artifacts. You had come across a strange object floating in space in an asteroid field. As you were attempting to run routine scans on it's composition, and age, this object became active, and sucked you in. You found yourself in an alien environment, with no way to get home. To make things worse, your energy containment system has been destabilized, causing your ship to loose energy at an increased rate. This requires you to constantly recharge your ships energy, to keep from running out completely. You've found that there are naturally occurring plasma spheres in this new world, which you later find out is the side effect of the object that dragged you half way across space. This object, a star gate, reappears when you've interacted with enough objects on the worlds you're on. Each time you enter a star gate, you hope that it leads home. Eventually you'll make it home, but you may have to travel through many worlds before you find the gate that takes you home to earth. good luck! (Click here to read the game manual)
* Super Structure : Superstructure is an arcade game unlike anything you've ever seen. It has thousands of possible levels for you to explore. You get to fly through large structures called "Superstructures", tracking down and shooting its dynamically changing weak sections, eventually causing it's annihilation. As you progress through level after level of unique structures, the game will become progressively more difficult, and the structures more complex. Each time you play any level, not only will the superstructure look somewhat different, but so will the rich, colorful cosmic view that surrounds you. If you see a cosmic view that takes your breath away (and chances are you will!) don't get used to it... you'll probably never see that exact configuration again! This game is as unique as it is fun.
* Night City : AN AWESOME ARCADE GAME WITH BEAUTIFUL GRAPHICS! IF YOU LIKE ARCADE ACTION, THIS GAME IS FOR YOU. NIGHT CITY IS A FAST PACED, 3D ARCADE SHOOTER GAME TAKING PLACE IN AN AMAZING LOOKING CITY.
* The Best Arcade Game Ever : Blow away fighters coming at you from all directions as you explore HUGE worlds, and collect alien artifacts in this omni-directional 2D shooter, hosting some brilliant 3D graphics. Collect various types of energy weapons left behind by your enemies, as you blast them out of existence. The worlds are so large in this game that, chances are, you'll NEVER get to explore them fully! You get to do battle with an inexhaustible armada of enemy fighters in various types of worlds, such as cities in space, jungles with ancient structures and giant mountains, cities on the surface of the ocean, high above foggy worlds where only the mysterious and majestic mountain peeks are visible, and brilliant and colorful futuristic cities. The game mixes elements of classic arcade games with elements of modern 3D games. This combination gives you the best of both worlds: while you get the none stop shooting action found in vertical and horizontal shooters, you also get the 360 degree freedom of movement and freedom to explore that you find in modern games. The game also hosts an energetic music track, but if you prefer your own music, just pop your favorite music CD into your CDROM drive, and the game's music engine will integrate the music from the CD into the game.
* Crazy Spheres : Run over and pop colorful spheres and watch them explode in a firework of colors! Avoid the "Tinies", which are small pesky spheres that will follow you. Power up by popping a rainbow fountain, and you can now go after the "Tinies" and pop them too! Pop the "Speediest" and you're given a super speed boost that'll knock your socks off! All this time you're playing on a grid floating around in space, with a festive space scene that is full of life as your view. The game supports 2D, 3D, and "Hyper 3D" game play. Red/Blue 3D glasses are also supported in several game modes, and in the "Game Saver mode". The Game Saver is a built in screen saver of sorts that only works while you're running the game. Overall, Crazy Spheres is a light hearted fun game, with lots of game play options, and a lively sound track that is sure to put you in a good mood.
* Roboinv4 : Blow away ruthless robot invaders by the hundreds in this fast paced 3rd person 3D shooter. You'll be battling robots in diverse and awesome environments, while trying to save as many humans as possible. Some of the places you'll do battle are a spooky castle, ghastly grave yard, a space station in deep space, an enchanted tropical island, Future City, and more! You'll battle a large variety of robots that become ever more ruthless as you progress through the game. Just as you get overwhelmed with robots coming at you from every direction, you may get lucky and find a time freeze module, or an EMP blaster to aid you in your fight. Pure adrenaline filled action awaits anyone who takes on the mission to save humanity in this fast paced action arcade game.
* Cybertron : Cybertron is a futuristic game, in which you zoom through huge, futuristic cyber cities skidding off buildings and ricocheting off I/O towers for big bonuses! Shooting at digital binary streams, and blowing away I/O towers may be fun, but you'll need to go FAST to get to the finish line before your time runs out! Going over speed pads is the only way to go, as they give you super speed boosts. Beware, however, there are just as many zero pads that'll slow you to a crawl. Oh, did I mention you'll also need to fly in this game? Hit the boost button, and you're off in the air, zooming, taking sharp turns around and through the cyber buildings... But beware, a small jerk of the mouse could mean the difference between skidding off a building for big bonus points, or crash and burn!
* Acceleron : Acceleron is a fusion between good old fashioned arcade action and state of the art 3D graphics. Complete with earth shattering explosions, shoot'em up action, and beautifully colorful space scenes this game will grab you from the first moment, and keep you going back for more! Shoot the bad guys, buildings, fuel tanks, or anything that gets in your way, as you maneuver your ship through wave after wave of enemy outposts. As you speed through the cities of the outposts, blowing stuff up is not all you'll have to worry about. You'll need to refuel, look for bonus lives, avoid crashing into obstacles, jump over structural gaps, and take care not to fall off the structure of the outpost into the emptiness of space. Simple and intuitive game play, and challenging arcade action makes this game fun and addictive!
* Circuit Weaver 3D : Circuit Weaver 3D is an original puzzle game, taking place in awesome 3D environments, with arcade quality special effects. Help Robi the Robot save his home world in this 3D puzzle game by guiding him to the shield generators. You get to guide Robi the Robot by altering the circuit grid that surrounds him. He'll follow the path you create in the grid, so it is up to you to create paths that do not destroy him. As you guide him to shield generators, he will encounter evil robots that will drain his energy, and destroy him, if allowed to get too close to Robi. If you're quick, you can try to create
circuit paths to guide Robi away from these evil robots. If you have collected enough energy, you can destroy the robots, and keep Robi safe. Circuit Weaver 3D is a unique puzzle game with great graphics, and beautiful surreal surroundings, that brings 3D and arcade effects to the puzzle game world.
In
computer gaming
, a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon, Domain or Dimension) is a
multi-player computer game
that combines elements of
role-playing games,
hack and slash
style computer games and social
chat rooms
. Typically running on an
Internet
server or
bulletin board system
, the game is usually text-driven, where players read descriptions of rooms, objects, events, other characters, and computer-controlled creatures or
non-player characters
(NPCs) in a
virtual world
. Players usually interact with each other and the surroundings by typing commands that resemble a
natural language
, usually
English
. Arguably modern graphics-based
massively multiplayer online role-playing games
(MMORPGs), such as
World of Warcraft
as well as social avatar
virtual worlds
such as
Second Life
could be considered MUD variants.
Traditional MUDs implement a
fantasy
world populated by
elves,
goblins,
dwarves,
halflings
and other
mythical
or
fantasy-based races
, with players being able to take on any number of
classes
, including
warriors,
mages,
priests,
thieves,
druids
, etc., in order to gain specific skills or powers. The object of this sort of game is to slay
monsters
, explore a rich fantasy world, to complete quests, go on adventures, create a story by
roleplaying
, and/or advance the created character. Many MUDs were fashioned around the dice rolling rules of the
Dungeons & Dragons
series of games.
Such fantasy settings for MUDs are common, while many others are set in a
science fiction
–based universe or themed on popular books, movies, animations, history, and so on. Not all MUDs are games; some, more typically those referred to as
MOOs
, are used in
distance education
or for virtual conferences. MUDs have attracted the interest of academic scholars from many fields, including
communications,
sociology,
law
, and
synthetic economies.
Most MUDs are run as hobbies and are free to players; some may accept donations or allow players to "purchase" in-game items, while others charge a monthly
subscription fee.
The first games which might today be recognised as MUDs appeared in 1977 on the
PLATO system
. In Europe at around the same time, MUD development was centered around academic networks, particularly at the
University of Essex
where they were played by many people, both within and outside of the university. In this context, it has been said that MUD stands for "Multi-Undergrad
Destroyer" or "Multiple Undergraduate Destroyer" due to their popularity among college students and the amount of time devoted to the MUD by the student.
The popularity of MUDs of the Essex University tradition escalated in the USA during the 1980s, when—relatively speaking—cheap, home personal computers
with 300 to 2400 bit/s
modems
enabled role-players to log into multi-line BBSes and
online services
such as
Compuserve.
The first known
MUD
was created in 1978 by
Roy Trubshaw
and
Richard Bartle
at Essex University on a DEC
PDP-10
in the UK, using initially MACRO-10 (an
assembly language
) and, later, rewritten in
BCPL
; also used was a database description language, MUDDL.
[1]
They chose the acronym MUD to stand for Multi-User Dungeon,
[2]
in reference to a Fortran port of Infocom's text adventure game
Zork
for the PDP-10 called Dungeon (or DUNGEN due to the six character filename limit).
[3]
Zork in turn was inspired by an older
text-adventure
game known as
Colossal Cave Adventure
or ADVENT. The classic game
MIST
(also part of Essex University MUD) which could be played from any computer connected to
JANET
(a European academic network), became one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity.
[4]
Oubliette, written by
Jim Schwaiger
, and published on the PLATO system predated MUD1 by about a year. It was so difficult that one could not play it alone: in order for players to survive,
they had to run in groups. While Oubliette was a multi-player game, there was no persistence to the game world. Following it, also on PLATO, was a game
called
Moria
written in 1977, copyright 1978. Again, players could run in parties but in this game it was also possible to effectively play while only running one character.
They were graphical in nature and very advanced for their time, but were proprietary programs that were unable to spread beyond PLATO. Textual worlds,
which typically ran on
Unix,
VMS
, or
DOS
, were now far more accessible to the public.
Another early MUD was
Avatar
, begun around 1977 and opened in 1979, written by
Bruce Maggs,
Andrew Shapira
, and Dave Sides, all high school students using the PLATO system at the
University of Illinois
. This MUD was
2.5-D
game running on 512x512
plasma panels
of the PLATO system, and groups of up to 15 players could enter the dungeon simultaneously and fight monsters as a team. Avatar, with by far the most hours
played of any PLATO game, is still running, playable by anyone, on the emulated mainframe at
www.cyber1.org
and via the NovaNET NPT service.
In the late 1970s there were numerous other PLATO games which were MUD-like, in various stages of development, some open, some never opened. Some were essentially
single-player games but had some multi-player interaction such as communication and shared halls of fame. These games influenced the development of more
well-known PLATO MUDs such as Avatar and Oubliette. At the time, these games were referred to as 'dungeon games'. Around this time, at least 10 and possibly
as many as 100 people were actively working on MUD games on PLATO. It was common to see two to five people sitting side by side and working on different
MUD games in room 165 or the author room of University of Illinois's CERL building. Many non-MUD games also came from this environment, such as empire
and airfight.
In 1978, Alan E. Klietz wrote a game called Milieu using Multi-
Pascal
on a
CDC Cyber
, which was used by high school students in
Minnesota
for educational purposes. Klietz ported Milieu to an
IBM XT
in 1983, naming the new port
Scepter of Goth
(also spelled Sceptre of Goth). Scepter supported 10 to 16 simultaneous users, typically connecting in by modem. It was one of the first commercial MUDs;
franchises were sold to a number of locations. Scepter (as well as an unfinished advanced MUD by Klietz called ScreenPlay) was first owned and run by GamBit
(of
Minneapolis, Minnesota
), founded by Bob Alberti. GamBit's assets, including Scepter and ScreenPlay, were later sold to InterPlay (of
Fairfax, Virginia
). InterPlay eventually went bankrupt, making Scepter no longer available. In 1984, Mark Peterson wrote The Realm of Angmar, beginning as a
clone
of Sceptre of Goth.
In 1984,
Mark Jacobs
created and deployed a commercial gaming site, Gamers World. The site featured two games coded and designed by Jacobs, a MUD called Aradath (which was
later renamed, upgraded and ported to
GEnie
as
Dragon's Gate
) and a
4X
science-fiction game called Galaxy, which was also ported to
GEnie
. At its peak, the site had about 100 monthly subscribers to both Aradath and Galaxy. GEnie was shut down in the late 1980s, although
Dragon's Gate
was later brought to
America Online
before it was finally released on its own. Dragon's Gate was officially closed on February 10th, 2007 until further notice.
[5]
These text-adventure games (both single and multi-player) drew inspiration from the paper-and-pencil based
role-playing games
(RPGs) that were approaching their peak popularity at this time, especially with the release of
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons
(AD&D) in 1977.
This strong bond between RPGs and MUDs continued through the years with the release of dozens of AD&D modules and related books and stories (e.g.,
Forgotten Realms
and
Dragonlance
). Influences also came from the
gamebooks
such as
Fighting Fantasy,
Choose Your Own Adventure
, and
Lone Wolf
; and also other RPGs such as
Vampire: The Masquerade
and Middle-Earth Role Playing.
Other MUDs that appeared around 1985 included Mirrorworld, run by Pip Cordrey and developed and written by Tim Rogers, Lorenzo Wood and Nathaniel Billington.
Mirrorworld was the first MUD to feature rolling resets. SHADES by Neil Newell was a commercial MUD accessible in the UK via British Telecom's
Prestel
and
Micronet
networks. A scandal on SHADES led to the closure of
Micronet
, as described in
Indra Sinha
's net-memoir, The Cybergypsies.
Another popular MUD was
AberMUD
, written in 1987 by
Alan Cox
(also known as Anarchy), named after the
University of Wales, Aberystwyth.
Avalon, the Legend Lives
, started in 1989, was the first MUD to combine a consistent fantasy story-line with a commercial venture. AberMUD was initially written in
B
for a Honeywell L66 mainframe under GCOS3/TSS and later ported to
C
, which enabled it to rapidly spread to many
UNIX
platforms.
[6]
Monster
was a multi-user adventure game created by
Richard Skrenta
for the
VAX
and written in VMS Pascal. It was publicly released in November 1988.
[7]
Monster was disk-based and modifications to the game were immediate. Monster pioneered the approach of allowing players to
build
the game world, setting new puzzles or creating dungeons for other players to explore.
[8]
Monster was the inspiration for
TinyMUD.
[9]
In 1989,
TinyMUD
began to allow players to easily participate in creating the online environment, as well as playing in it. The TinyMUD code spawned a number of descendants,
including
TinyMUCK
and
TinyMUSH
, which added more sophisticated programmability. (TinyMUCK versions 2 and higher contain a full programming language named
MUF
, or Multi-User
Forth
, while MUSH greatly expanded the variety of commands and functions available and allowed them to apply to all objects.) Some use the term MU* to refer
to TinyMUD, MUCK, MUSH, MUSE, MUX, and their kin; others simply allow the term MUD to apply universally. MUVE is a recent coinage, intended to stand for
Multi-User Virtual Environment. UberMUD, UnterMUD, and
MOO
are some other MUD servers that were at least partially inspired by TinyMUD but are not direct descendants.
Also in 1989, and inspired by TinyMUD and AberMUD,
LPMud
was developed as a more game-oriented MUD built around a C-like programming language,
LPC
. 1989 also saw the development of Avalon, using its own code base run through the Hourglass compiler. Developed in complete isolation from all other MUDs,
Avalon adopted an object-oriented approach using the powerful British Acorn Archimedes computer technology. In Europe it was very popular for MUD writers
to write in isolation. The three largest commercial examples would be Avalon, Shades and the Terris/Cosrin Engine.
In 1991, the release of
DikuMUD
, which was inspired by AberMUD, led to a virtual explosion of
hack-n-slash
MUDs based upon its code. DikuMUD inspired several derivative
codebases
as well, including
CircleMUD,
Merc,
ROM
and
SMAUG
. Meanwhile, Avalon had become a commercial game operating in the UK on up to 16 simultaneous modem connections.
In 1992 a second
Avalon, the Legend Lives
site was opened in the north of England, Sheffield, to give local users cheaper phone call access.
In 1993
Avalon, the Legend Lives
attempted to circumvent the expense of online connections in the UK with the Hostplay concept: providing access via terminals in Avalon's own offices in
central London in addition to its 16 modem connections.
In 1994, Mark Peterson rewrote The Realm of Angmar, adapting it to
MS-DOS
(the basis for many dial-in
BBS
systems), and renamed it
Swords of Chaos
. For a few years this was a very popular form of MUD, hosted on a number of BBS systems, until widespread Internet access eliminated most BBSes.
Avalon, like other commercial MUDs, went live on the Internet in late 1994. In doing so, they closed down the local Sheffield site. It also released a specialized
Windows telnet client named AvPlay, making it the first MUD to release such a client (although AvPlay can also be used for any other MUD.)
Avalon, the Legend Lives
is still running and under continuous development today.
The closing of the Sheffield site motivated one Avalon player,
Paul Barnett
(now creative Director for the Warhammer Online MMO at EA-Mythic), to design and write the
Legends of Terris
MUD engine with Doug Goldner. Paul Barnett designed the game and Doug Goldner wrote the code.
At this time, AOL US already ran several highly successful games, including Dragons Gate and Darkness Falls (by Mythic Entertainment, which later launched
Dark Age of Camelot),
Federation (game)
(a space trading game) and Gem Stone III (Simutronics, which later launched A Hero's Journey), and AOL Europe had begun operations and was looking for
a European MUD game to offer to its subscribers.
Legends of Terris
was selected to be AOL Europe’s flagship MUD. Legends of Terris was launched on AOL Europe at the end of the year.
Legends of Terris
itself was hosted at a place called Sub-Cyberia in the basement of the first UK Internet cafe, Cyberia. The game was also translated into German. Contemporary
European commercial games typically had around 30-50 players connected at once; within one month, Legends of Terris had over 600 simultaneous players connected.
Legends of Terris became the largest commercial MUD in Europe[citation needed]
, with over 2000 simultaneous players connected at once. It was now generating over 250,000 game-hours worth of revenue for AOL. Legends of Terris would
hit a number as high as 2,544 players at once, while Gem Stone III continued to dominate the commercial MUD world, attracting 6000 concurrent users at
its height. Gem Stone III, Avalon and Legends of Terris are all commercially operating today.
Of the commercial engines available, Avalon focused on player vs. player design, Gem Stone III was dominant in the areas of game world size and installed
player base, and Legends of Terris championed the player vs. environment style of play.
MUDs can be accessed via standard
telnet
clients, or specialized
MUD clients
which are designed to improve the user experience. Numerous games are listed at various web portals (see
External Links).
Online graphics-based games (
MMORPGs
), such as
World of Warcraft
and
Dungeons & Dragons Online: Stormreach
, as well as graphics-based
social avatar worlds
like
Second Life
, are arguably analogous to MUDs, and are sometimes referred to as "graphical MUDs" (see next section) or "next-generation MUDs".
Similarities include the basic goals and objectives of the games, where games are present, and the
sociality
of the environments (the tendency to associate in or form social groups). One difference, among many, is that the majority of MMORPGs and social avatar
worlds are commercial ventures.
The Business of Social Avatar Virtual Worlds
A graphical MUD is a MUD that uses
computer graphics
to represent parts of the virtual world and its visitors. A prominent early graphical MUD was
Habitat
, written by
Randy Farmer
and
Chip Morningstar
for
Lucasfilm
in 1985. Graphical MUDs require players to download a special client and the game's artwork. They range from simply enhancing the
user interface
to simulating 3D worlds with visual spatial relationships and customized
avatar
appearances.
After the increase in computing power and Internet connectivity during the late nineties, graphical MUDs became better known as
MMORPGs
, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games.
A less-known MUD variant is the
talker
, typically based on
ew-too
or
NUTS
, with plenty of derived
codebases
. The early talkers were essentially MUDs with most of the complex game machinery stripped away, leaving just the communication commands -- hence the name
"talker". Talkers use simple protocols and create very little network traffic, making them ideal for setting up quietly at work.
People who use these tend to be called
spods
, and have earned
a place
in the
Jargon File.
One style of MUD is the
Role-Play
Intensive MUD, or RPIMUD, a somewhat obscure category of MUDs whose proponents aggressively work to define and differentiate it from other MUDs. RPIMUDs
focus on realistic, enforced roleplay, often within fantasy themes. In general, the objective of the game is not goal-based
hack-and-slash
, but to collaborate with fellow players to create complex and multi-layered storylines in a cohesive game world.
The majority of RPIMUDs do not use the concepts of character level and class, focusing instead on skills, crafts, and role-playing against the world or
environment, often going as far as to request that their players engage in role-play with inanimate creatures and objects. Such dedication to role-playing,
in addition to creating a vivid experience for other players, is often rewarded by staff members who monitor the game. Out-of-character communications
are generally restricted, if present at all. This contrasts with other MUD role-playing styles, such as storytelling and freestyle MUSHes, in which role-play
is orchestrated between players and OOC communications are more important.
A
Player Killing
MUD is a type of MUD that encourages
player versus player
combat. Some MUDs have registered Player Killing, meaning a player must register as a Player Killer and can only combat other registered Player Killers.
