[MUD-Dev] Monthly FAQ posting

[Koster]

On Tuesday, February 03, 1998 5:51 AM, 
Ling[SMTP:K.L.Lo-94 at student.lboro.ac.uk] wrote:

> Almost all the muds done by Owen Emlen have interesting design
> features to them too. (Aturion Dynasty, for example). [Raph K]
>
> Entries needed for:
>
>   M59
>  UO (preferred to UOL)

What do you need to know? Maybe Mike S should describe UO and I should 
describe M59. ;)

>   (that game I can't remember with the whities and the darkies)

That would be one of the aforementioned muds by Owen Emlen, at least 
originally, I think. It enjoyed an amazing measure of popularity for a 
while, then died a messy death thanks to maintainers who couldn't code 
for beans. People started leaving in droves around the time when 
everyone's character got slapped with the same name because of memory 
corruption. And... the name escapes me. :( A two-word name. Any 
aficionados of PvP gameplay who remember it?

>   ...anything to add?

My additions would mostly focus on graphical given my current 
interests and job...

Sierra's The Realm and Dr Cat's Furcadia (and its former 
incarnation--still same basic engine though, right Dr Cat?) both merit 
inclusion for their importance to the development of the commercial 
graphical mud genre, I think. Oh, and Dark Sun Online, if only because 
they used turn-based combat in a real-time environment.

In text--Worlds of Carnage was to my knowledge the first Diku mud with 
an internal scripting language, called "easyacts." This code formed 
the basis of the MobProgs put into Merc 2.2. LegendMUD is a spiritual 
offshoot of Carnage, and Cythera is a literal offshoot. 
(Interestingly, Damion Schubert, a designer on M59, was also a Carnage 
immort alum). Imperium Gothique's scripting was derived from either 
mobprogs or Carnage, not sure which. Carnage definitely had a lot of 
influence on the world of Dikudom.

-Raph