[MUD-Dev] Re: Ugh, IS Diablo a mud?

[Hal Black]

On Tue, Sep 22, 1998 at 04:24:38PM -0500, Koster, Raph wrote:
> So I got into a discussion on Usenet with a fellow named Jag about
> whether or not Diablo was a mud.

  To me, a mud is foremost many-user.  I am currently running what I refer to
as my ZUD: Zero User Dimension. 8')  It isn't a mud yet because no one can
log in.  Unless they have updated Diablo, you could only have 4 players in a
game at once.  I don't really consider that as many-user.  While technically
it is multi-user, because multi means greater than one, I kind of think of it
as few-user, not many-user.  Does this mean that someone who is running an LP or
Diku with only 4 players on isn't a mud?  I would say no, it isn't, yet.
It may have the potential to be, but it is just 4 people playing a game at
once, even if they are interacting.
  How many simultaenous players does it take to make a mud?  8?  16?  Well, I
can't say for sure.  But there needs to be some meaningful interaction between
many players.  There also should be some form of community and social
structures that arise from the many-useredness.
  The next logical place to look is Quake.  How about specifically the online
quake community?  I would say this is a lot closer to a MUD than Diablo.  I
played a lot of quake back in the day, and especially played a lot of capture
the flag.  Eventually I became skilled and was invited into a clan.  And while
in a clan, there was a lot of many-user interaction.  There was intra-clan
interaction: we had practices, discussed strategy, and often used quake as
IRC, chewing the fat and just generally chatting about stuff.  All the while,
our avatars would dance about with axes and pause only when we stopped to
type.  Sometimes, we'd change our identities and drop in on some unsuspecting
public server and demolish everyone.  Then there was inter-clan interaction:
we had matches with many other clans, and we'd meet and have discussions about
settings, and then argue about what the best strategy was for what areas, and
of course there was fighting as well.  All this stuff happened within the game
- within the quake engine.  Certainly quake is not a multi-user role-playing
game, but also certainly it is an on-line community.  A mud?  I would never
think of it as one, because so many of the common mud features just aren't
there...  Character advancement and continuity of this character between
logins being the main one.  Also, it is an action game.  Most muds aren't
driven so strongly by action.  One could, however, argue that the continuity
of the character and advancement is indeed the PLAYER'S skill and reputation
in the game.  I am interested to see what some of the multi-user 3-d
"roleplaying" games will look like, and see if people think they are muds.

  I think that the quake world is at least as persistant as the diku world...
Areas (quake: armor, ammo, weapons ; diku: monsters, etc) reset, maps stay
mostly the same, players die and come back to life.

  On the issue of persistence, I would again say that quake is more
persistent than Diablo.  The quake server continues to exist after the last
person leaves the server.  Indeed, there may even be body parts left over
after you leave.  Drop a coin in town in (multiplayer) Diablo and leave, then
come back.  The coin will be gone because the world ceases to exist when you
leave.  This is not persistence in my view.  If it were, many many games
could be said to have persistency just because they come up the same way
every time, and I don't think this is consistent with my take on the word.

  It's a very blurry line - increasingly so, as people start writing graphical
mud clients, and conventional single-player games add more players and social
structures.