[MUD-Dev] A Brief History of Commercial MUDs

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu 
> [mailto:mud-dev-admin at kanga.nu]On Behalf Of
> Brian Hook
> Sent: Friday, March 16, 2001 3:19 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: [MUD-Dev] A Brief History of Commercial MUDs

> I fear but pray that this isn't an FAQ, and I couldn't massage
> Google to do what I want, but I'm trying to get a feel for the
> history and scope of commercial text and graphical MUDs.  I am
> woefully lacking in historical context for things like DR, GSIII,
> and all the various variants of free MUDs.

I don't think this is all in the FAQ, but it should be.

The most comprehensive source currently is, I think, my Online World
Timeline. It grew out of doing some research for Amy Bruckman as part
of a joint presentation we were doing along with a bunch of other
folks at least year's GDC. On most entries, it is not as detailed as
the following timelines and histories, but I think it's the most
comprehensive (also the only one that covers PLATO to any degree).

  http://www.legendmud.org/raph/gaming/mudtimeline.html

For very early stuff, try Richard Bartle's "Mud incarnations" page on
his site.

  http://www.mud.co.uk/richard/incarns.htm

For LP specific stuff, there's George Reese's LPMud timeline.

  http://www.imaginary.com/LPMud/timeline.html

Lauren Burka's MUDDex history is very solid, but only up to a certain
date.  Look in particular for the MUDLine and her essay on the history
of TinyM*'s.

  http://www.apocalypse.org/pub/u/lpb/muddex/

Martin Keegan's MUDTree is a straightforward taxonomy of mud codebases.

  http://camelot.cyburbia.net.au/~martin/cgi-bin/mud_tree.cgi

For commercial stuff, Jessica Mulligan's articles on HappyPuppy cover
most of the key bases though some of the info is inaccurate (my
timeline has corrections to her stuff, some of which came from her).

  http://www.happypuppy.com/features/bth/bth%2Dvol8%2D36.html   (Part one)
  http://www.happypuppy.com/features/bth/bth%2Dvol8%2D37.html   (Part two)
  http://www.happypuppy.com/features/bth/bth%2Dvol8%2D38.html   (Part three)

> I'm specifically curious to see a ranking of commercial MUDs (text
> or graphical) based on subscribers.

I don't think this is documented anywhere. There are folks around who
would know (Gordon Walton, Jessica, and Rich Vogel jump to mind
immediately as people who would be able to recite a vast number of
figures off the tops of their heads).

-Raph
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