bee@cs.purdue.edu (Zaphod Beeblebrox) (02/01/90)
This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup
rec.games.mud. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, developed at CMU.
There are several of these around the country, most notably at
Carnegie Mellon (tinyMUD; telnet daisy.learning.cs.cmu.edu 4201), and
at the University of Oklahoma (tinyHELL; telnet uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu
6250).
There currently is an alt.mud, but it suffers from poor distribution.
Judging by the large number of people that are connected to the MUDs
at any given time, there should be considerable support for such a
group. (If you don't believe me, try connecting to one of them
sometime.)
B.E.E.
(Finrod on tinyHELL)
--
Z. Beeblebrox | I live with two people, I like both of them.
(alias B. Elmore) | He likes both of me and I like both of him.
bee@cs.purdue.edu | They're my alter egos and to them I'm wed,
..!purdue!bee | 'Cause I'm happy I live in a split-level head. -- Nap. XIVgp5@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Fur - Roy Riggs) (02/02/90)
>This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup >rec.games.mud. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, developed at CMU. I do think there is a need for a new news group here, but you have confined it to narrowly. There should be a news group for discussing ALL multi-user games (most likely adventure oriented, but not exclusive.) Limiting the group to one particular game implementation is silly. Perhaps rec.games.multi-user would be a better name. Also, there is no such thing as MUD, TinyMUD was the game developed at CMU by James Aspnes and others. MUD most commonly stands for Multi User Dimension(s) so as not to limit the genre. fur - gp5@mentor.cc.purdue.edu
hanst@maestro.htsa.aha.nl (Hans Trompert) (02/02/90)
In article <9510@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bee@cs.purdue.edu (Zaphod Beeblebrox) writes: >This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup >rec.games.mud. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, developed at CMU. I think it's a great idea. We have installed tinyMUD recently but have some problems expanding the database. It would be great to exchange extensions to the database. >There currently is an alt.mud, but it suffers from poor distribution. I know ! Once in a while we get an article, but most is lost before it reaches us. -- % S-mail: Hans Trompert, Algemene Hogeschool Amsterdam, % % Technische en Maritieme Faculteit, Afd. Technische Computerkunde, % % Eurapaboulevard 23, 1079 PC Amsterdam, The Netherlands % % E-mail: hanst@maestro.htsa.aha.nl / hanst@htsa.UUCP / ...!hp4nl!htsa!hanst % % Voice: (+31) 20 423827 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Fax: (+31) 20 443215 %
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (02/02/90)
How about rec.games.frp.computer?
--
_--_|\ Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>.
/ \
\_.--._/ Xenix Support -- it's not just a job, it's an adventure!
v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk (Jonathan Knight) (02/03/90)
From article <9510@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>, by bee@cs.purdue.edu (Zaphod Beeblebrox): > This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup > rec.games.mud. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, developed at CMU. One nit pick. Dungeon is a bit of an out of date term and it is possible that it is copyright. As a suggestion rec.games.mug (Multi User Game) Oh and by the way, I think you'll find that Essex MUD and AberMUD were around before the CMU tinyMUD. -- ______ JANET :jonathan@uk.ac.keele.cs Jonathan Knight, / BITNET:jonathan%cs.kl.ac.uk@ukacrl Department of Computer Science / _ __ other :jonathan@cs.keele.ac.uk University of Keele, Keele, (_/ (_) / / UUCP :...!ukc!kl-cs!jonathan Staffordshire. ST5 5BG. U.K.
dougi@utastro.UUCP (Doug Ingram) (02/03/90)
I'm all for the development of this newsgroup. The related
alt.mud newsgroup which covers the same topic (ostensibly multi-user
domains or dimensions, as you prefer) has been very successful as
far as providing useful information and discussions regarding the
development of mud's and mud-related software.
While the purpose of the typical mud is largely for entertainment
of the masses, much of the discussion around it has been somewhat
technical in the sense that one must be familiar with mud "jargon" to
be able to follow it successfully. Also, since most of the mud-related
software (such as tinytalk) is written in either C or emacs code, many
non-programmers (or programmers who are still mired down in Fortran or
Pascal) expecting a discussion of a recreational mud often find themselves
waist-deep in Computer Science before they know it.
I'm not saying that the group should be sci.mud or anything,
but perhaps rec.games.mud would be a misleading name for the group
(provided it has similar content to alt.mud, which I think is a
reasonable assumption). Certainly*, the group should not be placed
under the rec.games.frp heirarchy as a previous poster suggested.
Even though using a mud involves a small of amount of role-playing,
the discussions are not related to that topic at all.
Sorry that I'm not offering any "solutions" as to what I think
the group should be named, but this is discussion, right? Anyway,
rec.games.mud will probably come out in the end to be the least
horrible of all of the possible names for a mud-related newsgroup.
Other possibilities that might be kicked around, though, could be
either comp.[nothing,programmer,software,language.c,emacs,etc].mud
or just plain rec.mud.
Thanks,
Thief * - standard disclaimer (IMHO in this case)
:hopes this doesn't turn into a flame war.
--------------------
"If at all possible, you should avoid being a young person or a wheat
farmer when the president starts feeling international tension."
-- Dave Barry
Doug Ingram dougi@astro.as.utexas.edu dougi@utastro.uucppk2@ukc.ac.uk (P.Kathuria) (02/03/90)
In article <9510@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bee@cs.purdue.edu (Zaphod Beeblebrox) writes: >This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup >rec.games.mud. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, developed at CMU. Although I am in strong favour of a group devoted to multi-user adventure games, I feel that I should put a few things straight. Even though a a game was developed at CMU I doubt that it was the first. The first multi-user dungeon game was developed about 10 years ago at Essex University, England (Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw being the only two names I can remember of the writers). Bartle then went onto to form MUSE in 1985, a company which offered the first commercial game and has taken MUD (multi-user dungeon) as the registered trademark. The commercial version (MUD-2) is available outside the UK too. Since then, many games have appeared in the UK, most of them are paying games. To my knowledge there are at least three different multi-user games available free in the UK over the academic network (MIST, aberMUD and VAXMUD) although there is always a multitude of people trying to write their own games. I mention MUSE because the version of aberMUD that is available through the IBM PC User Group's Connect service, is known as aberMUAG (multi-user adventure game); I suspect that the name change is to not create any legal problems regarding "MUD". I know that there is a community of muag-ers in the UK; we have an annual Adventure Convention (where old and new games are taken, and techniques for writing games are discussed) and a new magazine devoted to comms has two regular writers on multi-user games/comms (I'm one of them). I also know that many of the people in the multi-user community don't necessarily have write access to Usenet, which is why I have taken it upon myself to write this article. >There are several of these around the country, most notably at >Carnegie Mellon (tinyMUD; telnet daisy.learning.cs.cmu.edu 4201), and >at the University of Oklahoma (tinyHELL; telnet uokmax.ecn.uoknor.edu >6250). Hopefully I have made my point that "the country" doesn't have the monopoly on multi-user games. I think that many in the UK would like a group to discuss multi-user games (although I know that only a minority will have the facilities to vote), especially since all the bulletin boards I use have popular mud folders. I suggest that the group be called rec.games.muag or rec.games.multi-user to avoid using "mud". I have seen later articles where rec.games.frp.dungeon has been suggested as a name and I think that it should be pointed out that not all multi-user adventure games have dungeons in them or bear any resemblance to D&D. Paola Kathuria [news is dead at zen so I'm using my old university account to read/write news, please send any replies to paola@zen.co.uk since I rarely log onto ukc]
sfwhite@watcgl.waterloo.edu (Stephen White) (02/03/90)
In article <1457@husc6.harvard.edu> durrell@husc4.UUCP (Speaker-To-Eris) writes: } In article <9510@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bee@cs.purdue.edu (Zaphod Beeblebrox) writes: }} This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup }} rec.games.mud. MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, developed at CMU. }} There currently is an alt.mud, but it suffers from poor distribution. } Bad idea. Let's not get carried away, here. Sure, lots o people play } TinyMUD and AberMUD, but a whole official group? In the rec heirarchy? There's another possible consideration here. MUD games, as you know, don't generate big packets or even a great number of packets (okay, maybe when there's a groovy party in the RecRoom, it might get kinda busy). But do we really want the people who own all the sites that the Internet connects knowing that some of the bandwidth of their expensive connections are being used for (gasp) a game? It's fine when it's a local thing, like Moria (correct me if I'm wrong; I haven't played it, myself), but when you connect a long way on [Aber|Tiny]MUD you're involving a number of sites, routers, etc. along the way. I don't know if we should really advertise the fact that these MUDs are running at all. Maybe I'm just being paranoid; you all know I've had a rather embarassing wrist-slapping incident in this area. Still, I think we should be a little more cautious before jumping into world- wide advertising. My vote: keep MUD in the alt hierarchy for now. (Hey, what can I say, I'm an alternative kinda guy.) -- ___ Stephen White standard_disclaimer() ______/__ sfwhite@watcgl.waterloo.edu <___ | \ /\ / "If the world was an orange, it would be like, ___> | \/ \/ much too small." - The Young Ones
peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (02/03/90)
In article <3777@harrier.ukc.ac.uk> paola@zen.co.uk writes: > a game was developed at CMU I doubt that it was the first. The first > multi-user dungeon game was developed about 10 years ago at Essex University, > England (Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw being the only two names I can > remember of the writers). Actually, the first game of this kind was called "Public Caves", and it was run at People's Computer Company in the mid-70s some time. During 1979 or 1980 a version was implemented at Berkeley by a guy whose name escapes me. I did another version around 1975 based on my recollections of the Berkeley version. This version is still running at Sugarland UNIX. I'd suggest something like rec.games.virtual-worlds, but that's pretty long. That's sort of the general idea, anyway. -- _--_|\ Peter da Silva. +1 713 274 5180. <peter@ficc.uu.net>. / \ \_.--._/ Xenix Support -- it's not just a job, it's an adventure! v "Have you hugged your wolf today?" `-_-'
rang@cs.wisc.edu (Anton Rang) (02/04/90)
In article <9510@medusa.cs.purdue.edu> bee@cs.purdue.edu (Zaphod Beeblebrox) writes: >This is an Official Call For Discussion for creating the newsgroup >rec.games.mud. I don't think there are nearly enough MUD players for this. I would suggest (as others have) expanding the group to general multi-player games. Anton (Tarrant@{TinyMUD,TinyHELL,TinyMUCK}) +---------------------------+------------------+-------------+ | Anton Rang (grad student) | rang@cs.wisc.edu | UW--Madison | +---------------------------+------------------+-------------+
umcharl3@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Mike Charlton) (02/05/90)
durrell@husc4.HARVARD.EDU (Speaker-To-Eris) writes: >>}There currently is an alt.mud, but it suffers from poor distribution. >>} [stuff deleted] >>} >>} B.E.E. >>} (Finrod on tinyHELL) >> >Bad idea. Let's not get carried away, here. Sure, lots o people play >TinyMUD and AberMUD, but a whole official group? In the rec heirarchy? >I think that's a bit overboard. Sure, Moria has its very own group, >but many more people play Moria than all the MUDs combined. The MUD >gorup is in the alt heirarchy because that way sites that don't have >to deal with traffic of limited interest or alternative appeal don't >have to deal with it. We are, like it or not, of limited appeal. >Consider: there are currently ten TinyMUDs. Each one has a maximum of >60 or so players at a time. 600 people is a rotten base for a group, >and generally (always) less people than that are on. Sorry, but even >though I play avidly, I don't think we deserve our own group. >Bryant Durrell, aka Garrett Well, if there isn't enough support for a new group (and I agree 600 probably is too small, if that is the case) then how about someone starting a mailing list for those of us who don't get the alt.mud group. I would imagine that if there are so few people, this wouldn't involve much overhead (If someone with a kind heart is willing to do it...) Mike
pjc@r1.uucp (Peter Crowther (CAG ra)) (02/05/90)
> Consider, there are currently ten TinyMUDs.
You reckon? :-) I've got TWO running on my machine here (one 'live',
one for development purposes). I bet there are plenty of other tiny
sites around who are not connected to the Internet but have MUD running
for the locals (this one's limited to on-campus; currently 30-40 players
(I think, haven't counted recently)).
I can receive alt.mud; I have no opinion on whether it should be moved
into the rec.* hierarchy at the moment ('I'm alright, Jack'). However,
I consider the '600 users is a rotten base' argument specious.
- Peter
wizard on UglyMUG (derived from TinyMUD 1.4.1 Beta - I've added deletion
of objects, newlines in descriptions. I'm about to add containers and a
*very* general compound command mechanism.)
Peter Crowther, Dept. of Electrical Engineering, University of Manchester,
Manchester M13 9PL, England.
Internet: pcrowther@r1.cs.man.ac.uk Janet: pcrowther@uk.ac.man.cs.r1
USENET: mcvax!ukc!man.cs!pcrowther Fishing net: Device for catching fishgt4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (Ford Prefect) (02/06/90)
In article <1990Feb4.191852.22648@ccu.umanitoba.ca> umcharl3@ccu.umanitoba.ca (Mike Charlton) writes: >Well, if there isn't enough support for a new group (and I agree 600 >probably is too small, if that is the case) then how about someone >starting a mailing list for those of us who don't get the alt.mud >group. I would imagine that if there are so few people, this >wouldn't involve much overhead (If someone with a kind heart is >willing to do it...) 600 small? Generally 100 is considered the threshhold for newsgroup creation. 600 is bloody large! I'd hate to see a 600-name mailing list (poor uunet...) I'd really like to see the mainstream group. There's certainly enough interest (right now TinyHELL is running 1400+ users, I imagine TinyMUD is similar, and there, last I heard, at least 10 other national-access MUDs and countless local ones. The TinyBALL that was run this weekend drew so many users that it temporarily overwhelmed the gateway to the host it was running on. If even a small fraction of this user base is interested I think there's enough demand for the group. Also, there are a lot of people out there working on the MUD source, and it would be nice to have someplace to discuss this sort of thing too; rec.games.programmer is a little too general for specific discussions of the implementation of one game. -- Help stamp out vi in our lifetime! Ford Prefect gt4@mentor.cc.purdue.edu (a.k.a. Scott Goehring) ...!purdue!mentor.cc.purdue.edu!gt4