🚀 go-pugleaf

ma...@sad.hp.com (Marshall Ward) writes:

>Michael McCarthy (rat...@maths.tcd.ie) wrote:
>: 
>: 
>: I just heard a couple of people in this group talk about TSN. It sounds
>: like some sort of MUD. Could anyone elaborate on that or correct me ?
>: 
>: Michael.

>What's MUD?

>Marshall

  Well, a MUD is a bit like TSN really :-)
I would say, though, that MUDs inspired TSN and other such networks/bbs's.
The acronym MUD stands for Multi User Dungeon. It was probably inspired
by the granddaddy of all rpg and adventures, Adventure. (though maybe it
was Zork that was the real inspiration.) The only MUD that I have ever
entered is called Tinytalk, and was all the rage here in the school of 
mathematics about a year ago.
  Dungeon is quite a misleading word.  A MUD is really just a
collection of abstract locations, described with words, and linked
together with connections. Of course, there are also objects, which can,
in turn contain other objects, there are NPCs and there are the PCs, of
which there can be many. (thus Multi User.) PCs and NPCs can traverse
the locations and talk to each other.
  PCs, if they take the trouble to wander around and visit places, can
advance their skills and eventually start building their own locations,
so that, in the end, there will be a living, alternative world, which
you can explore and experience, and generally just waste time in.
Unfortunately (although some people might say it is fortunate), the
only way to interact with this world is with words and (if you're
building) by programming. No fancy graphics, no hard action, just
letters on a screen. 
  It is, of course, MUDs and related concepts that inspired people
to invent the concept of virtual reality, in which you can interact
with others in a world which doesn't really exist. Strange, isn't it ?
>From Zork to SimuSex.


Michael.