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Facts
Notable Acquisitions
History of Science and
Tecnology
 
Contents
Forward
Introduction |
Richard A. Bartle.
MUD1 Papers.
Gift of Richard A. Bartle.
Networked games have been an important part of computer culture and the development of cyberspace since the 1970s. Of the early examples based on multiplayer role-playing and social interaction, the most important was Roy Trubshaw's and Richard A. Bartle's Multi-User Dungeon (1979), or MUD, developed at the University of Essex. Like earlier text adventure games, MUD was based on text and represented a new kind of "interactive fiction," as some of these games would be called in the 1980s. However, MUD added a substantial performative dimension, as players interacted in the virtual space; as the mass of players grew, so did their social interaction. By the mid-1990s, advances in networking technology and graphics combined to open the door to graphical MUDs and "massively multiplayer" games, such as Ultima Online, Everquest, and Asheron's Call, set in virtual worlds populated by thousands of players at a time. The MUD1 papers gather together design documents, drawings, program listings, maps, design notes, and research materials from the original MUD game. |
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