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Richard Bartle 'frustrated' with modern MMO development
A fascinating piece over on Eurogamer about MUD1 and Richard Bartle traces the history of the modern MMO back to this game and this man. Bartle said that he and his partner "wanted to change the world" with his game, although he says that the modern MMO has yet to reach its full potential. "I am frustrated at its slow pace," Bartle said. "There's so much you can do with virtual worlds. But it's not being done. I wanted them to be places of wonder in which people could go to truly be themselves, away from societal pressure or judgement. My idea was that if you could truly find yourself in a virtual world you might be able to then take that back into the real world. Then we could get rid of these artificial restraints of class, gender, social status and so on that dictate that you are what you are born to be." Bartle talked about how the goal for MUD1 was to give players "pure freedom" and how he thinks that MMOs should operate on a meritocracy. For more information on this topic, check out Massively's MUD retrospective and interview with Bartle back in 2011.
Stanford acquires MUD1 source
MUD1, the first online virtual world, was originally released in 1978. Thirty-six years later, Stanford University Libraries has acquired the project's source code and has plans to provide public online access. Details are forthcoming, according to a university blog. MUD1 is a text-based multi-user environment inspired by Zork and The Colossal Cave Adventure. It was created by Richard Bartle and Roy Trubshaw.
The Game Archaeologist: The PLATO MMOs, part 2
In our last installment looking at PLATO, the educational computer network that linked a thousand terminals across the US together, I don't think I stressed enough how awesome this system was for the time. In the 1970s, most universities had computers that required punch cards for input and spat back results on printers, grade schools simply didn't have computers, and if you wanted a PC at home, you'd have to build one from a kit that ended up being little more than a box with blinking lights. To sit down at a PLATO terminal was to jump forward a decade or more: sharp plasma displays, touch screens, speech synthesizers, email, message boards, and of course, the latest games. Often brewed up by students and programmers in their off hours, the PLATO games demonstrated the potential for online gaming, even if the games couldn't be put into every home. Last time we saw some of the innovations that would fuel MUDs and MMOs in years to come: networking, persistent characters, multiplayer matches with up to 32 people at a time, 3-D gaming in a virtual world, video game bosses, chat systems, and even crafting. So let's move on to the second batch of what I'm calling the "PLATO MMOs" -- not truly MMO as we know them today but uncanny pre-echoes of what the genre would become.
The Game Archaeologist and the veteran of Kesmai
Aaand we're back! Did you miss me? No? Not even a little bit? Aww, you know how to make me feel all kinds of appreciated! Even though it's been quite some time since we finished up our two-part series on the Kesmai company and its incredible (and little-remembered) role in powering up the MMO genre, I wanted to return to take the topic for one last spin. A fellow blogger, Wilhelm "The Ancient Gaming Noob" Arcturus, backs his nickname up by providing memories and stories from gaming eras well before many Massively readers' time. Since he actually played several Kesmai titles back in the day and lived to tell the tale, I wanted to pick his brain before we moved on to other titles. So join me in welcoming Wilhelm and his magical clockwork nostalgia retrieval system!
The Game Archaeologist discovers the Island of Kesmai
It was the mid-'80s, and I was just a kid in love with his family's IBM PC. Not having a wealth of capital at the time, I relied on hand-me-down copies of software that rolled in from friends and family and probably the Cyber-Mafia. Practically none of the disks came with instructions (or even labels, sometimes), and as such I felt like an explorer uncovering hidden gems as I shoved in 5 1/4" floppy after 5 1/4" floppy. Some titles were great fun, some were so obtuse I couldn't get into them, and some were obviously meant for those older and wiser than I. One game that fell into the latter category was a brutally difficult RPG that smelt of Dungeons & Dragons -- a forbidden experience for me at the time. It was just a field of ASCII characters, jumbled statistics, and instant death awaiting me around every corner. I gave it a few tries but could never progress past the first level, especially when I'd keep running out of arrows, so I gave up. Unbeknownst to me, I had my first brush with Rogue, an enormously popular dungeon crawler that straddled the line between the description-heavy RPGs and arcade titles like Gauntlet. Rogue defined the genre when it came out in 1980, spawning dozens of "Roguelikes" that sought to cash in on the craze. Not five years after its release, Rogue got a worthy successor that decided it could bring this addicting style of gameplay to the larva form of the Internet. It was called Island of Kesmai, but you may call it "Sir, yes sir!"
The Game Archaeologist plays with MUDs: A talk with Richard Bartle
From talking with Richard Bartle, reading his blog, and looking over several interviews that he's done, I've concluded that the co-creator of the first multi-user dungeon is, in many ways, a card. A smart one, a perceptive one, and an outspoken one, but a card nonetheless. I say this in a good way, of course, because for all of the verbal pussyfooting that often goes on in this industry, it's refreshing to hear the voice of someone who knows what he thinks and isn't afraid to say it, even if it goes against the grain. Dr. Bartle's name often comes up in discussions of both MUDs and MMORPGs. His designs, work and scholarship have influenced MMOs in substantial ways, and it's possible that if our children end up learning about massively multiplayer RPGs in school some day, Bartle's name will be mentioned once or twice. While he's sometimes polarizing, it's hard to deny the incredible work he's done, which is why I was excited to get to talk to him about this month's subject on the Game Archaeologist. So hit that pesky jump and let's pick the mind of a guy who really earned the right to post "FIRST!!1!"
The Game Archaeologist plays with MUDs: The history
You know that sinking feeling when you get into something that's way, waaaay over your head and you have no choice but to swim furiously or drown? That's exactly how I felt when I started to do research for this month's series on MUDs -- Multi-User Dungeons -- and their descendants. At first I was thrilled, because I knew that along with Dungeons & Dragons and Bulletin Board Systems, the MUD was one of the key predecessors to the MMORPG as we know it today. It was, and still is, vital gaming history that helped to shape the genre. The only problem was that for various reasons -- mostly a lack of good internet access in college and general ignorance -- I'd missed out on MUDs back in the day. But it's not like that stopped me from covering any of the other games in this series that I never experienced first-hand way back when; after all, there are few among us who can honestly say they did everything. So the problem wasn't the lack of first-hand knowledge but the sheer, overwhelming scope of this subject. One game alone is a manageable subject -- MUDs are an entire genre unto themselves. It's intimidating, to say the least. It doesn't still my excitement, however, nor will it stop us from diving into this topic no matter how deep the waters get. This week we'll take a look at the brief history of the MUD/MUSH/MOO/et al. and then get into specific games later this month. So hold your breath and jump on in with me!
Today the MUD and the MMO turn 30
Today marks the 30th birthday of the original MUD, created at Essex University by Roy Trubshaw in 1978. We recommend you check out what Richard Bartle -- who worked on later iterations of the project -- has to say about this event, as well as Raph Koster's words on the subject. The question at hand, as presented by Bartle, seems to be: does this matter?While he is skeptical, we would like to posit that it does matter a great deal -- or at least that it should. Graphics alone shouldn't lead to a strong distinction when the fundamentals are the same, so let's consider the modern MMO to be part of the same tradition as the MUD -- let's say that this is the MMO's 30th birthday too.
