LegendMUD
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LegendMUD is a Merc 2.0 derived MUD created in late 1993 and launched officially on February 13, 1994.[1] LegendMUD is known for being one of the more innovative DikuMUDs with particular attention towards role-playing features.[2]
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[edit] History
LegendMUD was founded by Sherry Menton ("Charity") and Rick Delashmit ("Sadist"), both former players of Worlds of Carnage. Well in advance of the mud's launch, they were joined by several others, including Raph Koster ("Ptah") and Kristen Koster ("Kaige"), who were also players of that same mud.
Originally, Legend was hosted at stimpy.washcoll.edu, sponsored by the Academic Computing Committee of Washington College, in Chestertown, MD on a Macintosh SE/30. Eventually, it was moved to student account space at the University of Texas, where it moved frequently between different servers. Eventually, it was hosted on a dedicated server at the domain mud.aus.sig.net, and then eventually at its own domain of legendmud.org.
The Kosters took over administration of the mud circa 1995. At peak, LegendMUD reached approximately 100 simultaneous users.
In 1997 Raph Koster retired from Legend as an active immortal to focus on the MMORPG Ultima Online. Kristen Koster remained as Implementor until several years later, when she stepped down. The mud has since been implemented by Rufus, Sandra, and Lorenzo.
As of spring 2007, LegendMUD has over 8000 rooms in over 60 areas.
[edit] Setting
LegendMUD was unusual among muds in being based on a theme of history and myth. It used no stock areas, and all areas are required to be researched extensively during the building process. Strict adherence to history is not required however; instead, the theme was flexible, to allow for the presence of supernatural beings and magic in areas where those were believed in. For example, in Ancient Ireland a player might encounter the Sidhe, and in Medieval England's Sherwood Forest you might meet Robin Hood.
The mud is divided into three time periods: Ancient, Medieval, and Industrial. The Medieval time period is defined as ending with the invention of gunpowder, and the Industrial period is defined as ending in the middle of the 20th century. Quests allow players to travel from one time period to another.
[edit] Gameplay
Instead of selecting a class upon character creation, the player selected a "hometown." Each of these starting cities affect hidden statistics known as "axioms" which determined capabilities of players. Characters "born" in magical or fantastical areas had greater ability to learn magical skills, whereas characters born in technological areas have greater ability to use technological items such as guns, characters born in areas high in the art of war have a greater ability at fighting. Finally, a fourth axiom affects affinity with nature and related skills.
[edit] Features
[edit] Herbalism
Sherry Mention created an herbalism system based on the historical uses of real world herbs. It was reasonably pharmacologically accurate. Herbs spawned around the mud in areas where it was appropriate for them to grow, and could be brewed or made into poultices with varying effects.
[edit] Syllabic magic system
The magic system in LegendMUD was based on a very simple spell grammar, wherein hardcoded spells were accessed via chanting combinations of words taken from Latin and Sanskrit. The meaning of the various words, if known, provided a reasonable clue as to what the resultant spell would be. Words had to be learned much like spells, and some were mutually exclusive, which led to "specialties" within those who used magic. The three major branches were the base three verbs, which were oriented around Creation magic, Causation magic, and Divination magic.
[edit] Moods system
LegendMUD has extensive social support, including dozens of emotes and alternate verbs for the SAY command. It also offers a "moods" system which allowed players to automatically attach "moods" or descriptive tags to their speech and even their movement. An option exists to display chat in "novelistic" form, with punctuation parsing and prose-like display quite unlike that of any other mud. This system went on to be used in Star Wars Galaxies.
[edit] OOC Lounge
LegendMUD was notable for attempting to shape the social space of the mud by creating an "out of character lounge" which was a separate area disconnected from the mud proper. This was used for non-roleplay interaction, and featured elements such as a lecture series with invited guests from outside (include Richard Bartle and Mike McShaffry of Origin Systems; a gift shop; offices for the immortals; and a location for Halloween live storytelling.
[edit] Scripting system
The LegendMUD "ACTS" system is an event-driven scripting system inspired by the EasyActs system in Worlds of Carnage. It did not, however, share any code. The ACTS system was never released, and therefore does not form part of the same direct family tree as MobProgs (which are directly based on the Worlds of Carnage code).
ACTS were written by Rick Delashmit, who went on to create the Wombat scripting language used in Ultima Online. There are clear similarities between the two.
[edit] Quests
LegendMUD's quests were extremely notable for the earlier days of muds. The largest of them were of a size comparable to smaller text adventures, and often included complex puzzles and emotionally involving storylines. These quests did not offer the "quest lock" mechanism more common in MMORPGs, and so were frequently designed so that multiple players could be at different stages of the same quest at the same time.[3]
[edit] Influence
[edit] A Story About A Tree
LegendMUD was the MUD played by Karyn, the player character in A Story About A Tree, an iconic tale of emotional involvement with virtual characters. Karyn, a popular player, turned out to be virtual in more than one sense; latter investigation by Tracy Spaight revealed that both her on-line and off-line personas were fictional characters.[4]
[edit] The Declaration of the Rights of Avatars
The Player Code of Conduct on LegendMUD was developed based on the notion that players and immortals alike were both members of the same community. This was a view informed by the developments on LambdaMOO. LegendMUD had a system of disciplinary warnings for immortals, and fired its first violating immortal prior to its opening date for spying on users using the snoop command.
After discussion with Kristen Koster and Jame Scholl (LegendMUD and TinyTim player), Raph Koster wrote "Declaring the Rights of Players" which was originally published on the MUD-Dev mailing list. Said declaration has since become a frequently cited and oft-reprinted article, appearing in multiple books and discussed at legal conferences related to virtual worlds[5].
[edit] Influence on MMORPGs
Four individuals on the original Ultima Online team were immortals on LegendMUD: Rick Delashmit (lead programmer), Raph Koster (creative lead), Kristen Koster (designer), an Todd McKimmey (designer). Delashmit has gone on to work on numerous MMORPGs including Star Wars Galaxies, and Koster went on to become Creative Director on Star Wars Galaxies and Chief Creative Officer at Sony Online Entertainment, as well as a commentator on muds, virtual worlds, and social media.
In addition, former Worlds of Carnage immortal Damion Schubert aka "Heretic" participated briefly on LegendMUD as well, assisting in the design of the combat system. Schubert went on to work on Meridian 59, Shadowbane, Ultima Online 2, and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic Online. Zack Karlsson, also a former LegendMUD immortal, went on to work at Sony Online Entertainment managing international CS, worked in business development at Sigil Games (makers of Vanguard) and today oversees business development for Namco Bandai.
Because of these connections, several elements of LegendMUD have had ongoing influence in the development of MMORPGs:
- The moods system found in Star Wars Galaxies is a direct copy of the LegendMUD system, even making use of some of the same messages.
- The LegendMUD Terms of Service document was notable for its emphasis on a social contract with its users. This gave rise to Koster's Declaration of the Rights of Avatars.
- The Ultima Online class action lawsuit was led by a former player of LegendMUD; in essence, a disgruntled player followed the Kosters from one game to another.[6]
- Many techniques of community management were imported from LegendMUD to Ultima Online.
- The script language architecture used on LegendMUD, which was itself derived from Worlds of Carnage, informed the way in which scripting was done in Ultima Online,'Star Wars Galaxies, and Metaplace.
[edit] Awards
From early on in its operation, LegendMUD received awards[7]:
- Mud of the Month, October 1995, The Mud Connector
- Top Ten Site for Interactive Fiction by XYZZYNews.
- LegendMUD is one of five Pueblo Recommended Worlds.
- An EyeOnTheWeb Selected Site Award winner.
- The Electronic Newsstand's MudGate's Mud of the Week for six months. "If you're only going to visit one mud, make it Legend," was what they said; you can read the entire review in the back issues of Legendary Times.
- One of a dozen MUDs listed by the Australian Net Guide.
- One of seven muds recommended by CNET, who wrote "Know what you're getting into when you choose a MU*, and be prepared to involve yourself, whether by living out your elfin fantasies, zooming around like Speed Racer, or building and exploring. If role-playing is what your alter ego has been craving, check out AnimeMUSH, which celebrates Japanese-style animation, or LegendMUD, a realistic history-based game with famously helpful players."
- Listed as one of 20 recommended muds in the print version of the Internet Yellow Pages.
- A top-ranked MUD according to Yahoo!'s Wild Web Rides, and described as "hot, hip, cutting-edge, a must-see." They also said the following: "This is travel through history the way it was meant to be! ... You'll want to explore all the areas of this great MUD... skills available are numerous and original... combat is fast and exhilarating... It would be really nice if more coders took the immense time and effort to study cultures of the past and put them into virtual worlds like this one."
- Harley Hahn's Internet & Web Yellow Pages lists LegendMUD second on the list of about 6 or 8 muds that are recommended.
[edit] References
- ↑ Fisdon Crowley (1994). "LegendMud Opening".
- ↑ Richard Bartle (2003). Designing Virtual Worlds. New Riders. pp. 741. ISBN 0131018167. "LegendMUD was itself an innovative game, boasting a number of features to promote role-playing that had never been implemented before."
- ↑ http://www.raphkoster.com/2005/12/17/beowulf/
- ↑ Bartle, Richard A., pages 703-705, Designing Virtual Worlds, New Riders (July 2003), Berkeley, trade paperback, 746 pages, ISBN 0131018167
- ↑ Balkin, J., and Noveck, Beth. The State of Play: Law, Games and Virtual Worlds. NYU Press, 2006. ISBN 081479971X, 9780814799710
- ↑ Developing Online Games, Patrovsky & Mulligan. New Riders, 2003. ISBN 1592730000, 9781592730001. Includes mention of LegendMUD's connection to subsequent developments in MMOs.
- ↑ http://web.archive.org/web/20011224062816/legendmud.org/firstpagecontents.html
[edit] External links
- A Story About A Tree
- Website of Raph Koster, former implementor.
