@elrainia@lemmy.world describes working on internet infrastructure back in the 1990s. This was on one of those "drive by" AskLemmys where a new user posts a juicy question, then after a couple hours they delete the topic and their account. However, those posts and comments are still visible in Piefed, ex: https://piefed.social/post/1733969#comment_9969293
Great story but the first “MMO” was MUD, or Multi User Dungeon, created in 1978. Shades was inspired by MUD.
Just to extend your comment a little, I don't think most people that know what MUDs were are aware there was a singular game that they were named after. The game MUD spawned a genre, called "MUDs" obviously, just like Rogue did, which lead to "roguelikes".
SCENE: early 90s. I'm at a computer, desperately grinding on an LPMud. I have a packed suitcase at my feet because I have to catch a flight but I'm SO CLOSE to maxing out my main character and reaching the top "wizard" level. Grind, grind, grind, grind, finally I reach it! With fifteen minutes to go til the very last minute I can make the plane! I spend like 10 minutes walking around the MUD being the top level and chatting with people, then finally I run off and just barely catch the flight. I relax for a couple weeks. No computer access because it's the early 90s. I finally get back home and sign on to the MUD but... it's gone! WTF?! I ask around and it turns out the MUD got shut down bc the admin was running it off his work computer and his work finally caught on to all this weird network traffic! FML now I gotta do all that grinding again!
Actually the admin was cool, they were setting up a new MUD and said they'd start me out at wizard level, but I was like nah I already spent too much time on this, lel. And I never played MUDs again.
@JohnnyEnzyme@piefed.social @Elrainia@lemmy.world @dylanmorgan@slrpnk.net
Fun story and commentary on gaming addiction!
I don't recall playing MUD's in particular, but in the early aughts (the 2000's), I got seriously addicted to "Armagetron" (3D version of the grid-cycle game from the original TRON movie), and then "Gunbound," which was like a super-deluxe version of the old "Scorched Earth" artillery game. I'm kind of a late-bloomer in life, and those were sort of like a beer-filled, addictive multiplayer game that I otherwise would have been playing in college, more or less. So, good to get those out of my system, I guess.
uh... I dunno about "addiction"... but I used to play Civilization pretty much nonstop...
I love this story. Here is one of mine.
SCENE: The year is 1993, the hottest BBS door game is Usurper and the players on the local BBS are very, very competitive. How can I possibly do better? Well, the answer is obvious, I need to setup my own BBS with Usurper and figure out the exact perfect methodology within the game to become the stronger. So I do so, and I then write some text macros to handle some of the more tedious tasks I would do every single day when the turns reset. Eventually my character far outpaces everyone on the server with a wider gap every day and our group dominates the server. My team mates don't like that I am so much stronger and decide to boot me from the team, but fail to kill me. I then make a team of one and wipe them and every one else out every day for two weeks until they decide to reset the game. I have become the usurper.
woah that's pretty awesome, it's that old-school hacker spirit. I never heard of "door games" before, TIL about Usurper too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_(bulletin_board_system)
https://www.gamebanshee.com/bbs/guides/usurper.php
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMibRr6ZUM
I had an account on Cleveland Freenet back in the day but I never really used it for much.
I still remember the telnet address to the MUD I played in the late '90s. That will be burned in my brain forever.
I'm still playing them today. Rather an overlooked chapter in web history...
Eh, from what I'm reading, MUD1 could support only a few dozen simultaneous players at once.
My understanding of the definition of MMO's is that they commonly support somewhere between 2,000 and 20,000 simultaneous users, hence the word "massive" in the acronym. So, you know... it doesn't really seem like MUD1 fits that definition.
Shade couldn’t support anywhere near that many, but the poster refers to it as “(first mmo?)” which is why I commented.
So if I understand correctly, Shades was inspired by MUD1, but not actually an MMO by definition, i.e. "Massively Multiplayer Online."
It was definitely not a MMO! It was a bit of a joke comment (British humour - sorry). I’d be amazed if it had anything more than 100 consecutive players (that’s a complete guess).
I had no idea of it’s MUD heritage then and it’s only today that the comments above have really made me join those dots up.
Yep. I’m pretty sure the networking and computing tech required for a true MMO didn’t exist until ~1995, and pretty much as soon as it did we got Ultima Online and then EQ.