My Time With MUDs (Multi User Dungeons)

I talk about how I made gaming areas in MUDs in the late 1980s, and how one of those areas from another wizard inspired the talking cows in Fallout.

[MilleniaD]

I grew up on MUDs, it's refreshing to see someone talk about them!! I feel like they're a largely forgotten and ignored part of game history even if they were instrumental in many ways

[Kauffy]

I learned to code because I wanted to make adventure games, and this culminated in my developing a MUD (before they were called that). That project probably kept me alive through my turbulent teenaged years. (Coincidence: I lived in Bethesda at the time)

[MMArtDamage]

Wintermute is the name of one of the AIs in WIlliam Gibson's 'Neuromancer'.

[SpotAllen]

Absolutely love hearing stories about MUDs. Especially on the development side. Great stuff.

[nezimar]

'Alas, you have entered the Realms of Despair...' Loved that one in the 90s. What's crazy is I still recall how the world 'looks', mapped out in my head. No other experience like it outside of just reading.

[leif]

I did game development for 6 years, working in three MMOs. Then, I took a 12-year hiatus to work in finance and retail. And now, I'm returning to game development in 2024. Fallout has always been one of my favorite games, and I’ve always been drawn toward text-based games. Thanks for your work and inspiring videos. I’m glad I stumbled upon this video when reminiscing on the early days of online gaming.

[christopherdavis]

Always love waking up to story time tales from Papa Bear Tim.

[ebrim]

I really cut my adventure gaming teeth on MUDs in the 90’s as a teenager. Very fond memories and some of the places in the games I still remember quite vividly. There was no chaos quite like the town square with all the empaths fixing the broken characters being dragged in from the wilds.

[PugFury]

These stories have been the highlight of my day since you started putting them out. Thank you for doing them and please don't ever stop!

P.S. So that's why talking cows are ok :)

[fightingfortruth]

Your story brings back my own memories.
My dad never made much money so getting a new video game back in the 80s & 90s was maybe annual event at Christmas. Also, paying a sub for an online game was completely out of the question. So MUDs were the only thing I could play back then.
I remember this one MUD I played often where I role-played as a thief or robber. I created my own little clan of 5 or 6 other players where we would jump out of the shadows at passing players and make them pay us gold. We had our own little lair in the sewers of this city. At one point we got into a gang war with another local clan. We'd always trash talk each other online when we'd see each other.
Such a great time and such great memories. No online game has ever come close since then.

[somasatori]

I played on a ton of MUDs when I was a teenager before moving on to the MU*/MUX scene after I lost my gaming group. The MUD I played the most was one called Iconoclast, an original IP cyberpunk game set a semi-post apocalyptic world where this mega city was under a dome. To be honest, I think it was more of a biopunk game, since the main emphasis was on gene hacking and genetic abnormalities. Anyway, some of the people I met there actually had me do some writing gigs for TTRPGs with them, so you're absolutely right about creativity being where you find it!

[scbtripwire]

OMG, I loved playing MUDs, those were so captivating!

[JaymeSplendid]

Man, I used to play the FK out of MUDS back in the 90s! I was a homeless squatter punk around 18 and had this old run down, single story apt block that was abandoned in what was then called the "Student Ghetto" in East Lansing Michigan. The 7 or 8 units where shuttered back in the late 80's but it still had running water but no electric. There was about 6 of us living there. I met this kid who was a student at MSU and introduced me to MUDs and took me to the computer lab that was in the lower floor of the student union, was 24hrs a day Sunday-Thurs and closed at 12am Friday and Sat during school season and closed at 12am during breaks.
This was around 94-95. The computer lab as full 1990 Macintosh Classics, one Power Mac and a bunch of Windows 486 machines. You didn't need a login for the Macs but when they updated the PC's you did, but by then I has a slew of logins due to keystroke loggers I'd stick on the macs due to them not doing a fresh reboot when rebooting and everything would be saved if it where turned off.
I started on a MERC mud that was bare bones when it came to player selection. You had the common races and only four classes which where Sorcerer, Warrior, Thief and Cleric and the top level was 33 and then you would hit "Immortality" which was very rare and took months of grinding. As an "Imm" you were granted special privileges where you could help out other players as if you were an admin, coder etc but did not have all the abilities they would have. The MUD was called "Evil In The Extreme" and had over 60 players and was a PK optional MUD. When that closed down, I tried to find MUDS that where similar in codebase as I knew how to move around in those and a good chunk of these MUDS has most of the same zones. Some would have the newbie areas like the circus area, some would have Smurf Village, Gnome Village, Dwarven Village, Elemental Canon etc. I moved on to Envy, then Circle, Rom and then RoT. I also played the OG God Wars mud and the OG Vampire Wars MUD where I guess there was some mad drama between the two over "stolen code" or whatever. All of these muds had at least 30-50 players on at all times. In the beginning, I would search for MUDS using Gopher, then as the WEB began to grow larger and larger, moved over to the MUD connector.

I miss MUDS so much and got so good on a few of them with PK on the MUDS with the codebase I knew inside and out and had the same themes and NOT 100% original and from the ground up reworked.

[mikewaters]

I played probably one of the last MUDs ever I assume, in the late 2000s. Well past the dialup era. It was called Godwars 3 and it was stupid deep. This brought back memories.

[hpbecraft]

Story time with Tim is a great part of my day. Curious if you had direct talk with Bethesda when they were making Fallout 3, I'm sure you've already answered that and I missed it but that bomb part of your story sounds a lot like Megaton.

[touchtablet]

Hello Tim. You and all your friends/collaborators who participated in Fallout, then VTMB, I'll be infinitely grateful for the adventures and imaginations you proposed.
More than 20 years after their creation, I discovered these 3 games (with Fallout 2), literally taking me on a journey and becoming one of the best videogame experiences I've ever had.
I loved these games so much, that you are featured on my deskop wallpaper alongside other video game figures such as Aonuma, Kondo, Yamaoka, Toyama, Mikami, Ueda, Spector, Newell, Hennig, brothers Houser and Benzies, Colantonio, Carrier, Druckmann and Schofield.
I'm very happy to discover your channel and your anecdotes, advice, experiences and wisdom today!
Thank you very much from a French gamer, you're a very inspiring person. I wish you and your loved ones all the best.

[TransmentalMe]

This is seriously the best thing to hit YouTube in years and I love that there is just a small group of nerds gathering around Tim and showering him with appreciation. ❤

[vlanderable]

my parents grew up with MUD's and I can remember Dragon's Gate on AOL since my mother played it all the time before everquest. I've played ancient anguish but I'm sad to say MUD's were sorta on the way out when I got the chance to play them and I wish I could have experienced more especially Dragon's Gate, my mother still raves about the fun she had and misses it dearly to this day.

[PostapocMedia]

I can't agree more about what you said regarding the sources of inspiration. Best thing is to leave one's brain open to all kinds of things around you. Other arts, nature, literally everything. Also, I've noticed that most interesting things are being created by people who had multiple influences and experiences.

[borgy]

So cool! I remember MUDs from the IRC days. In 92 I started a BBS and ran Lord of the Red Dragon on it. Fun times!