A Bibliography, Resources, and Hotlists

1. Overview
2. General References
3. MUD Programming
4. The Bibliography:
   1. Published (paper) works.
   2. Published works available on-line.
   3. On-line References:
      • Papers.
      • Technical articles, manuals and guides.
      • Usenet groups.
      • General Indexes and Resources.

Overview:

The term MUD stands for Multi-User Dungeon, and was coined after Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle wrote their first on-line multi-user interactive adventure game in 1979. Since that time, MUDs have become enormously popular, primarily as games, but also as social environments and, more recently, communication tools. Various types have evolved, including MUSH, MUSE, MOO, MUCK, diku-MUD, lp-MUD, and others. (A description of their differences may be found in the documents referenced below. See particularly, J. Smith's FAQ documents.)

All of these have in common the property of being text-based virtual environments providing multi-user, real-time interaction. The term MUD is usually used generically to refer to all such environments. There are literally hundreds of MUDS operating on the Internet. A large list of them can be found in Scott Goehring's ``Totally Unofficial List of Internet Muds.''

General References:

More detailed information on MUDs can be found in some of the following sources:

• Web page with MUD and Text-based VR references maintained by Chris Hand
• FTP archive with papers on MOO related topics maintained at parcftp.xerox.com
• Relevant papers at the MIT media lab maintained by Amy Bruckman
• Web page of information on MOO with pointers to many interesting servers for text(MUD)-based virtual reality. Maintained by Andrew Wilson.
• Clickable MUD-List Cardiff's MUD Page.
• MUD Information Info about Lysator's MUD's, and MUD's in general
• Index page A very complete index page, including a MudInfo page. Maintained by Lydia Leong
• The MUDdex A historically oriented page by Lauren P. Burka
• MUD FTP Archive at OKstate Clients, docs, Mud-FAQ
• CS Mudlist based on Doran's Mudlist
• Doran's Mudlist It's the Real thing!

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MUD Programming References

One of the reasons MUDs are so popular is that they can be dynamically extended or changed through the use of an internal programming language. Typically this is done by the Wizards or programmers of the MUD. The following is a list of programming references for some major types of MUDs (although many others also exist).

LPMuds

LPmud Frequently-Asked Questions (FAQ). George Reese maintains an excellent FAQ with many hints on programming and running LPMuds. Most of the documentation is also available online.

 

MOO

Pavel Curtis' LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual is the canonical source of documentation for MOO programming. It has also been made available in hypertext form. FTP MOO dir at Xerox (home of Lambda MOO). Has MOO client and server software, manuals, also some important papers.

• Manuals Manuals
• Papers Important Papers
• README File README File

Netgames

Reference materials, design notes, dealing with Virtual World Design. Articles dealing with Shareworld, CyberTerm. Some quite technical.

 

MUSH/MUSE

Manuals for programming the MUSH and MUSE versions of MUDs are available at numerous ftp sites, notably:

• tcp.com This site also has a rich collection of other mud-related materials.
• Fredrik's MUSH PageThe manuals, plus much more.
• A MUSE site with the manual and a number of links to the use of MUSE-based TBVR in education.

General MUD

Lysator Lysator (an Academic Computer Society at Linkoping University in Linkoping Sweden) has a web page about some of their MUDs. The Linkoping Gaming Hotel runs a WWW server from within a MUD at Lysator. Its purpose is to provide more information about MUDs. Info about Lysators MUD's, and MUD's in general.

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The MUD Bibliography

I - Traditional (paper) Published Works of (Some) Relevance:

• C. Rich et al., ``Demonstration of an Interactive Multimedia Environment,'' IEEE Computer, Vol. 27, No. 12, Dec. 1994, pp. 15-22.)
• R. Evard, ``Collaborative Networked Communications: MUDS as system tools.'' Proceedings of the Seventh System Administration Conference (LISA VII), p 1-8, Nov. 1993, Monterey, CA.
• Benedikt, Michael, ed. (1991). Cyberspace, First Steps. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
• H. Rheingold, Virtual Reality, Summit Books, New York, 1991.
• Oldenburg, Ray (1989). The Great Good Place. New York: Paragon House.
• Turkle, Sherry (1984). The Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit. New York: Simon & Schuster.
• Berners-Lee, T.J., Cailliau, R., Groff, J-F, Pollermann, B., "World-Wide Web: The Information Universe," Electronic Networking: Research, Applications and Policy, Volume 2 Number 1, pages 52-58, Spring 1992
• Berners-Lee, T.J., Cailliau, R., Pellow, N., Secret, A., "The World Wide Web Initiative," INET93 proceedings, San Francisco, 1993.
• Quittner, Josh, "Johnny Manhattan Meets the FurryMuckers," Wired , pages 92-138, March 1994
• Kaufman, Morgan, "Multimedia on the Internet," proceedings of Groupware '93, San Jose, California, August 1993.

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II - Published papers also available on-line:

• Bruckman's Homepage Including such papers as Identity-workshop. Bruckman, Amy (1992-3) Available via anonymous ftp: Identity workshop: Emergent Social and Psychological Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Reality.
• Cultural relations in text-based virtual realities. Elizabeth Reid, 1994.
• Social Phenomena P. Curtis, "Mudding: Social Phenomena in Text-Based Virtual Realities", in the Proceedings of the 1992 Conference on the Directions and Implications of Advanced Computing, Berkeley, May 1992.
• MOOGopher Gopher service from MOOs.

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III - Online References:

• Papers:

• ftp://ftp .ccs.neu.edu//pub/mud/docs/papers/mudreport.ps.gz "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games" R. Bartle, December 1990.
• ftp://parcftp .xerox.com//pub/MOO/ProgrammersManual.ps LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual LamdaMOO Programmers Manual, Curtis, P.
• ftp://parcftp .xerox.com//pub/MOO/papers/MUDsGrowUp.ps MUDs Grow Up: Social Virtual P. Curtis and D. Nichols
• Copernicus MUSEs in education (A BBN page)
• Xerox Archive Several formats are available.
• MUDs Grow Up Social Reality in the Real World by Pavel Curtis and David A. Nichols

  Technical Articles and Manuals and guides:

• Gopher from MOO Gopher from MOO (PS Format) by Larry Masinter and Erik Ostrom
• MUDS Collaborative Networked Communication: MUDs as Systems Tools by R8my Evard.
• MediaMOO papers MediaMOO archive (FTP dir).
• Beginner's guide A beginner's guide to MOOing
• GNA Index to GNA virtual campuses
• Programmers Manual LambdaMOO Programmer's Manual
• Amberyl's Automated MUSH List Amberyl's Automated MUSH List reports addresses and connection data of MUSHes over the past 24 hours.
• Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet The "MUD" entries in the Big Dummy's Guide to the Internet
• Mud FAQ Part 1 MUd FAQ Part 1(Basic Information about MUDs and MUDding)
• Mud FAQ Part 2 MUD FAQ Part 2(MUD clients and Servers)
• Mud FAQ Part 3 MUD FAQ Part 3(Basic Information on RWHO and mudwho)
• MU* Documents Jamie Norrish's MU* Documents.
• MU* Resources Guides, Documents, Information.
• MUD's at LUDD Multi User's Dimensions at LUDD
• MOO FAQ MOO FAQ that will help get you started.
• WWW and MOO WWW and MOO by Coleman and Reilly
• Links Between MUDS and WWW Linking MUDs to the Web.
• GNA and WWW WWW and the Globewide Network Academy.
• The JHM Project The JHM Project to investigate text-based virtual realities.
• JHM projects This has a lot of interesting subprojects (e.g. the MOO Client Protocol proposal)

  Relevant Usenet Groups:

• rec.games.mud
• rec.games.mud.announce
• rec.games.mud.admin
• rec.games.mud.tiny

  General indexes:

• Cardiff's VR Page Cardiff's VR Page. Information on MOO ("Mud, Object-Oriented"). Has pointers to many interesting servers for text(MUD)-based VR,
• Cardiff's MUD Page Cardiff's MUD Page It has a good clickable MUD-List.
• FTP MOO dir at Xerox FTP MOO dir at Xerox (home of Lambda MOO). Has MOO client and server software, manuals, but also some important papers.
• FTP MOO dir at Xerox papers FTO MOO at Xerox (home of Lambda MOO).
• FTP MOO dir at Xerox, README file. Find and click on the README file.
• Very complete Index Page MudInfo page by Lydia Leong (U. Penn).Very complete Index Page.
• The MUDdex-1 A historically oriented page by Lauren P. Burka.
• Mud List by Chris Jackson Mud List by Chris Jackson (game-oriented, telnet buttons for many MUD's).
• MUD info Info about Lysators MUD's, and MUD's in genteral.
• MUD FTP Archive at OKstate MUD FTP Archive at OKstate: Clients, Docs, Mud-FAQ.
• Cardiff's MUD Page Cardiff's MUD Page...including Dorans MUD List
• CS Mudlist Based on Dorans MUD List - conversion by Paul Gregg.
• Shadow RAM's MOO Page. Links to sites and code.

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General References:

More detailed information on MUDs can be found in some of the following sources:

• Lauren Burka (lpb@ccs.neu.edu) is maintaining a MUD Archive containing documents pertaining to the history of MUDs.
• WEB pages with MUD reference maintained by Chris Hand
• FTP archive with papers on MOO related topics archived at parcftp.zerox.com
• Relevant papers at the MIT media lab maintained by Amy Bruckman
• Information on MOO Has pointers to many interesting servers for text(MUD)-based VR
• Clickable MUD-List Cardiff's MUD Page
• Thud - a WWW homepage with mudlist pointers
• TMLH - A WWW homepage with pointers to MUD sites.
• Pointers to MUD sites An extensive and useful compilation of pointers to mudlists, sites, and other relevant information by Frank Crowell.
• Info about Lysator's MUD's, and MUD's in general
• Very complete index page Includes a MudInfo page by Lydia Leung
• The MUDdex A historically oriented page by Lauren P. Burka
• The MUDdex A historically oriented page by Lauren P. Burka
• MUD FTP Archive at OKstate Clients, docs, Mud-FAQ
• CS Mudlist based on Duran's Mudlist
• Duran's Mudlist It's the Real thing!

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