MUDs - classic or dud?

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actually, no, MUDS - do they exist or are they just the collective hallucination of mid-90s cultural studies ethnographer academics??

i'm trying to write an essay on internet identity and discourse at the moment and all i can find is stuff on bleeding multi user dungeons/domains/dimensions.

having used various forms of internet since 1993 i can safely say that neither myself nor anyone i have ever known has ever been on a MUD.

in fact, i just googled a search for them and all i got back was more academic crap on MUDs!!!

so has anyone ever been on one, still go on them? the sound damn silly and something of an antiquated stereotype for recreational internet use.

― Wyndham Earl, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i saw people using them - they looked dreadful. the last time i saw it was in 93, though.

― bc, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah! MUDs! I had the same problem when I wrote my dissertation on virtual identity...these refs may be useful...

Tobin J: (1998); Am American Otaku (or, a boy’s virtual life on the net) in Sefton-Green J ed. (1998) Digital Diversions: youth culture in the age of multimedia, London: UCL press ltd. pp 106-127

Writing Oneself in Cyberspace The Construction of Identity in the Personal Homepages of Adolescents

― jel --, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Last time I was on a MUD was '92. It was much more fun in theory than it was in practice; in fact, my MUDding experience is preciesly why I don't do the online game/MMRPG thing.

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

And my favourite book:

Communities in Cyberspace edited by Smith and Kollock (Routledge 1999). Anything published before 1998 is going to be pretty much out of date. Therefore, you can make the point about the need for up to date research in a rapidly changing virtual environment.

Virtual Ethnography by Christine Hine is also worth checking out.

― jel --, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My oldest friend is a fanatic. He spends virtually all of his spare time playing Everquest - I think he claimed something like 30-40 hours playing time every week! He says they're not as good as the old RPGs with real people (we used to be in the same RPG group, years ago), but they have the advantage of always being available from your own home.

― Martin Skidmore, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

i found a link to a MUD based on DHALGREN when i first went on-line => i logged on two or three times, but never encountered a single other person playing, which in retrospect surprises me not one tiny bit (DHALGREN is a great book but boredom on stilts as roleplay surely?) (as is all roleplay anyway)

― mark s, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't ILE a MUD? Just with a bug huge anteroom?

― Brian MacDonald, Wednesday, 8 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Makes sense considering you're all characters I invented. Dance for me, puppet, DANCE!

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

> attack dragon

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

>unlock door with iron key

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

my IF game

Don't know that i ever linked to this before on ILE. sure i've mentioned it before. Danger! It's not finished.

― Alan Trewartha, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

> attack dragon

The dragon is not interested in you right now.

― Brian MacDonald, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

> bust a move

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

A voice BOOOOOOOOOOOMS out..."Nice try, geek."

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

>a robot appears

Oh no! FITE! Oh no!

― jel --, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

> smite ned

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I would LOVE to know where that Dahlgren link is, Mark - it's my favourite novel. It sounds like a terrible game environment, though, but irresistibly unsuitable.

― Martin Skidmore, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

smite ned

The dog eats Dan Perry -- it is undoubtedly the most delicious Dan Perry the dog has ever eaten -- and in the process avoids swallowing a miniature spacefleet.

I would LOVE to know where that Dahlgren link is, Mark - it's my favourite novel

Pretty amazing, I should give it a reread. I got into grad school thanks to my paper comparing James Baldwin's Another Country to said book (basic thesis = AC, the oppressive white male modern city reality before the apocalypse crushing the not-like-them characters, Dahlgren = after the apocalypse when said reality has been junked along with most of the rest of the place...all very precious of me, I'm sure, but I think there's something to it).

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

> e

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it's possibly still on my old computer martin, i shall fire it up when the mule is fed and watered

― mark s, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

>take aspirin

― bc, Thursday, 9 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Ned, I've compared Delany and Baldwin in writing too - though not specifically those books. I think they have a fair bit in common in their way of writing prose, and in their sensibilities.

But Dhalgren isn't necessarily post-apocalyptic.

― Martin Skidmore, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

some unnamed catastrophe, rather than Ver Apocalypse: ignoring the vexed matter of "influence" heh delany surely certainly READ baldwin

i found the url martin tho could not access it last night :(

i will post it when i get home

― mark s, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Alan I am STUCK on your game. I do not gerrit.

― Sarah, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

e-mail me at work if you want help/clues. it's hardly a great game, and it helps if you are already familiar with the medium's (admittedly bonkers) conventions. if you really want to play games like this you're better off downloading a z-machine interpreter and the .z5 file. that way you can save and restore games too (which you can't do in java)

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

But Dhalgren isn't necessarily post-apocalyptic.

Not in the sense that there's nothing left, no -- but in that a certain 'reality' has been trashed, perhaps. I sometimes suspect I got into the program because nobody on the admissions committee had read Delany. ;-)

Actually, there's an idea for an essay if nobody's done it, comparing seventies sf apocalypses of reality -- start with Moorcock, Delany and Ballard.

― Ned Raggett, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm CRUSHED that nobody made an E joke! (Not really.)

― Dan Perry, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

>go west

Life is peaceful here

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Meh. I can't even do the first bit.

― Sarah, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Type get up.

― RickyT, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Push lid, then get up

― Simeon, Friday, 10 May 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

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