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So I've been reading "Surfing on the Internet", written by #JCHerz in about 1994. It talks about #MUD and #MOO. I had only heard of them in passing back then.

Reading the book, I realize: Whoa, these things are like multiplayer #interactiveFiction . Not just that, but the world can be programmed.

It's like the #Emacs of gaming.

Some #MUDs are still active now. Some of these games have been going for 30 or 40 years.

What are good resources to learn about MUDs?

#emacs #interactivefiction #muds #MUD #jcherz #moo
in reply to John Goerzen

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
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I got deep into MOOs in the mid to late 90s. The MOO implementation I'm familiar with is LambdaMOO, which was the name of both the server software and the original server instance. Not sure what the most active or interesting servers/instances are these days. The official web page still seems to be moo.mud.org/

MOO home page

www.moo.mud.org
in reply to Matt Campbell

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
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Speaking of Emacs, there was a MOO client for Emacs called RMOO, originally written by Ron Tapia. By the time I found it in 1999, it was already abandoned. So I forked it, and added Emacspeak support and a few other enhancements. Then I in turn abandoned my fork, and you can find at least one descendant on GitHub.

Khronos reshared this.

in reply to Matt Campbell

John Goerzen
John Goerzen
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@matt That's the exact one J. C. Herz wrote the most about, and I'm checking it out. Amazingly similar to what she described 30 years ago! I wish I had known enough to ask you about MOOs back then.
@Matt Campbell
in reply to John Goerzen

Matt Campbell
Matt Campbell
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Also check out this more recent retrospective on LambdaMOO by Aaron A. Reed: if50.substack.com/p/1990-lambd… That whole series is interesting.

1990: LambdaMOO

In a world where players could reshape everything about their virtual reality, a vibrant, creative, and radically self-sufficient community was born.
Aaron A. Reed (50 Years of Text Games)
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