MUD1

One university mainframe became a world people could inhabit together.

At Essex University in 1978, Roy Trubshaw began MUD on a DECsystem-10 mainframe. Richard Bartle soon joined him and later completed much of the world known as MUD1.

Players typed commands to explore The Land and read descriptions of their surroundings. The crucial difference was that other people were there too. They could talk, cooperate or fight while climbing toward the rank of Wizard or Witch.

That shared world became a model others followed. MUD players began creating virtual worlds of their own, and the descendants inherited its name: MUDs. The MUD tradition became one of the foundations of the graphical MMORPG.

MUD1 did more than imagine online worlds. It started a family of them.