MUD Styles
The distinct forms of MUDS that evolved from the original
hack-and-slash
While not really akin to the hackand-slash genre that we recognise today, hack-and-slash MUDS are titles that focus on combat above anything else. The combat itself is commonly similar to D&D, though it is naturally implemented in a variety of ways across the spectrum of MUDS.
pk mud
If hack-and-slash is player versus environment, then this is the binary opposite to that. Fewer MUDS allowed for PVP – known as player killing, or ‘PK’ – but those that did would commonly built up a fanbase. Even fewer games allowed player-killing as the only form of combat, and these titles were known as ‘Pure PK’.
graphical
Due to the limitations of the technology at the time, graphical MUDS are the smallest of the varied categories. Beginning with Habitat in 1985, the term wasn’t properly used until the likes of Ultima Online, Everquest and Runescape made an appearance, at which point it quickly dropped out of use in favour of the more commonly recognised MMORPG.
role-playing
As you might expect, RP MUDS are favoured by those looking to get into their character. The genre and style of the game typically affects the types of characters that can be created, and some games emphasise role-play over combat while others combine the two together. To this day it remains an important aspect of virtual worlds, with almost any major MMO launching with role-play-exclusive servers.
social
This branch of MUDS really puts the gameplay to the background to allow for an environment more suited to interacting with people. It was this range of MUDS that then went on to spawn new terms like MOOS, MUXS and MUSHS, each with their distinct variants. The biggest point of social MUDS was to allow users to create content and share, akin to Second Life.
Talker
As an even more specific version of a social MUD, the concept of the ‘Talker’ shows just how innovative MUD was at the time. Talkers stripped away all of the gameplay of MUD and only leveraged the chat system. Nowadays we’d simply call them chat rooms, but back then there weren’t common tools in place for such communication and this was how players of MUDS retrofit their games to allow for it.
educational
Taking the constructional nature of MUDS – whereby much of their content can be created by any user with the right privileges – and in doing can be used well to teach. A handful of universities and students utilised the code base of varying MUDS for this very purpose, allowing students to learn coding by trying it themselves.