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| Author |
Message |
watcher
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Muck MUD
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Dec 20 22:07 UTC 1996 |
how about we house a muck or a mud or mudmuck?
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| 24 responses total. |
dang
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response 1 of 24:
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Dec 20 23:21 UTC 1996 |
At this point, I'd be against it. It takes too much resourses. Maybe if we
get a better link...
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janc
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response 2 of 24:
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Dec 20 23:26 UTC 1996 |
It'd be an interesting thing to do at some point. I think if we get a faster
CPU and a faster net connection, this might be a neat thing to try.
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srw
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response 3 of 24:
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Dec 21 20:47 UTC 1996 |
Agreed.
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bjorn
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response 4 of 24:
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Dec 21 23:31 UTC 1996 |
There is an item along this line in the MUDs conference. I will suggest to
our fairwitnesses for that conference to link this item, and upon finding the
other item, suggest that the fairwitnesses of this cf link the appropriate
item.
There are also some ideas there which will need clearence with gaming
companies, TSR mostly.
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bjorn
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response 5 of 24:
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Dec 21 23:41 UTC 1996 |
Items 5 and 12 of the MUDs conference are both appropriate to this item/issue.
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orinoco
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response 6 of 24:
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Dec 22 02:11 UTC 1996 |
Just a techie question--If I recall, the newuser program told me, many moons
ago when I first joined grex, not to bring MUD's on because they take up to
much bandwidth. Am I imagining this? Is it still true? How much harder
would is be to run a MUD than to run party?
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ajax
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response 7 of 24:
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Dec 22 02:43 UTC 1996 |
I think a distinction between types of MUDs/MUCKs/MOO is
useful. Some are more game-oriented, some are more chat-
oriented.
With the game-oriented variety, you get people zipping from
one virtual location to another, often not even interacting
with people, sometimes not even typing (by using complex macros
or MUD clients). Each location and encounter displays some
automatically-generated text. So a game-oriented MUD can use
a lot of bandwidth...a popular one can fill the better part
of a T1 on its own.
But with the chat-oriented variety, text that's sent is more
often typed in or otherwise generated by human participants,
as with party. That reduces the bandwidth requirement
tremendously. Such an environment wouldn't *necessarily* take
up any more bandwidth than party. Though in practice, room
descriptions and such are a usually few lines long, and noises
and gestures usually occur more frequently than noises are made
in party.
A non-bandwidth issue is that these sorts of programs often
use a lot more memory than party. One of the nice things about
party is that even though it's very popular, it uses relatively
little memory.
By running a MUD/MUCK/MOO with its own telnet port, so that
people wouldn't need to log in to Grex to play, supporting the
same number of users might actually be more memory-efficient
than party, but that opens a much larger can of worms.
Another issue, besides strictly technical ones, is that such
programs would just be too darned popular. I expect that it
would tilt the balance of resources toward that and away from
conferencing, and such a tilt would likely be opposed by a lot
of Grex's members.
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srw
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response 8 of 24:
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Dec 22 06:31 UTC 1996 |
In answer to 6, orinoco, no you are not imagining it. Yes it is still true
that it takes up too much bandwidth to consider. The current discussion is
about what might happen if we were able to obtain substantially more
bandwidth.
One possibility is that we might decide to experiment with a discussion
oriented project of this sort. I doubt we'd want to experiment in the
game-oriented direction, though.
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orinoco
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response 9 of 24:
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Dec 22 20:01 UTC 1996 |
But what difference is there between the discussion-oriented MUD's and party
as it now exists? THe fact that people use more noises, etc., seems to be
a difference in the type of people who use them, not in the programs
themselves.
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dang
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response 10 of 24:
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Dec 22 21:24 UTC 1996 |
Interface, mostly... :)
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orinoco
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response 11 of 24:
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Dec 23 01:38 UTC 1996 |
Er...seems fairly trivial, if all that would be happening is discussion either
way, and a MUD interface would somehow encourage noises over conversation.
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janc
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response 12 of 24:
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Dec 23 03:02 UTC 1996 |
It'd be accessible directly from the net, I think.
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tsty
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response 13 of 24:
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Dec 23 04:47 UTC 1996 |
um shut down muds (etc.) years ago and they have /had bandwidth to burn.
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steve
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response 14 of 24:
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Dec 23 16:02 UTC 1996 |
re #9: party uses *far* less bandwidth than MUDs do. Back about
six years ago I started hearing about MUDs and a friend of mine at
Northwestern was dealing with bandwidth issues that a MUD created.
I didn't see why, then, that the deal was until I saw the usage stats.
The unforunate reality is, one site simply cannot deal with a popular
MUD, becuase of the fact that even a DS3 (or T3, at 45Mbits/sec) can get
swamped with a large MUD. Since there are fewer and fewer places that
allow for MUDs at all, the usage of those sites tends to go up, once
folks in the MUD community find out about it.
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dang
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response 15 of 24:
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Dec 23 16:57 UTC 1996 |
UM has other reasons for not allowing muds than bandwidth. Something having
to do with a mission of teaching.
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steve
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response 16 of 24:
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Dec 23 18:35 UTC 1996 |
Heh.
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ajax
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response 17 of 24:
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Dec 24 05:02 UTC 1996 |
Re 11, it's also about being able to easily create and customize your
"environment." People create a virtual house or whatever, with descriptions
for objects that people can view. That's a different form of expression
that I think that goes beyond strictly a user interface difference.
Re 12, it could be set up to be accessible only from people logged into
Grex, or to people who aren't logged into Grex. I think for purposes of
this discussion, people are more interested in the former. The latter
would be quite a bit more controversial.
Re 14, STeve, your comments are why I think it's important to distinguish
between chat-oriented vs. game-oriented MUDs. You're almost certainly
talking about the hack-n-slash variety, which consume a lot more bandwidth.
Re 15, when I attended U-M, computer gaming was permitted in labs as long
as nobody else was waiting to use the facilities; I know of what I speak! ;-)
I know at least one MUD at U-M was closed specifically because of bandwidth
issues, as it consuming something like half their outbound Internet traffic,
and impacting U-M's non-gaming users. I think that's the same principle as
gaming in labs: they allow it unless it's hindering more defensible computer
use. (For that matter, I know lots of people at U-M who played computer games
for most of their work hours, as night-shift computer lab attendants :-).
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dang
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response 18 of 24:
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Dec 24 06:20 UTC 1996 |
Playing games certainly isn't prohibited at the labs. Last I knew, tho,
hosting muds on UM computers was.
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ajax
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response 19 of 24:
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Dec 24 07:18 UTC 1996 |
I guess I don't understand your comment in #15, then. Care to elaborate
on why MUDs are prohibited because of the "mission of teaching," independent
of bandwidth considerations?
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remmers
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response 20 of 24:
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Dec 24 11:43 UTC 1996 |
Chat-oriented MUD's are actually getting some serious attention
in academia nowadays.
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dang
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response 21 of 24:
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Dec 24 18:57 UTC 1996 |
(It was supposed to be sarcastic. Well, ironic. I haven't heard any kind
of accademic mission quoted in relation to the computers at UM what-so-ever.
I find this a bit amusing. Hope did have such missions quoted.)
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popcorn
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response 22 of 24:
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Dec 25 01:17 UTC 1996 |
I get the impression that U of M's goal is to make computers an integral part
of everyday life, rather than limiting them to only educational uses.
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dang
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response 23 of 24:
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Dec 25 03:45 UTC 1996 |
I get the impression UM has computers so that they can say "We have XX
computers!" :)
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tsty
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response 24 of 24:
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Dec 27 19:12 UTC 1996 |
re #13, #15 ... at the beginning we consultants were encouraged to get
into muds for education. then the bandwidth problem really got in the
way. REALLLY! got in the way. /sigh
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