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The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.

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4:39pm on Monday, 29th April, 2013:

MUDFE

Anecdote

I found a 3cm-thick set of documents today, held together with a bulldog clip that I had to use pliers to remove because it was on too tight. They were the design specs for the MUD2 client that Interplay was developing in 1994/95. They spent around 18 months on it overall before canning the project (the lead programmer left the company in protest over its policy regarding violence in games, and the producer who had commissioned the game resigned when the budget for Interplay's online services division was cut).

There was actually a close-to-working client for MUD2 by the end of it, but it was never completed. In the documents I found there was a screenshot for it, though:

The text appeared on the scroll in the middle, and when it rolled up so did the scroll. The little guy in the top corner turned a handle and seemed to be moving the scroll along. I believe there was an option to turn off this sugar-coating for when players got more serious and wanted less distraction, too.

Oh, what could have been...

Ah well, I think I'll dump all the documents in the recycling pile now. They have blood on them, which is usually not a healthy sign.

(That's literal blood, not metaphorical blood — it's all down the bottom edge) (and no I don't know whose it is or why it's there).

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MUDFE

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