What Is DynamicMUD?

Back when I was in high school I was an avid reader of PC Gamer. During this time I came across a very interesting advertisement. This full page add was entirely text, and described a game without graphics. A book you could write yourself while playing with other individuals on the internet. Needless to say I tried it out and got hooked on this genre of games.

While I no longer play this afforementioned game, it still invoked in me a desire to create. The feature of this game that stood out the most to me was the wilderness. This ASCII representation of a game world was the perfect set up for a game in my opinion, and had so much potential. Soon after the base concept for a new game was already forming. I would create a game that unlike it's predecessors would rely entirely on this representation to present the game world to it's players. At the time I had no programming skills, I made a few attempts at current codebases, but ultimately none of these would do, I grew bored and my ideas shrunk back to the back of my head.

Over the next few years my ideas expanded. I wanted not only a game where a wilderness was the whole game, I wanted a changeable wilderness. I thought, why not let the player deform the terrain, build their own structures, and blaze their own trails. DynamicMUD was born.

Since then the concept has grown into an even larger plan. During my summer before college I first experienced python and began coding haphazardly the game that I wanted. Much was learned from this experience, including the lesson that planning helps a lot in design. And more importantly, even though python was great for coding quick, it lead to many shortcuts. I realized that I needed to start over, this time with a plan to write a specification first, and dictate every feature I wanted first. Around that time I started this blog to document the journey from concept to specification to code.

I started over in java, planning everything to be modular and maintainable. Coding has been slow going, and I have yet to get to the level of completeness that was available in my python version. Despite this things continue to move, though very slowly, and someday DynamicMUD will be finished.

Dynamic is based on one primary concept, change. Nothing should ever be set in stone in a game. National boundaries wax and wane with wars, the landscape is shaped by these conflicts as well as the weather. Resources can be scarce. This will drive an in game economy and be the source of constant change, creating the history of the DynamicMUD game world.

Unlike most other MMORPGs currently on the market, players will suffer from finality when they die. They wont be resurrected, or brought back to life by any other means. Life spans will be short, and in the course of several years of game play many generations will live and die, adding to the flowing changes that take place in the world.

Players will rise to become great leaders, unite several tribes, and wage war for the land. Players may be betrayed and politics will be an ever present part of life in DynamicMUD. Essentially welcome to another world, where what you do is your choice. Live the life of a farmer, live in a quiet village and help supply your surrounding villages with food. Be a sword smith and become known across the land for producing the strongest cutting blades, outfit your nation's troops, and equip the war machine. Or be the soldier, command armies of troops and do the bidding of your lord. Destroy your enemies and burn their homes to the ground. These lifestyles as well as any others you can think of are yours to play out. The choice is yours.