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Online Creation (OLC, sometimes also referred to as Online Coding) is a software feature, often found in MUDs, that allows users to edit world data while simultaneously playing the game. Without OLC, these programs would typically require a restart in order to implement any changes to the map or objects databases. Some refer to the power to create online as "wizard", "builder", "customization" and "immortal" features, or "online building".

Online creation as original content

An aspect of online creation that separates it from "mere gameplay" is that online creation systems can generally be used to create new content — new objects, new locations, new creatures — rather than simply creating instances of predefined items in the game world. Richard Bartle has observed that certain forms of online creation — notably those associated with creating new commands — can threaten the stability of the server.

History

Origins

The first publicly available mud that featured in-game creation of the game world was Monster and was released in 1988 by Richard Skrenta.

"Monster allows players to do something that very few, if any, other games allow: the players themselves create the fantasy world as part of the game. Players can create objects, make locations, and set up puzzles for other players to solve. Game mechanisms allow players to:

• Create and describe new objects and locations
• Specify how game objects function
• Provide text descriptions for events that may happen

Further modifications could made via the menu-based Customize command.

For rooms, the name, primary and secondary descriptions could be changed. A mystery message could be added to a room that would be displayed when a magic object was brought into a room by a player. Trapdoors could be created to bounce players to a named exit (triggered by a random chance) or for bouncing dropped objects to another room.

For exits, one could set multiple aliases (i.e. n|north|road) as well as extended descriptions. Player traversal of exits could be blocked or allowed if a magic object was defined on the exit. Success and failure messages for attempted traversal could be defined as well as the messages other players saw when a player entered or came out of an exit. Exits could be marked concealed and/or flagged as doors to require the player to attempt to open a door or search the room for concealed exits.

For objects, one could edit the description, the article to be used with it (i.e. 'a', 'an', 'some'), and an extended description shown upon closer examination. A magic object or magic room could be defined that would allow or prevent an object from being picked up or used unless inside a specific place. Like exits, success and failure messages could be defined for 'getting' or 'using' an object. An object's type could be set which allowed pre-programmed behavior.

Popularity Spreads

Monster heavily influenced Jim Aspnes's design of TinyMUD. Written and released in 1989, TinyMUD was an attempt to create "stripped-down" version of Monster with just object creation and locking. As time went on, and TinyMUD gained popularity, some of the functionality that was deliberately left out was reinvented.

TinyMUD itself inspired an entire family of MUDs based entirely on the premise of allowing users to build online. Among those subsequent MUDs are TinyMUCK and TinyMUSH.

TinyMUCK, released in 1990, added the following features to the "online building" interface: the ability to write and modify multi-user Forth programs online, the ability to attach these programs to things — such as objects, rooms and players — and the ability to delete objects online. TinyMUSH's online creation language is more Lisp-like in nature.

Descendants and Imitators

Other MUD-like systems that allow creation of online content have followed on from these early comers. Some of these are simply alternative implementations, and others provide significant new features. For example, LPMud (1989) tries to avoid the stability risks identified later by Bartle by abstracting the system into a virtual machine which is protected from mistakes made in objects written in the game's LPC programming language. Other popular MUDs that shipped with online creation features include LambdaMOO, and CoolMUD.

Diku and Merc MUDs did not originally support OLC capabilities — DikuMUD specifically was originally designed to be a better AberMUD — but a number of different packages were created to add them. The first publicly available on-line creation system for Dikumud, Armageddon OLC was written and released in 1992 by Dan Brumleve. It allowed builders to create zones, rooms, exits, objects, and mobiles interactively via a non-modal command line interface. The Isles OLC was written by Herb "Locke" Gilliland and Christopher "Surreal" Woodward, and was released in 1994 Its descendents are the most widely used OLC for Merc derived MUDs today.

Prevalence

According to an article at The Guardian:

It's an emerging rule of thumb that suggests that if you get a group of 100 people online then one will create content, 10 will "interact" with it (commenting or offering improvements) and the other 89 will just view it.

While there is some research cited in the article support this supposition, it's unknown how pervasive this effect is.

References

1. Richard Bartle, "Interactive Multi-User Computer Games" (1990), , last accessed 2 October 2006
2. skrenta.com "Monster"
3. Raph Koshter, "Online World Timeline", raphkoster.com last accessed 2 October 2006
4. Martin Keegan, "A Classification of MUDs", last accessed 2 October 2006
5. www.linnaean.org
6. ludd.luth.se MUD history
7. Virtual Worlds and Their History, Universiteit Utrecht, InfoVW 2006.
8. "rec.games.mud > Armageddon", Google Group, . Retrieved 6 October 2006
9. "rec.games.mud > *** Builder advice *****", Google Group . Retrieved 6 October 2006
10. "rec.games.mud.diku > reposting of stupidly deleted article ", Google Group . Retrieved 6 October 2006
11. "Mud Connector Listings Gateway" . Retrieved 6 October 2006
12. Charles Arthur, "What is the 1% rule?", The Guardian, Thursday July 20, 2006

External links

• TinyMUX Wiki MUSHcode help, Server details, and indepth articles for the four major MUSH codebases.
• MUSHCode.com MUSHcoding and MUSH related resources.
• Monster's Web Home
• "A brief guide to TinyMud" by Jennifer Stone and Rusty Wright