The MUD's influence on MMO's from Raph Koster Posted on 2008-06-27 by John (Admin) 2 Comments

This was a very interesting post (and so was the explosion of discussion following Mr. Bartle's statements in an interview at Massively). I found it all relevant to some degree to the discussion previously begun on MMOs vs the World. Read on!

Quoted from Raph's Website: 

As part of the ongoing raking over the coals of Richard Bartle for saying the obvious (yes, you can tell what side I am on in those debates!), Steve Danuser says over at Moorgard.com » Sacred Cows

I get tired of people implying that today’s MMOs owe their entire existence to the MUDs of yesteryear. Sorry, I disagree. The gameplay style of EQ or WoW is obviously influenced by MUDs, but I propose that MMOs would have evolved anyway.

And Ryan Shwayder posts in comments saying

Ultima Online is a direct descendant of what MUD? I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m just saying that I don’t know what particular MUD had a profound influence on that game. It seems like the MMO industry was born of different influences; EverQuest from DikiMuds, Ultima Online from Ultima games. Not all MMOs have a lot of direct comparisons to MUDs, so I think he’s right that they’d exist whether MUDs did or not.

Well…

There’s little doubt that MMOs would have evolved anyway. In fact, they actually DID evolve anyway. MMOs were created simultaneously and independently by a dozen groups at once. The folks doing Meridian 59 did not know about the folks doing Kingdom of the Winds, and so on. Not to mention older antecedents like Habitat. MUDs, in fact, were also invented independently at least four times, as Bartle himself has stated many times over.

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