Games - NiMUD

	Games - NiMUD

NiMUD is a periodically updated package of open source MUD software. It has been distributed as "NiMUD", "TheIsles" and "NiM5". The project included what became a popular variant of online creation for Merc DikuMUD, and possesses features adapted from LPC and DuneMUSH. It was modified from the original Merc code by Herb ("Locke") Gilliland and Christopher ("Surreality") Woodward over the telephone and via the internet in Pittsburgh, PA, primarily using the MS-DOS djgpp, and later developed for Debian linux using gcc.

Project History

NiMUD started as a project called "CthulhuMUD" , but author Locke later changed its name to "Nameless Incarnate MUD" in reference to Locke's first mudding experience on a Merc 1.0 called "Nameless Merc". After Locke discovered ' by philologist Farrell Till, whom he contacted after discovering the connection, he went with it artistically, and used the cultural history of Assyria to develop some of the gameplay and thematic elements in the game The Isles'.

It was first officially publicly released on July 29, 1994, but was distributed earlier as "TheIsles15.code.tar.gz". Locke alleges the original version "TheIsles15.code.tar.gz" was modified by an FTP site owner who refused to host the files due to "licensing issues." It was this version, and the subsequent "TheIsles16.code.tar.gz" that contained the original OLC.

An updated source code was distributed in mid-1994 as "The Isles 1.1". NiMUD had already been changed to the title of the software as early as 1993. It contained distinctly different core routines, after a process known as the long overhaul, which was a 6 month period from January 1 to June 28, 1994, involving Locke's personal rewriting of all parts of the code that weren't OLC, creating a distinct, different project entitled NiMUD.

Described as a more advanced codebase among Diku derivatives , NiMUD has its own scripting language, and online creation system. One of the team's efforts was to insure that many of the numbers and digits could be read in English, and that most of the descriptions used full words and descriptive text instead of broken sentences with bad grammar, to facilitate the use of screen readers for the blind. Later versions of NiMUD utilize NASA data to generate worlds, a full-screen debugger and ASCII graphics language, OLC and "Trace" action recording features. The team grew after Surreal left the project. NiMUD's major contributers include (Callista) of IdeaLab and and Newt, the mud administrator of a hybrid William Gibson / Bruce Sterling-like historical science fiction world called Imperial Gothique. Newt developed the original combat routines. Zlixlt and Kalgen (Alex Dzur) were an inspiration with their mud, also based on Merc 2.2, entitled . The OLC feature was inspired by the online building system of Hidden Worlds and was later enhanced with ideas from PennMUSH, the software on which DuneMUSH
was built (specifically the world generation and script language are inspired by the DSpace and MUSHcode of DuneMUSH
).
Derived works
The "online creation system" was ported as ILAB/OLC in 1994, and derived as EnvyOLC and ROMolc. It has been included in at least 35 derived works and over 300 online games. Features from NiMUD also have been integrated into Lyonesse an Italian-language variant. The most popular derivative is ROMolc, which, along with the ROM (MUD)
code, are excellent examples of NiMUD-inspired work.

NiMUD also influenced popular MUD Aldara ]I[ by Morgenes, head administrator of Armageddon.

A version was ported, with permission, to Windows 32-bit API by Omar Yehia (Lordrom), in 1996.

Its online creation was ported as ILAB/OLC by Jason Dinkel and later released as EnvyOLC.
Dedication
It is dedicated to Christopher "Surreal" Woodward, its co-author, who died December 13th, 1995 from complications due to an operation on an hour-glass shaped "benign" tumor located in his brain. The cause of this tumor, though speculative, may have involved prolonged exposure to a Cathode-Ray Tube (this was the reason his parents were given during the last few months he was alive). Despite treatment, he was killed by the part of the tumor that could not be removed. Woodward was a first-year computer engineering student at Penn State and had been an active member of both the BBS and MUD communities, contributing to PennMUSH (Dune), Telegard
and Renegade
BBS software, and Merc
, a variant of Dikumud.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for NiMUD ]

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