Merc (MUD)
Encyclopedia
Merc is a MUD
engine derived from Copper, which in turn was based on DikuMUD
. First released in March 1991, DikuMUD served as the basis for many later MUDs.
In his book Designing Virtual Worlds
, Richard Bartle
(co-creator of the original MUD) mentioned that "several major codebases (standalone MUD program suites) were created from the basic DikuMUD original, the main ones being Circle, Silly, and Merc. Merc spawned ROM (Rivers of MUD) and Envy, among others, and these in turn had their own spinoffs."
Merc was created by Michael Chastain ("Furey"), Michael Quan ("Kahn"), and Mitchell Tse ("Hatchet") at the University of California, Berkeley
and first released on December 18, 1992. Within months other mudders picked up the codebase and began to modify it for their own MUDs. Later in 1993, the Merc authors, going by the name MERC Industries, released version 2 and minor releases. MERC Industries dissolved on October 13, 1993 and the final Merc release was version 2.2 on November 24, 1993.
The "stock" Merc 2.2 release contains 47 areas (with the city of Midgaard serving as the starting location), four classes (cleric, mage, thief, and warrior), and 35 mortal player levels.
Merc-derived MUDs now form the largest branch in the Diku family. Several other highly influential MUDs are directly derived from Merc 2, including:
Merc MUDs must abide by the Merc license in addition to the Diku license since it is a derived work. Medievia
, a Merc1-derived MUD, has been the source of much controversy for allegedly not conforming to the Diku license since it does not attribute the Diku authors in its title screen and its commercially exploitation of the game.
MUD
A MUD , pronounced , is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, with the term usually referring to text-based instances of these. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, player versus player, interactive fiction, and online chat...
engine derived from Copper, which in turn was based on DikuMUD
DikuMUD
DikuMUD is a multiplayer text-based role-playing game, which is a type of MUD. It was written in 1990 and 1991 by Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, Katja Nyboe, Michael Seifert, and Hans Henrik Staerfeldt at DIKU —the department of computer science at the University of Copenhagen in Copenhagen,...
. First released in March 1991, DikuMUD served as the basis for many later MUDs.
In his book Designing Virtual Worlds
Designing Virtual Worlds
Designing Virtual Worlds is a definitive work on the practice of virtual world development by Richard Bartle, the father of MUDs. It has been called "the bible of MMORPG design" and spoken of as "excellent", "seminal", "widely read", "the standard text on the subject", "the most comprehensive...
, Richard Bartle
Richard Bartle
Richard Allan Bartle is a British writer, professor and game researcher, best known for being the co-creator of MUD1 and the author of the seminal Designing Virtual Worlds. He is one of the pioneers of the massively multiplayer online game industry.-Life and career:Bartle received a Ph.D...
(co-creator of the original MUD) mentioned that "several major codebases (standalone MUD program suites) were created from the basic DikuMUD original, the main ones being Circle, Silly, and Merc. Merc spawned ROM (Rivers of MUD) and Envy, among others, and these in turn had their own spinoffs."
Merc was created by Michael Chastain ("Furey"), Michael Quan ("Kahn"), and Mitchell Tse ("Hatchet") at the University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
and first released on December 18, 1992. Within months other mudders picked up the codebase and began to modify it for their own MUDs. Later in 1993, the Merc authors, going by the name MERC Industries, released version 2 and minor releases. MERC Industries dissolved on October 13, 1993 and the final Merc release was version 2.2 on November 24, 1993.
The "stock" Merc 2.2 release contains 47 areas (with the city of Midgaard serving as the starting location), four classes (cleric, mage, thief, and warrior), and 35 mortal player levels.
Merc-derived MUDs now form the largest branch in the Diku family. Several other highly influential MUDs are directly derived from Merc 2, including:
- EnvyMUDEnvyMUDEnvyMUD is a MUD codebase written by Michael Chastain, Michael Quan, Mitchell Tse, David Love, and Guilherme Arnold which was created in 1994 as a derivate of the Merc codebase which itself was based on DikuMUD....
- GodWarsGodWarsGodWars is a MUD engine derived from Merc, created in 1995 by Richard Woolcock, better known in the MUD community as "KaVir". GodWars MUDs are typically loosely based on White Wolf games such as Vampire: The Masquerade, and generally offer supernatural classes such as Vampire, Werewolf, Mage and...
- ROMROM (MUD)ROM is a MUD codebase derived from Merc, which is based on DikuMUD. Russ "Alander" Taylor released Rom 2.3 in 1993.The most current publicly available version of Rom is , which was released in May 1998....
- SMAUGSMAUGSMAUG is a Merc and DikuMUD derived MUD server. Its name is a backronym inspired by the dragon Smaug found in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction. The project was started in May of 1994 by Derek Snider and in July of 1994, Realms of Despair, was opened to the public...
Merc MUDs must abide by the Merc license in addition to the Diku license since it is a derived work. Medievia
Medievia
Medievia is a MUD, an online text-based role-playing game. The game was initially created by Michael A. "Highlander" Smith, Anthony "Balor" Rowley, and Michael "Vryce" Krause in March 1992, using the Merc 1.00 MUD engine...
, a Merc1-derived MUD, has been the source of much controversy for allegedly not conforming to the Diku license since it does not attribute the Diku authors in its title screen and its commercially exploitation of the game.