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Ragnarok (MUD)
Encyclopedia
Ragnarök, often abbreviated Rag, is a MUD
, a text-based online role-playing game
founded in 1992.
, but contains many deviations from that base. A core inspiration for the MUD was The Compleat Enchanter
by L. Sprague de Camp
. One of the short stories in that book, The Roaring Trumpet, tells of the adventures of Harold Shea, who lands unexpectedly in the middle of the time of Ragnarök
in old Norse mythology
. One of the MUD implementors found the idea of Norse myth to be a fascinating fantasy game setting, and saw a striking parallel between the characters in the story using mathematics and symbolic logic to transport themselves from our modern-day world to these parallel realities, and modern MUD players utilizing computer technology to "transport" themselves to the alternate fictional reality of the game.
files from an older, then-defunct MUD hosted at Sequent
, named SquintMUD. Even in 1992, that codebase
was obsolete and required the LPMud
driver to run in backwards-compatibility mode. This would prove to cause more problems than beginning with a more modern system would have.
This basic framework included a church (the entry point in the game and where the ghosts of dead characters can go for resurrection
) and a little town. The church was recast as the House of Bonder Sverre, and the town's fixtures were renamed and made to align with Ragnaröks theme. The first two players, Galadriel and Wulfblat, helped to review the world before the doors opened to the public. They each contributed realms of their own, as have the four founders and numerous wizards
since. Eventually all of the original founders left active participation in the game, except for Fizban. Galadriel remained and co-owns the MUD with Fizban; the real people behind these characters are now married.
The game has expanded significantly from its humble beginnings, to include over 75 realms contributed by various wizards
, with over 45 quests
.
The MUD underwent a series of technical changes over the years of its operation. It began life running on a Sun
SPARCServer
470 (Solaris). When that hosting situation became unavailable, Fizban took the game code and set up an Intel i386-based IBM PC
running FreeBSD
. A local ISP, Teleport, provided colocation services to host the system. Eventually it moved from there to a series of Intel Pentium
and Pentium 4
PC
s, and moved from FreeBSD
to Ubuntu Linux.
As a result of these upgrades, the very old game driver, which by now had been very thoroughly customized and hacked, was so old and non-standards-compliant that it simply would no longer compile and run successfully on a modern OS. Eventually, by mid-2007, it broke fatally. Caught between the choice to run on an outdated OS (with potentially serious security bugs) or working to upgrade the game, the latter route was taken. This kept Ragnarök offline for a considerable time, with the game eventually returning to operation in November 2009.
to go north,
At level 20, the player has technically won the game. It is at this point the player is known as an initiate, and must make a decision regarding his or her future. If the player decides to continue on the current path, he or she becomes a hero, and a new adventure begins (the player is automatically advanced to level 21 and achieves full hero status). If the player decides to become a wizard
, he or she will participate in development of new areas, objects, and so on. The new wizard must develop an area, which must be approved by a sponsoring wizard in order for the new wizard to be promoted to full wizardship.
Room descriptions are, by administrative mandate, required to be full and meet a certain standard of quality. The four founders were particularly against walking into a room and seeing, "You are in a room. There is a rock here.", with examining the rock yielding, "It's a rock." A style of prose reminiscent of the old Infocom
games is the ideal.
The "magic map" provides a graphical map of all the realms a player has explored to date. The realm authors compose this map (it's not automatically generated), and can vary from simple schematic room diagrams up to detailed floor plans with illustrations.
Guilds in Ragnarök embody in one entity a rough combination of the concepts of "race", "class" and "clan" as other games might call them. Players all begin in the Adventurer's Guild but can choose freely to join other guilds. Some have special requirements for joining, some have penalties for leaving, but each give a particular added flavor to the way a character is played. Examples include Faeries, Elementalists, and Ninja.
-style witticisms, or explore a world filled with similarly bizarre creatures, then [...] Ragnarok [...] is for you."
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...
, a text-based online role-playing game
Role-playing game
A role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting, or through a process of structured decision-making or character development...
founded in 1992.
Influences
Ragnarök was intended to be set in a world and time similar to Medieval EuropeEurope
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
, but contains many deviations from that base. A core inspiration for the MUD was The Compleat Enchanter
The Compleat Enchanter
The Compleat Enchanter: The Magical Misadventures of Harold Shea is an omnibus collection of three classic fantasy stories by science fiction and fantasy authors L...
by L. Sprague de Camp
L. Sprague de Camp
Lyon Sprague de Camp was an American author of science fiction and fantasy books, non-fiction and biography. In a writing career spanning 60 years, he wrote over 100 books, including novels and notable works of non-fiction, including biographies of other important fantasy authors...
. One of the short stories in that book, The Roaring Trumpet, tells of the adventures of Harold Shea, who lands unexpectedly in the middle of the time of Ragnarök
Ragnarök
In Norse mythology, Ragnarök is a series of future events, including a great battle foretold to ultimately result in the death of a number of major figures , the occurrence of various natural disasters, and the subsequent submersion of the world in water...
in old Norse mythology
Norse mythology
Norse mythology, a subset of Germanic mythology, is the overall term for the myths, legends and beliefs about supernatural beings of Norse pagans. It flourished prior to the Christianization of Scandinavia, during the Early Middle Ages, and passed into Nordic folklore, with some aspects surviving...
. One of the MUD implementors found the idea of Norse myth to be a fascinating fantasy game setting, and saw a striking parallel between the characters in the story using mathematics and symbolic logic to transport themselves from our modern-day world to these parallel realities, and modern MUD players utilizing computer technology to "transport" themselves to the alternate fictional reality of the game.
Origins
Ragnarök was created by four friends, known in the game as Klive, Rodolf, Skeezics, and Fizban. Klive had the original idea and put things in motion by borrowing the basic mudlibMudlib
A mudlib, short for mud library, is a library of code forming part of the technical infrastructure of a MUD. Though different varieties of MUD may be considered to have mudlibs, the term is most often used with LPMuds. In an LPMud, the mudlib consists of interpreted code written in the LPC...
files from an older, then-defunct MUD hosted at Sequent
Sequent Computer Systems
Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was a computer company that designed and manufactured multiprocessing computer systems. They were among the pioneers in high-performance symmetric multiprocessing open systems, innovating in both hardware and software Sequent Computer Systems, or Sequent, was...
, named SquintMUD. Even in 1992, that codebase
Codebase
The term codebase, or code base, is used in software development to mean the whole collection of source code used to build a particular application or component. Typically, the codebase includes only human-written source code files, and not, e.g., source code files generated by other tools or...
was obsolete and required the LPMud
LPMud
LPMud, abbreviated LP, is a family of MUD server software. Its first instance, the original LPMud game driver, was developed in 1989 by Lars Pensjö...
driver to run in backwards-compatibility mode. This would prove to cause more problems than beginning with a more modern system would have.
This basic framework included a church (the entry point in the game and where the ghosts of dead characters can go for resurrection
Resurrection
Resurrection refers to the literal coming back to life of the biologically dead. It is used both with respect to particular individuals or the belief in a General Resurrection of the dead at the end of the world. The General Resurrection is featured prominently in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim...
) and a little town. The church was recast as the House of Bonder Sverre, and the town's fixtures were renamed and made to align with Ragnaröks theme. The first two players, Galadriel and Wulfblat, helped to review the world before the doors opened to the public. They each contributed realms of their own, as have the four founders and numerous wizards
Wizard (MUD)
Wizard is commonly used in MUDs, particularly LPMuds, AberMUDs and MU*, as a term for the MUD's developers and administrators. The usage originates with Richard Bartle's original MUD1 and MUD2. It is frequently abbreviated "wiz", which is sometimes used as a verb; to wiz is to become a wizard...
since. Eventually all of the original founders left active participation in the game, except for Fizban. Galadriel remained and co-owns the MUD with Fizban; the real people behind these characters are now married.
The game has expanded significantly from its humble beginnings, to include over 75 realms contributed by various wizards
Wizard (MUD)
Wizard is commonly used in MUDs, particularly LPMuds, AberMUDs and MU*, as a term for the MUD's developers and administrators. The usage originates with Richard Bartle's original MUD1 and MUD2. It is frequently abbreviated "wiz", which is sometimes used as a verb; to wiz is to become a wizard...
, with over 45 quests
Quest (gaming)
A quest in role-playing video games — including massively multiplayer online role-playing games and their predecessors, MUDs — is a task that a player-controlled character or group of characters may complete in order to gain a reward...
.
Hiatus from 2007 to 2009
Sun Microsystems
Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
SPARCServer
SPARCstation
The SPARCstation, SPARCserver and SPARCcenter product lines were a series of SPARC-based computer workstations and servers in desktop, deskside and rack-based form factor developed and sold by Sun Microsystems...
470 (Solaris). When that hosting situation became unavailable, Fizban took the game code and set up an Intel i386-based IBM PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
running FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
. A local ISP, Teleport, provided colocation services to host the system. Eventually it moved from there to a series of Intel Pentium
Pentium
The original Pentium microprocessor was introduced on March 22, 1993. Its microarchitecture, deemed P5, was Intel's fifth-generation and first superscalar x86 microarchitecture. As a direct extension of the 80486 architecture, it included dual integer pipelines, a faster FPU, wider data bus,...
and Pentium 4
Pentium 4
Pentium 4 was a line of single-core desktop and laptop central processing units , introduced by Intel on November 20, 2000 and shipped through August 8, 2008. They had a 7th-generation x86 microarchitecture, called NetBurst, which was the company's first all-new design since the introduction of the...
PC
IBM PC
The IBM Personal Computer, commonly known as the IBM PC, is the original version and progenitor of the IBM PC compatible hardware platform. It is IBM model number 5150, and was introduced on August 12, 1981...
s, and moved from FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
to Ubuntu Linux.
As a result of these upgrades, the very old game driver, which by now had been very thoroughly customized and hacked, was so old and non-standards-compliant that it simply would no longer compile and run successfully on a modern OS. Eventually, by mid-2007, it broke fatally. Caught between the choice to run on an outdated OS (with potentially serious security bugs) or working to upgrade the game, the latter route was taken. This kept Ragnarök offline for a considerable time, with the game eventually returning to operation in November 2009.
Basic gameplay
Gameplay is mostly achieved via basic and often intuitive commands. For example, typingn would cause a player characterPlayer character
A player character or playable character is a character in a video game or role playing game who is controlled or controllable by a player, and is typically a protagonist of the story told in the course of the game. A player character is a persona of the player who controls it. Player characters...
to go north,
s would cause the player to go south, and so on. Weapons, armor, and objects are also typically very easy to use, and when their use is not obvious, a player need only examine the object to gain insight into its use. The basic objective of the game is to kill monsters and complete quests to advance in levels, until level 20. Death carries a penalty of the loss of one level, unless a player is already at level 1, in which case, the player retains his or her current level.At level 20, the player has technically won the game. It is at this point the player is known as an initiate, and must make a decision regarding his or her future. If the player decides to continue on the current path, he or she becomes a hero, and a new adventure begins (the player is automatically advanced to level 21 and achieves full hero status). If the player decides to become a wizard
Wizard (MUD)
Wizard is commonly used in MUDs, particularly LPMuds, AberMUDs and MU*, as a term for the MUD's developers and administrators. The usage originates with Richard Bartle's original MUD1 and MUD2. It is frequently abbreviated "wiz", which is sometimes used as a verb; to wiz is to become a wizard...
, he or she will participate in development of new areas, objects, and so on. The new wizard must develop an area, which must be approved by a sponsoring wizard in order for the new wizard to be promoted to full wizardship.
Introductory area
The introductory area of Ragnarök, the environment to which a new player is first exposed, begins with the House of Bonder Sverre. Proceeding from there, one is provided with directions to a post office, adventurer's guild, shop, pub, lockers, the Bank of Alphasia, and a store called Two Goats Antiques.Quests
In addition to simply killing monsters, there are a number of quests that a player must complete in order to advance in level. The first quest, Newbie School, seeks to teach new players the fundamentals of play. Other quests test players' critical thinking skills and gameplay acuity. Each level has its own quest point requirements.Distinctive features
Emphasis on friendly atmosphere. Rag is intended to be a meeting place for friends, with an atmosphere of silliness and frivolity, and has developed a somewhat close-knit player community. Aggression between players ("player killing"), or other harassment of other players, is not allowed in this game.Room descriptions are, by administrative mandate, required to be full and meet a certain standard of quality. The four founders were particularly against walking into a room and seeing, "You are in a room. There is a rock here.", with examining the rock yielding, "It's a rock." A style of prose reminiscent of the old Infocom
Infocom
Infocom was a software company, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that produced numerous works of interactive fiction. They also produced one notable business application, a relational database called Cornerstone....
games is the ideal.
The "magic map" provides a graphical map of all the realms a player has explored to date. The realm authors compose this map (it's not automatically generated), and can vary from simple schematic room diagrams up to detailed floor plans with illustrations.
Guilds in Ragnarök embody in one entity a rough combination of the concepts of "race", "class" and "clan" as other games might call them. Players all begin in the Adventurer's Guild but can choose freely to join other guilds. Some have special requirements for joining, some have penalties for leaving, but each give a particular added flavor to the way a character is played. Examples include Faeries, Elementalists, and Ninja.
Reception
NetGuide magazine said the following about Ragnarök: ""If you've been itchin' to kill evil Smurfs who hurl Monty PythonMonty Python
Monty Python was a British surreal comedy group who created their influential Monty Python's Flying Circus, a British television comedy sketch show that first aired on the BBC on 5 October 1969. Forty-five episodes were made over four series...
-style witticisms, or explore a world filled with similarly bizarre creatures, then [...] Ragnarok [...] is for you."