The Impacts of Medievia and Medthievia (a screenshot of the login screen) Lee-Ming Zen STS145 March 18, 2003There have been plenty of online multiplayer games throughout game history and a few of those have been influential in a variety of ways. However, nothing has been quite so far-reaching in scope as Medievia. The game boasts a player base in the tens of thousands and a host of features with which few other online games can compete. This paper will explore the major decisions that spawned an entire community and culture and the major legal choices that led to scandal. Because of Medievia’s influence, both culturally and legally, Medievia has and continues to influence the online multiplayer community. By examining Medievia’s founding and its principle philosophy as well as two of its major legal choices, one can understand Medievia’s influence better. Background Medievia is one of many multiplayer text-based games known collectively as MUDs. MUD can stand for a variety of acronyms including multi-user dimension, multi-user dungeon, or multi-user domain.1 Regardless of the exact meaning, a MUD generally refers to a game played by many people connected together on a central server. The central server computes all of the commands from the players and returns the output of the commands to the users. MUD history starts in 1979 at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom where Roy Trubshaw wrote the first MUD on a DEC-10 minicomputer using the language Macro-10.2 In addition, Richard Bartle played an integral role in creating the original program, being responsible for the various evolutions in the program and its changes toward the existing software architecture still used today.3 Trubshaw and Bartle’s inspirations were the text-based games of the time such as ADVENT, created by Will Crowther and modified by Don Woods, and Zork.4 In fact, the earliest MUDs were all inspired by text adventures and added the lacking element of multiple players playing together. One of the most important developments in MUD history in regards to Medievia’s history is the creation of DIKU MUD. According to the MUD FAQ, “DIKU MUD was written by the authors as a hobby project during their first years at Computer Science at Copenhagen University (called DIKU). DIKU MUD was written with the intention of making an efficient, small code base with game focus on playability. The game was [built] for fast expandability of the online world.”5 The original authors were Michael Seifert, Hans-Henrik Staerfeldt, Sebastian Hammer, Tom Madsen, and Katja Nyboe.6 Later, in the winter of 1992, another group of programmers released a modified version of DIKU called Merc. Written by Michael “Kahn” Quan, Michael “Furey” Chastain, and Mitchell “Hatchet” Tse, a trio of real-life fraternity bothers,7 Merc “improved incrementally over Diku” and future versions of Merc would provide even better features.8 In fact, Merc would become “the oldest and most diverse branch of the 1 Acronym Finder. <http://www.acronymfinder.com/af-query.asp?String=exact&Acronym=MUD> 2 Cuciz, David. “The History of MUDs.” Jan 2001. <http://www.gamespy.com/articles/january01/muds1/index4.shtm> 3 Cuciz <http://www.gamespy.com/articles/january01/muds1/index6.shtm> 4 Cuciz <http://www.gamespy.com/articles/january01/muds1/index4.shtm> 5 Cowan, Andrew, et. al. “FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS: Detailed information about mud server types.” Aug 1999 <http://www.mudconnect.com/mudfaq/mudfaq-p4.html> 6 Cowan. 7 “A Brief History of DikuMUD.” <http://www.grr9.net/gaming/mudding/jedimud/text/DIKUHIST.TXT> 8 Cowan.DikuMUD family tree”9 However, despite the tremendous amount of work involved in both the DIKU and Merc projects, both code bases remained relatively buggy. Merc would serve as the basis for the beginning of Medievia. In 1991, Mike Smith and Michael A. Krause (Figure 1), known in-game as Highlander and Vryce respectively, took the freely available Merc source code and began modifying it. According to its original creator, Mike Smith, in an advertisement on a newsgroup, “Medievia is a Mud running on Merc 1.0 (HEAVILY Modified, and still being modified) code.”10 Smith wanted to create the ultimate MUD experience and boasted that Medievia is “not a fly-by-night mud, we don't plan to disappear tomorrow… If we disappear, it won't be because we (the implementors) chose to.”11 Smith’s goal for the game was to create an environment “where the implementors and Gods get along well with the players” and players’ needs were the primary concern.12 In addition, Smith wanted Medievia to be on the cutting edge of MUD technology and have the newest and best features. However, Smith did not stay long enough in a position of power at Medievia to see his philosophy come to fruition. In early 1994, a “War Of The Gods” caused a great deal of problems with the MUD's operation. Smith attempted to resolve the situation by replacing the programmer, Krause, and many of the other administrators.13 However, shortly afterwards, Krause came back and seized full control of the MUD.14 To this day, Smith’s vision endures as Krause’s philosophy statement which is posted on the Medievia Website: “Our goal is to create a role playing world where there is a lot of combat and social interaction.”15 Because of this continuous vision of creating the experience around the players and the focus on advance features, Medievia has become one of the most popular and influential MUDs on the Internet through its unique culture and community. Figure 1 Michael A. Krause, courtesy Medievia.com Community and Culture 9 “A Brief History of DikuMUD.” 10 Smith, Mike. <msmith@bigboy> "Medievia & the fate of Adversary." Article <[email protected]> in Usenet newsgroup rec.games.mud.diku, 28 Apr 1993 11 Smith. 12 Smith. 13 McDaniel, Henry III. <[email protected]> "Encyclopedia of MU*s: SvenskMUD, Medevia [sic], LPCC" Article <[email protected]> in Usenet newsgroup rec.games.mud.misc, 8 Feb 1994 14 Woolcock, Richard. “Comparison of Merc 1.0 and Medievia IV.” <http://520006811875-0001.bei.t-online.de/med.html> 15 Medievia.com, Inc. The Medievia Homepage. “The Philosophy of Medievia.” <http://www.medievia.com/philosophy.html>Social and cultural immersion in Medievia means nothing for the impact on the MUD community without a large
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