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 (hence the LP in LPMud). LPMud was innovative in its separation of the MUD infrastructure into a

virtual machine In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/ emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized h ...

(known as the driver) and a development framework written in the LPC programming language (known as the

mudlib A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based or storyboarded. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash ...

Motivation

Pensjö had been an avid player of

TinyMUD A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a Multiplayer video game, multiplayer Time-keeping systems in games#Real-time, real-time virtual world, usually Text-based game, text-bas ...

and

AberMUD AberMUD was the first popular open source MUD. It was named after the town Aberystwyth, in which it was written. The first version was written in B by Alan Cox, Richard Acott, Jim Finnis, and Leon Thrane based at University of Wales, Abery ...

. He wanted to create a world with the flexibility of TinyMUD and the style of AberMUD. Furthermore, he did not want to have sole responsibility for creating and maintaining the game world. He once said, "I didn't think I would be able to design a good adventure. By allowing wizards coding rights, I thought others could help me with this." The result was the creation of a new, C-based,

object-oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of "objects", which can contain data and code. The data is in the form of fields (often known as attributes or ''properties''), and the code is in the form of ...

programming language, LPC, that made it simple for people with minimal programming skills to add elements like rooms, weapons, and monsters to a virtual world. To accomplish his goal,

Lennart Augustsson Lennart Augustsson is a Swedish computer scientist. He was previously a lecturer at the Computing Science Department at Chalmers University of Technology. His research field is functional programming and implementations of functional languages. ...

convinced Pensjö to write what today would be called a virtual machine, the LPMud driver. The driver managed the interpretation of LPC code as well as providing basic

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ef ...

services to the LPC code. By virtue of this design, Pensjö made it more difficult for common programming errors like

infinite loop In computer programming, an infinite loop (or endless loop) is a sequence of instructions that, as written, will continue endlessly, unless an external intervention occurs ("pull the plug"). It may be intentional. Overview This differs from: * ...

s and infinite recursion made by content builders to harm the overall stability of the server. His choice of an OO approach made it easy for new programmers to concentrate on the task of "building a room" rather than programming logic.

Evolution of LPMuds

Pensjö's interest in LPMuds eventually waned in the early 1990s, but by that time LPMud had become one of the most popular forms of MUD. His work has been extended or reverse engineered in a number of projects: * LPMud 3.2, better known as the Amylaar driver, after its lead developer, Jörn "Amylaar" Rennecke *

MudOS 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 (hence the LP in LPMud). LPMud was innovative in its separation of the MUD infrastructure into ...

* DGD, Dworkin's Game Driver, a conceptual rather than code derivative of LPMud developed by Felix "Dworkin" Croes * SWLPC, Shattered World's

fork In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tine (structural), tines with which one ...

of LPMud 2.4.5 Though an LPMud server can be used to implement nearly any style of game, LPMuds are often thought of as having certain common characteristics as a genre, such as a mixture of

hack and slash Hack and slash, also known as hack and slay (H&S or HnS) or slash 'em up, refers to a type of gameplay that emphasizes combat with melee-based weapons (such as swords or blades). They may also feature projectile-based weapons as well (such a ...

with

role-playing Role-playing or roleplaying is the changing of one's behaviour to assume a role, either unconsciously to fill a social role, or consciously to act out an adopted role. While the ''Oxford English Dictionary'' offers a definition of role-playing a ...

quests A quest is a journey toward a specific mission or a goal. The word serves as a plot device in mythology and fiction: a difficult journey towards a goal, often symbolic or allegorical. Tales of quests figure prominently in the folklore of ev ...

as an element of advancement, and "guilds" as an alternative to

character class In tabletop games and video games, a character class is a job or profession commonly used to differentiate the abilities of different game characters. In role-playing games (RPGs), character classes aggregate several abilities and aptitudes, ...

es.

LPMud talkers

LPMud was used as the basis for the first

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

talker A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging. A talker is a communication system precursor to MMORPGs and other virtual worlds such as ''S ...

, ''

Cat Chat A talker is a chat system that people use to talk to each other over the Internet. Dating back to the 1980s, they were a predecessor of instant messaging. A talker is a communication system precursor to MMORPGs and other virtual worlds such as ''S ...

'', which opened in 1990.

TMI Mudlib

The TMI Mudlib from The Mud Institute was an attempt to create a framework driven

for the

LPMud driver. It consisted of many contributors to MudOS as well as people who became influential in the LPMud community. When TMI began work in 1992, a mudlib was generally packaged with both an LPMud driver and a complete world built on top of the mudlib. As a framework-driven mudlib, the goal of the TMI mudlib was to provide only examples for world objects and place the burden of building a working world on the game developers using TMI. TMI implemented the first InterMUD communications network, when

added network socket support in 1992. TMI never realized its vision and shut down. It was quickly followed, however, by TMI-2. Unlike TMI, TMI-2 was somewhat independent of the driver team. It leveraged elements of the original TMI mudlib and eventually released a somewhat workable product. Though it never achieved the success of its sibling the Nightmare Mudlib (also based on the original TMI mudlib), it did influence many developers, and the lessons learned with TMI-2 led to the successes of the

Lima Mudlib A MUD (; originally multi-user dungeon, with later variants multi-user dimension and multi-user domain) is a multiplayer real-time virtual world, usually text-based or storyboarded. MUDs combine elements of role-playing games, hack and slash, ...

. In 1992, MIRE, a multi-user information system producing customised newspapers was built based on a modified TMI driver. In 1993, the TMI-2 mudlib was used to create ''PangaeaMud'', an academic research project designed as an interactive geologic database tool. Though Lima took lessons from TMI-2, Lima is a completely independent codebase. TMI-2 is still available, and often used as a learning tool, but not typically used today for new LPMud development. Notable MUDs based on TMI-derived mudlibs include ''

The Two Towers ''The Two Towers'' is the second volume of J. R. R. Tolkien's high fantasy novel ''The Lord of the Rings''. It is preceded by ''The Fellowship of the Ring'' and followed by ''The Return of the King''. Title and publication ''The Lord of the ...

'' set in Tolkien’s universe and ''Threshold''.

Server software

MudOS is a major family of LPMud server software, implementing its own variant of the LPC (programming language). It first came into being on February 18, 1992. It pioneered important technical innovations in MUDs, including the network socket support that made InterMUD communications possible and LPC-to-C compilation. Its name reflects its focus on

separation of concerns In computer science, separation of concerns is a design principle for separating a computer program into distinct sections. Each section addresses a separate '' concern'', a set of information that affects the code of a computer program. A concern ...

between game driver and

. ''

Genocide Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people—usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group—in whole or in part. Raphael Lemkin coined the term in 1944, combining the Greek word (, "race, people") with the ...

'' was an important development testbed for MudOS from 1992 to 1994, but switched back to the main LPMud branch, citing speed concerns.

FluffOS

FluffOS is originally forked by Wodan from

Discworld MUD ''Discworld MUD'' is a popular MUD, a text-based online role-playing game, set in the Discworld as depicted in the '' Discworld'' series of books by Terry Pratchett. History The MUD was founded in 1991 and opened to the public in 1992 (rece ...

, released as a roll-up patch to support

. Wodan continues to maintain FluffOS up to version 2.27, and has since FluffOS been maintained by Yucong Sun. FluffOS right now has release version 2017 and version 2019 in development. The FluffOS codebase contains source release of MudOS all the way up to mudos-0.8.14, and has largely maintained backward compatibility for LPMUD code written for MudOS v22, with many more modern features. FluffOS v2019 uses c++ 17, has a modern cmake build system, and able to compile and run on latest Ubuntu and Mac OS X;Native windows support is still under development. FluffOS is already being deployed in production with a lot of Chinese LPMUDs, with an active community.

References

External links

LPMud FAQ

LDMud Website

LPMuds.net
- A resource for MUDs that use LPC.
MUDseek
- A Google custom search engine for MUDs.

has a driver-bundled version of TMI-2 that's "easy-ish" to install. * {{MUDs 1989 video games MUD servers Freeware games