Editing Multi-user dungeon (section)

=== Wider access and early derivatives ===

''MUD'', better known as ''Essex MUD'' and ''MUD1'' in later years, ran on the [[University of Essex]] network, and became more widely accessible when a guest account was set up that allowed users on [[JANET]] (a British academic [[X.25]] computer network) to connect on weekends and between the hours of 2 AM and 8 AM on weekdays.{{R|wisner1}} It became the first Internet multiplayer online role-playing game in 1980 and started the online gaming industry as a whole<ref>{{Cite web |last1=Hosch |first1=William L. |last2=Ray |first2=Michael |date=2023-05-09 |title=Online gaming |url=https://www.britannica.com/technology/online-gaming |access-date=2023-05-19 |publisher=[[Encyclopedia Britannica]] |language=en}}</ref> when the university connected its internal network to [[ARPANet]].{{R|dogarpa}}

The original ''MUD'' game was closed down in late 1987,{{R|bartle-mud1-1987}} reportedly under pressure from [[CompuServe]], to whom Richard Bartle had licensed the game. This left ''[[MIST (MUD)|MIST]]'', a derivative of ''MUD1'' with similar gameplay, as the only remaining MUD running on the University of Essex network, becoming one of the first of its kind to attain broad popularity. ''MIST'' ran until the machine that hosted it, a [[PDP-10]], was superseded in early 1991.{{R|escape-from-the-dungeon}}

1985 saw the origin of a number of projects inspired by the original ''MUD''. These included ''Gods'' by [[Ben Laurie]], a ''MUD1'' clone that included [[online creation]] in its endgame, and which became a commercial MUD in 1988;{{R|bartle-mudreport2}} and ''MirrorWorld'',{{R|bartle-mudreport1}} a [[tolkienesque]] MUD started by Pip Cordrey who gathered some people on a BBS he ran to create a ''MUD1'' clone that would run on a home computer.

Neil Newell, an avid ''MUD1'' player, started programming his own MUD called ''SHADES'' during Christmas 1985, because ''MUD1'' was closed down during the holidays. Starting out as a hobby, ''SHADES'' became accessible in the UK as a commercial MUD via British Telecom's [[Prestel]] and [[Micronet800|Micronet]] networks.{{R|shades}} A scandal on ''SHADES'' led to the closure of [[Micronet800|Micronet]], as described in [[Indra Sinha]]'s net-memoir, ''The Cybergypsies''.{{R|sinha}}

At the same time, [[Compunet]] started a project named ''Multi-User Galaxy Game'' as a science fiction alternative to ''MUD1'', a copy of which they were running on their system at the time. When one of the two programmers left CompuNet, the remaining programmer, Alan Lenton, decided to rewrite the game from scratch and named it ''[[Federation II]]'' (at the time no ''Federation I'' existed). The MUD was officially launched in 1989.{{R|bartle-mudreport3}} ''Federation II'' was later picked up by AOL, where it became known simply as ''Federation: Adult Space Fantasy''. ''Federation'' later left AOL to run on its own after AOL began offering unlimited service.