MajorMUD

MajorMUD

Developer(s)	West Coast Creations
Initial release	November 4, 1994
Stable release	1.11p (January 13, 2006)
Platform	PC (MS-DOS, Windows), Major BBS or Worldgroup
Type	Role-playing

MajorMUD is a MUD for the Major BBS and Worldgroup BBS software. It can be played over a dial-up modem connected to a BBS, or more commonly over telnet.

History

MajorMUD was created by Lance & Cathy "Dog" Neumann, Michael "Cat" Skupa, Craig "Morukai" Young, and Geoffrey "Orfeo" Rosen in the early 1990s. Collectively they were known as West Coast Creations, or WCC. Based in Canada, WCC ran a BBS called Dreamscape Online Entertainment Services (DSOE) that players and potential customers could use to try out their software. It was also one of the few places that players could go to ask questions directly of the designers. Prior to being called DreamScape it was called Nightline BBS, and from playing TeleArena and Lance not able to get reliable updates, Lance, Dog, Cat, and Orfeo decided to make their own game, along with all the users on Nightline for beta testers.

MajorMUD itself was initially offered as a separate game module for the MajorBBS. Despite its significant price tag (nearly $1000 USD for a 256 user version),^[1] MajorMUD was noted by Logicom to be one of the most wildly popular packages to MajorBBS sysops. A total of 9 expansion modules, or "mods", were released over a period of several years, each in kind for an additional fee to the system owner.

MajorMUD went into Alpha testing on Nightline BBS on April 16, 1994. Then on June 4 MajorMUD was released to twenty other MajorBBS Systems for Beta testing. MajorMUD was officially released on November 4, 1994.

The game itself was written in C and compiled with Borland C++ as with all modules for Major BBS and Worldgroup.

Sale to Metropolis

On May 25, 1999, WCC sold MajorMUD to Metropolis Gameport, a company based in Kansas. Metropolis promised to continue the work done by WCC in an e-mail that was sent to owners and others on the mailing list maintained by WCC.^[2]

On April 10, 2008 Metropolis Gameport shut down and sold all 7 of their Worldgroup BBS Game Servers.^[3] As of March, 2011, the future of MajorMUD is still uncertain.^[4] Metroplis continues to charge full price for MajorMUD despite the demise of the BBS; many speculate they continue to keep the price high because they are hoping to sell the MajorMUD intellectual property to a MMO company.

Expansion modules

On November 11, 1996, WCC released their first mod for MajorMUD — Dragon's Teeth Hills. Over the years, a total of 9 content modules were released (WCC released the first 6, while Metropolis released the last 3). These expansion modules added many new monsters, weapons, items, and places to explore to the base MajorMUD install. Module 1 also introduced the Reputation based "Quest Lines" — with quests for "Good", "Neutral", and "Evil" players.

Module List:

• Module 1: Dragon's Teeth
• Module 2: The Cursed Ruins — Released June 21, 1997
• Module 3: Strangers in the Night — Released October 4, 1997
• Module 4: Terror from Below — Released January 2, 1998
• Module 5: The Rising Dawn — Released May 6, 1998
• Module 6: The Sands of Time — Released September 13, 1998
• Module 7: Savage Lands; Released December 28, 1999
• Module 8: A Call to Arms!; Released May 12, 2000
• Module 9: Prophecy of Plague; Released September 13, 2001^[1]
• MajorMUD Plus — Entertainment Edition

For some time the MajorMUD website still listed Module 10 as a future update, but as of 2011 this is not more the case. On March 19, 2007, Metropolis announced that their current programmer had resigned to move on to another company.

Races

The original release included eleven races, with two more added in later modules. Each race has six base stats: strength, agility, intelligence, wisdom, health, and charm. These stats are increased manually as levels are gained through skill points which are accrued as the character levels up. Each race has its own attributes and special racial abilities, such as nightvision, stealth, and increased resistances. Some races are better than others, which comes with an increase in the experience modifier.

References

1. ^ ^{a b} "MUD Products". Metropolis Gameport. 2009. http://www.gameport.com/mudproducts/. Retrieved 2011-04-27. 
2. ^ "Why MajorMUD". The Major BBS Restoration Project. October, 2006. http://www.themajorbbs.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=157. 
3. ^ "Metro Jumping Ship?". The Major BBS Restoration Project. March, 2009. http://www.themajorbbs.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=2835. 
4. ^ "Found a bunch of source files...". The Major BBS Restoration Project. 2011-03-04. http://www.themajorbbs.com/bbs/viewtopic.php?t=7267#13314. 

External links

• Official MajorMUD home page (Unsupported)
• MajorMUD page on the Mudpedia Wiki
• MajorMUD entries in the Open Directory Project (DMOZ)
• MMUD Explorer - A viewer for the game MajorMUD (2007 sources on google.code)
• MMB.FORUMSHQ.COM Top MajorMUD Forum and support Updated Daily with News and Support