Richard A. Bartle: March, 1997 interview

March, 1997 interview

RANDOM: To begin, perhaps you can tell the readers a little bit about yourself and your family. Your career.
RICHARD: I'm 37 as of last week, married since 1985, with two children (ages 6.5 and 2.75). My job is writing multi-player online computer games, although I do have some sidelines, such as writing examinations for computer/mathematics students in Singapore.
RANDOM: Your kids, are they both daughters?
RICHARD: Yes, that's right, they are. Jennifer is the elder, and Madeleine the younger.
RANDOM: And your wife is named Polly?
RICHARD: No, my wife is named Gail. Polly is my secondary MUD/BL persona- the first female persona in a MUD, in fact. I wanted a dumb persona to use for testing, so picked the name Polly as that's what parrots are typically called. Then I decided that Polly was really a female name and I shouldn't keep having to accept a male gender for it, so I implemented female personae. This was at a time when we had no female players, though, just female personae.
RANDOM: So now we have an explanation of that grave we see in the graveyard. You mentioned that you are working on other games. Any new ones besides BL and MUD2?
RICHARD: I'm always working on new ones- I have about 15 or 20 designs in various stages of completion. Unfortunately, getting funding to develop them into finished products is very difficult in the UK, so they just stay on the drawing board. Fortunately, for MUDs at least, I don't need to have any fancy animation or graphics or stop-motion video capture stuff, so I can do it all myself.
RANDOM: I'm told you developed your own programming language, MUDDLE(?). Do you code all your games in that language?
RICHARD: I code all the game engines in it, yes, but the client software has to be in something more mundane like C++. That's the trouble with multi-player games: you have to write two pieces of software for each one nowadays.
RANDOM: Then BL is written in MUDDLE?
RICHARD: Well, sort of. BL is coded in BCPL, the fore-runner of C. However, the game is defined in MUDDL, the fore-runner of MUDDLE. MUDDL was designed by Roy Trubshaw, with considerable extensions by me. The MUDDL interpreter is written in BCPL.
RANDOM: Okay thanks. I'll have more questions about BL and where it might be going, but first, if you don't mind, I'd like to ask you about BL's predecessor. It was called MUD, I believe? Could you tell us a little bit about it? When and where it was first available?
RICHARD: In 1978, Roy wrote the first version of the game, which he called MUD. It was just a test to make sure the technology worked. He then began work on the second version, which was to be the game proper. This worked well, and had a number of very innovative features, but it was written in assembler and became unwieldy. Toward the end of 1979, Roy decided he'd have to ditch it and rewrite it from scratch in BCPL. This third version is the one which we now know as MUD1, although as far as we were concerned it was just version 3 of MUD. I helped with ideas from the beginning, and did some room design for version 2, but only began programming the underlying code for version 3. In the end, about 75% of version 3 is mine, the rest Roy's. Version 3 MUD is what now runs as BL on CompuServe, with some minor 'Compuservisations' (and a major one: the time delay between commands). In other words, BL's predecessors were called MUD, but BL was ALSO called MUD! The name was changed because CompuServe's games product manager didn't believe that people would play a game with a name that sounded like dirt, and she called it British Legends because that excused the fact that it used British spellings for words rather than American.
RANDOM: I read that Wizards were originally implemented to serve as debugging tools. Would you care to elaborate on that a little?
RICHARD: Roy implemented a 'debug mode' to help debug the game whenever a new area was added, it was such a pain to have to go through the long and drawn out process of fighting your way through to it, so he wanted a mechanism to allow people who were debugging the game to go place immediately, and to test things out without fear of damage. It was only when I took over and implemented a points-scoring system that I decided to make debug mode be the final goal for all players. I added a whole lot more commands which were more useful for purposes other than debugging, and called it Wizard Mode (although informally we had called it that for some time). It later became Wiz Mode when we had female personae, although some people do still call it Wizard Mode.
RANDOM: There also was a character class at one time known as a berserker. Was that in MUD1 or 2? Or just a variant?
RICHARD: It was in MUD1, i.e. the version of BL we ran before switching to CompuServe. There's a compile-time switch to implement it - I could put it back into BL at the next recompilation if I so chose. I wouldn't, though, because in the long term it was bad for the game. Basically, it gave players extra fighting abilities but they couldn't score points any way EXCEPT fighting. I don't doubt that a lot of players liked it, and we did get some "berserker Wizard" characters, but the people who weren't berserkers most certainly did NOT like it, so I switched it off. It was an experiment, but one that failed.
RANDOM: Just to step back a moment. Did MUD1 originally run at Essex University?
RICHARD: Yes, it did. That's where we were undergraduates at the time.
RANDOM: Do any versions of MUD1 run anywhere besides CompuServe?
RICHARD: Not officially, no, because CompuServe has a worldwide exclusive license. There are copies elsewhere, though, because I distributed some when I was at the University (for academic purposes). Also, there have been people converting the code so it runs under UNIX, but again those are unofficial versions and if I came across any running anywhere I'd have to ask them to close down their game. Well, actually I'd ask if I could license the code from them, too..!
RANDOM: Because of the UNIX conversions? Are there plans in the works to make the CIS version capable of running on newer operating systems?
RICHARD: There are no plans to make MUD1 run on any other operating systems.
RANDOM: Then do you see BL running past the year 2000? On the platform it is currently on, my guess is that the operating system will not be able to deal with the new century.
RICHARD: BL will run on CompuServe for as long as CompuServe wishes to have it, and pay MUSE LTD for having it. As for whether the TOPS-20 operating system is up to making the year 2000, I've no idea. I do know that they had a terrible problem in about 1975 when it ran out of bits for storing dates, so even if there is a year 2000 problem then at least they'll know all the places in the OS to look to fix potential problems.
RANDOM: One last question about MUD1's past and we'll move on. Who was 1)the first Wiz on MUD1 and 2) Who was the first player to earn Wiz in MUD1?
RICHARD: The first Wizard on MUD1 was me, because I implemented it and had to test it. I may have put Roy's name first on the Wiz list, though. The first player to work to Wiz was Evil the Wizard, who was run by a Welshman named Phil Scott.
RANDOM: Do any of the old MUD1 Wizzes visit CompuServe's version? Are they honorary Wizzes here?
RICHARD: Only me I think. I know that some of the old MUD1 players do once in a while visit BL, but only for reasons of nostalgia. They don't have honorary Wizships.
RANDOM: Were there major differences in players/styles between MUD1 and BL?
RICHARD: Most differences probably come down to the fact that more women play BL than MUD1, in the end. The only significant difference was that MUD1 never had this sleep-between-commands thing that BL has, so the game was a lot more fast and furious. It was also in development, so things were added, tested, changed, re-tested, and so on all the time. The players played BL at different times, which meant they had to have a certain amount of dedication (playing between midnight and 6 am!), but then BL players need dedication to pay to play. In terms of general in-game atmosphere, though, the influence of women and of older people has made BL more thoughtful than MUD1, although at times it does sort of regress a little!
RANDOM: Did you expect MUD1/BL to become successful as it has? Are you happy with what it has evolved into?
RICHARD: I always expected that MUD would be a great game. Roy is still bemused by why people take to it so, but his background isn't in gaming whereas mine is, and I knew what I was doing. As for what it has evolved into, well I'm disappointed that the game's full potential was never properly realized in the UK, but there's not a great deal I can do about that now, nor could at the time.
RANDOM: What do you like best about BL? Least?
RICHARD: I've been asked that question before, so I'd better give the same answer! Best: the players. Least: the players.
RANDOM: Does it bother you that some players defer to you as if you are some type of god?
RICHARD: It doesn't bother me, but it ought to bother them.
RANDOM: Do you ever play visible in BL?
RICHARD: Yes I do, but not a great deal. The first shout of "Hail Richard" and I'm off.
RANDOM: Any special powers that you have as a Ur-Wiz that you can share with our readers?
RICHARD: I can assume arch-Wiz powers using any persona in the game, and can lock the game so that no-one can get in it without a complete reinstallation of the software and purge of the persona file. That's about it, though. Oh, and "Ur-Wiz" isn't a term that I'm comfortable with; I prefer "arch-Wiz".
RANDOM: Noted. Any plans for new features in BL?
RICHARD: No plans for new features in BL, no. I have some things written down which I'd like to put in (most of which are in MUD2 already), but I have no plans to implement them in BL. The game is very, very short on memory: each time I add a new command, I have to take an old one out to make room for it..
RANDOM: Is that a CIS restriction or hardware/software?
RICHARD: That's a problem with the operating system: on a DEC-10, there's only 18 bits of addressable memory, split into 2 segments. I'm at the limit on the upper segment (the shared data area).
RANDOM: One last BL question. Are there any puzzles that come to mind, that players have not solved yet?
RICHARD: None, no. There are puzzles that players haven't solved because they aren't puzzles, but I think all the official puzzles have been properly solved. Some may be obscure, or known only to a handful of long-standing players, but I don't think anything is still lurking. Mind you, every once in a while a new bug will come up, so there's still a chance that there are puzzles that have lain dormant for the past 16 or 17 years!
RANDOM: The online world has exploded recently, with the internet and various service providers allowing just about anyone access to the computer community. Do you see online gaming a new society in the making?
RICHARD: I see it as several new societies in the making. Anyone who regards a certain place on the net as "home" is staking a claim for that place to be a society. There is no reason why we can't have thousands of societies, each with their own distinct culture. Sure, there'll be a large, overarming "net culture" which dictates many of the norms of the societies, but then again there is an even wider culture in the real world which has actual physical powers to alter the way that net culture operates. It'll be interesting to see how things develop.
RANDOM: So overall you see it as a good thing? People spending a lot of time online?
RICHARD: In terms of physical health, it's a bad thing, but no worse than Television. In terms of mental health, it's a good thing. In terms of personal development and freedom, it's an excellent thing. In truth, of course, the Net is just an inanimate object, and whether it is good or bad depends on how it is used. That said, I see it more as a benevolent influence than a malevolent one, i.e. more like a plowshare than a sword.
RANDOM: Any plans to bring MUD2 to CIS?
RICHARD: CIS has had it since, ooh, about 1992. I think we can probably deduce by the fact that they haven't yet implemented it that they don't intend to.
RANDOM: I understand that you've also written a novel. Do you mind telling our readers a little bit about it?
RICHARD: Ah, this is the part of the interview where I get to plug my book! Well, I've actually written two novels. The first one I have had absolutely no success in finding a publisher for whatsoever: I am invariably informed that the book is good, and deserves to be published, but by someone else. I have, however, recently finished my second novel which is a lot more publishable, I feel, and I have those same, wildly optimistic high hopes about getting it in print.
The first novel is set in a world where magic has been discovered for about thirty years. it sort of parallels the computer industry in our world, but the novel is set in medieval-like times. Magic has completely revolutionized people's lives, and is now causing an industrial revolution as people start to use it to produce finished goods. The way that magic works (by a series of gestures, which are sort of like machine code on computers) is well understood, and all looks rosy. Except, that is, the theory is wrong. Magic does not work as advertised, and works instead in a thoroughly more dangerous manner. The story concerns a bookish woman and her attempts to rid the world of magic before anyone else can figure out how it really functions and thereby become all-powerful. The whole book is written in a cyberpunkish style, although I've rewritten sections in a traditional fantasy style and it still hasn't caused any publishers to bite.
The second novel is humorous. It's written in the first person by an anthropologist sent to study orcs. The conceit is that there's a set of wormholes connecting Earth with another planet 65 million light years away.Over the millennia, there have been enough cross-overs through these wormholes to ensure that the planets have followed reasonably similar evolutionary paths, but at a critical juncture on the more recent past the ice caps on non-Earth melted and isolated the communities of Homo-Erectus that were evolving. The result is that while Earth only got two improved models of Homo Erectus (Homo Sapiens Sapiens and Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis), the other planet got fifteen. Occasionally, some of these hominids would come though wormholes to Earth, where we called them names like elves, dwarfs, goblins, ogres... Anyway, in 1623 a bunch of colonists from England set sail to the New World and passed through a wormhole into a REALLY new one! They called the non-Earth planet 'Virginia,' and set about conquering it. The anthropologist has been sent to the planet Virginia as part of a cultural exchange to try to determine whether or not Earth and Virginia should go their separate ways or form a more closer relationship now a big, static wormhole has been discovered.
RANDOM: Thank you for that synopsis. Do you consider your style more cyberpunk or traditional science fiction/fantasy?
RICHARD: I consider my style as being Fantasy written as though it were SF. This is why it won't get published. I chose a cyberpunk "voice" for the first novel because it was more appropriate to the subject matter - I wanted to give a feel for the hard-edge, techno-magic that people were using. In the second novel I adopted a more pompous, liberal, wishy-washy style suitable for the academic who was supposedly writing it.
RANDOM: Who are your favorite writers in the field?
RICHARD: There are no other writers who write Fantasy as if it were SF! However, in the specific genres, I like the old favorites I read in my youth (Tolkien, Azimov, Howard, Lovecraft), but they're more for reasons of reminding me when I was young (although Tolkien really is rather good). As for modern authors, well I try to steer clear of anything which could be described as a series, and I avoid the share-cropped stuff like Star Trek. I do like the cyberpunk authors, Gibson et al, but Fantasy is much of a muchness. There are some Fantasy novels I really ought to get around to reading but haven't yet, e.g. Tad Williams' novels, but to be honest I'd rather use my spare time to write rather than to read.
RANDOM: That's understandable. What are your books titled? So our readers can look for them in the near future?
RICHARD: The first novel has a title which is hard to print in ASCII. It's the large word IN with the word 'sight' written to the right at the top, and 'flames' at the bottom. So it's sort of INsight/INflames, where the two INs are written as one IN. The other novel is called "Learning to Live with Orcs".
RANDOM: Before we wrap this up, I have two last questions. Any advice for newer players? What do you recommend that they focus on in their first days in British Legends?
RICHARD: Getting to know other players, and the basic mechanism by which the game "works" (ie. the "every ten commands a girl should have in her handbag" type of thing).
RANDOM: What would you suggest to players who get stuck, and seem to hover around the Enchanter level?
RICHARD: This tends to be because the players are over-cautious, and often the persona is their very first one, which they have worked up and are afraid of losing. My advice is to understand that their persona WILL be killed at some stage, and that the sooner they accept this then the sooner they will have the freedom to take risks and explore. Players lose many personae on the way to Wiz, and the key is to regard this as an occupational hazard, not a fence to prevent progress.
RANDOM: I want to thank you again for taking the time to do this interview.
RICHARD: You're welcome.