Eric (00:10):
Welcome to all fidos beastly or otherwise to Titans of Text podcast. We are your hosts, Eric Oestrich.

Danny (00:17):
And Danny Austerity, Nissenfeld.

Eric (00:19):
And we have with us today a man whose name you've probably seen so many times you've forgotten it's there, Michael Seifert, one of the original fathers of the Diku code base. We're going to talk about the old days of mudding, how Diku came to be and some new developments around it. Welcome Michael

Michael (00:35):
Thank you gentlemen.

Danny (00:36):
So the Diku release truly marks the start of an era. Well, it wasn't, you know, the first mud, which we can credit to Richard Bartle and Trubshaw, this is where mud began for so many people. But how did Diku start? How did it get its impetus? Why was it made?

Speaker 3 (01:02):
Yeah, so Diku started, I think actually a few months before I joined where Hans Henrik and Tom and Sebastian and Kayja had gotten together and wanted to build Diku. And a few months after that I was chatting to Kayja. She told me about it. I got all excited. I made a text adventure as I think my first coding project when I was a kid. I wanted to join and Henrik printed out the source code for me. I went to summer vacation, and that was back when you didn't have laptops. So I read the source code and I was all ready to start coding when I came back to it, to the computer science studies. Well that was kind of the start of it for me at least.

Eric (01:41):
That's, that's amazing that the like early get was just printing out.

Michael (01:52):
Definitely. I was used to reading manuals for my summer vacations. That was a thing I did, so,

Danny (01:59):
Oh, why, why did you join the project? Was it just, you know, this idea of an online game of a world like that was just that intriguing?

Michael (02:09):
Yeah, great question. I had been playing LP MUDs a little bit and I was really fascinated by it, but at the same time I also saw it wasn't really, it had the potential to be really fun, but it ended up being just like a game for coders to code in. And I wanted something that had more of a game element to it rather than just being a place to write some code. And, and that's really why I feel intrigued to, to join Diku MUD and have the ability to help shape a really cool gaming experience.

Eric (02:43):
So what prompted the early on in Diku adventure or life, there was a push for more capacity. Can you talk a little bit about that?

Michael (02:56):
Yeah, so in terms of capacity, we were kind of struggling with capacity on several levels. The service we were running Diku on we're quite small and we were struggling with memory issues and disk use and network issues as well. This was back in the day when the internet was, was quite young. You could only access it if you were on campus or in the military. You couldn't dial up from home. The internet was slow when we had players from the US playing on our servers in Europe as they would have considerable lag. So it was quite painful. But obviously as time went on things improved and his speeds got a little better. Service got a little better. But that was only a few years after that. Initially we hosted Diku mud, running on DIKU (ed note: university of copenhagen) servers. But we used to get our process sapped in the wee hours of the morning and so eventually we moved to host in Sweden. I think it's called myself and you, if you look in the source code, which all kinds of comments for weird stuff we have had to do to make it run on mycell. And we had a tiny bit of memory to work with. So it was a painful time trying to make a large mud run. Well,

Danny (04:14):
How did the, the general public outside of the university, when, when it started becoming available, really receive it? Did you see a lot of people not at the university actually wanting to log in and play?

Michael (04:26):
Yeah, that's such a fun question. So initially it was pretty much only students at various universities around the world that would be playing and at sometime times spring some of my friends to campus and they borrow some equipment and sit and play. And it wasn't until a few years later that it became more broadly available. And actually that kind of leads me into a story about Tuborg because in, I think it was 1993 I want it to set up Diku so it would be available to people in Denmark that didn't have access to a university campus. And the way to do that back then was using modems, dial up modems. And so I contacted Tuborg to make a sponsorship agreement with them. So they pay for my modems. I'd put it up in my closet in my apartment and I stacked, I think. So the two modems in my closet and it didn't really have any ventilation for the server, but it kept running and took off, financed it. And then I introduced the Tuborg beer into the game. So that was kind of Tuborg's reward for sponsoring it. And that's how the Tuborg came to be part of the, the game.

Danny (05:43):
So you mentioned people in the States playing in and I was one of them trying to play on European MUDs on original Diku. In fact, how much of an, and mind you at this point I was how old was I? I was in my early teens. My tweens. Like the 10 to 12. Yeah. How was the, the kind of culture, was there a culture clash? Was there, could you tell people, were Americans, like how was it with people trying to connect from the States?

Michael (06:16):
No, it was, it was exciting, right? The idea that you were chatting live with people from all around the world no matter where they were from, what was really an exciting concept. And whenever you told people about it back then, it sounded almost like a science fiction movie. Right. So it was part of what made this whole experience so unique at the time.

Eric (06:36):
So what was the motivation behind initially releasing the source code to the Diku license? Open source?

Michael (06:45):
Yeah, I actually don't recall that we talked that much about it initially. I think at some point when the first version of Diku kind of, we thought, Hey, this is something that's working. At that point in time, I think Sebastian just said, Hey, I'll upload it on a server for other people to, to access. And, and I think that's kind of how it got started. I can't even remember when we made the first license agreement. But was kind of potentially the natural thing to do I think.

Danny (07:21):
This kind of relates to something we asked Richard Bartle back when we interviewed him last year. And he of course he answered with that he was happy that they intended, even though they made money on it at initially they intended for this to explode and get many, many people making their own stuff. How was the opinion of what was going on within your team? Within the Diku team? When everyone began essentially forking the code with Merc and then circle and ROM and all of the, the children of Diku is as we usually call them.

Speaker 3 (07:54):
Well that's, there's many facets to that replies. I think on the one hand is of course incredibly flattering that people take the work you, you made and study enhancing it and building the own world on top of it. So, so that was the rewarding bit. It also started keeping us, at least me and Hans Heinrich at the time, a bit on the edge of our seats because we had to continue to do really great stuff in Diku to have it an interesting place to play. So, so I think it was good overall for the development of the game. It felt a little bit like competition, but I think it may also have made me at least a little more protective about my source code for Diku too. And I did consider commercializing it at a point in time. We can talk about that maybe later. It was kind of, as I said, many facets and, and, and both exhilarating but also giving you this feeling of, of having to protect it.

Danny (08:54):
We're going to the clock a little bit forward on the same question. Diku combat and it's the, the combat engine within Diku, the auto combat, the rounds, the outside of auto combat skills like kick and bash and whatever. That's pretty much modern graphical MMORPG combat as well, WoW, EQ, all of them use that model. How do you ever think about that? It was that, was that when EQ first came out, when Everquest first came in, was that something like, Hey, this is like our stuff we made this.

Michael (09:32):
I not really the whole, that's kind of, there's two stories to it. When I looked generally, no, that didn't cross my mind. There was a special story around EverQuest because some team member from, from the EverQuest team had said that they had used the Diku and source code, which of course we kept hearing it. We couldn't just let that slide by, but it turned out that the employee was confused about the meaning of having used the source code and having been inspired by the game concept. So, so there wasn't a problem after all was it? But no, I, I'm, I mean, the way we designed the combat engine was largely inspired, I think initially by just your classical advanced Dungeons and Dragons. And then later on also by the role master standard system and those role playing games are turn-based. And so it just seemed like the natural thing to do.

Eric (10:32):
Okay. So this one might be a bit hard to answer maybe, depending on how, because of how long ago was but what was the labor split on building out what at this point of what we'd call the stock areas versus like coding new features.

Speaker 3 (10:46):
Yeah, that's, no, that is, that's a very hard question to answer. I think it was very much an integral effort. So when I think about, for example, the capital of midgaard which I think is probably one of the most famous parts of Diku is I, I spend a lot of time building that out. But it was intermixed with coding and having to build new things in code to support what I wanted to create in terms of, of an experience from a, from a game perspective that I could probably add that of course, I think for us as co-creators, it was very much a, an integrated effort, but there were so many zones and world areas created by other people that of course we, we didn't build, but they built the sewers of midgaard and an incredible number of zones. All, all high quality content that I think in many ways the, the game would never have become what it did if it's a one, so many passionate people out there just to building exciting areas, play.

Danny (11:55):
So probably the most iconic figures not living figures but, but fictional figures in all of mudding at least anyone that's played a Diku would be the Beastly Fido and the Mayor of midgaard. Who can forget the mayor running around opening the Gates and declaring things, and of course the Fido eating your corpses before you get a chance to loot them or do anything else. So where, where did that come from?

Michael (12:24):
Yeah, that's a, that's just such a delightful question. I didn't even know that Beastly Fido was a thing until you asked me the question. Now. as far as I recall, sometime after the alpha release I made most of midgaard together with a lot of people so we could have a really good starting capital. And I had a lot of help of course. And one of the problems we ran into was that players were just attacking local shopkeepers and local guards. So we had to find a way to get rid of all the corpses that were scattered across town. And that's really where Fido came in. And so vital is inspired by my mom's foul smelling old beagle that was called Sven. And the old beagle would eat literally anything once he ate two six pound chickens and survived. So the beastle fido is made in his image. And actually you also find Sven in the pet shop in midgaard. If you want to buy a small, beagle as your companion and his name is even marked in his ear if you look closely. I, one of the people that helped me make midgaard was Mads Haar and he is still my friend and mass created the backwards walking iltset]. I don't know if you saw it, but he had a lot of fun with that and he was never sure if he was going to write that it was made by an insane God or an insane dog because god and dog is spelt backwards. It becomes the same word and obviously, or difficult sip was the reverse building of Beastie Fido.

Danny (14:10):
That's a, that's kind of an amazing story. I didn't realize the Beasley Fido had so much history. And I, I'd like to confirm for the record that the the movie frozen the moose is also named Sven, which means that the frozen moose is clearly named after the dog. I'm just, I'm just going to have to say that that must be true. I, I will not accept any other reality.

Michael (14:35):
What did you say the moose was in frozen?

Danny (14:38):
The moose is called Sven who his name is Sven in the, in the frozen series. So literally it must, it must be named after this. I, I can't imagine any, anything you never know.

Michael (14:52):
But it is a common name though in Scandinavia. So, yeah. Who knows?

Danny (14:58):
You know, let's well we're not going to talk about the game with this question, but what essentially brought us together today was the the relicensing of the Diku code base. We'll passingly mention Opie the deliverer of relicensing. But he has yet to tell this story to any of us. What did you think when he first approached you? I mean, how did this all happen?

Michael (15:27):
Yeah. So Opie approached me a few years ago, maybe three years ago, I can't remember exactly when. And at that time I was running site core and while Opie suggestion had crossed my mind before and I really liked it, I just did not have the bandwidth of time to do anything about it. But then he kept gently reminding me, eh, I think every half year or so, and I told him to keep reminding me. And he got diku.com up and running again. That was a tremendous help. It had vanished somehow on a server that it was on the server, just disappeared. I don't know what happened to it, but Opie got it back up. And when I suddenly found myself with a little bit of time on my hands again I just thought, Hey, now's the time I contacted, asked Jens and Heinrick, Katja and we, we haven't been able to get ahold of Tom. He's like disappeared from the surface. I don't know what happened to but, but they all love the idea and we all want it to release it on, on LGPL. So that, that was an easy decision. And then though with the help of Opie, got it all set up, got pushed out and really excited to have both the alpha gamma versions out, but also to have the DikuMUD II from 1997 released on the LGPL and all of it's available from my github.

Danny (16:56):
Speaking of Diku II what kept that under wraps for so long? It's I mean I've, I probably missed a good decade or so of the mudding community myself between the two thousands and the 2000 late tens, I guess. But what I, I had never even heard of Diku II before that. Well what kept it in the box essentially?

Michael (17:22):
Yeah, I think what kept it from being released at the time was that I had an ambition to try to commercialize it at a point in time. And I moved to San Francisco in 1996 and worked was that idea for about six months. And I did find a model where it kind of worked, but I could just see it wouldn't really get to the level that I it to be. And I could also see the graphical games just around the corner. I actually contacted a lot of the game companies back then and asked them if we should try to create a graphical one, but all I got back was a nasty cease and desist. Let us not to send them any ideas. And so eventually I think what goes with that story is also that then I started working with the Perry brothers. They, when you taught at the time Ken and Tim Perry and they essentially took over the game and the maintenance of the game and whatever little donations came in to keep the game running. And they did that and they're still doing that today. But I'm working with the now to to release a Diku 3, which is in the works right now.

Danny (18:39):
Oh, a D Oh wait, hold on. A Diku three. So what what, what's the difference between the dikus? What major improvements have happening?

Michael (18:50):
Yeah, so, so the main change from Diku 1 to Diku 2 is that we added in a mud coding language so that you could build interesting questsand interesting NPC behavior, all that kind of stuff. Added shorted pass algorithms or NPCs could find their own way around game city cops could be patrolling, all that kind of stuff. And in Diku 3 pretty much all the game logic got moved by the Perry brothers from C into this deep coding language that we call the DIL. And that's of course super cool because if you want to build a different kind of world sci-fi environment, whatever you want it to do, you can just change the DIL code. You don't even have to touch the C code to change how the game behaves. And then what we're doing right now before releasing it and I'll get back to that later, maybe in, in the talk here, is that I would really like to see that that's a much easier way to connect too much for people that are in this time and day 2020 and to still have to use Telnet or some arcane client. And so I'm working on adding a web sockets and HTML five. So it's essentially an HTML server and you just connect with your regular web browser.

Danny (20:20):
Eric and I more, more, more so Eric has a bit of experience with that. We even have a, what is it, a WebSocket to telnet routing thing or Eric could definitely talk more about that.

Eric (20:34):
Yeah, I'm, I'm sitting here sort of shook just from hearing this, but yeah, like I've, I've, I've attempted to help upgrade the mudding community as well, and was actually our next question where like we, we have, I've done a lot of stuff with grapevine, which is a Telnet to WebSocket proxy bridge thing. So yeah, that's, that's amazing to hear that the Diku is going to get that upgrade to the 20th century or the 21st century.

Michael (21:09):
Yeah. I think that's both kind of the difficulty of, of connecting for new potential players. I think that's a barrier that you have to take serious. I don't know anybody that could use Telnet today and installing an windows client, even though they're probably super cool, is also something that would have many people either worried or simply aren't able to do. So, so yeah, I agree that that's important, but what's also on my mind is that once I started doing it, why not just have HTML coming up from the much server and essentially that's how it's working right now. So you can potentially intermix images with the text. You could intermix sounds with the text and I just think it opens up for a bunch of opportunity if there is a life for this kind of product in the next decade.

Danny (22:09):
This isn't a question, this is more of me and my efforts to, to be down with Telnet, no more telnet please. And that's what my, that's what my mud server does. It spits HTML out at the the web client essentially. So this makes me very happy. And now I'm going to have to look into, into Diku three once once you guys solidify that, that sounds amazing.

Michael (22:34):
I think it will be out in about a month or so. Depends on, on how many hours I, I get to spend here.

Danny (22:42):
Yeah, I mean, really. So when it's done, the mud community's not going anywhere. Definitely let us know when it hits so we can help get the word out. So I'm going to ask we're coming, coming to the end of the questions we could think of here and I'm going gonna ask the same two questions we ended the Richard Bartle interview with which, which I feel is a very appropriate based on who you are and why we're talking to you. What do you feel is needed to bring new blood into the mudding community specifically. Even if it is some ways to attract the young away from the graphical MMOs.

Michael (23:28):
Yeah, I think that in today's world MUD clearly is a niche offering. And I think it, it will remain. So it's obviously attracted to players that use text readers because they have to. But what I think would be fantastic would be if you could make enough improvement to at least make it a little more appealing to people that are more visually oriented adding images, adding sounds, whatever extra and then possibly have a community where it could be for educational purposes or other purposes. You could have these worlds need to gather online. It's, it's obvious it's not going to be as popular as a World of Warcraft ever again. But I think that's, that's potential for, for having both kinds of players play together.

Danny (24:33):
And and the last question is sort of along the same vein how much should someone that's running a mud be it a roleplay intensive mud or, or a hack and slash along the lines of what a Diku would be? How much should they worry about attracting non-mudders specifically or more should do you think they should focus on retaining and attracting people already in the community already already in inured with muds?

Michael (25:05):
I really think that has to be a balance. If you're not there for your base running the mud my experience is that the base will kind of slowly dwindle away. Because a modest is not just a game. It's, it's kind of also a social phenomenon. But I also need the need to, to have, have new players is, is obvious and you need to attract them. And I'm hoping that if the community at large could start adopting WebSockets in HTML five maybe that's the solution to, to bring a little fresh blood into the mud scene.

Danny (25:48):
And and with that we're going to, to bid adieu and say our goodbyes. Thank you so much for coming on to the Titans of Text show. It's, really been a pleasure learning about, you know, things that I don't know a lot of us take for granted, cause we've been seeing the same things for 30 years. But it's still amazing and the whole Diku three thing is kind of blowing my mind now and I look forward very much to its release.

Michael (26:18):
Yeah. Thanks guys. It was, it was a pleasure to be on the show here. I'll give you a heads up when DECA three is ready for release.