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Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minuteDriver Scan →Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →The best-supported answer is MUD, later commonly called MUD1, a text-based online adventure begun by Roy Trubshaw at the University of Essex in autumn 1978 and developed with Richard Bartle. That date marks the project’s beginning, not the launch of a finished game: MUD evolved from a basic prototype into a playable shared world around 1980.
Why MUD1 is usually considered the first MMORPG
“MMORPG” is a modern label, and its boundaries are not fixed by the people who created MUD. MUD1 is the strongest answer if the question means the earliest text-based, shared online adventure in the genre’s family tree. Richard Bartle describes it as “the first proper, workable multi-user adventure game.”
That description matters: MUD1 was a multi-user game, but it did not resemble a modern MMORPG visually or in scale. Players explored through text rather than graphics, and the system’s reported maximum capacity was 36 simultaneous players, according to Bartle’s 2003 chapter on the period. That is a historical technical limit, not a numeric definition of “massively multiplayer.”
How MUD developed from prototype to playable game
Autumn 1978: Trubshaw’s prototype
Roy Trubshaw began writing MUD on a DECsystem-10 at the University of Essex in autumn 1978. Bartle’s account says the earliest version was little more than connected locations where users could move and chat. It was the start of the project, rather than yet a complete game.
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1979–1980: A working adventure takes shape
Trubshaw rewrote the program, including work on a BCPL version from late 1979 to Easter 1980. Bartle later took full control and added much of the game’s objectives and systems. The MUD2 history dates version 3—now commonly called MUD1—as first playable in 1980. Bartle reports that players from outside the university first logged in during spring 1980.
The timeline distinguishes two milestones often collapsed into one: MUD began in 1978, while the playable game and broader networked access followed through subsequent development.
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Who created MUD?
Both Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle deserve credit. Trubshaw originated and programmed the early system; Bartle contributed game ideas and later wrote much of the working game. Bartle’s historical overview attributes it to both men: “MUD was created and written by Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle at Essex University in the UK.”
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Does “first MMORPG” mean the first graphical or commercial game?
Not necessarily. Calling MUD1 the first MMORPG is most defensible when “MMORPG” includes text-based multi-user adventures such as MUDs. If the intended category is the first graphical online RPG, the first commercially available online RPG, or a game with the much larger population associated with later MMORPGs, that is a narrower question and may point to a later candidate. Those criteria should be stated separately rather than treated as interchangeable.
The historical record supports MUD1 as an early ancestor under the text-based shared-adventure definition; it does not establish a definitive comparison against every earlier multi-user system that might fit a broader definition.
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