SMAUG

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SMAUG (Simulated Medieval Adventure Multi-User Game) is a Merc and DikuMUD derived MUD online game program. (Not to be confused with the dragon Smaug found in J. R. R. Tolkien's fiction, which did inspire the backronym.)

This project was started in May of 1994 by Derek Snider (Thoric), and in July of 1994, Realms of Despair was opened to the public. The SMAUG source code was publicly released in December of 1996 due to an earlier leak of the code and some areas from Realms of Despair. SMAUG has grown to be a very popular code base.

For better or for worse, a beginner could have a full feature-rich MUD "out of the box", without having to learn how to program, or install a bunch of potentially buggy code snippets to add new features. SMAUG came with just about everything you could want. On the downside, some mudders argue that this encourages "laziness" on the part of MUD administrators running SMAUG-based MUDs, which often look and feel very similar.

SmaugFUSS (Fixed Up SMAUG Source) The ongoing goal of the SMAUG FUSS Project is to find and eliminate as many of the bugs in the stock SMAUG source code as possible so as to provide for a clean, stable base for new admins to run a SMAUG mud from.

AFKMud is an advanced SMAUG derivative with tons of new features designed to make both gameplay and administration fun and enjoyable.

SMAUG has also served as a base for the development of several other MUDs, including the once popular SWR (Star Wars Reality) codebase.