Comment by dominicrose
1 day ago
I got my hands on the source code of a MUD. It was incredibly flat. Most of the code was if/else and output text. The data was in flat text files as well (1 line = one unit of data, an integer, range or an element of a list, similar to a .env file). The game dumps all the data at every save. It surprised me because I tried to be clever while making my own MUD engine but the result was exactly that, an engine, not a MUD.
Very interesting. Do you remember which source you got your hands on? I dabbled in CircleMud as someone else posted, but mostly Envy 2.0 or 2.2. I can't find those codebases quickly these days, but this is a link to a mud based on Envy 2.2 https://github.com/DikuMUDOmnibus/Ultra-Envy
Some indie games that got open sourced after sales dropped off are the same way. Everyone who looked at Terraria's or VVVVVV's code knows it's terrible, and yet, those games exist and are fun, while clearly coded games are less common.
Reading the various comments in the CircleMUD source is a bit of a treat: https://github.com/Yuffster/CircleMUD