@elrainia@lemmy.world describes working on internet infrastructure back in the 1990s. This was on one of those "drive by" AskLemmys where a new user posts a juicy question, then after a couple hours they delete the topic and their account. However, those posts and comments are still visible in Piefed, ex: https://piefed.social/post/1733969#comment_9969293
So if I understand correctly, Shades was inspired by MUD1, but not actually an MMO by definition, i.e. "Massively Multiplayer Online."
Yep. I’m pretty sure the networking and computing tech required for a true MMO didn’t exist until ~1995, and pretty much as soon as it did we got Ultima Online and then EQ.
It was definitely not a MMO! It was a bit of a joke comment (British humour - sorry). I’d be amazed if it had anything more than 100 consecutive players (that’s a complete guess).
I had no idea of it’s MUD heritage then and it’s only today that the comments above have really made me join those dots up.