I was never really a frequent MUD player, but I always enjoyed developing: it’s an enjoyable doubly-creative process when you can write code and storylines at the same time. That’s one reason why our extreme programming tutorial uses a simple MUD-like game as the sample project.
I haven’t thought much about MUDs in a long time, but this evening I was chatting with two of the FaerieMUD developers and noticed some /morphic resonance/ when I remembered some of my old ideas. As I listened to the plans for FaerieMUD, they started to sound very familiar. Some of the ideas could well have been copied verbatim from my notes, if I had ever kept any notes. I mentioned this to the guys, and they were amused. I then went on to tell them some of my other MUD thoughts, and it became their turn to feel the resonance.
It was all quite strange, but it’s not uncommon; that’s probably why there are weird theories to explain it.