LegendMUD

In October 1995, LegendMUD was selected as The Mud Connector's Mud of the Month.

Koster wrote "A Story About a Tree", a short essay and epitaph about the reported real-world death of a Norwegian LegendMUD player named Karyn and the manner in which the game's community grieved. Richard Bartle considered the incident to be a key event in the development of virtual worlds' ethics, similar to "A Rape in Cyberspace". The 'death' demonstrated that people can develop feelings for each other via the virtual world medium, thus experiencing real emotions about somebody they've never met, even an entirely fictional persona. "A Story About a Tree" is considered as a major counterargument against the "it's just a game" point of view on virtual worlds. Furthermore, it showcased that while being a very real object of grief to one party, it can indeed remain just a game for another.