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[nullBolt]

I really didn't like starting out in one of those Iron realm games, but I didn't actually give it a great try, either.

And all the Hell incarnations are unique. Insane playerbase is a part of their nature and what makes them fun, but usually after a period of stability the admins go crazy and there's a bunch of drama and everything falls apart. I think Inferno is still going strong, though.

I wouldn't recommend giving them a try for three main reasons:
1) Pay to win. VERY pay to win.
2) Grindy as all hell.
3) Combat is usually just played with two automation systems.

I've heard that's what happens. I do think drama's a major part of MUDs, just like it's a major part of MMOs.

I've never played any MUDs but have been interested in the idea for quite a while now.  I never quite got to the point of registering for any, even if I've lurked on some MUD forums for a while.

A while back I got interested in trying to design a DF-like game and it occurred to me that MUDs could have a lot in common with DF.  From what I can tell most of them are like MMOs where you largely play just to grind, which isn't surprising since they inspired MMOs, but some have more roleplaying and world building features.  They could easily be used for a large, procedural open world, and the text / simple graphics medium lends itself well to depth of gameplay vs. time invested in development.

I got kind of wrapped up in a grandiose plan to design a more "modern" MUD that did away with some of the old conventions like rooms, but I quickly realized that I had no business trying to do that if I'd never even played one before.

Maybe I should actually try taking a look at joining one at some point.  I'm not terribly interested in playing a grindfest though, and from what I gather those are mostly the only popular MUDs left.

Man, there's more MUSHes (pure roleplay) than there are pure grindfest MUDs. If you're looking for something like that, try The Inquisition: Legacy. It has game mechanics, but you're probably not gonna be grinding.

If you want games with a solid mix:
- Armageddon: THE roleplaying MUD. Roughly based on Dark Sun's Athas. Make an expendable character because you will die sharpish in this game.
- New Worlds Ateraan: Huge roleplaying MUD. Very generic fantasy. Has about 150 people on at all times, which is a LOT.
- Legends of the Jedi: Star Wars MUD. The Trade Federation just fell to the Republic so it'll probably go onto the second era (Empire vs Republic) soon.
- The Eternal City: Roman MUD. Not ever played it but it looks cool. Just jumped up to like number 10 on some MUD lists from nowhere.

I was considering programming a "better" MUD. A lot of the functionality I was thinking of already exists (like BatMUD has a Final Fantasy-ish world map like I was considering) so I don't think it'd be too hard. It's just a matter of getting a theme and design down.

[Vendayn]

I really didn't like starting out in one of those Iron realm games, but I didn't actually give it a great try, either.

And all the Hell incarnations are unique. Insane playerbase is a part of their nature and what makes them fun, but usually after a period of stability the admins go crazy and there's a bunch of drama and everything falls apart. I think Inferno is still going strong, though.

I wouldn't recommend giving them a try for three main reasons:
1) Pay to win. VERY pay to win.
2) Grindy as all hell.
3) Combat is usually just played with two automation systems.

I've heard that's what happens. I do think drama's a major part of MUDs, just like it's a major part of MMOs.

I've never played any MUDs but have been interested in the idea for quite a while now.  I never quite got to the point of registering for any, even if I've lurked on some MUD forums for a while.

A while back I got interested in trying to design a DF-like game and it occurred to me that MUDs could have a lot in common with DF.  From what I can tell most of them are like MMOs where you largely play just to grind, which isn't surprising since they inspired MMOs, but some have more roleplaying and world building features.  They could easily be used for a large, procedural open world, and the text / simple graphics medium lends itself well to depth of gameplay vs. time invested in development.

I got kind of wrapped up in a grandiose plan to design a more "modern" MUD that did away with some of the old conventions like rooms, but I quickly realized that I had no business trying to do that if I'd never even played one before.

Maybe I should actually try taking a look at joining one at some point.  I'm not terribly interested in playing a grindfest though, and from what I gather those are mostly the only popular MUDs left.

Man, there's more MUSHes (pure roleplay) than there are pure grindfest MUDs. If you're looking for something like that, try The Inquisition: Legacy. It has game mechanics, but you're probably not gonna be grinding.

If you want games with a solid mix:
- Armageddon: THE roleplaying MUD. Roughly based on Dark Sun's Athas. Make an expendable character because you will die sharpish in this game.
- New Worlds Ateraan: Huge roleplaying MUD. Very generic fantasy. Has about 150 people on at all times, which is a LOT.
- Legends of the Jedi: Star Wars MUD. The Trade Federation just fell to the Republic so it'll probably go onto the second era (Empire vs Republic) soon.
- The Eternal City: Roman MUD. Not ever played it but it looks cool. Just jumped up to like number 10 on some MUD lists from nowhere.

I was considering programming a "better" MUD. A lot of the functionality I was thinking of already exists (like BatMUD has a Final Fantasy-ish world map like I was considering) so I don't think it'd be too hard. It's just a matter of getting a theme and design down.

I really wanted to get into Armageddon, since I love the features and everything. And I don't mind RPing (though I'm not a very big RPer). But, what killed Armageddon for me was dying quickly and then needing to wait days for a new character to be approved. I only played my character half an hour, to only need to wait days to play again. I couldn't just make a character and play. Unless that has changed, I won't be playing it ever again. But I do highly recommend it. Unless that "feature" of needing each individual character to be approved kills the MUD for you like it did me. If that doesn't bother you, its an amazing MUD. I couldn't find any other "survival" mud like it, so its really unique.

[Telgin]

Man, there's more MUSHes (pure roleplay) than there are pure grindfest MUDs. If you're looking for something like that, try The Inquisition: Legacy. It has game mechanics, but you're probably not gonna be grinding.

If you want games with a solid mix:
- Armageddon: THE roleplaying MUD. Roughly based on Dark Sun's Athas. Make an expendable character because you will die sharpish in this game.
- New Worlds Ateraan: Huge roleplaying MUD. Very generic fantasy. Has about 150 people on at all times, which is a LOT.
- Legends of the Jedi: Star Wars MUD. The Trade Federation just fell to the Republic so it'll probably go onto the second era (Empire vs Republic) soon.
- The Eternal City: Roman MUD. Not ever played it but it looks cool. Just jumped up to like number 10 on some MUD lists from nowhere.

The Star Wars MUD sounds kind of interesting... maybe I'll take a look into that.  Generic fantasy doesn't interest me much, and while I've heard of Armageddon I'm not interested in throwaway characters. 

I was considering programming a "better" MUD. A lot of the functionality I was thinking of already exists (like BatMUD has a Final Fantasy-ish world map like I was considering) so I don't think it'd be too hard. It's just a matter of getting a theme and design down.

I didn't have much trouble getting the theme down myself, but I don't think many would be interested in it.  It would effectively boil down to a settlement building game in a post apocalyptic low fantasy wasteland populated by sapient quadrupedal deer-horse things.  Even so, I was going to build it for my own amusement, from scratch since my skimming codebases quickly led me to realize that they're almost universally huge, sprawling C codebases from 20+ years ago that would be very difficult to extend to do what I wanted.

What really killed me was the feature creep before I even started it.  I wanted a fully explorable procedural world akin to DF, but spanning an entire planet.  I managed to get some part of it figured out well enough, but I kind of got bogged down writing a semi-realistic physics based climate simulator to pair up with it so that I could just feed in a planetary heightmap and have it perform realistic landform and biome generation for me...

...and that's not even touching on the requirements of making the planet interesting to explore, like settlements and people...

I basically fell into the noob trap of anyone dreaming up an ideal MMO.  I did get that climate simulator almost working though...