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[nullBolt]

Anyone else here into playing MUDs? If you are, what've you been playing?

I've had a bash at Legends of the Jedi, DiscworldMUD and DartMUD recently. Kind of enjoyed Legends of the Jedi but the lack of ability to play a force user is disappointing. DartMUD I couldn't even get started in because of how "brick wall" the game seems to be (no idea how the developers expect new players to start out without begging older ones) but it looks like it'd be good if I could get beyond that. DiscworldMUD has probably been the best out of all of them, especially playing a wizard and causing places to get filled with magical radiation.

What's your poison, guys?

[gimli]

No offense, but you should try to use the "search" feature.  Ex.: Any MUD players on Bay12?

[nullBolt]

No offense, but you should try to use the "search" feature.  Ex.: Any MUD players on Bay12?

Is... Is bumping a year old thread considered better etiquette here?

[Bouchart]

I used to play on a mud called Mystic Adventure.  It's a fairly generic fantasy hack and slash Diku MUD but I had a lot of fun with it.  It's still running even though it's basically inactive.  I still pop in every couple of weeks.

I started building areas for a Dawn of Time codebase MUD.  Quite a number of areas too, close to 30 or so.  It's something I've done on and off over the years.  Maybe one day I'll get to a point where I can release it.

[gimli]

No offense, but you should try to use the "search" feature.  Ex.: Any MUD players on Bay12?

Is... Is bumping a year old thread considered better etiquette here?

Huh. So, you say that I should start a new topic about W&W, instead of necroing an old thread? 

[nullBolt]

I used to play on a mud called Mystic Adventure.  It's a fairly generic fantasy hack and slash Diku MUD but I had a lot of fun with it.  It's still running even though it's basically inactive.  I still pop in every couple of weeks.

I started building areas for a Dawn of Time codebase MUD.  Quite a number of areas too, close to 30 or so.  It's something I've done on and off over the years.  Maybe one day I'll get to a point where I can release it.

I've found a problem with a lot of MUD codebases is that they try to fix issues that just don't exist anymore, like RAM and space management. Read / write on SQL databases is so fast now that you might as well not even have an in-memory database running, you can just write straight to the database.

I mean, so many MUDs try to fix issues that don't exist anymore with stuff like rent. I really hate rent. :|

Huh. So, you say that I should start a new topic about W&W, instead of necroing an old thread? 

I don't know what this is, but probably yeah.

[Bouchart]

Depends n the codebase.  There's a lot of legacy stuff going back 25 years.  MUDs are a nice thing so unless you are coding from scratch you've got to get used to old things that might not be well documented.

The Dawn of Time codebase I fiddle around with is a fairly modern derivation of Diku.  It has a rent command but it's used to rent rooms at inns that serve as temporary respawn points.

[sluissa]

No offense, but you should try to use the "search" feature.  Ex.: Any MUD players on Bay12?

Is... Is bumping a year old thread considered better etiquette here?

Huh. So, you say that I should start a new topic about W&W, instead of necroing an old thread? 

Do what you want, whether you necro or not, someone is going to get pissy.

As for me, I played the crap out of some MUDs in the past. A Star Wars themed mud (somewhat loose in the theme) as well as Medievia were my playgrounds for a long time. The grind killed it for me though, I stuck around a couple as social hubs for a while, but even those I eventually left as my social circles dwindled and eventually were gone or idle all the time.

[nullBolt]

Depends n the codebase.  There's a lot of legacy stuff going back 25 years.  MUDs are a nice thing so unless you are coding from scratch you've got to get used to old things that might not be well documented.

The Dawn of Time codebase I fiddle around with is a fairly modern derivation of Diku.  It has a rent command but it's used to rent rooms at inns that serve as temporary respawn points.

That's true.

As for me, I played the crap out of some MUDs in the past. A Star Wars themed mud (somewhat loose in the theme) as well as Medievia were my playgrounds for a long time. The grind killed it for me though, I stuck around a couple as social hubs for a while, but even those I eventually left as my social circles dwindled and eventually were gone or idle all the time.

Yeah, I think one of the big problems with MUDs is the grind. I'm not certain it's as bad as a lot of MMOs (since automation in MUDs is well known and acknowledged, but it still seems a bit silly.

[quinnr]

MUDs are hard to get into, I am really picky about which ones I play. I've had a good time at both HellMOO and InfernoMOO, both of which were wonderful. The PvP and balance in both of those is nice and they are a lot of fun to obsess over. I also played a fair bit of DiscworldMUD...my account was deleted due to inactivity I think, which makes me really sad. I had a priest of some god of fluff...I spent a lot of time memorizing locations in pieces of colored fluff and then teleporting people for gold. I had a whole document of which color fluff was linked to which city/location.

[nullBolt]

MUDs are hard to get into, I am really picky about which ones I play. I've had a good time at both HellMOO and InfernoMOO, both of which were wonderful. The PvP and balance in both of those is nice and they are a lot of fun to obsess over. I also played a fair bit of DiscworldMUD...my account was deleted due to inactivity I think, which makes me really sad. I had a priest of some god of fluff...I spent a lot of time memorizing locations in pieces of colored fluff and then teleporting people for gold. I had a whole document of which color fluff was linked to which city/location.

I think one of the big problems with MUDs is that their starter experiences are generally absolutely shamefully awful. Iron Realms games have really good starter experiences which is probably why they have a lot of players despite being pay to win overdesigned trash. I had a go of GenesisMUD and that's probably got the cleanest starter experience I've ever seen but then as soon as you get outside of the newbie zone the whole game comes crashing down on you.

I've never played HellMOO or InfernoMOO which is unfortunate since I've heard they got real crap real fast. Is that true?

The fluff stuff sounds cool, though. My wizarding adventures have been kinda silly. Summoning flaming rabbits using a carrot and a torch and attacking enemies with them doesn't get old, though.

[quinnr]

MUDs are hard to get into, I am really picky about which ones I play. I've had a good time at both HellMOO and InfernoMOO, both of which were wonderful. The PvP and balance in both of those is nice and they are a lot of fun to obsess over. I also played a fair bit of DiscworldMUD...my account was deleted due to inactivity I think, which makes me really sad. I had a priest of some god of fluff...I spent a lot of time memorizing locations in pieces of colored fluff and then teleporting people for gold. I had a whole document of which color fluff was linked to which city/location.

I think one of the big problems with MUDs is that their starter experiences are generally absolutely shamefully awful. Iron Realms games have really good starter experiences which is probably why they have a lot of players despite being pay to win overdesigned trash. I had a go of GenesisMUD and that's probably got the cleanest starter experience I've ever seen but then as soon as you get outside of the newbie zone the whole game comes crashing down on you.

I've never played HellMOO or InfernoMOO which is unfortunate since I've heard they got real crap real fast. Is that true?

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.

[Bouchart]

I think one of the big problems with MUDs is that their starter experiences are generally absolutely shamefully awful.

Very true.  Mystic Adventure, as much as I loved playing around on that mud, was very hard to get into because they early, low level areas were old Diku stock areas that were a combination of having poor equipment, bad writing and were generally uninteresting.  Maybe 1/3 or so of the low level areas were actually worth visiting, at least for the purposes of leveling and getting stuff.  (Several of those areas had stuff for higher level fetch quests, though).

Starter areas need to have a good balance of useable, decent equipment that anyone can use without too much effort.  I said earlier that I was building areas for a mud for my own personal project.  I make it a point to have in each area at least one object for each equipment slot, one weapon of each type, and a couple of utility items like potions or wands.

[Telgin]

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.

[Bouchart]

I've only played the hack-and-slash grindfests but there are roleplay intensive ones out there if that's what you are looking for.  Not familiar with any though.