Anyone else here like to hearken back to the days of ZORK and take it to the interactive level with MUDS? I've recently been playing Iron Realms Entertainment's Achaea and also started a character on their Imperian game. I think I like the latter better than Achaea.
I've played lots of the graphical MMOs, but I never hang in there more than a couple of months. I've had better luck with MUDs. There used to be a very innovative RP-focus MUD called Eternal Struggle. I miss that game, kind of.
I got hooked on MUDs back in 1997 and played pretty heavily till around 2000. Since then it's been pretty spotty and as the nostalgia waxes and wanes I'll pick it up again for a little bit.
For the most part I play on Cthulhumud (www.cthulhumud.com). I built a few areas on the mud back around 2000 or so, and it's run by a gaming buddy of mine.
I too used to play MUDs pretty heavily around the turn of the century. I tried many, but my favorite will always be Shattered Kingdoms (shatteredkingdoms.org). I liked it mainly because it was well-written and encouraged people to go out and explore. There were lots of cool little hidden things all over the place.
Although I don't really play any more, I'm currently writing one of those "choose your own adventure" books that I'll be making into a text-based game once I've finished... maybe even a MUD.
There's also a fantastic Discworld MUD (discworld.atuin.net/lpc/) based on the books of Terry Pratchett. As to be expected, it's quite clever and humorous, but it's also well designed and has a massive world to explore.
I played on mostly social muds... MUCKs, MOOs and the like.
I was active on Islandia, Pegusus, TimeTraveller, FluxMUCK, and HoloMUCK among various others.
HoloMUCK is still running after somewhere in the neighborhood of 16 years, though relatively few people frequent it anymore.
- Ashavan
I used to roll on Realms of the Dragon back in 99. Are MUDS still even around?
Some are. I know HoloMUCK is still running.
- Ashavan
I used to roll on Realms of the Dragon back in 99. Are MUDS still even around?
Yup. The Mudconnector is still up and probably the easiest way to search all the current muds.
Although I don't really play any more, I'm currently writing one of those "choose your own adventure" books that I'll be making into a text-based game once I've finished... maybe even a MUD.
That's awesome! I loved those books when I was a kid, and have been talking about writing one myself now for a long time. I even started one last year, but didn't follow through on it. One day I will.
I used to play quite a lot in late 90's, and nowadays there's still one I drop in every now and then to see what is happening and chat with friends...so some are still definitely running, but the playerbases seem to be notably smaller.
http://www.materiamagica.com/
Materia Magica is a surprisingly good massively multiplayer text based world. It has some quirky quests and a thriving community.
I played for a few months when I had no computer of my own, and spent time in internet cafes.
I played a few back in the day. One in Hawaii...can't remember exactly what it was called...was set in the caldera of an extinct volcano. There were three levels around the circumference on the way down before you hit the floor of it. After that there was a necromancer's tower, a bunch of other stuff, and then a lava tube that took you to a cave system underneath. Once you hit a certain level, you could activate a portal that took you to another dungeon. It was pretty fun. There were werecreatures that could infect you, causing you to turn into lycanthropes. The werebear form was pretty badass, but you shifted at random times, and anyone else coming into the area would just think you were another monster and attack you.
I had a cleric in that one and got him to a fairly high level. There used to be a gang of guys that lurked on the upper levels PvPing against noobies. (For some reason, gnomes made the best assassins in that game, so there were a pack of them.) They snuck around ambushing noobs, who would run away smack into the other half of them that were lurking to cut them off. When my cleric got the paralyze spell, I would dress up in padded armor and a quarterstaff and wander the upper levels alone. When the assassins attacked (all level 8-9) I had paralyze macroed in. I would paralyze them, had enough duration on the spell to pull out my magic weapon and thump them once, then paralyze them again so they couldn't run. Rinse and repeat. I'd be giving them a stern lecture while doing it (also macroed). Once I'd killed them, I'd take their stuff before they respawned, sell it, and donate the money to noobs. It was a lot of fun.
Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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http://www.materiamagica.com/
Materia Magica is a surprisingly good massively multiplayer text based world. It has some quirky quests and a thriving community.
I played for a few months when I had no computer of my own, and spent time in internet cafes.
That one is descended from the MUD code I wrote (ROM, itself based on Merc and Diku). Small universe :)
I used to run around in Malevolence back about 12 years ago, by the name of Valkyrie.
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I played Gemstone III quite a bit back in the day. It was a great roleplaying setting based heavily on Rolemaster. The best thing about it was that they had special events where GM's would come on a fiddle with peoples equipment for a price. So if you had a trenchcoat, one might put a pocket in it for you so it can hold stuff. Another might change the color and another might leatherize it for you. These GM modified objects had a high amount of ingame status and the game demanded role-playing. It was really great but was a bit expensive for what we got.
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That one is descended from the MUD code I wrote (ROM, itself based on Merc and Diku). Small universe :)http://www.materiamagica.com/
Materia Magica is a surprisingly good massively multiplayer text based world. It has some quirky quests and a thriving community.
I played for a few months when I had no computer of my own, and spent time in internet cafes.
It gets smaller. I knew Ryan(Creator of Materia Magica). He and I worked together at ioNet. I took his job. I really hated this guy, mainly because they hired him to do the job I wanted to do and he squandered it writing his game all day. He also wrote an irc script, back in the day when that was the thing to do, called Phoenix. He had a giant ego that was incredibly insatiable and I couldn't ever bring myself to play his MUD.
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Contributor, RPG Superstar 2008 Top 6
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It gets smaller. I knew Ryan(Creator of Materia Magica). He and I worked together at ioNet. I took his job. I really hated this guy, mainly because they hired him to do the job I wanted to do and he squandered it writing his game all day. He also wrote an irc script, back in the day when that was the thing to do, called Phoenix. He had a giant ego that was incredibly insatiable and I couldn't ever bring myself to play his MUD.
Based on what people say about me, that might be an occupational hazard of being a mud implementor... :)
wow; i played pretty heavily on a few MUDDS but dont remember any of their names; sheesh blast from the past for sure.
I remember back when I first got the internet I was really excited about the prospect of MUDS and went searching all around for different ones to try. Unfortunately at the time I was a horribly slow typist (I'm still slow, but not horribly so at least!) and that ended up being a great barrier to having fun with them. The idea of them seemed so much more exciting than what the reality ended up being for me. But it was still fun to read all about the various MUDS, even if not to play them. ;)
The typing speed can make a difference. I suppose that could be a predictive element on programming too. There are scripts that do as you wish with a single letter. That's part of why I enjoyed playing a mud - I got to program part of the interface.
I used to play ArcticMud, a series based on the Dragonlance novels.