Can someone explain MUDs (multi-user dungeons) to me?

[Dankk]

I'm a young one... MUDs are a bit before my time. I've been reading up on them lately, and I'm curious to try one. Games like DragonMud claim to be some of the oldest active online games in existence; many of them still going since the late 80's.

A few general questions:

1) Is it true they're all completely text-based? Are there any MUDs that mix this up and have some sort of graphics or UI?

2) How much interaction is there with other players in MUDs? Do you work together to fight monsters, achieve goals, etc etc?

3) Do you play a MUD? Which one?

4) Can you recommend any good, active MUDs for a beginner? Any helpful tips? Where should I get started if I want to play? What are your favorites?

 

[Craig234]

Everquest was described as 'a MUD with graphics', borrowing a lot from a MUD the developers had played.

 

[SMOGZINN]

1) Is it true they're all completely text-based? Are there any MUDs that mix this up and have some sort of graphics or UI?

Yes. MUDS are played over telnet, so they are text based. There are some MUDs that have very basic graphics, but if you are looking for graphics then you are entering into the realm of MMOs.

2) How much interaction is there with other players in MUDs? Do you work together to fight monsters, achieve goals, etc etc?

MUDs are all about the player interaction. The primary aspect of a MUD is being social. You form groups and kill things.

3) Do you play a MUD? Which one?

Not anymore. I played AustinMUD for more then 12 years. I was an IMP on two other MUDS. (StrangeMUD and TaberMUD)

4) Can you recommend any good, active MUDs for a beginner? Any helpful tips? Where should I get started if I want to play? What are your favorites?

I'm afraid I don't know anymore. I know that AustinMUD is no longer very active, or I would tell you to give it a try.

 

[jaedaliu]

Some MUDs upgraded to a browser based interface after browsers got popular. Grr.... can't remember the one my friend volunteered for.

 

[crownjules]

A few general questions:

1) Is it true they're all completely text-based? Are there any MUDs that mix this up and have some sort of graphics or UI?

Some MUDs might have rudimentary ASCII graphics akin to Nethack or Dwarf Fortress, but generally they're text based.

2) How much interaction is there with other players in MUDs? Do you work together to fight monsters, achieve goals, etc etc?

MUDs will vary. Some your grouping up and helping other players. And in some the other players are an obstacle to overcome.

3) Do you play a MUD? Which one?

I played the original MUD (better known now as British Legends) and am a Wizard, but I rarely log in these days. www.british-legends.com

4) Can you recommend any good, active MUDs for a beginner? Any helpful tips? Where should I get started if I want to play? What are your favorites?

BL doesn't quite have the population it once had. But it's my favorite and I could never really get into any other MUD.

 

[Markbnj]

Everquest was described as 'a MUD with graphics', borrowing a lot from a MUD the developers had played.

If I recall, Verant was formed by a group of MUD developers.

 

[Fallen Kell]

As for recommending one, Aardwolf comes to the top of my head.

As others have already said, MUDs were originally completely text based as they worked over telnet. As things evolved, there were plenty that adapted additional software to communicate with dedicated MUD client software (such as CMud and ZMud). These added client side support for things like macro's, mapping, aliases, and triggers (to automatically do something when a certain event occurred). Triggers also allowed for rudimentary sound effect support to be added to MUDs by having the client download a sound trigger pack (which included the sound effects to play as well as the trigger events to play them). This lead to more sophisticated mechanisms with a dedicated client-server protocol to trigger the sounds without any on-screen interaction, but the client and server both had to support the protocols.

Playing them was a lot fun. I still pop in from time to time on a couple, but most of them have died out in the last 10 years as MMO's have essentially replaced the communities. There are a few of the biggest ones which still survive, but many of the smaller ones had really incredible customizations and interaction. Many MUDs were initially ways for people to play games such as D&D with other players across the world. They had the people running the MUDs setup as the DM/GM who would set events into motion and guide the players along, and there was all the interactions that could occur, not just the scripted events/results that game engines produced. But as you can tell, that would take a lot of time and effort involved to do this, and when key people were not available, the MUD without that interaction was just not the same, and they would easily die off.

I was a developer on a couple back when I was in college. Mostly I fixed a lot of bad code, and consolidated code that was spread out across dozens of files to more easily allow people to change it and add features (such as functionalizing code for the combat systems, instead of the same code being spread across multiple places depending on what was being attacked (another player, a MOB, an object/item, etc.), which cleaned up all kinds of inconsistencies).

 

[SMOGZINN]

They had the people running the MUDs setup as the DM/GM who would set events into motion and guide the players along, and there was all the interactions that could occur, not just the scripted events/results that game engines produced. But as you can tell, that would take a lot of time and effort involved to do this, and when key people were not available, the MUD without that interaction was just not the same, and they would easily die off.

The live quests are what I miss most about MUDs. It was an experience that I haven't seen duplicated in video games since.

I personally believe that if a MMO would work to get a dedicated group of people together to run live quests for it's players it would blow WoW and it's clones away. I think it is possible, but the publishers have to overcome their fear of community created assets.

I was a developer on a couple back when I was in college. Mostly I fixed a lot of bad code, and consolidated code that was spread out across dozens of files to more easily allow people to change it and add features (such as functionalizing code for the combat systems, instead of the same code being spread across multiple places depending on what was being attacked (another player, a MOB, an object/item, etc.), which cleaned up all kinds of inconsistencies).

I worked on MUDs as well, mostly in scripting areas and creating scrip packs for zMUD. I also worked on a system for trusted players (in this case guildmasters and their quest masters) to create areas and equipment in order to create their own live quests. It worked on a point system a lot like many P&P RPG's use to keep balance with the rest of the MUD so that players couldn't just give overpowered equipment to their guildmembers (which in a PVP mud is a big concern.)

 

[acx]

Isn't Gemstone 4 still active? I know my cousin still plays it.

 

[Craig234]

The live quests are what I miss most about MUDs. It was an experience that I haven't seen duplicated in video games since.

I personally believe that if a MMO would work to get a dedicated group of people together to run live quests for it's players it would blow WoW and it's clones away. I think it is possible, but the publishers have to overcome their fear of community created assets.

I'll put a plug in for a small game that has a focus on something like 'community live quests', community cooperation, some community created assets.

It's called 'a tale in the desert'. It's set in Egypt, and the gameplay is non-violent, being about all kinds of quest type things around things from art to 'acrobatics' and more.

It has a lot of gathering and crafting, much of which needs players to do things together.

It's an unusual game and pretty neat for people who like it.

www.atitd.com

It has a free trial where you get some basic gameplay to build some basic things, and is $14/month after the trial.

 

[PhatoseAlpha]

If it's non-violent, it's probably a MUSH, not a MUD.

 

[Craig234]

If it's non-violent, it's probably a MUSH, not a MUD.

It's not a MUD, it's a form of MMO, with basic but reasonable graphics, I was responding to the comments I quoted.

 

[ImpulsE69]

I used to love playing MUDS and making them too. Fun times.

 

[you2]

Muds where great back in the 90's. Most of the people online back then were technical (cs/physics/..) college/grad students and we would spend more time chatting (very easy to use n-way communication) than adventuring - it was also a great melting pot (a lot of foliks world wide; estonia, Sweden, Czech, ...).

I worked on a lot of muds back then - including caltech, copper, arctic and played others including nilgirili, fujitsa, mume and bigboy/temple.
-
Rumour is one of the early Sony MMO (everquest?) used mud code (their was a trial but I think they were found innocent or settled out of courrt); but to be honest the mud engine was very simplistic by todays standard. The engine is just not very efficient and I woudln't want to run a server with 10'000s of user (which a more modern engine could handle with ease) (of course machines today are more than 200x faster; and typical online population of a mud (max) was low 100's).
-
There were other issues with muds I remember arctic was kicked off one site because we were chewing up all their bw (big fights generated a huge amount of traffic; well huge for the early 90s; it was less than 1Mb/s).
-
They were fun days; but I think a lot of the weenies ruined muds (at least for me) and I kind of out-grew them (partly due to time requirement and partly due to interest). Not really into mmo or any game that requires 100% attention these days.

 

[tnt118]

MUDs were what a lot of us "grew up on" in the 90's. I think for many it was the first time there was such close interaction between folks on the internet, and it was literally a whole new world that was opened up. For the first time we were talking with and making friends with people from around the country and around the world. Many of the people I played with became extremely close friends. We'd have get-togethers over the summer and still all keep in touch today. As posted above, it drew in many like-minded individuals which make it fairly easy to become such good friends. It was a product of the time.

The MUDs I played tended to be solo play (in a multiplayer game world). You could group up, but mostly you were tackling the quests on your own. Once enough of zones had been run through (exhausted) by various players, you'd ask for a "reset" and everything would be regenerated -- followed by a mad dash to get the easy or best equipment.

Some MUDs then tried pretty hard to differentiate themselves. There were a number of different codebases but then dozens (if not hundreds) of nearly identical MUDs would spring up based on those codebases. The one AberMUD that I know up that did a good job of breaking out of that mold was "Asylum". Last I checked it is still up and running. They added rolling/random/staggered zone resets and magical properties to equipment. It was much more of a persistent world and was able to attract a lot more people for it. The core gameplay was still much the same though... gathering equipment, fighting mobs, solving puzzles -- all for exp (or to get better equipment). By the way, the requirements for becoming a wizard (i.e. "beating the game"?) would be a combination of exp and (more importantly) solving/beating a number of the specific zones/puzzles.

The one MUD I know of that significantly broke the mold completely was "Medievia". This was much closer to a modern MMO than anything else. It was still text based, but you had classes, clans/guilds, warring kingdoms fighting for control of land, a huge ascii-represented overworld between towns and other zones, PVP (specific zones, not the whole world). At one point I'm pretty sure they were the biggest MUD in existence and even took out some advertising ... something unheard of at the time.

To my knowledge Asylum and Medievia are still running, although I would imagine with significantly less players than in their heyday. Still, those would be two options I would recommend checking out.

 

[AustinInDallas]

i used to play abydos! i miss muds....it was a simplier time

 

[SunnyD]

I remember teleporting into people's inventories as a wiz and taking their souls - literally, the person's "active character" on a LPMud-based server was handled by by a soul object - and if I felt particularly evil or said person pissed me off, I'd dest(roy) their soul. It worked way better than killing the person or whatnot because it left their character in the game, connected, but they couldn't do anything because the object that handled all of the "communication and synchronization" between the player, internet, server and game was destroyed. Basically it turned their character into a logged-on zombie in which they couldn't issue commands, log out, do anything. They couldn't even force-disconnect and log back in because their character was already logged into the game.

I did that a few times before the admin got really pissed at me. I had a habit of doing things or getting the MUD to do things that most people thought were essentially impossible.

 

[Craig234]

I remember teleporting into people's inventories as a wiz and taking their souls - literally, the person's "active character" on a LPMud-based server was handled by by a soul object - and if I felt particularly evil or said person pissed me off, I'd dest(roy) their soul. It worked way better than killing the person or whatnot because it left their character in the game, connected, but they couldn't do anything because the object that handled all of the "communication and synchronization" between the player, internet, server and game was destroyed. Basically it turned their character into a logged-on zombie in which they couldn't issue commands, log out, do anything. They couldn't even force-disconnect and log back in because their character was already logged into the game.

I did that a few times before the admin got really pissed at me. I had a habit of doing things or getting the MUD to do things that most people thought were essentially impossible.

That sounds like really jerky behavior - to the players, the game, and the admins.

 

[HarvardAce]

Isn't Gemstone 4 still active? I know my cousin still plays it.

Yes, it is. I started playing it back on GEnie when an online plan was for 20 hours a month. Really started playing it when AOL went unlimited, and pick it up for a month or two every couple years, mostly for the nostalgia. There is still an active player base and the main areas frequently have 20-30 people around (with about 150-250 active users at any given time).

 

[SunnyD]

That sounds like really jerky behavior - to the players, the game, and the admins.

Actually it was reserved for the worst offenders, and occasionally toying with a couple of my friends (also wiz's).

As far as the latter part, it was pure creativity at work. The player base all said my areas were far and away more intriguing, immersive and creative than other areas in the game, and that some of the items and constructs I put into the game basically had no equal in any MUD they ever played in. It was fun to flex programming skills in ways most people never though possible in games like that.

 

[Chapbass]

Yes, it is. I started playing it back on GEnie when an online plan was for 20 hours a month. Really started playing it when AOL went unlimited, and pick it up for a month or two every couple years, mostly for the nostalgia. There is still an active player base and the main areas frequently have 20-30 people around (with about 150-250 active users at any given time).

Yep, I've played it on and off for years now. Is it really down to about 150-250? I remember even just 2-3 years ago it was around 600 or so at times. Back in the 90's it'd easily get to 3000 during busy times...those were the days. GS4 is awesome.

 

[SphinxnihpS]

Not really a MUD, but it's a MUD.

J-Paranoia, which is based on the crazy tabletop RPG, Paranoia.

If you are reading this, please report for reassignment.

 

[Kalmah]

I recommend Aardwolf for an easy but fun mud.

 

[Craig234]

Actually it was reserved for the worst offenders, and occasionally toying with a couple of my friends (also wiz's).

As far as the latter part, it was pure creativity at work. The player base all said my areas were far and away more intriguing, immersive and creative than other areas in the game, and that some of the items and constructs I put into the game basically had no equal in any MUD they ever played in. It was fun to flex programming skills in ways most people never though possible in games like that.

Nothing in that post changes it sounding jerky; it sounds more jerky and narcissistic.

'So you were a jerk to people'. 'Who cares, my stuff was the best around!'

 

[Pottuvoi]

1) Most are text based, yes.

2) Depends which Mud, either as much as standard MMO or more.

3) I did play Imperial and Delta DikuMuds loong time ago.

4) I'm sure that BatMUD is still active, it's a huge game and more complex than any MMO I know..
Here's the map, beware spoilers.
http://jeskko.pupunen.net/map/