• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

MUD, anyone?

Chiropteran

Diamond Member
D&D 5e (a game, not a computer game) has rekindled my interest in MUDs- multi-user dungeons.

I know most gamers are interested in fancy 3-d graphics and killer sound, the idea of a text based game is so foreign that it's not even considered a possibility. Long-shot as it is, I'm wondering if anyone else here plays MUDs, has played them, or might consider playing one.

If there is any interest at all, I'll be happy to personally help you out and teach you the basics, all you have to do is ask.

If you enjoy D&D or other role playing games, many MUDs are similar.
 
Last edited:
Last time I played a MUD I was using a 1200baud modem....

Do these exist in a current format?
 
I used to play Ultimate Dominion when I was in highschool. clickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclickclick

...hella fun.
 
I was addicted to MUDs from like 1994 to 1999, even became a 'wizard' (i.e. world programmer) in one of them. I think the one I played for the longest time was Realmsmud (meet at SOC!). It all ended with Everquest.
 
I played a MUD called Necromium up until around 2003... was still going when I last checked around 2008.
 
I coded on two or three of them but stopped playing around 1998. Lots of fun when I was in college. Some of the ones I remember were judy, copper, elistain, ??san diego??, mume, arctic, ...
 
Played the shit out of Apocalypse (apocmud.org) for many years in the 90's. Still have a few immortal characters and check in every few months/years. It's still up and running. Honestly, I would roll morts again and play, but I don't have any of my notes, directions, item stats, etc and I really don't have the time to re-explore anything. Love the game, though.
 
Was a very happy inhabitant of the Perilous Realms in the mid-to-late 90s during my college years. God I put in some insane hours those days, I remember literally going to the computer lab after class on Friday and not returning to dorm until Sunday afternoon. Stop few times to grab two cheeseburger meal at local McDeath and then back at it. Crazy to think about it today.
 
arctic, ...

Small world, that is the one I have gotten back into.

They are still around, but the player population isn't what it used to be. At peak, seen over 100 players online, but those days seem to be past. During the work day only 15-25 players on, and maybe 40-50 during prime gaming time in the evenings.

I find the simple text based interface a nice change of pace from modern 3d games, as you can clearly see exactly what is going on at any time, and the "UI", as it is, can be easily modified by anyone even without real programming knowledge.

I also find MUDs to be nice to play while watching my 2 year old son, as I can easily quit whenever I need to.
 
Played on one called Deeper Trouble (deepertrouble.org, I think) back in the 90s, and sporadicly over the last couple of years.
 
Not sure if it was a MUD, but I played one where you explored space, setup mining colonies, citadels, could build fortresses around the planets. That was way back in the BBS day. Wish I could remember the name of that game.
 
Yup, played a couple of AberMUDs, then helped admin one for a while.

Also played Medievia, which was pretty impressive. I remember them deciding to try some advertising (pretty much unheard of for MUDs) to try to be an even bigger success. Turns out people liked graphical games better.
 
Funny this comes up now. I played AustinMUD on a daily basis for more than a decade from about 1992 - 2005. Then this weekend my stepson was asking about games I played when I was younger and I started to talk about AustinMud. He was so excited about he idea of the text game that he wanted to try it himself. So we both got on our computers and logged on (my character still existed, having not been played in 10 years!) and I ran him around town killing fidos. We did that for two days before he got frustrated at the difficulty and quit.
 
I played a ton of Medievia in the mid 90s. Played Necromium some as well since a lot (all?) of the founders were old school Medievia folks.
 
Last edited:
I can't even remember the name of one of the ones I played anymore. I do know I was a coder for a little while on Legends of Excalibur (still have a few characters there as well as my immortal (but it is a retired immortal so no powers)).

The one I can't remember had something like "the 3rd" or "the 5th" in its name (I believe it had to do with the revision though). Last I played it there were your main standard D&D type classes, mage, warrior, thief, cleric, ranger. Pretty much the only class that could heal was cleric (ranger had a passive healing effect if I recall). You almost absolutely needed to group due to this. You could multi-class, however, if you did, you main class ability would take a penalty. The biggest thing was that equipment was limited in the game (i.e. there was only 10 instances of a certain weapon or armor allowed to be owned by players). Each time you logged off, you needed to log off in a safe and pay a tax on the equipment you logged off with. I believe there was also a tax on certain items each day (even if you were not logged in). If your account didn't have enough gold and couldn't pay the tax, the items were removed. Items would also get damaged and eventually destroyed in battle (you could repair some things, but some of the real limited ones could not be). You could also see how many of certain items were out there and there would be races on getting a group together that could handle the MOB that would spawn with the rare items. Most of the powerful MOBs could easily wipe many teams, and not only that but they would track you down if you ran away (even back to the main city, killing everyone/thing that came in their path), some could even summon you back to them.

It was always interesting since there were only a few rooms that were truly safe (no-summon, no-mob), and you would see lots of people holed up in them whenever someone screwed up and awoke one of the mega MOBs and managed to get away (usually a thief who thought his sneak skill+bonus was good enough to get past it). And everyone would see when someone got killed. There was also a pretty steep penalty for being killed (major loss of exp), even going negative. I don't remember if you physically lost levels, but I do remember you lost some stats. You could also convert your trains/practices+exp into certain bonuses (such as increased hp/mana/stats), which is essentially what the end game turned into.


EDIT: I found/remembered the name, "Renegade Outpost 5" (had an old alias in one of my linux systems which had it).
 
Last edited:
Not sure if it was a MUD, but I played one where you explored space, setup mining colonies, citadels, could build fortresses around the planets. That was way back in the BBS day. Wish I could remember the name of that game.

This sounds like Trade Wars.
 
Back
Top