It's true that most MUDs did a poor job of adapting to new realities. But your post seems to generalize based on the fact that the games you personally played didn't transition very well and soured your individual experience. Hundreds of MUDs did adapt, and they are well-worth checking out by anyone who doesn't set the bar at "it has to have 2D/3D pictures of cute scantily-clad girls for me to even try it".
Also, let's not "blame the vicitim" for the late 90's mass exodus from MUDs to graphic MMOs. It's pretty clear that the masses always move on to the latest, not greatest, thing. A whole lot of people used to play MUDs only because there was nothing more visual/easier available in the early- to mid-90's, not because they liked their depth. Even MUDs that are doing a consistently excellent job of providing a truly original and immersive experience now see stagnated player bases. RPI titles seem to resist a lot better than others, most likely because they have a very well-defined niche that no graphical MMO has ever tried to occupy.
One thing to keep in mind before you lament the death of MUDs, is that the average player career length on even an underperforming MUD is about 100-1000 times that of what you get in any MMO. Millions of people (mostly teenagers) stampede through MMO's, creating the impression that they are vibrant. Only several of them really are at any given time--the rest are just experiencing their 15 minutes of fame before they lapse into quick oblivion. This *does not* happen to MUDs, especially not to those who have a hard-working dev team.
Not to mention that if you're looking for an online community experience (as opposed to a crowded disco where everyone shouts at the top of their lungs), even a small MUD can provide that much more effortlessly than 99% of MMO's out there. I suspect this will remain true for a very long time.
a lot of people made an account just to post in this thread.. sort of funny actually..
oh on a side note no one knows any surviving MUDs with a nice reincarnation system? the sorts where you hit level cap and are giving the choice to reincarnate as a new more powerful class? used to be tons of those around when I played in the early 90s
Well, the article was crossposted on TopMudSites, and who knows where else. Any 'mainstream' attention to MUDs is pretty rare, and they will do their best to get some new blood into the games. Khaw said that she'd promote the top three that get talked about, so Achaea bots poured in. ANY form of advertisement for a MUD will likely result in numbers - even one new player is something to get excited about in the MUD world.
I personally think, like other people here, Khaw should avoid IRE games for review. IRE is commercial like Simutronics and while I like the fact that they are invested in keeping mudding alive, the free games need much more attention. IRE adverts are everywhere on mud-related sites.
Aardwolf has a remort system. You pick a class at creation and go up to level 200. When you hit it, you can remort into any of the other classes. From what I understand, when you remort, you can still use skills from your previous classes as well (except for certain, special skills that are exclusive to your first class choice). When you get all classes to 200, you can retier, which gives you some nice benefits and puts all your class levels down to nothing so you repeat the process again.
Of course, if that kind of repetition doesn't appeal to you, there are other games that offer some similar remort / reincarnation gameplay. Your best bet is to browse TopMudSites / Mud Connector and read descriptions of the games.
I played Dragonrealms for many, many years. I also dabbled in GS3, but mostly just played DR. I started back when it was free on AOL centuries ago. I have never had such a deep feeling of immersion in a game before or after. I've played with a few MUDs since then, but have yet to find one that could duplicate the "feel" of that one.
If you are going to do a review, I would suggest taking up simu-solomon's offer and see what you think! As a somewhat related thought; I have also never had cause for complaint against any of the Simutronics employees. Quite the opposite, in fact, I have had several dealings with them both in and out of the game and have found their support to be phenomenal. One of the very few gaming companies I can say that about.
This is just my two cents! Take it for what it is worth. In any case, I look forward to your review and am very happy that you took the time to write this article. It has been some time since I have ventured into the realm of MUDs and am enjoying the nostalgia that I feel as a result of reading this article. Who knows, maybe I'll go back and play one of my old MUDs tonight!
a lot of people made an account just to post in this thread.. sort of funny actually..
oh on a side note no one knows any surviving MUDs with a nice reincarnation system? the sorts where you hit level cap and are giving the choice to reincarnate as a new more powerful class? used to be tons of those around when I played in the early 90s
Well, the article was crossposted on TopMudSites, and who knows where else. Any 'mainstream' attention to MUDs is pretty rare, and they will do their best to get some new blood into the games. Khaw said that she'd promote the top three that get talked about, so Achaea bots poured in. ANY form of advertisement for a MUD will likely result in numbers - even one new player is something to get excited about in the MUD world.
I personally think, like other people here, Khaw should avoid IRE games for review. IRE is commercial like Simutronics and while I like the fact that they are invested in keeping mudding alive, the free games need much more attention. IRE adverts are everywhere on mud-related sites.
Aardwolf has a remort system. You pick a class at creation and go up to level 200. When you hit it, you can remort into any of the other classes. From what I understand, when you remort, you can still use skills from your previous classes as well (except for certain, special skills that are exclusive to your first class choice). When you get all classes to 200, you can retier, which gives you some nice benefits and puts all your class levels down to nothing so you repeat the process again.
Of course, if that kind of repetition doesn't appeal to you, there are other games that offer some similar remort / reincarnation gameplay. Your best bet is to browse TopMudSites / Mud Connector and read descriptions of the games.
thanks for reply ill give Aardwolf a look at. Yea I figured people would come and try to advertise their game.. although aren't IRE games free? I didn't really look into them yet.. i know DR and GS are still subscription based .. anyway thanks again
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
IRE games are free-to-play but people can buy stuff from cash shops. Don't let anyone convince you that IRE games aren't worth it because they're "play to win". As I and others have stated in other posts, you can't just spend money and dominate the game in Achaea.
If you make a new character and spend $500 on the game, I will make a character and spend nothing on the game and kick your character's butt. Why? Because I've been playing for 10+ years, I know all the skills and all the PvP strategies. I know how to quickly rank up my character for free. The people who come to Achaea and think its "pay to win" get bored very fast when they realize that someone who spends no money can be just as good as them.
Sometimes I think IRE games were designed to troll people who spend money on games, because the cash shop items give really tiny fractional bonuses that totally aren't worth the money. There is a sword you can buy for $300 from the cash shop, and its only advantage is that it is HALF A SECOND FASTER then all the other swords. Heres the really funny part; anyone who is a Blacksmith can spend a few hours at the forge and create a sword that is equally as good, for free.
If we can make a profit, we will. The game is not going to significantly change but if this bothers you on principle, you should not donate to Aardwolf. Legally speaking, your donations are "purchases" and not "donations". We are sticking with the 'donations' term for tradition only.
IRE games are free-to-play but people can buy stuff from cash shops. Don't let anyone convince you that IRE games aren't worth it because they're "play to win". As I and others have stated in other posts, you can't just spend money and dominate the game in Achaea.
If you make a new character and spend $500 on the game, I will make a character and spend nothing on the game and kick your character's butt. Why? Because I've been playing for 10+ years, I know all the skills and all the PvP strategies. I know how to quickly rank up my character for free. The people who come to Achaea and think its "pay to win" get bored very fast when they realize that someone who spends no money can be just as good as them.
Sometimes I think IRE games were designed to troll people who spend money on games, because the cash shop items give really tiny fractional bonuses that totally aren't worth the money. There is a sword you can buy for $300 from the cash shop, and its only advantage is that it is HALF A SECOND FASTER then all the other swords. Heres the really funny part; anyone who is a Blacksmith can spend a few hours at the forge and create a sword that is equally as good, for free.
sounds good... only thing I don't really care for from what I read about IRE games is people heavily use scripts for PVP.. although from what I hear most MMOs have gone that route.. not sure if Aardwolf is like that as well... guess ill do some looking around
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
The player base has changed and wouldn't embrace things that many of us who played in those older forms of multi-player rpgs. They wouldn't like the risk of perma death, item breakage, and corpse runs. I would love to see a graphical game world that did embrace many of those concepts and added to the mix the improvements of what has come out in the past 12 years. I just don't see it happening.
I still think that text based rpgs still are superior to any graphical rpg in regards to crafting, character customization, TOS enforcement, GMs abilities to on the fly make events that effected the game world etc. As has been noted Simutronics for all their short comings did do many things right. I kept hoping that they'd eventually open up a Hero Journey shard that could handle their GS and DR player base. They'd make money on it as they always have and we'd get the community that we all loved and the interaction and support from staff that we have long gotten used to.
Sadly that never happened and I stopped holding my breath that it ever would. I another one of the refugees of Simutronics games. Onother one of the old guard players, or as we were sometimes called "Ice Agers" in Gemstone III/IV. (One of those players who when you'd log in and if you went to your locker it wasn't surprising to find some GM snooping around to see what goodies you had from the old days in your locker).
I also was one of the beta tester players of Dragonrealms (a Trailblazer as we were known ..still have all the gear for that too lol including my nifty scripted badge..a feat since we have corpse rot and item decay). Fun fun times, a sense of wonder, exploration, coin to be made, role-play to to be had. Conflicts to be see and be a part of.
I just don't see any game really embracing some of these mechanics that got your blood pumping, that cause you to scramble to rescue a friend or their gear. The player base is different now, and we won't see a return to this type of play. Read forums long enough and you'll know its true. The rants that are caused when someone mentions some of the harsher game mechanics are quite long. At least we have the memories.
Jim aka Celtar/Greyslayer
p.s: Greets Aluvius and others from those days. There are less and less of us every year.
Celtar holy crap, how you doing man!! I've been puttering around GS4 a bit here and there the for the last year or so ... what a difference Lich makes hehe.
I sure do miss the old days, it feels like a lost golden age of multiplayer gaming.
Oh and for those that moan about paying $15 a month for gaming .. back in the stone age many of us Gemstone players regularly had $100-300 monthly bills from GENie.
You don't know how good you have it these days.
Hey Aluvius,
I remember you....great times those were.... hanging out in Town Square and attempting not to get picked clean by Sagan while doing it, or ear-waxed by Harcourt.
Best yet...defending the breach in the West Wall during invasions...
Welan
LOL, yeah I remember Welan as well! And not upsetting Jesh or Bleeds (or was Blades the mean one, I forget lol) just by asking questions was an accomplishment, too. I wish they hadn't toughened up so much on fighting in town. Though after the move to AOL I guess it had to be.
I played Gemstone during its big heydey, on prodigy, to the move to the web. I went through the boot to get to Rivers Rest, took one of the first parties to Icemule.... I was lucky to play classes when I think they were at their best, a sorcerer (Zetal) before DC and 702 were nerfed, a warrior (Zartul) before tree spirit parties were nothing but a whisper in the trees, and my favorite main - a Rouge (Verstohlen).
One of the things gemstone got right that no graphical MMO has done is the lockpicking/trap system. Sitting in the tower, picking locks, chatting. There was danger, and it was a science.
Playing a rogue/locksmith/thief was a blast... I made some great friends and definately made some great enemies.
I wish it was cheaper to get back into GS (Or DR for that manner). I think its kind of wild that its the same price as the graphical super MMORPGS, but I do understand businesses need to be businesses.
I would love to be able to come back into GS4 and see 1000+ people on like back in the day. See the north gate filled again with empaths and wounded. It really is a shame these games aren't as popular as they used to be. I credit GS as one the reasons I type so fast and also can comprehend/read so quickly.
Oh yeah the box system is probably the main reason I renewed my sub after a decade. I miss the excitement of lugging them back to be opened, hoping the rogue was skilled enough not to kill you both and then actually opening it to see if the box contained a rare item.
I definitely miss the mechanic in graphical mmo's. Its actually 2 parts, the mystery of the box and the chance for you to die just opening it (or being sucked into the rift .. watch out for rift sharks hehe).
EQ2 came sorta close. However the traps were such low damage that you might as well just open them without disarming.
We cut our teeth (as code hackers / engineers) on MUD, MUSH & Muck code. Before there were Yahoo chatrooms, fellow students were writing MUD-ish chat environments (Monochrome BBS FTW). It was a rite of passage to wrestle with DikuMUD and AberMUD code, and bring up a custom MUD for some friends. Darn it, I wouldnt know 1/2 of what I do about UNIX network programming if it hadnt been for hacking on MUD, BBS and MOO code late at night in college.
Anyone interested in writing a MUD engine in a modern language (say, Groovy, Java or ... Erlang)? I'll host the github code repo for the project and contribute.
[CENTER][SIZE="3"][B][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"][FONT="Tahoma"]TSW[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR="Sienna"][FONT="Georgia"]. fm[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE] - Giving Voice to The Secret World. [http://tsw.fm/][/CENTER]
I have never played an MMO and I still play a mud. I have played imperian for over 2 years now and it's great fun. More people should check it out. www.imperian.com
MUDs are far from dead. One only needs to look here www.mudstats.com to see the mud community is alive and well.
This is a real time feed of activity of active MUDs, so you can quickly sort the details and see which are the most popular and active. My personal favorite for a free mud is Aardwolf and is highly recommended. For a pay to play I would recommend either dragon realms or gemstone iv.
I would still play a modern hybrid MUD if it was well done. Simple graphical representations for inventory, location and possibly combat would go a long way (perhaps something like an online ADOM).
My first MUD was called Lengeria. I think it was a stolen copy of KaVir's Godwars mud. It was the first time had ever encountered pvp online. I believe this was in 1996. The intensity of being attacked and killed ruthlessly changed the way I viewed online gaming, and what I expected from it. I have been a fairly hardcore pvp gamer ever since then. I also learned how to type very quickly as a result of playing MUDs, something that no boring class in a school can have inspired me to do.
The Godwars muds were amazing to me not only because of the hardcore pvp, decapitation, status systems, interesting classes (vampire, demon, werewolf, mage, drow, monk, etc.), but also the clan/guild systems, and the various areas that could be created. Creative builders could make life more interesting in the text worlds with secrets to be discovered.
I have played a number of muds, and I think as a result I rarely find anything new in mmo's today. There is simply a graphical element. I think we are slowly moving into something of innovation these days, but early on this was certainly the case.
I think one of the things that is most missing from today's mmos is the lack of interaction between the player base and the gm's in-game. To me this was one of the things that definitely made one mud stand out from another. A really good team of gms could make a relatively stale codebase a lively place to build a toon and pvp, etc.
Recently I've actually thought about mudding again. I miss the speed I could move about a world, max a toon, and engage in pvp without having to spend 200+ hours on a toon. Granted some places were more grindy than others, but this was usually not the case. Somehow today's games all assume that a player should spend hundreds of hours before they can reach end-game content like high-end pvp, or w/e. I think this is stupid. The skill element should reclaim its place of prominence as the thing that distinguishes vets from noobs, not hundreds of hours of grinding skills, raiding, grinding honor/favor/rep/etc.
I am looking forward to the Otherland mmo that is being worked on right now. I think it will offer some truly exciting game systems that have largely been unseen before in the mmo world, but have probably been attempted in MUDs.
It is pathos we lack, and this lack of pathos makes the worlds we explore quite stale.
My first MUD was called Lengeria. I think it was a stolen copy of KaVir's Godwars mud.
KaVir has Godwars 2 up now. Nothing like the playerbase MUDs used to have, but it still comes with that really unique combat system and world movement. Hands-down, one of the best combat systems in a MUD, and probably one of the best MUDs for PVP if it weren't for the low playerbase.
My first MUD was called Lengeria. I think it was a stolen copy of KaVir's Godwars mud.
KaVir has Godwars 2 up now. Nothing like the playerbase MUDs used to have, but it still comes with that really unique combat system and world movement. Hands-down, one of the best combat systems in a MUD, and probably one of the best MUDs for PVP if it weren't for the low playerbase.
Yeah I've played it some, but I think I somehow lost patience for the level of complexity he gave to the combat system in gw2. Although truthfully my biggest issue was using the map system. It was simply a test of my patience to move about and find suitable things to kill.
It is pathos we lack, and this lack of pathos makes the worlds we explore quite stale.
I almost wish I didn't play Dragonrealms back in the day. Every MMO I've played just didn't come close to what I thought it should be thanks to this game. I started back when it was on AOL and played for about a good 7 years. I'm lucky to get past 3 months on a MMO.
So many good simple things that game did. That you just don't see in games today. I'll give only one example and stop there. Just one cause I know I could go on and on all day about it.
Class system + sandbox! Thats right why can we only have just the one? Why is every MMO hardcore class or sandbox. This game had a balanced solid mix of the two. Using sandbox skill systems and skill categories as a requirement for level gain.
If Dragonrealms was made into a MMO today, it would just destroy everything... imo (^_^)
Expectations just too damn high!... or was that my rent?
Yeah, I remember having some fun with Dragon Realms in between games of Age of Empires since they where both on "The Zone" which is apparently MSN Games now.
I was sick of waiting to find a game one day and actually tried some of the other games, not caring about them and had no idea what the hell was going on with the Dragon Realms thing at first glance. ButI tried it out, and even though it was simplistic, it was kind of an addicting little time sink.
Course I didn't actively play it or devote myself to it, but I played it a good few times I suppose.
Ah...I remember the days of telnet'ing into a mud (Elephant mud is where I lived!) back in the mid 90's. Then it became easier with zmud client. Those days are long gone for most of us but to those that still play a mud, may your enjoyment continue. But for me, whilst I miss some of the freedom that muds offered, I do like the graphics of mmorpgs.
Well most of you don't know the origin of MUD's, it was Zork on the DEC PDP series. You could get a tape with a bunch of utilities from a DEC user society and it included the game Zork. There was always a shortage of portable teletype machines around work as people were taking them home to play Zork. This was in the late 70's. The only difference between Zork and a MUD was multiuser.
I never got into MUD's much, the online charges for those games were a bit pricey for my taste, I had far more fun with my weekly D&D group at the time. I would have played MUD's if the prices had been more reasonable.
What got me into MMO's was my Diablo guild moved to UO when it started. That kept me captivated for 6 years with a brief dable into EQ. Personally I found EQ wanting with their highly restrictive class structure and went back to UO. I eventually moved into Asheron's Call during that period too.
Oh and for those that moan about paying $15 a month for gaming .. back in the stone age many of us Gemstone players regularly had $100-300 monthly bills from GENie.
You don't know how good you have it these days.
Hey Aluvius,
I remember you....great times those were.... hanging out in Town Square and attempting not to get picked clean by Sagan while doing it, or ear-waxed by Harcourt.
Best yet...defending the breach in the West Wall during invasions...
Welan
Lol, wow, Welan. Let us not forget when Harcourt went loopy and went roaming around with a disk full of cookies that he would pass out to everyone. Talk about making everyone unsettled. Oh and how we can forget the yearly Haunted House of House Paupers. I recall the first one I took part in with Greyslayer in 93', where the GMs and players were sitting around the Bonfire holding up signs rating your fall from the roof to the courtyard grounds. lol.
Or the drunken pirates invasion that same year. The West Wall breach invasions were a ton of fun, a lot of fun to be had in the Landing back then. Anyhow nice to see your still with us Welan, I knew Aluvius was due to keeping tabs from a distance on GS etc. Sadly I assume you heard that Sagan/Sayzor's player passed away some year ago?
The player base has changed and wouldn't embrace things that many of us who played in those older forms of multi-player rpgs. They wouldn't like the risk of perma death, item breakage, and corpse runs. I would love to see a graphical game world that did embrace many of those concepts and added to the mix the improvements of what has come out in the past 12 years. I just don't see it happening.
I still think that text based rpgs still are superior to any graphical rpg in regards to crafting, character customization, TOS enforcement, GMs abilities to on the fly make events that effected the game world etc. As has been noted Simutronics for all their short comings did do many things right. I kept hoping that they'd eventually open up a Hero Journey shard that could handle their GS and DR player base. They'd make money on it as they always have and we'd get the community that we all loved and the interaction and support from staff that we have long gotten used to.
Sadly that never happened and I stopped holding my breath that it ever would. I another one of the refugees of Simutronics games. Onother one of the old guard players, or as we were sometimes called "Ice Agers" in Gemstone III/IV. (One of those players who when you'd log in and if you went to your locker it wasn't surprising to find some GM snooping around to see what goodies you had from the old days in your locker).
I also was one of the beta tester players of Dragonrealms (a Trailblazer as we were known ..still have all the gear for that too lol including my nifty scripted badge..a feat since we have corpse rot and item decay). Fun fun times, a sense of wonder, exploration, coin to be made, role-play to to be had. Conflicts to be see and be a part of.
I just don't see any game really embracing some of these mechanics that got your blood pumping, that cause you to scramble to rescue a friend or their gear. The player base is different now, and we won't see a return to this type of play. Read forums long enough and you'll know its true. The rants that are caused when someone mentions some of the harsher game mechanics are quite long. At least we have the memories.
Jim aka Celtar/Greyslayer
p.s: Greets Aluvius and others from those days. There are less and less of us every year.
Celtar holy crap, how you doing man!! I've been puttering around GS4 a bit here and there the for the last year or so ... what a difference Lich makes hehe.
I sure do miss the old days, it feels like a lost golden age of multiplayer gaming.
I could never get into using Lich, to me it felt like it made the realm more like chat channels of the graphical mmo-rpgs. So I avoided it honestly. I don't criticise those who do use it, I just won't use it. I did get a bit of crap from players for not using it when it became popular I'll mention though.
I still keep tabs on GS and DR of course though in a more distant sort of way these days since my wife nolonger is a SGM for Simutronics. Over all doing fine, just older, and even more of a curmudgeon! I'd love to see Whately get some servers together and get HJ out the door. I'd give the man my loyalty and money again if he did so. These days I futz around with various graphical mmo-rpgs looking for one that gives me the feel, immersion and fun that GS and DR did.
Now we are talking nostalgia. Let's see there were several D&D MUDs, Dune MUSH, Looney Tunes MUSH, VampireMasquerade MUSH. Great and entertaining times in that started to make the world seem smaller as players were from America, Europe, South America, Asia, etc. It aws many late nights with some basic programming to create bots, lots of fun inserting your character inside the bots you created and managing them with simple commands. Some flash backs to Zork and other text based games included of course. I will also never forget one friend on Looney Tunes MUSH playing as Bugs Bunny and the currency in the game was in carrots. He completely befriended a player who was Speedy Gonzales then proceeded to type "Kill Speedy Cost 100 Carrots". Needless to say Speedy's demise was instantaneous. I still wonder about the expression on the face of that hapless player as some psycho killed them after befriending using carrots as currency -
Due to this I actually made characters in both Achaea and Dragonrealms for play this weekend.
After I played Achaea for a little bit, I was reminded of one of the things I didn't quite like about about IRE guilds. When you are new you have a checklist of stuff you need to do, get or know in order to get into the actual guild and recieve your 3rd guild skill. In a way, it gives newbies a nice structured way to learn the game. But, sometimes its, honestly, annoying.
Now on to DR. I'm actualy excited to be back. I made an trial account, but I haven't even been in game yet. Crafting is in the process of being implemented with several new crafts coming in. I think tailoring, blacksmithing and stoneworking are the new skills, with cooking, a new verison of alchemy and more. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
Yeah, DR is still seeing a decent amount of active development from Simu .. it has a larger playerbase and the engine is worlds easier to work on (not being a patchwork of 30 year old systems like GS heh).
Celtar, wow yeah Pauper's haunted house in 1993 ... damn I had forgotten all about that. They should have kept it as deadly as it was originally.
p.s. Its funny that I'm kicking myself now for giving away all of my gear when I left in 2000. I thought I'd never come back. Thankfully Arwen kept some of it for me when I came back for the free month in 2003? when EN opened. So at least I have my armor, but I miss some of those nice 2 handers I had, especially now that I made Aluvius back into a two hander warmage. Who knew?
Comments
@Jugular
It's true that most MUDs did a poor job of adapting to new realities. But your post seems to generalize based on the fact that the games you personally played didn't transition very well and soured your individual experience. Hundreds of MUDs did adapt, and they are well-worth checking out by anyone who doesn't set the bar at "it has to have 2D/3D pictures of cute scantily-clad girls for me to even try it".
Also, let's not "blame the vicitim" for the late 90's mass exodus from MUDs to graphic MMOs. It's pretty clear that the masses always move on to the latest, not greatest, thing. A whole lot of people used to play MUDs only because there was nothing more visual/easier available in the early- to mid-90's, not because they liked their depth. Even MUDs that are doing a consistently excellent job of providing a truly original and immersive experience now see stagnated player bases. RPI titles seem to resist a lot better than others, most likely because they have a very well-defined niche that no graphical MMO has ever tried to occupy.
One thing to keep in mind before you lament the death of MUDs, is that the average player career length on even an underperforming MUD is about 100-1000 times that of what you get in any MMO. Millions of people (mostly teenagers) stampede through MMO's, creating the impression that they are vibrant. Only several of them really are at any given time--the rest are just experiencing their 15 minutes of fame before they lapse into quick oblivion. This *does not* happen to MUDs, especially not to those who have a hard-working dev team.
Not to mention that if you're looking for an online community experience (as opposed to a crowded disco where everyone shouts at the top of their lungs), even a small MUD can provide that much more effortlessly than 99% of MMO's out there. I suspect this will remain true for a very long time.
Well, the article was crossposted on TopMudSites, and who knows where else. Any 'mainstream' attention to MUDs is pretty rare, and they will do their best to get some new blood into the games. Khaw said that she'd promote the top three that get talked about, so Achaea bots poured in. ANY form of advertisement for a MUD will likely result in numbers - even one new player is something to get excited about in the MUD world.
I personally think, like other people here, Khaw should avoid IRE games for review. IRE is commercial like Simutronics and while I like the fact that they are invested in keeping mudding alive, the free games need much more attention. IRE adverts are everywhere on mud-related sites.
Aardwolf has a remort system. You pick a class at creation and go up to level 200. When you hit it, you can remort into any of the other classes. From what I understand, when you remort, you can still use skills from your previous classes as well (except for certain, special skills that are exclusive to your first class choice). When you get all classes to 200, you can retier, which gives you some nice benefits and puts all your class levels down to nothing so you repeat the process again.
Of course, if that kind of repetition doesn't appeal to you, there are other games that offer some similar remort / reincarnation gameplay. Your best bet is to browse TopMudSites / Mud Connector and read descriptions of the games.
I played Dragonrealms for many, many years. I also dabbled in GS3, but mostly just played DR. I started back when it was free on AOL centuries ago. I have never had such a deep feeling of immersion in a game before or after. I've played with a few MUDs since then, but have yet to find one that could duplicate the "feel" of that one.
If you are going to do a review, I would suggest taking up simu-solomon's offer and see what you think! As a somewhat related thought; I have also never had cause for complaint against any of the Simutronics employees. Quite the opposite, in fact, I have had several dealings with them both in and out of the game and have found their support to be phenomenal. One of the very few gaming companies I can say that about.
This is just my two cents! Take it for what it is worth. In any case, I look forward to your review and am very happy that you took the time to write this article. It has been some time since I have ventured into the realm of MUDs and am enjoying the nostalgia that I feel as a result of reading this article. Who knows, maybe I'll go back and play one of my old MUDs tonight!
Valrin
thanks for reply ill give Aardwolf a look at. Yea I figured people would come and try to advertise their game.. although aren't IRE games free? I didn't really look into them yet.. i know DR and GS are still subscription based .. anyway thanks again
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
IRE games are free-to-play but people can buy stuff from cash shops. Don't let anyone convince you that IRE games aren't worth it because they're "play to win". As I and others have stated in other posts, you can't just spend money and dominate the game in Achaea.
If you make a new character and spend $500 on the game, I will make a character and spend nothing on the game and kick your character's butt. Why? Because I've been playing for 10+ years, I know all the skills and all the PvP strategies. I know how to quickly rank up my character for free. The people who come to Achaea and think its "pay to win" get bored very fast when they realize that someone who spends no money can be just as good as them.
Sometimes I think IRE games were designed to troll people who spend money on games, because the cash shop items give really tiny fractional bonuses that totally aren't worth the money. There is a sword you can buy for $300 from the cash shop, and its only advantage is that it is HALF A SECOND FASTER then all the other swords. Heres the really funny part; anyone who is a Blacksmith can spend a few hours at the forge and create a sword that is equally as good, for free.
Aardwolf uses the same pay-for-perks model except they call it "donations". http://www.aardwolf.com/wiki/index.php/Main/Donate
If we can make a profit, we will. The game is not going to significantly change but if this bothers you on principle, you should not donate to Aardwolf. Legally speaking, your donations are "purchases" and not "donations". We are sticking with the 'donations' term for tradition only.
sounds good... only thing I don't really care for from what I read about IRE games is people heavily use scripts for PVP.. although from what I hear most MMOs have gone that route.. not sure if Aardwolf is like that as well... guess ill do some looking around
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Celtar holy crap, how you doing man!!
I've been puttering around GS4 a bit here and there the for the last year or so ... what a difference Lich makes hehe.
I sure do miss the old days, it feels like a lost golden age of multiplayer gaming.
LOL, yeah I remember Welan as well! And not upsetting Jesh or Bleeds (or was Blades the mean one, I forget lol) just by asking questions was an accomplishment, too. I wish they hadn't toughened up so much on fighting in town. Though after the move to AOL I guess it had to be.
Oh yeah the box system is probably the main reason I renewed my sub after a decade. I miss the excitement of lugging them back to be opened, hoping the rogue was skilled enough not to kill you both and then actually opening it to see if the box contained a rare item.
I definitely miss the mechanic in graphical mmo's. Its actually 2 parts, the mystery of the box and the chance for you to die just opening it (or being sucked into the rift .. watch out for rift sharks hehe).
EQ2 came sorta close. However the traps were such low damage that you might as well just open them without disarming.
We cut our teeth (as code hackers / engineers) on MUD, MUSH & Muck code. Before there were Yahoo chatrooms, fellow students were writing MUD-ish chat environments (Monochrome BBS FTW). It was a rite of passage to wrestle with DikuMUD and AberMUD code, and bring up a custom MUD for some friends. Darn it, I wouldnt know 1/2 of what I do about UNIX network programming if it hadnt been for hacking on MUD, BBS and MOO code late at night in college.
Anyone interested in writing a MUD engine in a modern language (say, Groovy, Java or ... Erlang)? I'll host the github code repo for the project and contribute.
[CENTER][SIZE="3"][B][COLOR="DeepSkyBlue"][FONT="Tahoma"]TSW[/FONT][/COLOR][COLOR="Sienna"][FONT="Georgia"]. fm[/FONT][/COLOR][/B][/SIZE] - Giving Voice to The Secret World. [http://tsw.fm/][/CENTER]
I have never played an MMO and I still play a mud. I have played imperian for over 2 years now and it's great fun. More people should check it out. www.imperian.com
This is a real time feed of activity of active MUDs, so you can quickly sort the details and see which are the most popular and active. My personal favorite for a free mud is Aardwolf and is highly recommended. For a pay to play I would recommend either dragon realms or gemstone iv.
Enjoy!
Thanks, I haven't checked in on muds in 2-3 years now, so I'm looking forward to checking these out.
My first MUD was called Lengeria. I think it was a stolen copy of KaVir's Godwars mud. It was the first time had ever encountered pvp online. I believe this was in 1996. The intensity of being attacked and killed ruthlessly changed the way I viewed online gaming, and what I expected from it. I have been a fairly hardcore pvp gamer ever since then. I also learned how to type very quickly as a result of playing MUDs, something that no boring class in a school can have inspired me to do.
The Godwars muds were amazing to me not only because of the hardcore pvp, decapitation, status systems, interesting classes (vampire, demon, werewolf, mage, drow, monk, etc.), but also the clan/guild systems, and the various areas that could be created. Creative builders could make life more interesting in the text worlds with secrets to be discovered.
I have played a number of muds, and I think as a result I rarely find anything new in mmo's today. There is simply a graphical element. I think we are slowly moving into something of innovation these days, but early on this was certainly the case.
I think one of the things that is most missing from today's mmos is the lack of interaction between the player base and the gm's in-game. To me this was one of the things that definitely made one mud stand out from another. A really good team of gms could make a relatively stale codebase a lively place to build a toon and pvp, etc.
Recently I've actually thought about mudding again. I miss the speed I could move about a world, max a toon, and engage in pvp without having to spend 200+ hours on a toon. Granted some places were more grindy than others, but this was usually not the case. Somehow today's games all assume that a player should spend hundreds of hours before they can reach end-game content like high-end pvp, or w/e. I think this is stupid. The skill element should reclaim its place of prominence as the thing that distinguishes vets from noobs, not hundreds of hours of grinding skills, raiding, grinding honor/favor/rep/etc.
I am looking forward to the Otherland mmo that is being worked on right now. I think it will offer some truly exciting game systems that have largely been unseen before in the mmo world, but have probably been attempted in MUDs.
It is pathos we lack, and this lack of pathos makes the worlds we explore quite stale.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Antioche
KaVir has Godwars 2 up now. Nothing like the playerbase MUDs used to have, but it still comes with that really unique combat system and world movement. Hands-down, one of the best combat systems in a MUD, and probably one of the best MUDs for PVP if it weren't for the low playerbase.
Yeah I've played it some, but I think I somehow lost patience for the level of complexity he gave to the combat system in gw2. Although truthfully my biggest issue was using the map system. It was simply a test of my patience to move about and find suitable things to kill.
It is pathos we lack, and this lack of pathos makes the worlds we explore quite stale.
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/Antioche
I almost wish I didn't play Dragonrealms back in the day. Every MMO I've played just didn't come close to what I thought it should be thanks to this game. I started back when it was on AOL and played for about a good 7 years. I'm lucky to get past 3 months on a MMO.
So many good simple things that game did. That you just don't see in games today. I'll give only one example and stop there. Just one cause I know I could go on and on all day about it.
Class system + sandbox! Thats right why can we only have just the one? Why is every MMO hardcore class or sandbox. This game had a balanced solid mix of the two. Using sandbox skill systems and skill categories as a requirement for level gain.
If Dragonrealms was made into a MMO today, it would just destroy everything... imo (^_^)
Expectations just too damn high!... or was that my rent?
Yeah, I remember having some fun with Dragon Realms in between games of Age of Empires since they where both on "The Zone" which is apparently MSN Games now.
I was sick of waiting to find a game one day and actually tried some of the other games, not caring about them and had no idea what the hell was going on with the Dragon Realms thing at first glance. ButI tried it out, and even though it was simplistic, it was kind of an addicting little time sink.
Course I didn't actively play it or devote myself to it, but I played it a good few times I suppose.
Ah...I remember the days of telnet'ing into a mud (Elephant mud is where I lived!) back in the mid 90's. Then it became easier with zmud client. Those days are long gone for most of us but to those that still play a mud, may your enjoyment continue. But for me, whilst I miss some of the freedom that muds offered, I do like the graphics of mmorpgs.
Long live the MUD.
Well most of you don't know the origin of MUD's, it was Zork on the DEC PDP series. You could get a tape with a bunch of utilities from a DEC user society and it included the game Zork. There was always a shortage of portable teletype machines around work as people were taking them home to play Zork. This was in the late 70's. The only difference between Zork and a MUD was multiuser.
I never got into MUD's much, the online charges for those games were a bit pricey for my taste, I had far more fun with my weekly D&D group at the time. I would have played MUD's if the prices had been more reasonable.
What got me into MMO's was my Diablo guild moved to UO when it started. That kept me captivated for 6 years with a brief dable into EQ. Personally I found EQ wanting with their highly restrictive class structure and went back to UO. I eventually moved into Asheron's Call during that period too.
Lol, wow, Welan.
Let us not forget when Harcourt went loopy and went roaming around with a disk full of cookies that he would pass out to everyone. Talk about making everyone unsettled. Oh and how we can forget the yearly Haunted House of House Paupers. I recall the first one I took part in with Greyslayer in 93', where the GMs and players were sitting around the Bonfire holding up signs rating your fall from the roof to the courtyard grounds. lol.
Or the drunken pirates invasion that same year. The West Wall breach invasions were a ton of fun, a lot of fun to be had in the Landing back then. Anyhow nice to see your still with us Welan, I knew Aluvius was due to keeping tabs from a distance on GS etc. Sadly I assume you heard that Sagan/Sayzor's player passed away some year ago?
I could never get into using Lich, to me it felt like it made the realm more like chat channels of the graphical mmo-rpgs. So I avoided it honestly. I don't criticise those who do use it, I just won't use it. I did get a bit of crap from players for not using it when it became popular I'll mention though.
I still keep tabs on GS and DR of course though in a more distant sort of way these days since my wife nolonger is a SGM for Simutronics. Over all doing fine, just older, and even more of a curmudgeon! I'd love to see Whately get some servers together and get HJ out the door. I'd give the man my loyalty and money again if he did so. These days I futz around with various graphical mmo-rpgs looking for one that gives me the feel, immersion and fun that GS and DR did.
Now we are talking nostalgia. Let's see there were several D&D MUDs, Dune MUSH, Looney Tunes MUSH, VampireMasquerade MUSH. Great and entertaining times in that started to make the world seem smaller as players were from America, Europe, South America, Asia, etc. It aws many late nights with some basic programming to create bots, lots of fun inserting your character inside the bots you created and managing them with simple commands. Some flash backs to Zork and other text based games included of course. I will also never forget one friend on Looney Tunes MUSH playing as Bugs Bunny and the currency in the game was in carrots. He completely befriended a player who was Speedy Gonzales then proceeded to type "Kill Speedy Cost 100 Carrots". Needless to say Speedy's demise was instantaneous. I still wonder about the expression on the face of that hapless player as some psycho killed them after befriending using carrots as currency -
Due to this I actually made characters in both Achaea and Dragonrealms for play this weekend.
After I played Achaea for a little bit, I was reminded of one of the things I didn't quite like about about IRE guilds. When you are new you have a checklist of stuff you need to do, get or know in order to get into the actual guild and recieve your 3rd guild skill. In a way, it gives newbies a nice structured way to learn the game. But, sometimes its, honestly, annoying.
Now on to DR. I'm actualy excited to be back. I made an trial account, but I haven't even been in game yet. Crafting is in the process of being implemented with several new crafts coming in. I think tailoring, blacksmithing and stoneworking are the new skills, with cooking, a new verison of alchemy and more. Can't wait to see how it turns out.
Yeah, DR is still seeing a decent amount of active development from Simu .. it has a larger playerbase and the engine is worlds easier to work on (not being a patchwork of 30 year old systems like GS heh).
Celtar, wow yeah Pauper's haunted house in 1993 ... damn I had forgotten all about that. They should have kept it as deadly as it was originally.
p.s. Its funny that I'm kicking myself now for giving away all of my gear when I left in 2000. I thought I'd never come back. Thankfully Arwen kept some of it for me when I came back for the free month in 2003? when EN opened. So at least I have my armor, but I miss some of those nice 2 handers I had, especially now that I made Aluvius back into a two hander warmage. Who knew?