So who used to play "MUDs"?

[jp1]

I spent many hours playing the original online multiplayer RPGs. Who else used to be into this? I usually stuck to the ROM based versions, one in particular (my first) was the best I ever played. It had a stupid name "Evil in the Extreme" but the classes were balanced out well and special item drops were only at system reboots (very rare). The entire setup of it encouraged, and almost required grouping up in teams to make progress to the upper levels, I think it maxed at 35.

Anyway, I played many different variations, it was a social thing too...a way to game with friends when you were stuck at school, the library, or home. Who else was into these? I don't have a lot of time these days to sink into one, so progress would be slow, but I was thinking about trying to get one started up with a group from here. Any interest?

I wouldn't mind running a server, and we could customize some stuff (based on votes) to make game play more interesting. It's hardly the experience that these MMORPG games offer today, but the endless options to tailor the game are limited only by your imagination, since it is text based.

[BogusMeatFactory]

MEMEMEMEMEMEME I will post something, but was too excited to just say ME!

I will honestly write something very crazy in depth, so bare with me!

[jp1]

MEMEMEMEMEMEME I will post something, but was too excited to just say ME!

I will honestly write something very crazy in depth, so bare with me!

Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one.

[BogusMeatFactory]

I have been a fan of MUDs since the mid 90's, playing games like Gemstone, Hercules and my number, all-time favorite white-rabbit of a game, Vr-1 Crossroads.

VR-1 Crossroads was a modern era MUD, utilizing sound affects along with the text, with a Graphical User Interface. The idea was that there is this city with numerous secret organizations vying for power and control of the masses. You could do so by committing espionage and blackmailing prominent NPC figures, or by controlling numerous points throughout the city that have high spiritual energy. You controlled those points by sleeping at said points, projecting yourself into an astral dream world. This made things difficult, because your physical body was left in the physical world, open to attack.

There were a vast array of organizations that you could join, some ranging from mundane to the most extreme like a race of brain eating extra-dimensional bug people (which looked like humans except in the dream world). The game had so many awesome Roleplaying tools like cell phones, which was the only way to send tells to other people was to get their phone number and physically call them. Those Cell phones could be taken from you though by thiefs or someone who could knock you unconscious and steal your stuff.

The game was truly amazing and no game has ever come close to comparing. The sad reality though, was that the game never reached a full release and disappeared off the map early in its life. You can not find the game anywhere and is lost to time.

Nice side-note... one of the lead developers in the game later went on to make the Eberron D&D setting.

MUDs have always had a special place in my heart, mostly because of my love of Text-Based Adventure Games. My only qualm is that I tire of the generic fantasy world setting that MUDs have devolved into. The majority of modern MUDs fall victim to poor writing, atrocious fan service, or to the weird elitist world of Roleplayers. Few capture the imagination and offer an indepth, thought out world. Instead they are treated to a chat room with a focus on combat, which, I feel was always a major fault with most MUDs.

For me... I write... a lot and spend some of my time building Text-Based Adventure games, so for me, MUDs are still a very important piece of my gaming history.

As for making a MUD for fun, what code-base were you planning on using? There are tons out there to pick from, but it is always really important to come up with your idea first and then try and use an engine that works within those ideas. I have had some experience with TBA-MUDs code, which I have enjoyed using and is quite straightforward. I can make rooms, set up events, Fuses and Daemons pretty easily, as well as get some great NPC interaction, but I don't have a lick of experience with combat systems, spells and class editing.

[Exhuminator]

Messed around with them a bit back in the early 90s on an IBM PS/2. Not really something I want to revisit, but it was a cool concept for its time.

[jp1]

Some very interesting ideas there BMF. I like getting away from some of the traditional stuff, but I think it would be nice to do a sort of mixed genre type thing, pulling in ideas from both traditional rpg and sci-fi stuff, almost like Borderlands does so well.

As far as a base, I'm most familiar with ROM/Merc and I can do quite a bit of the back end work on those. They are easily set up with an online building system that would allow some people without coding skills to contribute and share the workload if we wanted to go fully original setting, which (I'm sure you know) would take a significant amount of time and work even for a full boat team.

I'm open for suggestions, I haven't looked into a lot of other base code, but I'm sure they are mostly the same. We need a group of people in here with interest so we can get an idea where to take this, and then we can look at what base most closely resembles that. Pulling in even a few stock areas that we could tweak a little would save an enormous amount of time and give a nice starting point, so I feel like it is important to keep that in mind, unless we get enough people together willing to put some serious work into it.

I used to have six or seven original areas saved on floppy, I would love to find those. I had some really elaborate stuff there, not sure if it would fit in with a non-traditional setting but the general structure would be great to have, I spent tons of time on the mapping alone.

Messed around with them a bit back in the early 90s on an IBM PS/2. Not really something I want to revisit, but it was a cool concept for its time.

Funny, I think that may be the same machine I was playing with. At school anyway, at home I had a mighty Pentium I 60mhz Packard Bell beast. That was my first upgrade from my Tandy 1000 with the lovely green and black monochrome. Before that it was a C64, so the Tandy felt like a downgrade.

[noiseredux]

this doesn't sound like something I'd be able to help out with in any meaningful way, as my understanding of MUDs is pretty limited. BUT, I will be following this thread closely as it seems like a really awesome idea. Plus, I'm learning stuff already.

[jp1]

this doesn't sound like something I'd be able to help out with in any meaningful way, as my understanding of MUDs is pretty limited. BUT, I will be following this thread closely as it seems like a really awesome idea. Plus, I'm learning stuff already.

No need to help, are you interested in playing? That is of just as much importance. If there are only two of us who want to play, it would be a sad place to game indeed.

At this point, even ideas of what you would like to play would be helpful. Unless those ideas aren't text based online games.

[fastbilly1]

this doesn't sound like something I'd be able to help out with in any meaningful way, as my understanding of MUDs is pretty limited. BUT, I will be following this thread closely as it seems like a really awesome idea. Plus, I'm learning stuff already.

You would have to game with a keyboard, or be really good at typing on the on screen keyboard.

[noiseredux]

No need to help, are you interested in playing?

Absolutely.

You would have to game with a keyboard, or be really good at typing on the on screen keyboard.

Lulz, I think I could make an exception for a text-based game.