MUDs, MUCKs, and the like. I think.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

A little background.

The concept of roleplaying is something that's very new to me. I've only been at it for two years or so, but I've taken to it like a fish to water. I guess.

Most of my experience has been in random D&D games on the intarwebs and in WoW. Less than satisfying.

A friend of mine then invited me to play with him on something he called a Muck. I wasn't sure what it was, and he didn't seem to want to tell me, so I downloaded the client because it was free and I was bored.

After he gave me the tour of the commands and so forth he starts to tell me that this is 'Tapestries' muck, which is basically a solid romp of furry fetishism and random violence/sex all the time. Which is fine and all, I'm open minded. But not my thing.

The concept wasn't lost on me, though, and I've begun something of a search. For a similar game (but without the fur and without the creepy fetish roleplay).

I made this thread primarily to see if anyone here had any recommendations. But a hearty discussion would be great, if it happened to come to that.

So here, I decree, is where we speak of such things.

tuxkamen

You know...this is as good a place as any to get willing guinea pigs I mean volunteers.

Please consider a trip to faraway Xyllomer.

Xyllomer is an English-language MUD based in Germany, and has been around for...oh, fifteen years or so. It started as a sociology project of sorts, and expanded into a very popular and long-running world. The theme is fantasy, roleplay encouraged (well, you should), PK accepted--there are frequent hostilities between the two or three 'primary' religions and between individuals.

Now, I have an interest in seeing capable new people trying this place out for a few reasons:

- This MUD has been seeing a slow decline in players over the last years. There are a number of possible reasons for this. The one I hear more often than not is that new players have a difficult time becoming established compared to the older, devoted playerbase. There could be a few factors in play here but I'd love to have savvy players gauge this for themselves and tell me.

- It's not spoon-fed. So, yes, this is the opposite of the 'too hard for newbies' question, but I personally like that you have to work a little to get into certain guilds (there are quite a few). If you do stick with it, I think that most people who become familiar with the game like the depth of the world a lot.

- I also want to get the impression of people who join up and play without being colored by the changes made over those last few years (standardization of fighter guilds, so on) that carry...uh, emotional investment by players.

So as someone who really enjoys this MUD and wants it to thrive, I'd love to see people trying it out and telling me what they like, do *not* like, find difficult, so on. I can answer questions for you about the world in general or things specific to the game.

(Note: I won't tell you about quests because that's something I'd like to hear about in feedback regarding whether it's 'hard to find them' or not.)

To connect, you would telnet mud.xyllomer.de 3000.

Rend

try medievia too. I had a pretty good time with it when I went.

Papillon

I had fun playing the Iron Realms MUDs.

A few disclaimers though:
1) They list about five games -- the games are all basically the same. I believe the main differences are the flavor and possibly the level of PvP.
2) Although you can play for free, it is almost impossible to reach the highest levels of skill without paying real money -- their business model is play for free, but pay for the best equipment and more skills. You can still enjoy yourself for free though.

tuxkamen

It'd be interesting to see non-fantasy MU* that are well-regarded, too.

mightyspacepope

I had fun back in the day on the Transformers: 2005 MUSH. I'm not sure how active it is now, or if anyone would even be interested. I did have a lot of fun there, though, and it really makes me yearn for a Transformers RPG of some sort.

Horseshoe

dang i ain't used telnet in years

i'd be up to try this out if several of us would pick a game and go in together as a bunch of young upstarts

edit: regarding DDV's comment below... i'm fine with either theatrical or game-ish so long as there's no creepy shit like furries and/or cybering. this should go without saying i suppose but eeew.

DirtyDirtyVagrant

I'm kind of looking for something a little more theatrical and a little less game-ish.

tuxkamen

If by 'theatrical' you mean 'roleplaying' versus non, there are many places that do that. Xyllomer is one such.

If you all plan a field trip, again, I can help answer questions and give some assistance. (I couldn't actually go in with you until Monday, though.)

El Skid

I totally miss Genesis (mud hosted at Chalmers in Sweden, or was- no idea if it's still around).

Middle earth, Dragon Lance bits, and lots of custom-developed worlds all interconnected by boats with a couple hundred people online at any given time.

Was a ton of fun, back in the day.

I miss Calia often

bsjezz

discworld mud pretty much made me who i am. it's a fantastic world filled with huge amounts of well-written content and all the humour of the books. it both supports a lot of roleplaying and a really nitty-gritty combat system which has tons of flexibility

i highly recommend it. there's usually about 70-100 people online these days so you'll always find people to tee up with and go huntin', or sit in the pub and drink under the table

neville

I played on a number of MUDs back in the day...
A Moment in Time (WoT based), Medevia, Dragon Realms... then spent about 6-7 years playing for-pay ones: Federation and Gemstone 3 (now Gemstone 4).

They can be a lot of fun, depending on what you're interested in doing. I liked the emphasis on story that GS had. Too many games lately are just about the grind/end game/etc

Rob Anybody

Another vote for Discworld Mud here. If you have even a passing positive acquaintance with books, it is definitely the first Mud you should be considering. Having said that, I haven't been there in years, but still...

FrostMist

ooh - this takes me back, I remember playing a good old mud called: Fate of Kingdoms - was pretty fun ^^

tuxkamen

<pop>

Got a couple of people interested, so I'm bringing this back up to continue the discussion.

JPants

http://www.realmsofdespair.com/

Realms of despair is a fantastic MUD. I played it for 5 or so years. Great community, great mechanics. All around awesome game.

dscrilla

mightyspacepope wrote: »

I had fun back in the day on the Transformers: 2005 MUSH. I'm not sure how active it is now, or if anyone would even be interested. I did have a lot of fun there, though, and it really makes me yearn for a Transformers RPG of some sort.

I don't know if it was the same but i played a TF mush in the late 90's. It was a blast, I was Astrotrain!

Malkor

I spent so much time and effort playing various MU* games. I even got my friends into it.

Incenjucar

You're definitely going to want to research any MU* before getting involved in it, and you are going to want to stay in relatively public areas in them once you have found safe ones. The furry ones are not, in fact, all-bad, at least compared to other MU*s (I have learned bad things of people from an X-Men MU* ), but they're probably more likely to assume you are into weird shit and the descriptions can get disturbing quickly. They're kind of like hippies that way.

Be wary of anyone trying to isolate you for an unspecified purpose.

I've been on a few, with varying themes, and with varying crowds, and have some very (very :winky:) close friends from one of them, but I also have a good dose of memories I wish I did not have because I am a bit too bold, but there is definitely fun to be had.

#1 thing is to not get your emotions too tied up into things or mistake IC and OOC stuff. I used to know people who have gotten married (and swiftly divorced) based on in-character romance, and it is not remotely pretty. It's just a game. There are real people playing it with you, so don't be a dick, but it is just a game.

Also, I have heard things of Tapestries, and I am so very sorry it was your fist exposure. That's where the people who are too weird for the normal crazy weird shit go. :P

tuxkamen

Incenjucar wrote: »

...and I am so very sorry it was your fist exposure.

Truer words were never, ever spoken.

I didn't even think about it, but yes, actually--if you aren't looking for a *game* to play, MUCKs, MOOs, and MUSHs are primarily concerned with world-building and role-playing.

Example: I'm an admin for AnimeMUCK, one of the oldest anime-themed MUCKs out there. (Actually...the oldest? Maybe, at this point.) Back in its heyday, we'd have something like 50 people on 24/7, people building new areas as soon as a series became popular, so on.

As the average age of the players goes up, though, the 'zeal' (in many aspects) goes down. These guys, it's more high-level chatting than anything else.

As a disclaimer, I should point out that anyone reading this thread should take fireball's cautions to heart whenever dealing with other people, especially in roleplaying situations and doubly especially for the specific MU* he mentions. People can get extremely weird extremely quickly when 'alone' with you.

piL

How long until there's a 4e DnD MU* I wonder.

Also lol @ cybering in my Shadowrun MUs

GungHo

I mostly played on MOOs... AngrealMOO, TrekMOO, and socialized on LambdaMOO and Diversity University and a few others. I haven't gotten on telnet in years.

tuxkamen

piL: wired reflexes amirite

My favorite non-MUCKs in school were the Battletech MU* and sim sites, where you could play 10-on-10 matches in mechs pretty much 24/7. Getting color ASCII mapping enabled was like color TV.