Games: Go Retro with a Text-Based MUD
By stephanie - Tuesday, November 8th, 2005
Remember MUDs? If you don’t, these were text-based computer games that became hugely popular back before the World Wide Web took over the Internet. (It was estimated they took up 10% of all Internet bandwidth at one point.)
A MUD or Multi-User Dungeon is an online text-based adventure game where you interact with other players online. MUDs are kind of like the old Zork games, only with other people playing. There’s a huge element of chat involved in MUDs, and for some, the community aspect is more important than the actual play.
Back in the day (1995 to be exact), I was active on IgorMUD, which was a MUD based in Sweden. (Funny enough, it’s 10 years later and Igormud is still online at www.igormud.org.) I never got too far in terms of level or adventuring success, but it was a nice diversion at the time.
My sister and a friend from our high school got so involved in IgorMUD that they actually went to face-to-face IgorMeets. There was a whole community and culture that sprang up around IgorMUD.
Well, as the years went by I forgot about IgorMUD and text-based adventure games in general. The quality of computer graphics really skyrocketed in the late 90s. I remember when they game out with the first graphical Zork adventure game in the early 90s. (I think it was called “Return to Zork.”) The graphics were primitive compared to today’s standards, but at the time I was astonished and wowed!
(Imagine how things will change in another 10 years! I’m going to predict that by then we shall finally see virtual reality fully realized, where we will be able to immerse ourselves into realistic, graphical virtual environments!)
So you’d think, alas, with our Xbox and our Everquest, that the MUD would have gone the way of the dinosaur…it being text-based and all that.
Funny how things come around, however. I found myself accidentally finding a MUD site while searching for something entirely different on Google just last week. Hmmm…I wondered if IgorMUD was still around.
Out of curiosity, I found the address for my old beloved MUD and logged in. Sadly, IgorMUD is a tired shadow of its former self…what I had remembered had been moved or changed, and the players few compared to its heydey. (I feel this is partly due to IgorMUD’s broken help system. I couldn’t remember some basic commands and the “help command” function didn’t work. Not a great way to entice new players aboard.)
IgorMUD (while still playable) is hardly indicative of the many MUD environments out there now. MUDs have grown up! And while I can’t say for sure that MUDs are experiencing a bit of a “renaissance,” they are still viable, fantastic gaming environments.
The best thing of all? They are free!
Go to Top Mud Sites and you’ll find a whole slew of highly active, advanced MUDs. It truly surprised me to see that MUDs were not only still alive and kicking, but alive and flourishing!!
MUDs have gotten quite sophisticated since I used to play in the early-to-mid 90s. Many MUDs now come with beautiful, detailed websites, that offer help files, maps, illustrations of the different character types, and volumes of back history.
You can find MUDs on many different subjects too: Harry Potter, Star Trek, and even Alice in Wonderland.
Iron Realms is a game company that actually specializes in making MUDs. They earn their money by selling credits for players on the system who want to advance more quickly. Otherwise, the MUDs are free.
With this new, overwhelming world that just opened up for me, I decided to try MUDding again. I actually like to play video games but haven’t had much time recently. But since I do a lot of work at the computer, I figured that (as long as keep myself focused), taking 10 minutes here and there to check into a MUD might not be a bad distraction. (We can only hope!)
I chose one of the Iron Realm’s MUDs, Lusternia, to see if there was any truth to their advertising about how fantastic their MUDs were. (Also, I was hoping that on a commercial system, I might actually find some working help files.)
So far, so good. Lusternia first takes you through a very entertaining but thorough tutorial when you enter the game. The newbie support is suberb. And their web-based Java interface is exceptionally cool – you can click on a directional arrow rather than typing in “n” or “s” to move around.
I’m intrigued and looking forward to exploring this virtual text world.
So while you may not be wowed by the graphics, MUDs still have much to offer. MUDs are free, for one thing, and still highly immersive even with the use of text. You use your imagination rather than fancy graphics to provide the detail. In this respect, MUDs are like a good book. While it’s fantastic to see “Lord of the Rings” onscreen, there’s a certain amount of history from the book that cannot be fit into two or three hours of screentime.
The same can be said of MUDs. When you enter a MUD, you may not get the initial visual detail a cool graphic can provide. But you enter a world where graphics don’t limit you. The only limit is your imagination.
For those new to MUDs, the experience can be a little frustrating at first. MUDding is all about typing the right commands, and the commands must be typed in exactly. For example:
“LOOK AT BAG”
“GET SWORD”
“WIELD SWORD”
When choosing a MUD, here are a few things to consider:
- Do you like role-playing? On some MUDs, they are very strict about players talking “in character.”
- Are you interested in combat and killing or a more “sim-like” relaxed environment?
- What sort of world are you intersted in? Medieval times? Futuristic science fiction? Ancient Rome? A hodge podge? You can probably find a MUD centering around your interests.
- Do you need lots of support and help to get started? If so, you might want to choose a commercial MUD with actual helper staff online. (This is not to say that non-commercial MUDs don’t also have helpful communities. You’ll have to try them out to see.)
- What’s the community like? How long has it been around? For myself, part of the reason I chose Lusternia is that it is relatively new (having been around one year). This means that while the environment is already extensive and fleshed out, the MUD hasn’t been around so long where everyone knows everyone else, everyone has already gotten to high levels, and there’s no room for newbies.
Now, if you truly hate reading and typing, MUDding is not for you. But if you are looking for some free, quality entertainment, you might just get a bit retro and get MUDding!