THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)
Fun Stuff => CLIKC => Topic started by: Ozymandias on 15 Jun 2009, 19:37
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But wait...what is a MUD?
Well, I'm glad you asked! It's sort of like a cross between a modern MMO like WoW and the old text adventure games like Zork! Lots of people in a text-based world, having fun and playing a game!
So I have to type and stuff?
Yep. And use your imagination. No, no graphics for you my friend, but what you lose in pixels you gain in freedom! You can create your own story, your own items, your own character exactly as you want it and enjoy a vast, rich world.
So you just sit around and talk all day like a chat room?
If you want. But it's also an actual game! You fight monsters and win or lose on dice rolls(random number generation) and strategy like any other RPG. You fight other players and match wits! You explore and create, kill and destroy!
Give me an example.
Easy!
Dusty Lane
You are on a dusty lane running north and south here. At night, you can't
see much of anything except deep shadows and moving figures. Best move
quickly through this part of town.
[Exits: north (east) south (west)]
(C) A street urchin is hanging around.
(C) A ferrling scuffles about.
(C) (Flying) A large, black raven flies overhead.
Well see here? This is a room, a dusty lane in the middle of a ruined town. You can go north, south, east, or west by typing any of those directions. (The ones in parantheses are doors!) There's also some creatures here! That big (C) means they're roughly your level. You can fight them by typing "kill raven" or whatever the heck you want to kill. Let's see what happens.
Your pathetic stab misses a large, black raven's leg.
A large, black raven's pathetic peck misses your hand.
Your competent stab perforates a large, black raven's leg.
A large, black raven is DEAD!!
You receive 189 experience points.
You hear a large, black raven's death cry.
You sacrifice the corpse of a large, black raven to the Gods.
The Gods award you vitality for your sacrifices.
Hot dang. We kicked that raven's ass! That'll teach it to be alive!
Well, cool. I want to kill birds for no real reason! How do I play?
Well, first you need a MUD client. The standard one is Telnet, which comes with every version of Windows. DON'T USE IT. It sucks for MUDs. A really good one is zMUD/CMUD (http://www.zuggsoft.com/index.php). The current version costs money, but you can use a trial version or download a very old version for free!
Second, you need a MUD to connect to. There's a lot out there and most suck! I'm going to promote one that I really enjoy: Lensmoor (http://lensmoor.org/)! Just start a new session and put in the hostname field: lensmoor.org and port number: 3500
Okay, but why Lensmoor?
You're certainly good at coming up with great questions! Well, here's the thing. A lot of MUDs are solely hack and slash kill kill kill kill kill games. In fact, so many are that most are dead because no one actually cared that much after the first week of killing things. There was nothing special! On the other side, there's a lot of games similar to MUDs called MUSHes where there's almost no killing at all. It's all people being very dramatic and usually acting out interactive fanfiction for their beloved universes. Boooriiiing.
In the middle, we find the reasonable Lensmoor. You can hack and slash and power game to your hearts content or you can role play an interesting character or do both at the same time. You'll be rewarded for your effort in either direction! In addition, the entire world is uniquely created with its own mythology, having been built and expanded upon for over 12 years.
How do I start?
Well, when you start you need to choose a name. Choose something unique that you can remember, and not something you'd tend to find in WoW like CoolStoryBro or Anakin'smom. Then you need to choose what continent to start on. See, there's two major continents, eternally at war. Lensmoor is a land of lush green forests and plains, where you'll find many standard fantasy races to choose from such as humans, sidhe(elves), gnomes, etc. Antrippa on the other hand is a harsh, mountainous land with vast stretches of desert. Here you'll find more manipulative or cruel races like orcs, the spider-like arachnaia, or the beautiful louryl(also elves). Don't be fooled though! Each continent is filled with good and evil alike and you're not bound to playing a good person in Lensmoor or an evil person in Antrippa.
What about my class?
You have no class! Lensmoor uses a skill-based classless system. You're free to learn whatever spells and skills you choose as long as you have the required pre-requisite skills. However, you can only learn skills as long as you have the required number of practices(you get one every two hours or can buy them through questing) and enough "skill cap". Once your skill cap is full, you're done until you level up! This makes sure that no one knows every spell and forces people into creating their own unique blend of skills to play their character as they feel appropriate.
Okay! What's all this advanced options stuff?
It's a little more complicated. Get a feel for the game first, then you can work it out. No one sticks with their first character anyway.
Anyway, if anyone wants to play, I'm Izymar, a new character I just started after having not played the game in a year or two. I'm on Antrippa but will gladly sign on to the Lensmoorian side (on Ozymar) if people want to play there to help you along!
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I always liked "Let's Play!" threads but never really liked MUDs. One day when I've got more time on my hands I'll start up a Fallout "Let's Play!"
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I have been MUDding for ten years now, so I would totally be down, but my work blocked access to MUDSSSSSSS... ARGHH.
Right after I had built enough trigs to keep my character exp'ing for the entire 8 hours I was here with no need to intervene. Ha.
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I'm down cause it's been a few years since I repped moongate and MUDs are always way more fun to play with a group of people you already know, so I'll be starting my character tonight, y'all.
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Oh man, rad.
I didn't think anyone at all would even try to come on board with this idea.
I mean.
It involves fuckin' reading.
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But... But... This is a forum... Mudding is the next logical step. In a mud, the text appears in psuedo-realtime
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Starting my character right now. Never played a MUD before; this should be interesting.
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Starting my character right now. Never done the equivalent of smoking crack before; this should be interesting.
Fixed that for you.
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Apparently my computer cannot handle simple text-based games....it keeps wigging out on me every time I try to create a character.
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Wow.
That's impressive.
Even my ancient laptop from 1998 that's running XP because I'm too lazy to put something more reasonably small on it can play MUDs.
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I'd play but I'm already neck deep in MMOs that are already taking up entirely too much of my free time. I actually prefer communicating with people via text than Ventrilo though, so I was definitely tempted.
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MUDs > MMOs
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Not really. They're basically the same thing except one costs more while the other is a cesspool of TS and bolted on mechanics.
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Don't forget spelling errors and completely out-of-contexts areas and monsters!
But that's what is fun about it! The games are entirely user-created. Have an idea? Code it! I used to spend hours a day scribbling LPC code on bits of paper around my dorm room.
Of course, eventually you'll reach a critical mass of suckage and break the entire engine, but that's fun too!
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My favorite part was the blatant staff favoritism and cliques.
No, really, I mean that. I had a special cloak once that gave me resting regeneration bonuses at all times. It was hawt.
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Lensmoor is pretty internally consistent in both mechanics and theme and is constantly evolving, which actually surprised me. I stopped playing in 2007, then picked it back up again last week and it had changed dramatically while still essentially being the same. It was odd.
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That is odd, considering every MUD I abandoned either disappeared or--more frighteningly--stayed exactly the same. I abandoned Tharsis Gate about seven years ago and logged on recently to find all the same people.
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I tried playing but I couldn't pick the thing up from the box in the tutorial.
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Did you "get <item> from box?"
get dagger from box
wield dagger
commit seppuku
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I am called jimmy, and I have killed a bunch of ravens and a snake. I am some sort of fish-man.
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I got the item from the box.
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If Lensmoor isn't to your liking, there are tons of other muds out there. I remember youth spent on www.themudconnector.com trying out the latest Dragonball themed mux.
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The Discworld mud is pretty fun and in-depth. There are also a few fantastic Shadowrun-themed muds.
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Wow, I was just thinking about MUDs the other day. I used to play for hours and hours, and on one MUD actually got to the point where I was one of the writers. I will check out Lensmoor, but probably not until after I check out my old MUD to see if it's still around. I have to see if my zMUD client still works, too. Man, it's been years.
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I'm Ushas (human mage) on Adventures Unlimited. It's the only MUD I can play because it's the only MUD I know of with an automap. I grew up on King's Quest, not Zork -- I need graphics! It's pretty small, there's usually only a dozen people online, but that means the admins are highly accessable and anyone can change the metaplot, which I intend to.