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Iconoclast: a Gothic/Cyberpunk MUD RPG, Online Since 1996
- russsaidwords 8y agoCheck out http://mudstats.com http://mudstats.com - there are some that have been available since 1989!
- VectorLock 8y agoInteresting site. I sorted by "Online Now" and the #1 is an Adult Furry MUCK and the next 2 most populated are also labeled "Adult."
- holtalanm 8y agoI wondered how long the old MUD was that i used to play in high school. Apparently, DartMUD has been online since 1991.
- daemon_beard 8y agoDoesn't seem to be online to me: $ telnet iconoclast.org 7777 Trying 64.62.194.134... telnet: connect to address 64.62.194.134: Connection refused
- munk-a 8y agoMUDs are amazing, I have quite fond memories of http://www.middle-earth.us/ http://www.middle-earth.us/ (Shadows of Isildur) which is a wonderful thing to get into if you have the time to do so. Also, from a tech angle almost all of these are incredible horror shows of legacy code, if you've ever wanted to see 40+ year old code that was written in danish originally then take a look at one of the DikuMUD descendants.
- codetrotter 8y agoOnce I am done with the project I am currently working on for pay I am going to work a bit on a personal project, writing a small MUD. However I was planning on writing the client myself to offer, among other things, sound etc. as well as giving me endless future possibilities over having people connect over telnet. However, http://www.middle-earth.us/?page_id=55 http://www.middle-earth.us/?page_id=55 says about that MUD: > Connect to Middle-earth.us: 4500 with your favorite MUD client. And this made me wonder. I thought classic MUDs were played over telnet with a regular telnet client, but apparently not. So, market research time. What sorts of MUD clients are people using?
- munk-a 8y agoOh-ho-ho... and here you will enter into a holy war on the scale of VI vs. Emacs but with about 1k people in total that care about it. In my time I've used MushClient, SimpleMU and zMUD, all of which I can endorse (but MushClient was probably my favorite). I've also heard people rave about TinTin. Most MUDs (including SoI) do fully support telnet, but get richer if you use a client that allows intelligent logging, macros, multi-channel support and better text highlighting. If you're curious there's a nice wiki page about the different clients available.
- codetrotter 8y ago> Oh-ho-ho... and here you will enter into a holy war on the scale of VI vs. Emacs but with about 1k people in total that care about it. Ha ha, I see :) > In my time I've used MushClient, SimpleMU and zMUD, all of which I can endorse (but MushClient was probably my favorite). I've also heard people rave about TinTin. I will look into these ones then. > If you're curious there's a nice wiki page about the different clients available. Is the wiki page you are referring to on Wikipedia or elsewhere? /me googles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_client https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD_client this one it?
- munk-a 8y agoThat is it, yes! FYI the settings differences between these are pretty simple so maybe play with a few (possibly starting with free ones) before settling in.
- codetrotter 8y agoWill do. Thanks.
- gaguevaras 8y agoTo this day, I still log on to Kingdoms of the Lost(http://kingdomsofthelost.blogspot.com/ http://kingdomsofthelost.blogspot.com/). Not one of the oldies like some of the ones on the http://mudstats.com http://mudstats.com list, but definitely a goldie.
- gww 8y agoThe MUD I used to play (http://realmsofchaos.com/ http://realmsofchaos.com/) is still going thanks to an intrepid admin who has kept it online since 1994. It is unfortunately desolate now but it is nice to see a piece of gaming history alive and well. I occasionally log on to wander through some of my favorite areas. I have very fond memories of RoC as it's where I learned to program and had my first taste of algorithm development.
- keyle 8y agoIn the rules > 3) Personal grudges > This is not real-life, and most people do not want it to be. Meaning: Do not carry RL personal grudges into the game. Loved that. Should be put at the entrance of all social media platforms.
- pxtail 8y ago> Should be put at the entrance of all social media platforms. This might be not necessarily true - when one uses social media account with his personal, official name, contains content that prove it's identity then it is quite safe to assume that this social media account is just digital representation of this particular real life person. So in this case if someone has personal grudge against this person then why it shouldn't be propagated to online presence?
- jhare 8y agolotgd.net - I don't play any more but if you haven't it's great fun. Lots of 90s nostalgia from LORD/Usurper/Exitilus in dial up BBSes
- drak0n1c 8y agoI used to occasionally hop on and try LOTGD until dying in the same session. There was a similar non-terminal MUD-like game called Phantasia as well. Heavy LOTR themes, Java client, permadeath, players could ascend to become Steward, King, or even Valar with special abilities that affected other players. It was available way back on Netscape and is still scraping by. https://www.phantasia5.com/ https://www.phantasia5.com/ Dragon Court was another MUD-like. Java with painted art graphics in the browser.
- toast42 8y agoPlug for my favorite MUD, even if I haven't played in years: https://www.aardwolf.com/ https://www.aardwolf.com/
- gww 8y agoThis was one of the most popular MUDs if I recall? The one I used to play definitely stole their website design.
- evilantnie 8y agohttp://www.medievia.com/ http://www.medievia.com/ was mine, and it's still chugging along since '92, I played all through high-school, but then WOW came along. Before I learned about the tintin mud client, I had actually memorized key strokes to get around the map, good times.
- munk-a 8y agoJust a general note to all the former MUDers here, you folks are awesome. MUDs remain a wonderful community to join on the internet with a much higher proportion of friendly creative folk to interact with. This is a bit sappy but whether I played with you or not the time I've spent MUDing is time I'll always treasure.
- orblivion 8y agoHmm. Based in the 22nd century. With this sort of viability I wonder if it'll survive until that point.
- stormcode 8y agowww.sindome.org / moo.sindome.org 5555 Cyberpunk MUD. Been online since 1997. It has a web client which is great, but continue to support mud clients and simple telnet. No color, ansi, xterm256 all supported. Has good accessibility options as well. Very friendly to visually imparied with special code for stripping out stuff like ascii art. Roleplay enforced. Has a detailed timeline and wiki. 50-60 people online at anytime. Good and well trained staff.
- Diederich 8y agoI've been playing MUME, MultiUsers in Middle Earth https://mume.org:4143/ https://mume.org:4143/ off and on since it came up in late 1991. It's like playing PvE and PvP inside of Tolkien's books. The quality of the text in the rooms and zones is extremely and consistently high, and the world is enormous. As of right now, here's the world map: https://pastebin.com/L8Yn8EhD https://pastebin.com/L8Yn8EhD The two G's on the left are the Grey Havens. The R is Rivendell, the double M in the center is Moria, and the E on the bottom is Edoras. The ? zones are under construction. Each of these zones are large and complex on their own. I usually play a Hobbit thief, and can fondly recall some of the times, many years ago, when I was out in the wild, doing my own thing, when a band of Orc players came by. This was usually a death sentence, but at times, if I was high enough level, I could hide and sneak my way out of there. Or...when I was higher level, I'd find some Black Númenórean tracks. After a long and careful hunt, there he was, resting by himself in the woods, unaware of my presence. Moments later, I was going through his stuff, after a quick knife to the back. Very heart-pounding times!
- CodeMage 8y agoMUME was the MUD I played the most. On the plus side, I absolutely loved the world size, complexity and quality. On the negative side, the gameplay balance was horrible. And, since I was playing from South America, my ping didn't help either. I tried some other MUDs later, but most of them have smaller worlds, not so intricate or well-described. I just couldn't get that same magic of exploring that I did from MUME. I still visit ElvenRunes once or twice a year, to see how you guys are doing ;)
- freediver 8y agoOh the MUDs! Props to Forest’s edge and TempusMUD. Text is the ultimate medium because it directly connects with our imagination. I remember jumping out of my chair after reading a line of text on my screen. Recommend watching “Get lamp” documentary to fans of MUDs, text adventures and those born after: https://youtu.be/LRhbcDzbGSU https://youtu.be/LRhbcDzbGSU
- profsnuggles 8y agoOdd coincidence, I read this HN thread and when I checked my email I had an update from Starmourn. A new scifi mud from Iron Realms that launched the end of 2018. I can't say much more about it though. When I signed up to the mailing list ~3 years ago I was maybe too optimistic about the amount of future free time I would have. I do think that it's interesting that new commercial MUDs are launching. (Well one anyway.) https://www.starmourn.com/ https://www.starmourn.com/
- CodeMage 8y agoHoo boy, Iron Realms. Achaea was my very first experience with pay-to-win multiplayer games. I don't know if the rest of them are any better, but I know that Iron Realms was the first game company that made me feel disgust as a player. In that sense, they were the precursor of EA.
- _iyig 8y agoI was too young for the MUD heyday, but I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the community-led rebirth of EverQuest, an early 3D MMO that was heavily MUD-inspired. There’s a free server run by an independent team which seeks to replicate the experience of the game as it existed in 1999. It’s become quite popular, with a regular player count of 1000+: https://www.project1999.com https://www.project1999.com
- technofiend 8y agoBrad McQuaid who was the lead designer of EverQuest is at it again with a new MMO called Pantheon. Is development a strictly crowdfunded because he refuses to take on an investor probably based on his experience dealing with Sony. Personally I don't have the time, energy or interest to play an MMO with the kind of time sinks that Everquest had and that Pantheon plans to repeat. But if it's an itch you want to scratch then look for that game.
- aidenn0 8y agoThe webpage says it has the Velious expansion and a level cap of 60, so more like 2001. In 1999, there were no expansions and the level cap was 50.
- geddy 8y agoHow would one get into one of these MUDs? I realize these are quite old, but I can't even find out how to load this up. Maybe I am missing the point here. That, or I need to install Java.
- rhn_mk1 8y agoUsing telnet :) The link is on the front page: telnet://iconoclast.org:7777 Unfortunately, it looks hugged to death (?), cause I'm getting a connection refused.
- mbunch 8y agoThere are some projects like https://writtenrealms.com https://writtenrealms.com that are trying to modernize the MUD and lower the barrier to entry, but they are still coming together and most of the ones with an established player base / full feature set are still the traditional telnet setup.
- aeturnum 8y agoSince we're all linking the MUDs we're nostalgic about, I've always had a soft sport in my heart for the Unofficial Squaresoft MUD (http://uossmud.sandwich.net/ http://uossmud.sandwich.net/). It's a love letter to the worlds in classic square games with a class system inspired by FFT.
- praptak 8y agoPouring one out for Grimne, my favourite MUD, which is unfortunately no longer up. It was an eerie feeling to log on there after a 15+ years pause, the server empty, all the good old NPCs waiting to be slayed. Like a strange fully functional yet abandoned interactive museum.
- mudster 8y agoIf you like that, you'll love CyberSphere: http://mudstats.com/World/Cybersphere http://mudstats.com/World/Cybersphere
- sdrothrock 8y agoI basically learned to program for Wheel of Time-based MUDs... first on The True Source, then on The Weave, and then on As the Wheel Weaves. It was amazing how much drama existed behind the scenes and how there would be a family tree of staff/codebases stemming from that drama and stolen code/areas. As the Wheel Weaves is apparently not running anymore, but a few years ago I found a split of a split that still has an in-game game that I wrote that people still apparently play and enjoy. It's really gratifying.
- manfredo 8y ago> It was amazing how much drama existed behind the scenes and how there would be a family tree of staff/codebases stemming from that drama and stolen code/areas. It sounds like this stuff lives on in the likes of Space Station 13. IIRC at one point one team stole the compiled server code of of one of the other team's versions, decompiled it, and worked on it from there. One of the most popular versions has a client that forces users to watch an ad before playing and people are constantly trying to reverse engineer the API and build a replacement client. Some people have even made decently impressive attempts at making a 3d version of the game.
- kageneko 8y agoOh hey, a fellow Weaver. Sorta. Back then, I was Artanin and the drama is why I gave up the mud. I did put the Weave files I have on github, tho.
- hkt 8y agoI used to play sdfMUD and was introduced to the rolling stones by reading the book in the chapel of Swanbrook left by an author who identified herself as Snowbird. I'll always remember it and always be grateful. The line was "Lose your dreams and you will lose your mind" and was apparently committed to that environment when I was single digits in age.
- stevefan1999 8y agoI thought the name was an anargram to localhost, but it is easily contradicted with the absence of 'h'. Anyway, still a cool name though