MUDs are too involving

You don't say? I remember when I was at university the mere site of a greasy haired face staring at a blue and white telnet screen could persuade me to give up on coursework and go down the pub.

Come to think of it, the mere presence of the pub could do that.

I have a dog instead. Drool, bad breath, lots of hair, stupidity, barking, lying in the way, humping his bed, and smelly poo.

oh boy, addictive as hell... and playable on riscos

Let's see... MUDS...

First MUD I got in to was TOS Trek, a Star Trek one based around the same time as Kirk. Good MUD, except for a few problems...

1) No-one seemed interested in playing it; out of about 10 to 20 people online while I was, they all seemed to hang around in the OOC area. I only actually met one person in-game.
2) The version of the MUD had been in development since about 1996, and showed no signs of progress since then.
3) The admin were a bit of an a**e... it took over 6 months for them to set up a shop for me to sell stuff from, and I still never got any of the equipment in that would actually make it a shop
4) The only real way of doing anything appeared to be by joining starfleet, since there was no-one else around.

So, after about 6 months, I finally got bored and left.

*quick check*

yep, it's still around at http://www.tos.net/

Oooh look, a grand total of 15 people are playing, and the website doesn't seem to have changed in the past 2 years.

Let's have a look at the 'Genesis project', the codename for the next version:

20 June 99 No details have been added yet. Keep checking this site for more information.

They've made some real progress then

Let's see... I suppose about a year later I got back into another MUD, Fractal Edge. A nice and brutal cyberpunk world, except for one problem...

A freak IP address change a few months earlier seemed to have lost them about 99% of their players, such that I was usually the only one connected. At the time I was hanging around the TF2 forums (Before the great cleansing, but that's another story), and managed to convince a few of my friends their to join up. None of them really took to it though, and I was left running round smashing pedestrians and selling their organs all by myself

I found a nice client, zMUD, and got a map of pretty much all of the world made while I was there - a great help for navigation. The only problem was that since all the players had vanished, there was literally nothing to do except the ped-smashing - all the shops were out of supplies (e.g. guns), and when I managed to finally kill someone who had a gun there was no ammo left in it

To cut a long story short though, one day one of the admins turned up (Using a cloaking device), and said that soon the MUD would be shut down due to lack of players. He also gave me a load of cash, and a nice chaingun to play with. Unfortunately a gang of guard dogs in a room marked 'do not enter' soon finished me off and I lost most of my stuff

Where was I, oh yes. The MUD was shut down

You may remember these posts as a desperate attempt to get more players:

IconBar
Acorn Arcade

As you can tell though, they failed

Then, all was quiet....

Until this post popped up:

Acorn Arcade

I got into that for a while, until I realised that it would take hours and hours to build up to the same kind of character level as the top rate players (No doubt with flat-rate connections ).

I've no idea when it was I left, but quite a few things have changed since then... site redesigns, downloadable version, larger map, enlargement of the non-PK area in favour of a system where both people must agree to fight, etc.

If my accout is still active, I should be hidden in the woods somewhere hunting bears and surviving off the land

But the moral of this story is...

I'm not going to look at MUME because MUDs are too involving - you need to spend ages playing them in order to get the most benefit, and other people can come to depend on you as being part of the MUD community. If I can find a nice cyberpunk MUD though (And some way of dodging paying for a good MUD client), I may return...

[Edit]

Whooo.. took about half an hour to write that

I have many more stories that I can tell if you lot don't learn to be in the forums when I am...

Either that or we need an IRC channel

Also corrected the &'s in the URLs not being trapped properly (Which I reported ages ago, might find a link to it for you)

[Edit #2]

Here you go!

[Edited by Phlamethrower at 20:35, 24/3/2002]

And couldn't a MUD be classed as a type of RTS?

Since no-one else is here at the moment, I might as well rant to myself.
Let's see... MUDS...
First MUD I got in to was TOS Trek, a Star Trek one based around the same time as Kirk. Good MUD, except for a few problems...
1) No-one seemed interested in playing it; out of about 10 to 20 people online while I was, they all seemed to hang around in the OOC area. I only actually met one person in-game.
2) The version of the MUD had been in development since about 1996, and showed no signs of progress since then.
3) The admin were a bit of an a**e... it took over 6 months for them to set up a shop for me to sell stuff from, and I still never got any of the equipment in that would actually make it a shop
4) The only real way of doing anything appeared to be by joining starfleet, since there was no-one else around.
So, after about 6 months, I finally got bored and left.
*quick check*
yep, it's still around at
Oooh look, a grand total of 15 people are playing, and the website doesn't seem to have changed in the past 2 years.
Let's have a look at the 'Genesis project', the codename for the next version:
20 June 99 No details have been added yet. Keep checking this site for more information.
They've made some real progress then
Let's see... I suppose about a year later I got back into another MUD, Fractal Edge. A nice and brutal cyberpunk world, except for one problem...
A freak IP address change a few months earlier seemed to have lost them about 99% of their players, such that I was usually the only one connected. At the time I was hanging around the TF2 forums (Before the great cleansing, but that's another story), and managed to convince a few of my friends their to join up. None of them really took to it though, and I was left running round smashing pedestrians and selling their organs all by myself
I found a nice client, zMUD, and got a map of pretty much all of the world made while I was there - a great help for navigation. The only problem was that since all the players had vanished, there was literally nothing to do except the ped-smashing - all the shops were out of supplies (e.g. guns), and when I managed to finally kill someone who had a gun there was no ammo left in it
To cut a long story short though, one day one of the admins turned up (Using a cloaking device), and said that soon the MUD would be shut down due to lack of players. He also gave me a load of cash, and a nice chaingun to play with. Unfortunately a gang of guard dogs in a room marked 'do not enter' soon finished me off and I lost most of my stuff
Where was I, oh yes. The MUD was shut down
You may remember these posts as a desperate attempt to get more players:
As you can tell though, they failed
Then, all was quiet....
Until this post popped up:
I got into that for a while, until I realised that it would take hours and hours to build up to the same kind of character level as the top rate players (No doubt with flat-rate connections ).
I've no idea when it was I left, but quite a few things have changed since then... site redesigns, downloadable version, larger map, enlargement of the non-PK area in favour of a system where both people must agree to fight, etc.
If my accout is still active, I should be hidden in the woods somewhere hunting bears and surviving off the land
But the moral of this story is...
I'm not going to look at MUME because MUDs are too involving - you need to spend ages playing them in order to get the most benefit, and other people can come to depend on you as being part of the MUD community. If I can find a nice cyberpunk MUD though (And some way of dodging paying for a good MUD client), I may return...
[Edit]
Whooo.. took about half an hour to write that
I have many more stories that I can tell if you lot don't learn to be in the forums when I am...
Either that or we need an IRC channel
Also corrected the &'s in the URLs not being trapped properly (Which I reported ages ago, might find a link to it for you)
[Edit #2]
[Edited by
at 20:35, 24/3/2002]

My cat's breath smells like cat's poo.

I was wondering when someone would post a comment like that

Do you have a cat?

No, but I was talking more about the complete off-topicness and general air of 'I don't give a damn about what he just posted' in the reply.

I have a dog instead. Drool, bad breath, lots of hair, stupidity, barking, lying in the way, humping his bed, and smelly poo.

Yes but the sender must have found it very funny

Your dog sounds nice.