The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds • Hacker News Board

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#41

Post by peckrob » Wed, Aug 19, 2015, 8:30 PM UTC

bamie9l wrote: post #39

peckrob wrote: post #34

I was a big player of MUDs back in the 90s. I probably spent way too many hours staring at green text (when I should have been studying), but I wouldn't trade those hours for anything. Some of my best computing memories of that era are from playing various MUDs, and even 20+ years later I still keep up with some of the friends I met in the games. Many of the MUDs I played on are sadly long gone, but a few are still a…

Can you recommend any for a newcomer to look at?

It's really a question of what you're into. MUDs run the gamut from purely social with little combat (a bit like IRC with more functionality) to traditional medieval fantasy hack-and-slash to sci-fi space combat.

Some have specialized clients they recommend; I'm a big fan of just using TinyFugue [0] in a shell window, but that's just me. :)

MUD Connector [1] is a great place to start, as it has a few thousand listed with average sizes, themes, reviews, etc. All searchable, so you can find what appeals to you.

As a very general rule, start with the bigger more active ones. The smaller ones can be very fun and you can make great, close friendships with other players, but they also can tend to get kind of insular and hard for a new player to penetrate.

[0] http://tinyfugue.sourceforge.net/ (it's also in most package managers and in homebrew for Mac)

[1] http://www.mudconnect.com/index.html

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#42

Post by bamie9l » Thu, Aug 20, 2015, 9:38 AM UTC

peckrob wrote: post #41

bamie9l wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you recommend any for a newcomer to look at?

It's really a question of what you're into. MUDs run the gamut from purely social with little combat (a bit like IRC with more functionality) to traditional medieval fantasy hack-and-slash to sci-fi space combat. Some have specialized clients they recommend; I'm a big fan of just using TinyFugue [0] in a shell window, but that's just me. :) MUD Connector [1] is a great place to start, as it has a few thousand listed…

Thanks very much :)

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#43

Post by joshYarnspinner » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 8:23 PM UTC

tehbeard wrote: post #11

minikomi wrote: post #6

Does anyone remember something about a minecraft server which is never reset.. and turned into a desolate stripmined wasteland around the spawn point, where you have to hope to luck into a food cache just to survive.. Edit: it appears the server is called "2b2t" .. searching for it brings up a ton of interesting stuff: https://imgur.com/a/bt3zi

It's a shame they didn't show the inside of the spawn "cube". Last time I went on there, you spawned atop an uneven cobble floor, those huge cobble walls surrounding you. Exiting the cube is hazardous. It's dark, twisty, and full of deep pits that open up just around corners as you try to escape.

As a 2b2t player, I would say that whilst it initially appears to be rather difficult to exit said 'cube', it is in fact rather easy to escape. One must simply be willing to try a few times and meet new people. Why go near people who are potentially hostile? There is no loss: one simply restarts with the same amount as before (0), but one could make a friend which will provide one with food etc. in order to facilitate easier arrival at 2b2t Immigration. 2b2t Immigration's officers are rather ... variable. Some will kill on sight (KoS), whilst others will give render assistance. However, the main factor which has lead to 2b2t spawn becoming easier is the road system. There are roads every multiple of 400 blocks up until the 1200 orbital, for the most part, thanks to the efforts of several players. The roads lead to portals, which in theory allow you to get to over 100k overworld by walking along nether paths. Within the 1200 radius there are a multitude of farms, and within the latter radius there are far more indeed. After about 1k the landscape appears to be vaguely naturally generated, and after 5k all destruction of spawn like intensity ceases to be.

Re: The Weird Abandoned Spaces of Virtual Worlds

#44

Post by joshYarnspinner » Sat, Aug 22, 2015, 8:24 PM UTC

w0000t wrote: post #8

minikomi wrote: post #6

Does anyone remember something about a minecraft server which is never reset.. and turned into a desolate stripmined wasteland around the spawn point, where you have to hope to luck into a food cache just to survive.. Edit: it appears the server is called "2b2t" .. searching for it brings up a ton of interesting stuff: https://imgur.com/a/bt3zi

Don't you have to spawn at the coordinates 0,0, or at the so called "spawn point". How did you start at 5000+? I'm assuming you used an offline version.

In the first few years, people always spawned at 0 0. This was a large box, sometimes full of withers, which was difficult to escape. I believe that after some people completely covered 0 0 in cobblestone, rendering escape de facto impossible, the random spawn point system was introduced, in order to make it more difficult to cover all spawn points.