Tell HN: 17 years on the same game • Hacker News Board

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#121

Post by chias » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 3:59 PM UTC

nsb1 wrote: post #66

Falkon1313 wrote: post #58

In the mid-90s, I took my bored then-girlfriend to the local University library computer lab and introduced her to MUDs. When they shut off the building lights late that night I had to pry her away from the computer terminal. (Neither of us were students, so getting caught there after closing might not have been good.) A few years later, I would play up to 16 hours straight with a lady who lived 1000 miles away (and…

I, too, met my now-wife on a MUD back in the mid 90s. It's a great story to tell, especially now in the age of Match.com and the like. "How did you know she wasn't some 300lb neck-beard named Jerry?" "I didn't. But Jerry would have had to be one hell of an actor." We clocked in a lot of hours in that place before I packed my life up and drove 2500 miles to be together.

My old guild leader on The Purple Dragon MUD did the same :)

My own story is similar, though it wasn't a MUD. I think it's pretty beautiful to fall in love with someone via a text-based view of their personality. In the world of Match and OKCupid I love to just tell people "we met online", mainly because it annoys my fiancee.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#122

Post by blunte » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:02 PM UTC

If this is the one I think it is, I played it periodically when my primary MUD was offline in the mid 90s.

It's kind of like how people who have read original books say that a movie version is rarely better, and people who only watch movies cannot believe that "just words" can be better.

But really, especially for (massively, by those standards) multi-player, words and text descriptions were wonderful.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#123

Post by lanbanger » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:10 PM UTC

telnet jumper.mcc.ac.uk:3214

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#124

Post by grumblepeet » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:15 PM UTC

osullivj wrote: post #108

DonHopkins wrote: post #89

I was lucky enough to play the original MUD1 at Essex over the ARPANET! I was on the old INFO-MUD@MC ARPA mailing list, and somebody from Essex University (probably Richard Bartle) posted instructions and an invitation to log into the original MUD1 running on a PDP-10 at the University of Essex via the ARPA/UK gateway at ARPA host address # 42 (NCP host addresses only had 8 bits in those days). https://en.wikipedia.o…

I was on the Essex MUD via JANET (Joint Academic Network) as an undergrad at Cambridge in late 87. IIRC there was a "shout" feature that broadcast a message to all users. I used to troll by shouting "VMS is way better than Unix"! Quite a few Essex MUDers would rise to the bait :) Bonus JANET trivia: IIRC the email addrs were back to front, so my email addr was something like uk.ac.cam.chu@jos.

Aha! Found you troll! I work for Jisc, who run Janet (note lower case now). We’ve sorted out the email addresses now ;).

When I was at UWE there was a major MUD which ran on a server under some guys desk, don’t know the name of it, but the guy spent a LOT of time on it.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#125

Post by Brendinooo » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:35 PM UTC

I played http://lensmoor.org/ a lot in high school because a friend did and because the filters didn't catch it. It was a fun time.

I made it to level 30 of 99 (well, 198, as you could "remort" and start over as a more advanced species. I loved it, but had an epiphany that I would either have to accept that I'd never be a top-tier character, or I'd have to significantly increase my investment in the game, which I wasn't willing to do.

But I loved the immersion and creativity that came with the game, and the roleplaying was a blast.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#126

Post by JauntTrooper » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:37 PM UTC

shabble wrote: post #73

movedx wrote: post #38

What MUD client do you use? I use /u/blueknight suggested Mudlet, but it doesn't have a profile for Discworld.

TinyFugue ( http://tinyfugue.sourceforge.net/ ) was for a long time the terminal client of choice. I used to use zMUD ( http://www.zuggsoft.com/page.php?file=zmud/zmudinfo.htm ), but looks like it maybe never made it past Windows XP.

cMUD was the successor to zMUD.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#127

Post by JauntTrooper » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:44 PM UTC

I share a similar fondness to my childhood MUD, WoTMUD (Wheel of Time): www.wotmud.org

I played daily from 1996-2006, and still occasionally log on to check in on the community, which is still quite active.

No other game ever came close to being as fun or immersive.

Haha I used to have text based dreams....

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#128

Post by c22 » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:47 PM UTC

chias wrote: post #121

nsb1 wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I, too, met my now-wife on a MUD back in the mid 90s. It's a great story to tell, especially now in the age of Match.com and the like. "How did you know she wasn't some 300lb neck-beard named Jerry?" "I didn't. But Jerry would have had to be one hell of an actor." We clocked in a lot of hours in that place before I packed my life up and drove 2500 miles to be together.

My old guild leader on The Purple Dragon MUD did the same :) My own story is similar, though it wasn't a MUD. I think it's pretty beautiful to fall in love with someone via a text-based view of their personality. In the world of Match and OKCupid I love to just tell people "we met online", mainly because it annoys my fiancee.

I've dated a couple people I met in MUDs, but the person I ended up marrying I met through an IRL friend. I get where you're coming from, but I always felt that the text medium was a limitation that resulted in those relationships failing.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#129

Post by elsherbini » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 4:57 PM UTC

rmnoon wrote: post #120

I spent _so_ many hours as a kid on RetroMUD. Nothing else will improve your typing and console scanning skills like being a healer during a massive boss fight. http://www.retromud.org/

Retromud is the only MUD I've ever played as well. Started in 2001 or 2002 and every once in a while will go through phases where I play again.

If you aren't that into Role Playing, and you prefer team based PvE combat, I think Retromud is the one to check out. 20 primary guilds (classes) and 80+ races, as well as branching paths from each of the primary guilds makes for huge number of possibilities for your character. Though to start out I'd suggest a Dragonian Fallen.

Re: Tell HN: 17 years on the same game

#130

Post by Kevin_S » Wed, Apr 04, 2018, 6:31 PM UTC

I played Runescape for over 10 years.

For the first 7~ or so I was a bad player that progressed slowly.

Maxed my combat, and eventually became a force in the duel arena. Made bils, got bored, left the game.

Nothing hit my beliefs in the face like realizing infinite money in a game like that ruins the experience.

It actually ruined me for video games to be honest. I played LoL for a year or so before getting bored, and spent a small amount of time with CoD on the Xbox, but no other game has ever captured me like RS.

I still follow a few content creators, and get the itch to start a new account once a month or so, but I won't let myself get into a game like that ever again.