Live data from Hacker News

Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play

medium.com

131–135 of 135 posts

Re: Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play

#131
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(context: I played Achaea without access to a source of cash) Back when I played, you could buy "artefacts" with real money, but they were less "pay to win" and more "pay for convenience". They were definitely far more than mere cosmetic items, but it was more than possible to play without ever buying one. Though I was always, always jealous when I saw somebody using wings. Those things took you to a kind of cloud te…

Depends on the item. Some of them were quite powerful, but even then, generally you'd get a 10% edge or an ability from another class. And people would often have macros to unequip all their artifacts for a fair duel. The Lasallian Lyre is named after my character, but strangely enough, I never mastered the timing to make the best use of it. (A playable class was later based on some fiction I wrote for the official h…

Thanks! No, I was Shaitan as a player in Avalon, then Lazarus as a god.

Glad you have such fond memories!

Re: Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play

#132
post #33

MUDs may be history to most people, but at Iron Realms we still have five commercial MUDs running live with dedicated paid staff on each constantly working to improve the gameplay and enlarge the already massive worlds. Honestly, it's pretty surprising to me, as when I launched our first one - Achaea - in 1997 right around when Ultima Online launched, I gave us five years. https://ironrealms.com

The combat system in Achaea was always so fascinating to me in terms of balance, but back when I was still playing it I was on bad dialup or satellite internet, which gave me a pretty big disadvantage against other people.

Same. It really amazes me how cool combat was in a game that was purely text. Even if it was almost a decade since I played a lot of it. I remember it fondly and still recommend it if for nothing else but novelty.

The hundred or so debuffs and the concept of truelock still fascinates me. If a new, (more graphical perhaps) game dared to come even close to that I'd be so happy to give it a spin.

Re: Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play

#134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I tried Achaea after I got too frustrated with MUME. What turned me off wasn't the way people could pay to avoid grind, but rather how you absolutely needed a client script for combat. If you didn't have some kind of script that provided automated reactions, PVE was really hard and you couldn't even consider PVP. And, of course, people who made the best scripts were charging for them.

True, but not strictly true. I played with 100% manual attacks and cures, but made heavy use of color coding to recognize threats in the rapid scroll of incoming text. It wasn't any harder than playing a competitive puzzle game: recognize colors, make matches, try to throw sand in your opponent's gears and make combos faster than they can.

The line "X snaps his fingers in front of you" still makes my adrenaline pump for an instant o_o

Re: Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs): What Are They? and How to Play

#135

MUDs were transformational for my life. I was an often lonely kid growing up with ADHD and a love of video games. I got into MUDs in 94 when we got our first PC right around my freshmen year of high school. I loved AD&D and this was the closest you could get on a computer. I became obsessed and learned Linux because they had the C compilers and Unix was how you hosted MUDs. I taught myself C with “C for dummies” vol…

pretty much same, esp the gratitude and the c
Post reply on HN