Iconoclast: a Gothic/Cyberpunk MUD RPG, Online Since 1996

I've been playing MUME, MultiUsers in Middle Earth 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

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!

I 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/

Dragon Court was another MUD-like. Java with painted art graphics in the browser.

I 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

Since 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/). It's a love letter to the worlds in classic square games with a class system inspired by FFT.

Pouring 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.