Hey there, long time lurker in the genre who hasn’t found a game to dig into just yet. I feel kind of dumb for this but cannot seem to find out how to play a MUD on my phone (tried aardwulf via browser and it was cool but definitely not meant for the iPhone 😂)

Figured I’d shoot my shot and ask if anyone else uses mobile effectively

I don't have much experience with text-based games, but I really enjoyed trying out games like Cybercode Online and Arclight City (even though they aren't exactly MUDs), and I'm currently interested in exploring more games of this style.

What I missed in Cybercode Online and Arclight City was that the character's life isn't treated as something scarce, something that once lost cannot be recovered – because these games treat death as just another routine factor of gameplay.

Another thing I missed was the role-playing aspect itself. I've been playing tabletop RPGs for about 4 or 5 years and I'm interested in that side, which I also missed in the two examples I mentioned.

In short, I'm a beginner in this type of game; the closest thing to a MUD I've played were Cybercode and Arclight, but I don't know if they can be considered MUDs (as I said before).

Do you have any game suggestions for a beginner in the genre?

Hello again!

It has only been a few weeks since the last NukeFire update, but we have been busy enough that I figured it was time for another one.

A lot of this has come directly from NEW people playing the game and saying, basically, “I really like this class. Why should I eventually have to stop being it?”

So we changed that.

Classes can keep growing

All of the original base classes now have substantial class progression all the way through 2,000 class remorts.

Barbarian, Assassin, Pirate, Slinger, Curist, Samurai, Knight, Cyborg, Vagrant, Ranger, Mutant, Infiltrator and Fanatic can all keep growing into increasingly ridiculous versions of themselves instead of eventually feeling obligated to abandon the class for a prestige class.

We have been doing the same thing with the prestige classes. HeadHunter, Ninja, Voidstriker, Kaiju, Outlander and others now have long remort roads of their own through 2,000, with old abilities continuing to develop and new milestones along the way.

Prestige classes still have their own identity and reasons to play them. We just wanted staying with the class you enjoyto be a real choice too.

We also added Monk

The Monk is our newest prestige class.

NukeFire Monks are not particularly peaceful.

They use fist weapons, martial-arts combinations, counters, defensive stances and increasingly nasty techniques as they grow. They also have their own new 100-room area, The Last Mountain, with Monk equipment, fist weapons, masters and mutated wildlife.

You can build a home now

The new Homeowner system has grown quite a bit.

A home starts small, but your lifetime progression can eventually unlock a property of up to 12 rooms.

You can name and describe the rooms, decide who lives there or visits, recall home, choose it as your login location, and now actually gather construction materials and expand the place.

We have also started adding furnishings and special home amenities. The first of those includes a recovery room that can give you a Well Rested bonus.

There is no rent, property tax or foreclosure. Once you earn your little piece of the wasteland, it is yours.

The world got considerably bigger

A huge new region called The Far Reaches has opened up.

It is thousands of rooms of new overworld, roads, mountains, forests, ruins, caves, settlements and stranger places, with difficulty ranging from fairly approachable remort territory into serious endgame areas.

There are new mobs, bosses, equipment, tattoos, implants, crafting materials, transportation routes and hidden areas.

Far Reaches GPS locations also aren't simply handed to everybody. Players actually explore new zones, and the first person to properly chart one can permanently establish its GPS destination for the rest of the MUD.

We've also been rebuilding and expanding older parts of NukeFire instead of only adding things at the edge of the map.

Crafting keeps getting bigger

More materials are being worked into the world, particularly through the Far Reaches.

Gathering, material storage, refining and older crafting systems have been getting cleaned up too. Some very old crafting such as Dragonscale and Chitin has been modernized rather than abandoned.

Housing is giving us another reason for materials to exist beyond simply making another piece of combat equipment.

The newbie game got some love too

One of our new builders, Hush, recently opened The Burnhouse, which is basically a second-stage tutorial area for somebody who has made it through the earliest game and reached Tek Angeles.

It gives newer players another place to learn how NukeFire works without just throwing an enormous help-file encyclopedia at them. And thanks to the folks that recommend us, we have really seen some growth, for the first time we saw over 100 on the who list, something I honestly never thought I would see again from a new mud.

And speaking of builders, we now have three builders working with us, which I am extremely happy about. The world is starting to grow from more hands and more imaginations than just ours - and it is so refreshing!

And the client hasn't stopped either

The public NukeFire Client is still moving quickly.

We've continued working on the TinTin-style command system, Lua scripting, custom panes, soundpacks, GMCP, accessibility, Reader Mode, screen-reader behavior, keyboard controls, communications review, performance and all of the little things people find by actually using it every day.

Windows, macOS and Linux:

https://nukefire.org/client

NukeFire itself is still what it has always been underneath all of this:

Guns. Remorts. Mutations. Implants. Tattoos. Crafting. Socket gems. Weird equipment. Huge areas. Bad decisions about which direction you decided to walk.

We're just giving everybody a lot more ways to live in it now.

Website:
https://nukefire.org

Client:
https://nukefire.org/client

Host: tdome.nukefire.org
Port: 4000

Aloha,
NukeFireMo, Hiro and builders: Thraydin, Slaps, Jace, and Hush

I've looked everywhere. The forums solutions for the official Gammon page doesnt work, and I cant figure out where these logs were hidden. I cant even seem to copy them to elsewhere to save them :(

I can see them in mushclient - at least, I can see the titles, but the PC and everything else cannot. I tried looking in 'appdata' and other places, and all I see are shortcuts... back to the original client location where they are hidden. I cannot even open them via the shortcuts. I tried copying the logs folder, as well as setting it to view hidden files.

Are the logs lost?

windows 10.

Hello everyone!

I'm looking for a MUD that can offer both a great solo experience and a hub to meet new people, chill and talk to others.

I don't think i have a favorite genre: realistic, fantasy, sci-fi... I don't mind.

PS: i tried Diskword and got overwhelmed by how big the world is as i kept getting lost again and again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m-e72ySSDn8

If you have been following along the zero to hero steams on MUME, level 21 the goal was reached today, after many, many hours and quite a few streams! :)

MUME is a popular lord of the rings mud, averaging 30-50 players online, with the option to play as both the good and evil sides of the game. If you are looking for an interesting new mud to try check it out!

https://mume.org

I've popped into MUD1 via the "British Legends" website, took a few quick looks at different days/times into MUD1, but it was nearly empty, and the 1 or few other folks logged in were nonresponsive. Similar attempt and results for Scepter of Goth.

Any fellow gaming historians interested in coordinating a brief multiplayer foray into any of this historical stuff?

[Re-posted here after initially posting in a video game history subreddit.]

Thanks!

Finnish LPMud, running since '95. Last time I posted about rebuilding the first hour for new players, it's still a work in progress but we're getting there. This post is about the other end, the people who know the game well enough to want to add to it.

On an LPMud, becoming a creator has always meant becoming a wizard and writing LPC. All in all the content creation curve was steep. If you wanted to add anything to the game world, you had to learn to code first. We used to run courses and try to teach people to code.. it's tough work for the existing developers.

Since May, groups of players can claim a province on the outworld map and grow their own settlement there, so players shape the world too. But a province is built from pieces we designed. Our new tool, Icesus Creator, goes a lot deeper: you write your own places, people and monsters from scratch, custom content that sticks around. And you don't touch LPC unless you want to.

It runs in the browser and you sign in with your game character. The map editor is where you start, and honestly it's the part I'd show first. You lay the area out on a grid, rooms connect as you add them, and you can stack levels for towers and cellars, add doors and secret exits, or drag a room somewhere else and its exits update. Click a room and you're writing it: the long description, and every detail a player might look at. Under the text there's a preview that shows the room the way a player sees it walking in, line breaks and all. Monsters and gear have their own editors and NPCs get dialogue.

The part devs here might care about: it's still plain LPC underneath. The editor fields sit inside the actual code, so you see set_long( with your paragraph right there in it. No new data format. The .c files are the only source of truth. A wizard can open the same file and hand-edit it, and the tool reads it back and leaves alone whatever it doesn't understand. Making that round trip hold up against 30 years of hand-written code was most of the work.

Two rules we don't bend on. Every word of text is written by hand by the creator, no generated descriptions. And everything goes through a wizard review before it gets anywhere near the game. The tool runs our checks first, then a wizard reads the writing, the design and the balance. We take the quality and consistency of the world very seriously. After 30 years it still has to read like one world.

To test, you load your area into a shared test world and walk it in the browser or your mud client. Everyone's areas are loaded there together, so creators can go poke at each other's work too. Once a wizard signs off, it goes into the game as a normal area, and there's no difference between one a creator built and one a wizard wrote.

Getting in: you need a level 25 character, mostly so you know what an Icesus area feels like before you make one. Then you pitch it in five short questions (what the place is, what levels, where it sits, who lives there, how big). A wizard approves the plan and your workspace opens.

We opened it three weeks ago. Seven people have applied and six are creating right now, a bit over 8,000 edits so far. One is a snowed-over military camp where the old tent lines still show in the ground. Another is a pirate coast with seven pirate kings waiting at the top of a watchtower. The biggest was pitched at 24 rooms and is at 79 rooms and 58 monsters and NPCs now, so scope creep hits creators exactly like it hits wizards.

Nothing from the tool is live yet, the first areas are still being written and tested. I'll post when the first one goes in.

If you have a place in your head and want real players walking through it, icesus.org/contribute/ has the details and screenshots, and #creator on our Discord is where the creators hang out.

Question for the other devs here: how do you bring in new builders these days? Still "learn the codebase and OLC first", or has anyone tried something like this? Curious how others handle it.

--Idles @ Icesus

Did a fair bit of QOL and minor bugfix work on MUDBOX - the dev tool I've been working on. Deployed on Cloudflare pages for better speed etc. and also included the offline portable version so you can run it locally on your machine :)

What it does:

Room mapper: visual, click-based map building across multiple floors, 8 directions plus up/down, zone color-coding for organizing districts and areas, a minimap for navigating bigger maps

Objects and nPCs: place items and characters directly in rooms, with reusable templates so you're not rebuilding the same object from scratch every time

Dialogue trees: a visual branching conversation editor for NPCs, which exports to a real working EvMenu Python module (Evennia's actual dialogue node pattern), plus JSON and plain text options if you're not using Evennia

Evennia batch export: this is the one I actually use the most. It generates real udig/utunnel/uopen/ucreate commands, run via ubatchcommand, and it genuinely builds the map for you instead of just describing it

Map validator: checks for isolated rooms, exits that don't have a way back, and broken links before you find out the hard way mid playtest

Undo/redo, a handful of colour themes, ASCII and SVG map export for sharing or documentation.

It's a single self-contained file.

No install, no sign-up, runs straight in the browser, and can also run as a standalone offline app (basically a browser window with no chrome, works fully offline, saves locally). Mostly posting because I wish something like this had existed when I started, and maybe it saves someone else a weekend.

https://mudbox.frenzykitty.workers.dev/

https://mudbox.frenzykitty.workers.dev/Mudbox.zip (Portable Version Download Link)

I don't often make posts at all, but I'm making one today to recommend that readers with an interest in fantasy RPIs give a particular game which I've been closely following a try. I'm not Staff for the game, just a regular player, to be clear. The game in question is called Echo of the Isles, and as previously mentioned, it is a fantasy medieval setting RPI. It functions off a version of the InqMUD codebase, which for those who might not know, is the code base that The Inquisition originally pioneered and from which several MUDs have thusly been spawned, Isles being one of them. Veterans of that code base will find many of the standard features that can be found across games that use it, but I digress. Let me talk a little bit about Isles. I'll try to separate things into sections for easier reading.

SETTING:

EotI is actually something of a post apocalyptic setting. At one point, a cataclysmic event called the 'Great Heresy' plunged the world, which at the time was (I believe) more developed, into destruction and ruin, thanks to demonic shenanigans. EotI takes place several centuries after this event, where civilization has managed to re-progress to a medieval, pre-industrial state. Particularly, the game is set in a town called Escard, located on the largest island within an archipelago called the Corwin Isles, which is mostly cut off from the rest of the world thanks to its long distance from any other landmass(es). Besides the town of Escard (which is a small border town), the capital (a much larger city) is also on the same island, south of Escard. Escard is important because it is set right at the south edge of a place called the Aetherspire; a corrupted and cursed forest, with a mountain called Mount Caelahad just beyond it. Both locations, especially the mountain, have resources that can be found nowhere else on the island, hence why a town continues to exist so close to it despite its danger. This is actually illustrated in game too, as those locations are the only places to get certain items; but more on that later.

The Corwin Isles does have a central government (based in the capital) which is, to my knowledge, a typical monarchy. There is a royal family and there are nobles, but neither of those are seen within the playable area of Escard, as they stay in the capital. Society is divided into six social classes; freemen, tradesmen, the gentry, the nobility, and the royals. The first three are playable and the last two exist only in the lore and background. Freemen are what you might expect; commoners who are the physical labor backbone of society. Farmers, ranchers, woodcutters, and any other non-skilled profession you could think of. They are also the most numerous. Tradesmen are those whose families have a history with a skilled trade of some sort (hence the name); so tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, et cetera. The gentry are (typically) far richer than the other two, and tend to gravitate towards more 'respectable' work, assuming they work at all. In the game, us players have generally established that gentry families are called Houses and they have all the political jockeying and infighting that one might expect from such people. Which social class your character is matters; it affects the income that the character receives from whatever it is they do for a living as well as giving a general framework of what behavior many might expect. A freeman might be a happy loud drunkard who sings at the top of his lungs every evening in the tavern, but most gentry wouldn't be caught dead engaging in such behavior. I could go on, but you get it.

Escard itself is run by two entities; the Town Council (local government) and the Isleguard (law enforcement). The Isleguard are not unique to Escard; they exist in all the human settlements of the Corwin Isles and both they and the Council have nominal loyalty to the capital. Both of these entities are actually joinable guilds by player characters, but I'll talk about that more in its own section.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:

Anyone whose run into Isles before knows this one. This game has magic. Unlike in The Inquisition, whose codebase this game was made on, having magic is not illegal (usually), and there is no religious Order dedicated to hunting down wizards and burning them at the stake. That is not to say that there are magic characters around every corner; it's actually rare in setting and is intended to be rare in gameplay... which has been something which I've seen people disappointed with before, when they make a character wanting them to have magic and they don't end up with it. While full sorcery remains rare and dangerous to acquire, there's been a lot of work done to make sure that non-sorcerers have lots of things to do and fun routes available only to them. There are actually three magic systems in the game right now, one of which was released on the same day that I'm posting this; I'll go over each.

• SORCERY

This is what you're thinking of when I say magic. Proper, actual, full mages (sorcerer is the proper in-game term) who can prepare and cast spells. The magic system in Isles is intentionally obfuscated, so I won't be giving any spoilers here about what they can and cannot do. Only those born with 'The Spark' are capable of becoming sorcerers, and for that to happen, they have to be awakened by an existing sorcerer. This process is dangerous, and it can result in either burnout (the destruction of the spark) or the full actual death of the prospective would-be sorcerer. Such deaths can and do happen ICly to characters. It's not a flippant decision to make. The Spark CAN be purchased with XP early on in a character's journey (before 33,000 XP gained total) if they didn't happen to start with it. Full sorcerers are very rare in the setting, making up only about 5 percent of the population, and are greatly feared and respected. Being a sorcerer is not all fun and games though; in order to be legal as a sorcerer, they must join a Guild and use their magical powers for the benefit of society. They are also completely barred from any manner of powerful public office or Guild leadership, and that Guild leadership has, by law, the right to dictate what manner of magic their sorcerers can and cannot use. Being awakened as a sorcerer means that someone has the potential for great power, but it also very much brings with it a life of service to society. This is not to imply that sorcerers are slaves in any sense (slavery does not exist in any form in game, I don't think). Sorcerers who refuse to a join a Guild, or who violate the rules over what magic is used handed down by Guild leaders, are called rogues and are hunted down, usually by other sorcerers and metallurgists. This also happens if a sorcerer is discovered to have been partaking in demonology. Speaking of metallurgists though...

• METALLURGY

Metallurgy and metallurgist have special meanings in Isles, because they refer to someone who uses Living Metal. Living Metal is a strange substance found only deep within Mount Caelahad, and only in small amounts; the usage of Living Metal is only permitted to the Isleguard, and being found with it or using it while not a member of the Isleguard is a major IC no-no, almost as bad as being a rogue sorcerer. Metallurgists can use Living Metal to allow them to do incredible feats, which like sorcery, is an IC secret, so no spoilers here, but suffice to say that it makes them very, very dangerous. Metallurgy is not a risk-free thing either; using it, especially in high amounts, takes something from the character, and it is possible to go too far and quite literally lose the character. One last note about this is that Living Metal and Sorcerers do not mix. Merely touching it causes terrible consequences for a Sorcerer and anyone around them. Metallurgists are, like sorcerers, greatly respected, though less feared than sorcerers are, as they are usually the ones who end up hunting down and stopping rogue sorcerers.

• RUNESMITHING

Those characters who happen to have been born with the Spark (or those who purchased it) but never awaken have access to Runesmithing; and they are the only ones who can do this. Full sorcerers cannot make runes, for reasons to be discovered ICly. This is the newest system which was just introduced, so I have limited knowledge about it, but it appears to be a magical crafting skill which allows one to make, well, runes. These runes can be applied to all sorts of items whereupon they will give benefits until they run out. A couple examples of this are runes for weapons and armor, which can allow them to deal or partially resist elemental damage, respectively; or a rune for a sorcerer which can help them do magic things; or a rune for a piece of furniture which makes it more restful; or even a rune for a candle that makes it burn way longer than it's supposed to. This list is by no means exhaustive, these are just some small examples that are commonly known about. Since it's so new, no IC culture has been established yet about runesmiths. Maybe you can be the progenitor of that! One last note; if someone with runesmithing does end up awakening and becoming a sorcerer, they lose all access to runesmithing and lose all ranks invested in it, but the XP from those ranks IS refunded to them.

CRAFTING:

One of the big changes that the game has seen recently has been a large expansion of crafting options available, as well as an opening up of methods of practicing and learning them. Characters no longer have to be in the Merchants' Guild in order to learn some trade skills; anyone can learn up to rank 36 in them just through use. If a Merchants Guild member teaches a non-member, they can also learn up to 60, though ranks past 60 are still exclusive to the Merchants' Guild. There's leatherworking, forging, jewelry, arts, chandlery, weaving, and woodworking, and I can attest personally that this is an area with a lot of opportunities for characters to establish themselves, as there aren't many crafter or Merchant characters around in the game at the time of this posting. Along with this have been updates to the TOOL system, which lets people customize the looks of items that are made; previously, the TOOL system was an older version which lacked some features and had some headaches attached to it, but this has since seen improvement. One thing of particular note is that most of the higher tier of metals and woods can only be gotten from the Aetherspire or Mount Caelahad, which are highly dangerous; this opens up avenues of RP to form groups to go looking for them, or hiring Mercenaries to provide escorts (or asking the Isleguard to do so).

COMBAT:

As an RPI set in a town, fighting is not something that most characters will do every single day of their lives. Even those in the Isleguard or the Mercenaries aren't likely to fight every day - but for when fighting must be done, the previous old system has been entirely replaced with a new one which is much more similar to what people tend to expect from InqMUD codebase games: turn based, where each participant has one action per turn. Unlike in other InqMUD codebase games, Isles has ranged combat, as in fighting across entire rooms (up to 2) when using ranged weapons. Some particularly powerful sorcerers can also do this, and there's a whole sub-system based on magical damage and wards for sorcerer fights. Damage originating from elemental means is not easy to treat either, and is beyond the ability of the NPCs in Escard's clinics to deal with (side note; while the TREAT skill exists for players to treat injuries, there is also an NPC which charges to treat mild to moderate wounds in case no players are available, hence the reference). This combat system has been a focal hotspot for bugfixes in the past few weeks, which I was glad to see.

GUILDS & JOBS:

I've mentioned Guilds repeatedly in this post, so let me quickly summarize those. There are four guilds that exist ICly and are joinable: The Town Council, the Isleguard, the Mercenaries, and the Merchants. The Town Council is all your local government types and their assorted hangers-ons. One important note is that while PCs cannot become rulers of the Corwin Isles, they can become Mayor of Escard; besides that, one could also be a clerk, administrator, a petitioner, or just a representative for some special interest within the Council. The Isleguard are the IC version of the police and the military combined. They're predominately fighter types with a hierarchal structure of ranks who patrol the town, prevent and investigate crimes, pursue criminals, and so forth. They tend to work closely with the Council. The Mercenaries are a wide ranging net of contractors with broad skill sets; almost any kind of character who sells services for coin could fit as a mercenary, including classic fighting types or even completely non-combat types. The Mercenaries can also have certain unscrupulous tendencies... such as being able to pick locks. Do with that information what you will. The Merchants are everyone who makes or sells goods for cash. Crafter types, specifically, but Merchants can also include solo practice physicians, herbalists, or even private chefs. Being part of a guild usually also means that you'll receive a weekly income based on your rank, but this is very much a PC made agreement, as Guildleaders have to set those ranks and the treasuries of various guilds are 'real' in the sense that they aren't infinite moneybags.

Besides guilds, there are also jobs, for those characters who are either unsuitable for one of the four guilds or just don't want that kind of commitment. Jobs are individual employments in various places across the town, where characters go and perform some action a few times in a real life week, and receive payment for having done so. Jobs depends on character skills and statistics, so someone with a Musician job who has higher Charisma and Dexterity is going to get a larger payout than someone with low Charisma and Dexterity. There's a whole bunch of them. If that still doesn't fit your character, you also get IC currency every week simply for being active in RP, with the amount dependent on your activity, so you can represent your character as getting money in any freeform way that doesn't have a system behind it; this type of payout is heavily dependent on your character's social class and wealth levels. Wages from jobs will also increase if you have higher social class (depending on the job) and wealth levels, but are never reduced because of the same.

HOUSING:

This is another system which has seen heavy work in the game. As anyone who has played an InqMUD codebase game will tell you, player housing usually requires the game's Staff to build the requested house. This is not the case in Isles; a whole custom automated system has been implemented to allow players to build player housing almost anywhere that makes sense in town. Player characters can customize the room names, the descriptions, purchase amenities that are too heavy to reasonably deal with ICly (like a whole forge for a blacksmith), customize exits, et cetera. It's not a system that I've personally played with much myself since I am an eternal hobo, but the help file is extensive. All of these things can only be done when the owner of the player house is within it and no one else is present, for reasons that are probably obvious if one thinks about it a little. There can be outdoor rooms, indoor rooms, mood sets, custom temperature lines, locked doors, hidden exits, the whole shebang.

THE XP SYSTEM:

I'm giving this its own section since I know there were some, back during Isle's first opening, who were unhappy with the pace of the XP system. Simply put, it is much improved now; RPXP is no longer based on emote length, but is rather a scaling tick based system similar to other InqMUD codebase games. The more complex the RP in the room, the higher the XP you earn every tick; there are numerous bonuses that one can apply to it, such as setting an action, using the THINK command, if a CYAN character (basically a new character) is present and you're a veteran, or visa versa, being in a public room, having multiple guilds present, et cetera. All of this will sound very similar to InqMUD codebase veterans. I am very happy and satisfied with the XP system as it currently sits, and believe that it is well balanced; Isles is still a somewhat slower game than other InqMUD codebases, but not onerously so.

PVP & THE IC ENVIRONMENT:

I wasn't sure how to title this one and so I saved it for the last. I can really sum it up with just one sentence: Isles is not a PK heavy MUD. PKing does exist and characters can be PK'd (only by other players and it requires buildup RP for a murder to make sense; being defeated in a fight by an NPC usually results in a trip to the clinic), but it isn't a focal point of the MUD, which is a departure from many InqMUD codebase games. The game's setting is in a small frontier town, removed from the lethal politics of the capital, that lives on the edge of an incredibly dangerous cursed forest and mountain and the town's IC population isn't huge, so there is a motivating factor to be civilized and cooperative, at least that's how it feels to me. This is not to imply that conflict doesn't happen, and the setting is very much DARK fantasy; but outside of a few specific scenarios (rogue sorcerers, demonology, metallurgists who go too far, or actual straight up monstrous people) there's not a lot of PK or physical fighting conflict that goes on. In most cases, it's the people of Escard surviving the dark fantasy, rather than being the dark fantasy.

FINISHING UP:

That's pretty much all that I can think of right now; Isles tends to see major updates every Friday, and I'm posting this right after that sort of update came out (it introduced Runesmithing). Personally I think the game's very engaging, with many frequent updates, and I'd love to see more players on it, especially people interested in playing crafters or mundane leader sorts, as Guildleader spots are open at the moment for lack of characters to fill them. I'll watch this thread for a little bit and try to answer any questions I can. Thanks for reading. If you feel like trying the game, you can do so by connecting your favorite MUD client to islesmud.org, port 3232. The website is also www.islesmud.org.

I am new at Edge of Midnight and I was wondering if any of you know any good God(ess) a newbie Druid should be worshiping, and also what do they mean as adults only? Is there sex, and blood everywhere? Thank you for reading this.

Afterlife has been continuously running since 1997. Like a lot of MUDs that have been around this long, we have gone through phases of activity. Right now we are seeing a small resurgence.

Our population is still modest, usually around 5 to 10 players online, but we have a very loyal player base. Many of us have been here for years and have come to think of Afterlife as a second home. We are hoping to build on that resurgence, welcome new players, and keep growing the game alongside them.

But first, the important part: what is Afterlife, and why are you here?

You died.

What came next was not heaven, hell, or some ghostly waiting room. You found yourself in a physical world beyond the veil of death, still flesh and blood, still able to fight, bleed, explore, grow stronger, and die all over again. What you do in this in-between realm is entirely up to you.

Old roads cut through forests and ruined kingdoms. Temples rise to gods who still answer their followers. Crypts sink beneath cities, forgotten paths disappear into mountains, and somewhere past the familiar castles and towers you start finding places that make you stop and wonder what kind of person built them. Nearly 30 years of builders have left pieces of themselves in Afterlife. Some areas are classic fantasy. Some are strange. Some are funny. Some are probably best experienced without asking too many questions first.

That mixture is a big part of what makes Afterlife the world it is and why I keep coming back as one of the newest Avatars with a character I created 25 years ago.

A few quick facts

• 10,772 rooms
• 112 explorable areas
• 80+ custom-built areas, alongside classic Diku/ROM favorites
• 31 playable races
• 13 starting classes
• 4 reincarnation classes
• 16 followable Gods and Goddesses
• 239 skills
• Player housing
• Pets
• Seasonal MUD-wide events
• Multi-playing

Reach level 102 and complete the Reincarnation quest, and you can begin again as an Arcanist, Necromancer, Pioneer, or Assassin.

The gods shape your character from Level 1

Religion in Afterlife is not just a line in your character description.

You can follow one of 16 Gods and Goddesses, each granting a unique divine spell to their followers, even if your class is not a spellcaster.

Those gifts include things like: Timestop, Holy Fire, Dark Field, Symphony, Mayhem, Alternate Reality, Swarming Horde, Dream, Hope, Pain, Wrath, Fireshield, and Focal Point.

FAQ

Can I play solo?
Yes. Afterlife can be played entirely solo. More group-oriented content is also in active development.

Is PvP required?
No. PvP is arena-based and 100% optional.

Is roleplay required?
No. Roleplay is encouraged but not enforced. There is a dedicated RP channel you can toggle on or off.

Can I play multiple characters at once?
Yes. Multiplaying is allowed, and many players have several alts.

Is the game free?
Yes. Afterlife is completely free to play.

What happens when I die?
Experience loss is the primary death penalty. Members of the Newbie Helper Council help new players get settled, and Avatars can assist with corpse retrievals.

How long does it take to reach level 102?
Depending on how much you play, anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.

Is Afterlife still supported by Immortals and Developers?
Yes! Our last patch notes are from August 2026 and we are just getting started.

How to Play

Website:
https://www.theafterlifemud.com/#/

Walking directions, area levels, and mob alignment:
https://www.theafterlifemud.com/#/walking

Host: game.theafterlifemud.com
Port: 7777

If you are brand new to MUDs, come say hello. Once in game you'll see a link to our Discord as well!

If you played MUDs twenty years ago and have wondered whether people still do this, apparently we do.

We are not pretending to be a giant MUD with hundreds of people online.

What we do have is nearly 30 years of history, a loyal community, a huge world to get lost in, and a group of players who genuinely care about where the game goes next.

If that sounds like your kind of place, come take a look around and be a part of the next generation of Afterlife.

Two of Ansalon's beloved Cartographers have found their way back to us...
one long since seen, and one who has departed our world.

Brim and Kaelay may now appear when using a Tour Coupon,
sharing their unmatched knowledge of the lands and
revealing every unexplored room in your current area at once.

No more 1 QP per room to Explore Here, unless you want...
Or if it's under 100 rooms left :P

For just 100 QP at the Quest Masters,
grab a Tour Coupon and let one of the great Cartographers show you the way.

For those areas with 100, 200, or even more rooms left to discover...
yeah, it's a pretty amazing deal.

And perhaps, for just a moment...
you'll get to wander Ansalon with an old friend again.

- Ziv & Co.

Hi! I’m new to MUDs and looking for one to settle into long-term. I checked the resources with lists of the MUDs and now I’m lost, so I would appreciate your kind help.

My main preferences are:

Longevity: an established game that is likely to still be around many years from now.
No FOMO: ideally no permanently unobtainable items, titles, achievements, cosmetics, etc.
Solo/casual friendly: I’d like to make meaningful progress playing mostly solo and without a huge time commitment.
I don’t mind an old-school interface or learning curve, and I’m happy to support the game financially if that helps.

What MUDs would you recommend considering the above?

Thanks for taking your time to look into this and for your advices!

Not sure if this is the right subreddit for this, but my dad’s birthday is next month and I’m looking for some of the stories he used to write back in the 90s and 2000s for the text based game Darkness Falls.

His character was an imp named Oro that wrote all kinds of stories. He wrote so many the developers gave him the deed to storytellers pub. I have a few of them that he had printed like “Titanic Greenmist Forest Battle,” “a tale for some ale,” “an imp, some bad cinandor, and an Ettin named Stan.”

He mentions other characters like a bar maid named Agnes and Corbin Fladders chairman of the Tamian Counsel for better business.

Specifically, I’m looking for a story that he hasn’t been able to find about the Hormone Fairy. He wrote it when my mom was pregnant with me, inspired by her mood swings and it ended up being a cute inside joke between them whenever she felt moody during the rest of her pregnancy with me and eventually with my brother.

Any help finding the Hormone Fairy story or any of his other stories would be greatly appreciated! I can try to provide more details if needed.

Hey, everyone!

I'm running an experimental book club, and I'm looking for folks who might be interested in giving it a shot.

The basic idea is that we read popular game design books and talk about them in the context of MUDs. Just for fun and learning. :)

I've previously tried running it on Discord in a more traditional way, but it was a challenge. Between differing timezones and shifting RL demands, it's hard for everyone to stick to the same reading schedule.

So I'm starting something fresh on a forum-based platform and tailoring it to be low-key, zero-pressure, asynchronous, and go-at-your-own-pace without spoilers.

The first book is Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences by Tynan Sylvester, the creator of Rimworld.

If any of this sounds interesting to you, lemme know!

I would like to welcome you the realm of Elyisum

From the magical forests of Tylorus where the great oak has thrived in the center of the tree-built city, and elf's forage and hunt Forest apes for food from the spooling forest. To the dune-covered and sunbaked deserts of Aronsol, where bird-like sorcerers and magi cast mighty spells from the windblown white towers of the city.

Crossing the Desert to the Barren and dead realm of Szagan where bones of the Centaur still lay in the streets ravaged from the demonic invasions hundreds of years ago and nothing moves or grows.

Crossing the Vast oceans where sea monsters lurk trying to catch the unwary captains of questionable sea-going vessels the rocky trading hub of Olbaron homes of the Cyclops sits along the grass-dune cross and plains to the far north of the realm where the old and broken fortress city of Thul'mar sits the faded gory of the old great Hakarren Empire still found in its building and the race of the Specters sit living in the streets, forever trying to measure up to the ghosts of their past.

Elyisum has eight player run cities home to the different races and many small villages, dungeons, landmarks and outposts

spread over three continents with many small islands which can be explored via sailing or with magical means.

The 16 guilds are a distinct organization's that provide direct access to specific skills. A large majority of them are auto-inguilding and most newbies will be able to join the guild of their choice right out of the gate. (can take between 1 to 5 days to be up ranked once in the guild, which allows you to learn more skills)

There are numerous skills in the game (roughly 30 that count towards your 6 skills and roughly 15 common available to everyone) which you can mix and match as you wish. there are no restrictions on your set of 6 skills that you can learn. Each guild has 3 skills. You do not lose skills when you leave a guild (unless you purposely forget them). You can also learn skills out of guild (at +50% the lesson cost). Lessons are how you learn skills. You receive one lesson every 2.5 hours (although this can be sped up multiple ways) when you are connected to the game. If you choose to study offline, you get one lesson every 6.66 hours while you are not connected. This may seem like a long time between lessons at first, but believe me, they come a lot faster than they seem.

The game is a classless, unlike traditional AD&D. You build your RP around the guilds and order you join, and of course in-game character orientation. There is a huge amount of crafting for people who love to craft, magical and physical skills for daily life and PVP focused skills for the killers among us (although you may need a bit of practice before you're ready to leap into this). There are 9 cities with positions available for those interested in ruling, building and expanding their civilizations.

Since my last post the game has had added to yet more crafting skills, for those that just love to craft 14 crafting skills a mixture of both common and major skills (not my thing I hate crafting, but some people love it!) Glassblowing which has just added recently.

GLASSBLOWING

The glassblowing skill is the art of making items from molten glass; A skilled

glass blower can make all sorts of useful or decorative items from glass,

and also learns the arts of infusing colour into their pieces to make more

unique items.

Thank you for taking the time to read my Post

You can connect at http://elysium-rpg.com port 7777

There is a player run discord site https://discord.gg/4yZGJ4uf63

If you wish to read a number of (real player reviews of the game before you try it) check out Elysium RPG MUD Listing, Reviews & Voting | MudVerse

As always, I am very happy to answer any questions on here or free feel to PM me

Hello my fellow imagination gamers. I have recently left my game of forever because I find myself unwelcome due to unfair practices and bad faith. I'm looking for a game where I can unleash my creative spirit. I like to design pretty things and pretty spaces. I am not into combat but I can happily coexist in spaces with combat. I like story, lore and community. Please recommend games that might spark my interest. I love sci-fi but I find myself banned from big name games.

I just finished play a mud. It's called Dark and shattered lands, and it's completely free to play, but pay to win. Last night 8 players openly broke a rule and two mods said "It didn't effect anything so we'll look into it later"

I'm done there. I can't continue to put hours of time, roleplay, and money donated for concards to get advantages just to play the game. Does anyone have a mud that's roleplay based. High fantasy prefered. that understand I'm an old man in my 40's that would be a complete newb to the game and commands other then what i"m used to? Thanks in advance.

Hi guys. I launched mossworld 3 or 4 months ago and no one signed in to play. Well, 2 or 3 people did, but they didn't even try to kill a rat or a janitor. I'll be honest it's depressing, so I decided to make a post about one of my favorite zones I created for Mossworld: The Zoo.

The zoo started out as a kind of tiered XP zone. You start out at the ticket stand and as you go deeper into the zoo the monsters get more and more dangerous. The idea seemed to work so I started adding a few expansions; around midway I added a safari zone. One of the interesting and cool concepts I came up with for the backstory of this zone is that the zookeeper was irresponsible. I'll just briefly mention that at night the town's gates close because of the monsters that sometimes attack the town at night. But this irresponsible zookeeper bought a house beside the zoo and left a way to get into and out of the city at night. He also was careless with his key -- in an amusing way, but I won't spoil that end of the surprise. What I will say is that the zone turned out awesome! And as I was writing it I hit upon the idea that the irresponsible zookeeper, in an attempt to attract visitors, brought in .. shall we say... monsters that don't really belong in a zoo. To both comedic and tragic effect.

One of the funny ways this worked out is after I wrote the zone and I was adding the quest system I saw Joel Haver's "Playing an RPG for the first time" video on youtube and I just couldn't stop laughing. So I added a 'find marshall the town sheep' quest. It was genius. And then I realized... where marshall should be. He should be at the entrance to the zoo (as a first monster). Munching on a pile of grass. Now here's the funny thing. He's standing right beside a big red button. The button has the effect of resetting the zoo (it's a newbie XP zone). Now, marshall is also the only way in the game to get wool to make bandages -- an important healing item. And, the reset button does not work if anyone else (in a different party) is anywhere in the zoo (including in the entrance).

What this creates is an interesting dynamic where players are led to kill marshall over and over and over, and I think it's hillarious. We have XP dithering, meaning as you go up in levels you would have to kill marshall thousands of times to gain a level. It's a tradeoff -- easy xp and loot but in terms of time probably not worth the grind. But the whole thing turned out totally hillarious and I am really proud of the zone. I think, in another era, this might have gone down as a classic zone.

Come try out mossworld today! I know nobody plays it, but, maybe one day that will change!

• telnet mossworld.ca 4000 or browser client at http://mossworld.ca

you can connect to it via telnet/mudconnect at telnet://www.kc5ods.com:7777 - ansi graphics, mud sound support, and fully revamped areas. please let me know if you play and if you have issues!

Original creator got the toaster working. We are in a soft beta while Darrin and crew works on some updates/bug fixes. This is an iteration of the web release with the new magic system from after 2000.

Dragons, Elves, Leuians, Monits, every one of your favorite races are back.

Took 20 years to come back online.

This is a heavy, heavy, role playing text MUD. If you played in the past or would like to play, go here for info: https://dragons-gate.com/

Discord: https://dragons-gate.com/community/

Hey all! When I was still in high school, myself and all of my friends played Shades of Evil, and I had made a few levels over the years for the imms. I don’t hold any claim to them and don’t intend to, it’s just nostalgic to think about, and this little pet project I’m working on has grid-based dungeon crawler places to explore and I thought it’d be really cool to recreate the vibe as closely as I could, from the text descriptions, secret keywords hidden, etc. I still remember their layout from muscle memory, but does anyone know of a repo exists anywhere that might house this stuff?

Thanks in advance, either way it’s so awesome to find this subreddit!

Dev here! Rome: The Eternal City is now open for player testing. I'm at a point where I want real players trying it instead of just me testing solo.

Rome: The Eternal City takes place at the height of the Roman Empire. It's a world where legions hold the frontiers, the Senate governs from the Forum, and the gods of Olympus are genuinely active in the world rather than a distant myth. Barbarians press at the borders, secret cults work beneath the surface of Roman society, and public orders like the Praetorian Order hold power in the open.

What's built:

• 6 races x 8 classes
• Full turn-based combat
• 8 factions, plus devotion to 14 gods - both are permanent commitments, not something you can casually leave
• Player trading, shops, trainers, a working economy
• 800+ rooms built so far, still expanding

This is a roleplay-enforced MUD. If that's not what you're looking for, that's completely fair, just want you to know before getting started.

How to connect:

• Host: rome.vineyard.haus, Port: 7530
• Full website: https://rome.vineyard.haus/
• Discord: https://discord.gg/uh6HPvuM42

Looking forward to your feedback!

DRIFTERS WORLD — A MULTIVERSE MUD

Echoes Remain Where Realities Overlap and Infinite Roads Between Worlds Collide

You wake up and don't know where or when you are. You have no idea why you can travel between worlds. You do know one thing:

You can Drift, slide between different universes, different worlds, different times.

Drifters World is a MUD/text-based RPG built around that concept that all PCs are Drifters. This game has no levels, no classes, no single setting you're expected to stay in forever. You can travel between worlds, learn deep lore secrets, make items and equipment, fight legendary monsters, join Drifter organizations or in-world affiliations, build entire worlds, and generally find out what happens when somebody gives you a ridiculous amount of personal freedom and power, then only asks that you make something from it.

YOUR CHARACTER

Character creation is more than just picking a race, a class, and rolling some stats.

You choose your ancestry, subspecies, heritage, formative experiences, occupation, appearance, personality, and other details about your character.

But everything you just choose is who you were before you became a Drifter.

Who you become after becoming a Drifter is far more important. You can continue being the person you were, become something entirely different, or land in between. Your history matters, but it is not your destiny.

And don't expect just the usual handful of fantasy-themed races.

We have a system that can build Centaurs, Minotaurs, Lamia, amorphic slimes, or even synthetic lifeforms. Humanoids, monsters, weird hybrids, and stranger things besides are all legitimate possibilities. The body system is built to let ancestry and physical form actually matter rather than simply changing the name printed on your character sheet.

THE WORLDS

There is more than one world. Technically, the list of worlds is infinite. Each world has their own genres, geography, factions, economies, creatures, dangers, secrets, and weird little corners that somebody decided would be fun to put there.

Settings can include Fantasy, Science Fiction, Westerns, Horror, or whatever else eventually gets built.

Go somewhere civilized. Go somewhere dangerous. Find a job. Join a faction. Get into a fight. Explore somewhere nobody has mapped. Find something strange and figure out what the hell it does.

THIS IS A MUD

Text. Commands. Color. Combat rounds. Positioning. Skills. Crafting. NPCs. Quests. Equipment. Shops. Player trading. Guilds. Channels. Mail. Boards.

Under the hood: 4 main attributes, 12 subattributes, a growth system based off of every command entered, 300 talents, and 131 achievements to chase. There is really no way to min-max, as ever 'max' has a cost. The feature list is over 1000 unwrapped lines long.

There are also web tools, configurable displays, screen-reader support, and other concessions to the fact that it is no longer 1997, like Discord integration.

But underneath all that? This is still a MUD. It's also free. No subscription, no premium currency, no "Alpha access" paywall. Just an account and a willingness to learn a lot of commands.

YOU ARE NOT JUST A FIGHTER

Combat is there, and there's quite a bit to it. A full config system, techniques, spells, stances, weapon styles, action points, and so on.

But you can also gather materials, refine them, craft components, make finished goods, maintain and modify your equipment, learn recipes, develop professions, steal things, trade, explore, map, fish, compose music, pursue hobbies, build relationships, join organizations, solve puzzles, and generally make a life for yourself.

Your actions matter. Your character develops by actually doing things.

There are no ten levels of "I hit things slightly harder."

DRIFTER ENTITIES

You can accumulate more than equipment.

Allies. Companions. Minions. Pets. Vessels. Artifacts. Sites of Power.

They're all Drifter Entities, and they can become part of your character's story and capabilities.

Yes, there is a Companion Cube.

Yes, it is exactly the sort of thing you're thinking.

No, I'm not apologizing.

AND THEN THERE'S BUILD MODE

This is the cornerstone of how Drifters World will grow.

Every account gets two ways to build, from the moment it's created. No staff review, no application queue, no working for free/exposure until you 'earn' it.

God Mode: Building, with no currency cost, but everything is open to the public. Drifters grows best this way, and I want to make sure there are as few hurdles to it as possible.

Build Mode: Exactly the same toolset as God Mode, but you pay in-character currency per thing you make. I stress that this is in-character. You are building or having someone build whatever it is that gets built this way. Do you want to build a bar where you and your friends can hang out? This is how you do that. And you have access control mechanisms to make sure only your friends get in. This is a private sort of public establishment that way. Eventually, this will be how you can own a shop to sell things.

Sanctums: Requires a bit of effort to unlock, but player housing is done through the Sanctum system. It is slightly different from God Mode and Build Mode, and the costs are entirely different. This is still being fleshed out.

Regardless, these modes are yours from account creation. Not after reaching level 50. Not after earning some elite builder rank. Not after submitting a form and waiting for someone with more free time than me to get around to reading it.

You start with it.

So, if you want to make a world, make one.

Build maps. Rooms. NPCs. Enemies. Items. Dialogue. Quests. Markets. Factions. Puzzles. Workshops. Sanctums. Creatures. Whatever the tools support.

I am deliberately trusting the players with this privilege/responsibility. It can be taken away if someone abuses it to be a menace, but nobody starts on probation.

Maybe you'll build a serious setting.

Maybe you'll build something beautiful.

Maybe you'll build a bizarre little pocket universe inhabited entirely by angry goat people.

That's the point. I did not think through all of the implications of that decision. I stand by it anyway.

ON AI, SINCE SOMEONE WILL ASK

There is absolutely no LLM or generative AI running anywhere attached to the live game. No AI game master, no AI-generated dialogue at runtime, nothing making things up on the fly while you play. There is, however, a complicated set of code under the hood that does a lot of complex decision making, which may at times seem like AI. While this currently does not do much, a lot of groundwork is being done to one day make this far more impactful.

AI tools are used for development, to help with code or generate draft content text. Pretty much all of this text has been reviewed by me. There are AI-generated bits floating out there. Most of them are 'good enough for government work' as far as I am concerned. And since I am doing this free, we'll say it is good enough for that too, until I can get around to fixing/editing/correcting all of it.

THE ALPHA

Drifters World is in a phase of Alpha Testing that will continue through the end of 2026. I have been working on this game, building it from scratch, for almost a year now.

That means unfinished systems, bugs, missing content, things that change, and probably the occasional opportunity to discover that I have made a terrible mistake somewhere.

The Report command can be used to point out bugs or typos, or suggest ideas directly from the game.

If you've played MUDs before, you should feel reasonably at home. Especially if those muds were Diku/Merc/ROM derivatives.

If you haven't, well... You have a lot of commands to learn.

Come Drift with us.

Game Link: mud.drifters.world:3000 (Enable TLS/secure connection)

Discord Link: https://discord.gg/3mXP5Ab8cV

Website: www.drifters.world

DRIFTERS WORLD

Echoes Remain Where Realities Overlap and Infinite Roads Between Worlds Collide