MUD suggestions thread @blakeyrat
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Continuing the discussion from Looking for a loose text/pattern matching algorithm:
The Eternal Struggle had a completely class-less system with racial and RP additional skill trees (for example, some races had unique skills and if your character were turned into a vampire, for example, you could get new skills.) I leveled a character to the cap, his class? He was a lawyer.
It had a RP-based system for earning experience and leveling up, at first admin-run but later entirely player-run. (Each player had a quota of Role Play Points to award to other players.) Once the level cap was reached, you could use the extra RPP to "buy" customized items for your character. Sadly that was all manual, never got the time to automate it.
It had a disguise and recognition system, so you didn't automatically and magically know a person or creature's name like you do in bad RP MUDs. You could "recognize" anything, PC, NPC, animal, whatever. If a player donned a mask or "disguise"-type item, their shortdesc would change and you would no longer recognize them. If you recognized that disguise, say, "creepy hooded man" and then the disguise was worn by another player, you would recognize that other player as "creepy hooded man".
It had an RP-based combat system, in which each combat action would consist of one or more emotes/say/etc and then a command to tell the MUD to use some combat skill on the other player. The effects of the skill would be applied, and the other player would be expected to emote/say/etc a response.
It had completely separated in-character and out-of-character environments for chat. You could be talking with a person on an OOC channel and have no idea it was the same person who you were RPing with IC.
ES was the best.
While we're on the topic of MUDs, do you have any suggestions that are still up and kicking? I tried Armageddon (as I heard on IRC somewhere it was a good RP-oriented MUD in the vein of what you mentioned with ES), but apparently somewhere between me and them, all hope of line/text editing was lost, rendering character creation a usability nightmare. Criteria:
- RP orientation (show/introduction/recog as you describe, a community that is RP active, RP-oriented combat, and I wouldn't mind an IC/OOC chat separation either)
- Some semblance of modernity (aka a user interface that's heard of things like Readline or the old DOSKEY, if you prefer, instead of ignoring them completely the way Armageddon did)
- A community that's willing to deal with a bit of an RP oddball. For instance, I do much better playing my chars more to the stoic (not necessarily smashy/bloody/barbaric though, as I am all for technical world-building RP) side of things than the ultra-expressive/melodramatic side, and I'm also OK with mixing character concepts in ways that shouldn't work at first glance, such as the idea of a born-lycanthrope paladin, or
*lycanthrope walks up, lays a paw on your shoulder gently, leans in, and gives you a big, wet canine-kiss to the tune of 'schlurp'* *licked one shrieks Lucy-style "AAAAH I'VE JUST BEEN LICKED BY A WEREWOLF!!!!! GET IT OFF OF ME!!!"*
- And last but not least, lore that's well-defined, but a platform, not a straightjacket (I ran into this a bit with Armageddon as well; apparently the GMs there couldn't wrap their head around a desert-elf being born in the city on account of a supply/trade stop or what-have-you).
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www.dsl-mud.org
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I haven't tried any MUDs since Eternal Struggle died.
It did have a spin-off, but unfortunately I can't remember the name and I have no idea if it's still functioning or not. I didn't like it because they thought "realism" was desirable, so (and I am not making this up), if you wanted to buy a product from a shopkeeper you actually had to count out the correct coins of each denomination. Also you couldn't move from room to room too fast or your character would get "exhausted" and you had to wait to move again.
Started with a C.
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I remember Eternal Struggle.. Played it a long time ago, in fact, you guys who played it might even remember my character? Shimrod or Shaolin. Anyhow, I ended up finding another mud that was even better, been playing on it for 10 years now. Called 'the gathering'. tgmud.net port 9010
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That was a weird choice for a first post.
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I remember Shimrod and Shaolin. Vaguely.
