Try The Turning Point MUD.

9999

website:

It meets your criteria and we've seen a number of great new players join recently that are already making a wonderful impact.

Two major events in the last week, (one taking place right now in fact), have boosted activity significantly and brought a wide variety of RP styles to the game. One was a hunt for a goblin tribe, which resulted in a new area going into the game, and one was a festival in the Eastern Lands, the Festival of the Suns.

TP MUD has Player Guides that can help new players and active Staff to walk you through the initial learning curve. And enough documentation to get your feet wet on things like concepts, cultures, roleplaying, etc.

Give it a try and we'll see you there.

Pleos, TP Imp

PS. I just read in brief your comments re: reviewing MUDs. It doesn't really bother me that a MUD turns off the right for people to review, since most reviews are slams against it. And often the slams are ignorantly posted and hugely biased. Those who administer/own MUDs can ultimately do as they please with it, since it's theirs, which includes refusing reviews. There are thousands of MUDs out there, find one you like, but if you leave one, just leave. Life isn't fair, it never will be, and it isn't in the world of MUDs either. Now, this PS may make you not try TP MUD, and so be it. But I thought it important to add this as well.

While DM has alot of fine features, I've treid it a few times and it just isn't my cup o' tea. The NPC/PC argument stick in my craw, bad.

Armagedon MUD (some details at is another RPI mud. I believe we meet all of your criteria.

I've got to add another "try out TP" punch.
I found it a few months ago, when I'd basically lost all hope in the RPing community, and couldn't be happier.
It's definitely worth a look.

Just out of curiosity, how accurate is SoI setting-wise to LoTR?