After 10 months of designing out the world (still in that process as this is a comprehensive, original world with an emphasis on integrating every aspect of the world together rather than trying to make it fit a preconceived theme so there's plenty of other cultures and geography in the MUD that needs intensive detailed design completion) and gathering a team of coders and builders to realize this project, we have come to the point of actually beginning the actual MUD itself.  That leads my team to a question:

How shall we host this MUD?

We have looked at many of the various services (Wolfpaw, MudDrake, etc. and even some major commercial non-MUD-specific hosts) and haven't yet found the package that best serves our needs.  While I intend to contact these services directly and inquire about custom packages, I thought I'd also appeal to the experience of those here who have done this process before and might have recommendations.

While we're not a commercial MUD, we are not letting that influence our decision not to compromise on quality. We are 100% in favor of a dedicated server along with a large capacity of memory, etc. to ensure the highest quality we can afford (probably in the range of $75-$125 a month at least).  There are of course a list of things that the coders have recommended, all of which will be integral to our decision.

Like I said, I thought I'd inquire here about any recommendations beforehand.  Utilize every piece of knowledge within my grasp before actually beginning the conversation with the various hosts we're looking at.

Your input is appreciated.

Thanks, take care, and Happy Holidays.

Jason

I'd suggest just using a cheap starter package to begin, use that for a month or two, and then extend/improve/move it later as necessary.

Being willing to put money into the mud is good, but there's no point in putting money into it until you need to.

I'm with Kavir. Unless you have some reason to expect a lot of players off the bat, go cheap to begin with and make sure you run your own backups.

--matt

I recommend MudMagic without hesitation. We were hosted there before moving to our totally dedicated server, and the support was exceptional.

As everyone else has said, go cheap at first.

We're using Wolfpaw for development and maybe the first few months of running, so far their service has been great. Later we are moving to a dedicated host(Dataworxcs.com), we chose them because I used to work there and got a HIGHLY discounted rate.