Your first MUD?
 

Sorry for spamming the forums ;)

I'm just curious what you first ever Muds were.

Mine was Achaea. At first I shook my head in disgust and logged off. A year later when I came back, I was mesmerized.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

The first one I played for any significant length of time was TOS TrekMUSE, a Star Trek RP-focused game.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

MajorMUD on a local BBS was my first one.. followed by Realms of Despair.. way back before Nephandi.. and then I moved to Hillsfar. After that.. well there's been lots since then.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

While technically not a mud, I played Legend of the Red Dragon on a local BBS back in the day, followed closely by LORD2 which was very rogue like in how it played, it was heaps of fun and was also where i learned somewhat to code using pascal. Good old days for sure.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Threshold RPG was my first mud. Then I played Darkwind. Now I flip between three different ones.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Heeee... good old LORD/2. I do so love me some BBSin

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first MUD was an LP Mud called Valhalla. Not the current Valhalla, this one closed in 1996/1997.

Things were pretty tough on that game - a stable connection was essential and we're talking around when 56k was super fast. The most dreaded thing was a "modem retrain" while fighting. A death took about 2 weeks to recover. Everything was black and white and when it hit 40 people online you had to wait for someone to logoff. Still, the depth of the areas and the balance of the MUD was incredible.

Oh, and you had to do all this uphill both ways, in the snow :)

Re: Your first MUD?
 

I started off with a couple of BBS style MUDs in 1991/1992. At this point I even got into coding them, and sold a number of modules/addons to the creators of two BBS door MUD-type games (if I recall their names, I think they were Legends and Illusions). By either 1993 or 1994, a BBSer told me about MUDs, and how they were so much better than BBS door game MUDs.

I do not recall the first true MUD I played, but I think it might have been Genesis. Things I recall were you either had to kill, or got a bonus for killing, whatever mob killed you. There was a constant battle between two sides (I think good and evil) who were sacrificing items at some temple. There was constantly some dude in the center of town running a bot who would teleport you back to town or buff you if you sent him the right message in a tell.

The first MUDs I played heavily were Darkwind and Realmsmud. I played them to death.

Then I got back into creating, and from that point forward I have mostly just created MUDs. Though I did return to both Darkwind and Realmsmud a few times, and have played a few other MUDs here and there.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Threshold... 11-12 years ago maybe on an Apple Mac 240C. Had to choose that one as I was playing from work (on night shifts) and port 23 was the only one open on the firewall.

Used to hang around with this player called... um.... Wyden who was quite excited as he had just recently learned how to sharpen a sword :-D

Re: Your first MUD?
 

I don't recall the name of the first one I ever played way back in January 1997. I only recall that there was no color, it was a level-based H&S and that it had "lurker" as part of the telnet address. I played it only once that first weekend for about a half hour and never again.

I would toy with the idea of playing a MUD again, and frequently looked over information on various games without actually creating a character and playing them, for the next year and a half before mentioning them to a friend of mine over lunch. He had never heard of MUDs so after lunch we went to the library and started searching for a MUD to play. We tried out a few before finding one that we liked. That first MUD I played consistently was the H&S MUD Necromium (March 1999 through December 2002).

In the fall of that year Necromium went down for a few weeks so we started looking at other games. My friend discovered Harshlands as he was familiar with table-top Harn. It was the first RPI I had ever seen or played. Played it for a very short time in November 1999 (my character died in less than an hour) and didn't try it again for a few weeks. Ended up playing nonstop from December 1999 through June 19, 2007.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Avendar, since 2006. The lore is spellbinding.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Star Wars MUSH, in 91/92. It's been a long while so the specifics escape me, but it was there that I first started tinkering with MU* code, and then officially switched hats from player to programmer (after learning C) at the Thanksgiving '93 release of Merc 2.2.

Ah, fun times.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Hahaha. I'm going to tell him that story right now. 12+ years later he still plays a couple hours a day.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first Mud in around 1996 was Age of Chivalry, which closed down years ago.

In retrospect, it must have been a rather crappy mud, mostly stock and very unstable, it used to crash about twice a day. But I loved it to death, had lots of fun and made lots of friends.
I was what is known a 'trouble-maker' there, but I also built for AoC, starting out with my own Clan HQ. I was totally inexperienced, but got some good tutoring, and almost immediately realised that building was my vocation.

After a pretty intense year, some of the staff members in AoC tired of the rather arrogant owner, and decided to start their own game, which became 4 Dimensions. I was recruited by my old tutor to build there, and when she dropped out for RL reasons some months later, I took over as Head Builder.

AoC and 4D are the only muds I have played for any length of time, and I never really played in 4D either, except to playtest new areas. It's a choice one has to make.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

One incident I remember also involving a young Wyden, is there is a certain place, in a cave near one of the big cities (trying to respect your help area rules) and in that place there is another smaller cave with a boulder blocking the entrance. We (that is Myself, Wyden and one other warrior) were luring people into the cave telling them about a secret in there and giving them all kinds of false leads, all the time pushing the boulder back into place as they searched in vain.

It was then just a case of mocking them outrageously on the guild channel as they pleaded to be let out.

I am sure that boulder has now been fixed so it can be moved from both sides, or open only :-)

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Whispers of Time Lost. It was on the Dawn of Time codebase and very active when I played it, though I think it has since died and been unsuccessfully resuscitated a couple of times.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Pretty sure it was Dawn of Time back in 97 or so. I used to be big on mIRC back then and DOT had a IRC client they used. I originally connected through IRC and was playing around for a few days. Then I discovered mud clients like zmud and I downloaded zmud and eventually bought it. The rest is history.

Next came Lothlorien, a pure pk mud. And then Armageddon, SOI, etc.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Though I tried several, including Genocide a pure PK mud, the first I actually played on for awhile was Epic back in 1992. Then from there I moved to Rivers of Mud (before Alanader released ROM) and then to River of Mud 2 for a bit. Those were some fun times!

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Dawn of Demise back in 1998 or 1999, still running today, but never anyone on any longer, more or less a shell of what it once was.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

None of these titles mean anything to me. I wish there were some screenshots or more information. :(

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My very first MUD was when I was about 14, and it was called Eaxia. I wish I could remember how I even stumbled upon the MUD or even know what it was... but I know I was ADDICTED, and have been ever since. :D

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first mud was Dragon. I started playing in early '94 while it was still running under Aber IV code.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Federation Space Fantasy from ibgames...Played it when it was free on the original AOL up until they went pay to play off network.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Achaea. Woot!

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Does Eaxia still exist?

My favorite mud was World of Inferno... wish it was still running or something similar at least.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first MUD was a GW mud back in 97 called Shadowgames. Still, to this day, GW-style MUDs are the flavor that I like to play.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Heh heh, GW, reminds me of GW Basic where no one new what the GW stood for and all the top programmers at the time agreed that it was short for "Gee Whiz!":D

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Mortal Realms back in 1996.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first MUD was Darkness Falls on AOL, which was freaking 3.99 or so per min! Then, Dragon's Gate, DragonRealms, the several random MUSHes and MUDs.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first mud was darkness falls also on AoL. I still remember when my mom came home with a 200$ Aol bill, she freaked out lol. Those games were so addicting on aol, splatterball,magestorm, lok, etc..

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Aardwolf.

First and only :p

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Mystic Realms RotMUD which later became Dark Haven, and I played that until it closed. I then moved onto playing on Waterdeep and then moved to Anime Planet which I eventually became the head builder of for close to a decade before deciding my time was better spent on my own MUD so I created Clockwork and am working on that.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first ever MUD was WoTMUD back in 2001. I had never thought anything existed out there that could take a book and make it come to life. I was hooked instantly and have been playing ever since. Ive tried alot of games listed on this site from the top 100 list ( and I mean like 20+ atleast) but none of them gave the same feeling as WoTMUD. One of the reasons I liked WoTMUD so much when I started was the easy directions. North, south, east, west, up, down. No south by southwest, in and out, or stumbling through multiple planes of existence. As a new mudder it was a big turn off if I couldn't find my way back to my starting point after only a few minutes of play.

Directions you can go are: N E S W Up Down In Out SE SW NE NW SSE SSW NNE NNW ESE WSW ENE WNW AQUATICA CELESTIAL and TERRA :eek:

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Well technically, in a lot of MUDs, an exit name can be _anything_. Assuming you meant that these were standard exits used everywhere, that's scary.

We all have our lists of features that we were technically very pleased with, but when it came down to it just weren't that much fun or appealing to players.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Can't believe I didn't post to this thread yet.

Its must have been late 1991 when my friends told me about these mud things that they warned me were very addictive. I didn't care. School bah! Hate it, why should I care. :)

So I logged into my dad's Uni shell account (I helped him to use it) and looked at this fabulous MUD list that I'd aquired somehow. FTP I guess. This was pre the stupid Web you know.

No idea why I picked it but it was called Darker Realms. Running at TAMU. That was part of the address which I had to type in every time so it stuck in my memory. I didn't stay long though. Some mean guys took me to an emote room and pretended to give me millions of gold. Even though this was my first time on a mud I realized what they were up to and what reaction they wanted to elicit. I did not reward them. I am not sure how many times I returned but I suspect it was only a few times.

Then I tried a mud closer to home, hoping to be a better netizen I guess. GateWay however is in Nova Scotia which is hardly any closer than Texas. Oh well it was lucky anyways since I still play there.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Threshold, over a decade ago.. played through port 23 so was perfect for playing in work :)

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Played a stock Diku for about 2 years called Crimson MUD II. Became an immortal at the tender age of 11, then left because the players were repetitively offensive. :P

After that, I moved around a bit until I found Accursed Lands, then Armageddon, and so on.

Holy crap, I've been at this for 14 years. :(

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Nothing to frown about, I'm glad you are still hooked on text games. Roleplayer all the way, good on you!

Re: Your first MUD?
 

ArcticMUD was my first many, many years ago.

In fact, it's one of the few I've spent an exceptionally large amount of time in over the years... just doesn't seem to be many left that hook me the way it did.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

If it counts, my first would have been Island of Kesmai on CompuServe around 1987. The usual story about The Bill applies.

Otherwise, it was a stock Diku called either Armageddon II or Apocalypse II, in 1992. Beastly fidos and that. It was a collective experiment with some other college freshmen, and about half of them immediately said, "God, MUDs are stupid" and took off. The rest of us landed on Holy Mission, which was okay. I played that for a while, and a smidge of other places, but my first great love was Cyberworld. Then a friend I was introducing to MUDs randomly picked Lost Souls out of a mudlist, and the rest is history, geography, and a bit of epistemology.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first... I played when I was 9 or so.
I have no real memory of it, only the fact that it's the origin of my original tag- whitetiger.
I used to play whenever we'd pack up the pc and drive to the library to connect to the internet.

Later my mother gave me a (huge) laptop, with a tiny screen, with some kind of text based adventure game.
All I remember from that is that there was a monster that tickled you to death in it. (though thinking back, it could have been text lingo for a low damage attack)

My next mud was Prophecy, based on David Eddings' novels. Didn't stay too long there, restrictions on magic, and needing to eat every five minutes annoyed me too much.

Later, I settled on Arcane Nites 2.x. Had a blast with the crafting and skill circles.
(Making a full suit of armor out of mercury was also fun, as the material didn't really make any difference in the finished product.)
Sadly, it was in its decline, even then. Saw maybe one or two other players the whole time...

After a span of time, I tried NWA on someone's recommendation. I understood how many people could enjoy it, but it wasn't for me.

Tried out UL, and was hooked!
Best FE I've ever used too.

Oh, and ConQUEST on the side (less cool FE, but still neat)

PS: Err, that was longer than I intended. if anyone wants me to, I can chop it down.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Oi! You're totally dating yourself!

Re: Your first MUD?
 

If I could do that, I wouldn't need MUDs. ba-dum ching

Specifying that I was a college freshman in 1992 probably does that a bit more precisely, though.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

I didn't start playing muds until the late 90s, so my first 20 or so muds were a series of craptacular stockfests, none of which I played for more than an hour or so. The first mud that I played regularly was Threshold. I started there in 1998 and played through about 2004 or so.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Darn it. I'm only one year younger than you then. College freshman in '93. I wasn't internet savvy enough to know how to find these cool games, though.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

My first MUD was probably Dragon's Gate on AOL in like 97 or 98, I was like 10 at the time and had no idea about this whole roleplaying thing. I played a Secian cleric on there who was exceptionally good at getting people to buy her shinies just so she'd shut up. Basically hung out in the town square and was an annoying **** because I didn't know any better. I eventually stopped playing there and didn't do much at all with MUD's a few years later though my dad found Threshold (2002ish) and I made a character there, joined the mage guild and played up to the point that I couldn't advance anymore because of A. being too young to play there actually, and B. not having any way to pay for it. So I hopped around a few other games for a handful of years, mainly DartMUD and Achaea before I found New Worlds and continued my tradition of breaking age requirements (I was 17). But yeah, my first MUD's were on AOL.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

Goodness! You started young. I do find that a lot of kids who started playing MUDs pretty young seem to be above average in intelligence.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

It helps that I grew up watching my dad play text based games and some other (pre WWW when I was REALLY young) early things like that. Used to sit on the back of the couch and watch for hours.

Re: Your first MUD?
 

That must have really turned you into an avid reader not to mention spark your imagination. I did a lot of reading when I was younger, but that was way before MUD days. I grew up playing things like Plundered Hearts and Zork (Infocom games), so I guess that's somewhat comparable. Still, I wonder what would be different if I'd had access to something like MUDs when I was young.

Threshold was my first "real" mud, too, and I was pretty timid about acclimating at first. I have to say that it made a huge impact on me even as an adult, and it's not really an easy game to learn. Glad I found it and got involved, though!