In all genres from FPS, RTS, to MUDs, developers strive to challenge their players. These challenges often require time, mental skill and character skill. Sometimes these challenges however are more challenging due to improper implementation or poor design. A good example is from the classic game "The Secret of Monkey Island", which might I add is one of my favourite games of all time. In one part of the game you have to use a rubber chicken to slide across a clothes line to get to another location. The most difficult part of solving this puzzle though is sliding your mouse curser across the screen and trying to click on the 1 pixel wide clothes line.

In the way of MUDs, and being that CircleMUD/Diku is my homeland, I can't help but find that some of the challenges they offer are more annoying then challenging.

For example, hunger and thirst play a significant role in the stock code. As time passes a player becomes more hungry and thirsty until eventually they are starving and their ability to heal comes to a halt. A system like this offers a sense of realism to the world, but I find it takes away from the game. A player is forced to pack food, keep track of food and forage for food all to ensure that they will be able to heal. All of which takes away from the aspects of the game that people enjoy playing.

The same can be said for the rent system aswell. Every item you possess costs X amount of gold per day to store at an inn when you leave the game world. The benefits of this of course are that it encourages players to log in and play again soon before they lose their equipment due to lack of money. A system like this grossly discourages equipment hoarding and will likely keep all pieces of unique expensive equipment active in the game world. Unfortunately, like the hunger system, the rent system "forces" the player to perform a certain way to avoid negative aspects of the game ala not healing, or losing equipment.

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My question to developers and players is what defines an aspect of a MUD as challenging? or as troublesome? What challenging aspects of gameplay to you feel the urge to complete? While which other "challenging" aspects do you feel detract from gameplay?
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In regards to my previous example of hunger, I believe that by making food/water heal the player up until they are full adds a strategic element to gameplay that offers a similar result to the stock system. While allowing the player to use food/drink to positively affect his character as opposed to preventing a negative affect.