[eax]

I play extreme amounts of games but muds while I can appreciate them I have been looking for one to get into for a while now. I played one a while back, three kingdoms I think and I loved the detailed character interaction but being 28 years of age and someone who jumped on the PC bandwagon a bit later in life I dont have the luxury of knowing all the mud commands(Not just talking N,S,E, W here )

Anyway loved the story aspect of three kingdoms but the puzzles were for mud veterans who had been playing muds for years. Long story short I wanted to post on your forum regarding a new concept I read about "Interactive fiction" you see I figured some of those come with manuals so I could learn all the commands and they should have decent NPC interactions and lots of diversity. I was actually wanting to use your forum to ask if people new of a IF that was really deep in the storyline and npc aspect , and that Im able to play some old games through emulation if needed. Im looking for a vampire theme but its got to be more than just, hack slash, random spawn , kill, go say quest done, npc say Ok go kill 10 more demented grey goats rinse repeat

Just to say I do like the hack slash element and the levelling , character building is very important in saying what Ive said but I also want to be having to speak to NPCs and involved in an epic story with lots of quests and unique elements , perhaps where you can own towns or something? You know generally rise in power. One kind of IF where you get turned into a vampire or something. I know there are muds like this but with an IF well in some ways I think they will have more scope being SP. I have also been looking at the old infocom games but have never played them before, are those generally the best IFs? and is there any that involves levelling, fighting , getting more powerful , perhaps becomming part of a vampire clan or something?

[Newworlds]

I'm sure there are some interactive fictions with a vampire theme out there, but if you are into roleplaying and it seems like you are, you might try dropping by NW and checking out the website, reading the book (online) and getting immersed on our game. There are limitless possibilities, creation is extremely friendly, and our staff and guides helpful. We have a good sized player base and you get involved early.

Either way, Good Luck! The website is

[Kereth]

Well, if you're determined to have a vampire theme, you could try some browser games like Monster's Game, but that's essentially roleplay free, just a vast, uncomplicated werewolves vs. vampires pvp setup. If you're going for "interractive fiction," you could try some other kinds of MU*'s, or some kind of interactive storytelling thing based in a message board or whatnot. I think Starpool Holt is one of those my wife was into at one point, but that's themed around the ElfQuest comic series, and hardly vampires.

Now, if you want interesting character generation, you could try RetroMUD , which has vampires, yes, along with 60 or more other races to choose from. It's also extremely well documented, with helpfiles for just about everything and a good community to help you learn your way around when you can't find the file for what you need, so you don't need to worry about it being a novice to MUDs.

As for interractive fiction in a MUD environment, you're going to have to look at varying degrees. Any MUD that offers roleplaying will be a good choice, to get some from that angle. Quests vary in quality. Some MUDs, such as Discworld MUD, do have a few of the "kill X number of (blah)" quests, though Discworld mingles it with humorous quests like slapping some random guy with a fish (and bang! You get exp! That was a quest?) I've yet to play a MUD where every quest was part of a central story, but RetroMUD at least has six worlds of individually themed quests, completely devoid, to my knowledge of any quests involving farming a certain number of token monsters. It has a fair number of quests to slay some evil (or good) overlord and loads of miscellaneous ones, such as freeing tribes of the sources of greed that have spawned generations of conflict, solving the mystery of a cursed island, saving the boy who got lost in the woods, saving the whole universe from an evil overlord who is going to shatter the very fabric of reality, and so forth, going on to a vastly extensive list which won't even begin to fit here, varying of course, from things like the "find the boy" quest which can be done in minutes to quests like the latter, which takes weeks, even months of time to work all the way through.

Speaking to NPCs: This is one area will I will recommend discworld. Many MUDs, such as RetroMUD, will have you interract with npcs through the use of "ask" commands or whatnot (as in, "ask (npc) about (question)") A few, like discworld, have nice parsing systems, so you can just ask the question normally, and the npcs will respond to key words as if they understood you. This is nice for the dedicated role player who wants to treat random npcs as living, breathing people, though even that falls through eventually, but it also has the interesting trait of letting you say derogatory things about their mothers that happen to use the key word and still illicit the desired response.

Anyway, that's all I know about the stuff you're looking for. Hope you found something in there that helped.
-Kereth

[Threshold]

I would highly recommend that you check out Threshold (surprise surprise). I should note, however, that there is no option to be a vampire, however. But everything else in your post sounded like you would enjoy Threshold greatly.

[eax]

Hiya I have been messing about with amiga emulation believe it or not so have kinda been busy but Im back and am just going through those replies , Thanks for that! Will check out anything thats been recommended

Actually thats me read those replies and thats exactly the kind of reponses I was hoping for, It's funny you reckon I would be suited to roleplay, well should try it . I went on a mud way back which was RP and I hate to admit this It kinda scares me when It comes down to it

The thing is the person said I did really well but having not practiced much I guess Its just because I maybe havent thought it through enough and make the occasional OOC slip-up in IC. The thing is I reckon I could probably come to really like that side of things but I think for me personally to get that kind of immersion to work for me , everything around about has to be conducive to real immersion and for me that means lots of NPC interactions and quests, that way you can constantly be busy developing your character , learning about a rich in mud enviroment which I reckon is going to aid roleplay from time to time.

Mainly looking for a charcter development type mud , where theres plenty of diverse solo stuff, also I dont even mind some of the standard kill radioactive I legged sheep quests when starting out , but Its having a bit of both and viewing the replies well it sounds like whats been mentioned I will like. Thanks !