Welcome to my page dedicated to some of the most popular types of internet games: M.U.D's and other M.U.*'s. For those of you who don't know, M.U.*'s are multi user environments where people can communicate in a variety of ways.
M.U.D stands for Multi User Dungeon. It is a text based environment inwhich players interact with each other and computer controlled elements. Most of the popular muds are based on fantasy genre. In these, a person creates a character and attempts to increase that characters power and ability by defeating monsters and finding rare and powerful weapons and armor. However, there are muds based on sci-fi and modern concepts as well.
In most muds, your characters abilities are preordained. You choose a profession and your abilities are determined by the profession you chose. While you still control your characters actuall actions, you will only be able to choose from a specific list of actions.
Most muds are combat based. In this, I mean that most of your time on a mud will be spent in virtual combat with either a computer controled monster (commonly refered to as a mobile or mob) or another player character. The primary goal of these muds is to gain levels, increase personal power, and obtail new skills and more powerful weapons and armor.
While these can be very fun and exciting, most muds usually lack the role play aspect that some of the other mu*'s possess. However, I have found that players who role play thier mud characters tend to be more successful and popular on thier muds, and they tend to enjoy themselves a little more than other players who simply play a stock character.
There is probably a mu* out there for almost every popular comic, novel, and television series. There are even muds based on well known computer games like Doom. Different MU*'s are dedicated to different concepts as well. Some are Role Play based. In these a player must actually role play his or her character as if they were a real person. These mu*'s are similar to the Dungeons & Dragons game system from TSR. There are mu*'s based on fantasy, modern, sci-fi, alternate realities, or combinations of these.
In these mu*'s, the focus is less on predesigned combat and more on actually role play. Here players develope distinct personalities for thier characters. Each character becomes decidedly individual and unique. Each characters actions affect the actions of other characters and contribute to the entire mu*'s general storyline. These mu*s are like television or comic series in that there is a continuing storyline behind all of the actions. On a mud, what your character does one day may have nothing to do with what he does the next. However, on these role play mu*'s characters build up a history based on their day to day dealings. In most cases, what you do one day will almost certainly affect what happens on the next.
Role play based mu*s are as numerous as television shows. There is probably a role play mu* for every comic title or novel series. Many of the more popular role play mu*s are based on popular comic titles or realms such as Elf Quest or the Marvel and DC comic universes.