I got into MUDS a few years back, back when running around the soccer oval making Secret Serbian Signs with your right hand while pulling your shirt over your head so you can’t see was cool.
I cruised along to the Mudconnecter site, and began searching for the MUD I would most like to play:
A futuristic, post-apocalyptic, role-playing erotica set in space. No luck.
I then searched for the MUD I would like to play if I couldn’t find the MUD I would most like to play:
A D&D based, SMAUG-coded MUD with lots of players and the Mage class available. The Mudconnector’s search engine came back with 4,560 results, and most of those MUDS were called: “Realms of (something)”.
After reading the first 10 reviews of the MUDS beginning with “R”,
(Realms of Aaarchon, Realms of Aarchon, Realms of Aavacado, Realms of Aardvark, Realms of Aaardvark, Realms of Abchonia, Realms of Abchoniasorosa, Realms of Acult, Realms of Acrazy)
I clicked the link to the “Realms of Despair” website. Its name seemed to fit my mood, plus the URL to the site had “org” in it, which I assumed was short for “organism.” No wait, I mean “orgasm.”
Success! The website was not on Geocities or Angelfire, and therefore worked! The very front page had links to a downloadable windows-supported client I could use to play the MUD, or I could just use my inbuilt telnet client. There were also links to telnet clients! And all of them worked! Wow!
There was also a warning on the home page, in bright red text, which I shall now attempt to emulate:
WARNING:
This MUD is extremely addictive.
Ha! I scoffed, scratching at a painful boil on my testicle. I’m bad-ass! I can quit any time I want!
Little did I realize that 90% of the people that play MUDS couldn’t speak English properly, and that they were so stupid, so amusing, that I would be playing the stupid game four or five years down the track.
I’ve compiled for you a list of some of the kinds of people you will find on a MUD:
The Co-Dependant Newbie:
This person will continually ask questions about absolutely every feature in the game, including the features his Sea-Elven Cleric named LoOzePuzzee will never be able to use anyway.
When his character is threatened, he will chat: ‘help’. He will repeat this useless line over and over again, and refuse to tell any concerned players how or where they can help, until his character is killed.
He will then abuse everyone, claiming that they were too slow and stupid, and now his level 2 Sea-Elven Cleric named LoOzePuzzee is dead and oo look I can go a Gith Thief named BigDik haha wow they can steal how can I steal what does steal mean why doesn’t steal work?
The Walking, Talking
Journal:
This player will keep everyone else in the game updated as to his every move. If he kills a monster, he’ll tell you. If he dies, he’ll tell you. If his character reaches a new experience level, he’ll tell you. If he discovers a new command, such as ‘save’, or ‘quit’, he’ll tell you.
The Helpful Avatar:
This player has left his computer on ever since he started playing the MUD, and has been playing for at least 12 hours every day. He is always ready to answer any question you might have, and has turned down becoming an Immortal (or GM) because ‘he has too much to do already’.
The Escapist:
This person has unfortunately been born with the features of a mule, and the personality of a supermodel. He plays the MUD purely to have cyber-sex with as many women as he can. If times are tough, and no women can be found, he will make female characters and use his male characters to have sex with them.
The Righteous Know-It-All:
This person will make a website listing the kind of people you can find on MUDS. He probably has no job, no prospects, and similar features and personality to that of The Escapist. For more details on the Righteous Know-It-All, please visit this website.