The Old School MMORPGs

Ok, for those of you who do not remember the early days of gaming there actually were MMORPG before World of Warcraft and Ultima Online. These early MMORPGs were called Muds, which stands for multi-user dungeons. Now these early games were not a pretty with graphics. Mainly because they were text based, but they did teach you how to read and type faster than normal.  Now most people do not care about these early games, however they are still around and I myself enjoy playing them. And another note you should remember about these games is that they are free.  So in this little article I will show you how you can connect to sites that still host these games and if you have a 28k modem you can still game on-line with your friends.

Well, if you want to play a mud you need just some simple things to get you started. The first, being your computer, if you are able to read this article I assume you have one. The second being that of an internet connection so you can connect to the game (this is an on-line games so this one is kind of a given). And the third, the most important step, is client program to play the game on. We will talk more about clients in a bit, but for now just know that they are free and can be anything from your internet browser, telnet application, or your command line prompt.

Now the next step is to find a mud that you like and will want to play. My favorite site to check out new Muds is http://www.mudconnect.com/ because they have an advanced search with lots of information about Muds. Ok when you find the mud that you like and want to play the thing you need to grad is the IP address of the mud and the port it is located on. These two items are extremely important. Also checking out the mud’s homepage will give you more information about the mud.

Now the last step to playing these games is connecting to them. Most mud’s will have a Java based program on their homepage that will allow you to play the game from your web browser which is great to get started with, however you really need a nice client software if you are planning to really game for long periods of time. Now checking out the homepages of mud will sometimes show you client programs that are built for individual mud’s like http://www.bat.org/ has a really nice client built for that mud with some really nice features. Another mud client that I use is called a MUSH client and can be downloaded at www.mushclient.com; this client is a great example of an all access client that can connect to several Muds. Now when using a client and connecting to the mud it will ask you for the IP address and the port of the mud or world you wish to enter, hopefully you will keep that information written down and you will then be logged into the mud. Some Muds that are still popular today are:

• http://www.shadowsofisildur.com/
• http://www.bat.org/
• http://www.dsl-mud.org/
• http://www.aardwolf.com/
• http://www.dforces.net/

Mud has survived the test of time and is still around with several players to interact with, however like most MMORPS they are what you make of them. I wish you all well and if you are bored and want a game to play while you are at work or school I suggest a good mud, because since they are mainly text most people will still think you are actually working on something.

Image via Wikipedia