MUD In Your Eye

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, there lived a breed of online text-based game called a Multi-User Dungeon, or MUD. The MUDs thrived for a time, and then along came a beast called EverQuest, followed by its larger cousin, WOW. Together they killed the MUD forever. Or did they?

Ten years ago this month, a MUD I wrote for called Iconoclast was the MUD of the Month on the MUD Connector. At the time, the other MUD admins and I had the following to say about the new breed of upstart graphical MUDs:

People still like to read. And so text-based muds are not at all threatened by the appearance of graphical muds. The Internet is a big place. There's room for all of us.

Text-based muds are superior to many other forms of technology because of what they offer. It's a unique experience, and it won't be going away.

Of course, MUDs very nearly went away a few years after we wrote that.

But an interesting thing happened the other day. Our MUD admin logged on and noticed that we had a half dozen people actively role-playing on the MUD. We were intrigued. I put out a call for players to return using a few old Iconoclast player mailing lists, and within six hours we had 22 people on the MUD. As I write this, we've maintained 15 players for over 8 hours.

It would seem that in spite of -- or perhaps, because of -- WOW, people do have an interest in MUDs. What do you think? Do you have any favorite MUDs that you still play? Do you think MUDs offer anything that WOW and its ilk never can? Weigh in. Share your MUDdy thoughts and links below.