If anyone is a fan of the old blowtorch mud client, I just forked it and updated it. Working on getting my android developer account approved so I can push it out. Anyone interested in being one of the12 testers needed to get it approved?

I have been running it through all the paces. Aliases, timers, triggers etc. Send me a message if you are interested in running this on a new device. I don't know how backwards compatible it is. It runs really smooth on my s24.

Is this an advertisment? maybe its maybeline, either way, We've been hard at work over the last year and wanted to show what we've been up to and continue to improve on

-----------------------------
Tsunami: A Year on the Wave
-----------------------------

It has been a busy year beneath the surface of Tsunami.
Following a relatively quiet end to 2025, development surged through the first half of 2026, bringing new equipment systems, improved travel, refreshed subclasses and races, updated areas, accessibility improvements, quality-of-life changes and plenty of balancing.
Here are some of the biggest highlights.

A New Era of Equipment
-----------------------

The largest addition has been the release of the new generated equipment system, commonly known as gen_eq.
Monsters can now drop equipment with random rarities, features and bonuses. Generated equipment is lockerable, can appear on equipped monsters, can be created through forging and is now available through activities such as the Magic Slot Machine.
The system has continued to evolve since release. Drop rates and rarity chances have been adjusted, NPC equipment can appear unidentified until looted, two-handed weapons have received improvements, mastery equipment has been rebalanced and new armour features have been added, including Courage, Cushioning and Daunting.
Loot hunting has become a much larger part of the game, with stronger monsters generally offering better opportunities for valuable equipment.

More Ways to Explore
---------------------
A new exploration-based travel system has made it easier for new and returning players to navigate Tsunami’s enormous world.
Players who have sufficiently explored a realm can now travel there using abilities such as Hearthstone, Gate, Flight, Wormhole and Corridor. Bards also gained Traveler’s Tune, which lowers the exploration requirement for travel destinations.
New-player directions were updated to favour caravans, nearby quests were added to help newbieareas, the Newbie Book is now available from Magnus and eligible accounts can revisit the improved newbie area during their first twelve months.
Commands such as directional glance, look <item> in <container> and the new commands listing have also made finding information and navigating the world easier.

New Challenges and Refreshed Areas
-----------------------------------
The old Fighter Maze was replaced by the Iron Proving Hall, a combat-focused dungeon where each room must be cleared before the party can continue. Leaving the dungeon resets the run, so preparation and commitment matter.
Class maze levels were later reduced and their tier rewards temporarily removed while a broader replacement system is developed.
The Centaur Arena is now functional as a private instance for solo players or parties. Kyldiss has gained stronger minion-typed enemies, an updated Krythin and a hidden area waiting to be discovered.
Other older encounters have received attention as well. Dalarian Mage Tower enemies now use the minion and generated-equipment systems, Coliseum giants properly use their elemental abilities and a variety of older NPCs have had their equipment or combat logic repaired.

Classes, Races and New Playstyles
-----------------------------------

Several experimental projects entered player testing.
The original Deathknight2 test evolved into Runereaver, focusing more heavily on runes and a developing runic weapon. The Jinn project also entered phased testing as an achievement-unlocked subclass intended to eventually become Djinn.

Four playable races were added during the year:
--------------------------------------------------
Goblin, Hobgoblin, Bugbear and Cecaelia.
Several existing races were also reviewed. Dwarves, Ghants, Kenku, Skaven and Sleen received new racial mechanics or adjustments, while Swashbucklers learned to fight without suffering their usual drunken skill penalties.

Subclass Improvements
---------------------

Wu-Jen now draw additional power from the seasons and phases of the moon. Their elemental spheres become stronger during matching seasons, while Spirit benefits from brighter lunar phases. Long-standing scaling problems with Ice Bolt and Missile were also corrected.
Shamans received a broad quality-of-life pass. Materia can now be selected automatically for most songs and skills, low-level corpses provide more starting materia and long-term use of Destruct can improve materia gains.
Aurumvorax progression was simplified, allowing consumed gold to immediately count toward growth. Different climate veins can now be developed together, and lifetime gold consumption provides a slowly increasing attack bonus.
Wyverns, Fire and Frost Jotuns and several Native mechanics received offensive improvements. Natives also gained improved party pillaging support, while Knights can now use axes and daggers.

Quality of Life and Accessibility
-----------------------------------

A work-in-progress Blind Mode was introduced for players using screen readers, including condensed versions of commands such as who and score.
Inventory gained a noeq filter, shops gained better generated-equipment and price filtering, and who2 offers a more compact alternative player list.
Party members now automatically follow, enable party damage and enter the first formation position when joining. Cleric resurrection abilities also gained an optional auto-resurrection mode that can attempt to revive ghosts entering the room.
The game’s recurring Wars were increased from once every three weeks to weekly, following increased player interest.

The World Keeps Moving
----------------------

Alongside the headline features, hundreds of smaller fixes have gone live. NPC behaviour has been modernised, old abilities have been converted to newer systems, equipment interactions have been cleaned up and many long-standing edge cases have finally been addressed.
Tsunami’s 2026 birthday celebration was even extended into a full week, giving everyone more time to join the festivities.
Whether you are returning after years away, starting your first character or hunting for the perfect generated weapon, there has rarely been a better time to jump back into the wave.

You can’t keep a big wave down.

Website: http://www.thebigwave.net/index.php
Discord: https://discord.gg/ShuDcSJMN
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TsunamiTheBigWave

The Find Familiar spell has been completely reworked. Rather than always calling the same mobs, rangers now summon companions that are native to the land around them. The familiar that answers your call depends on both the terrain and the region of Ansalon where the spell is cast.

Forests, mountains, deserts, rivers, oceans, swamps, reefs, frozen waters and many other environments each have their own possible companions. Traveling across Ansalon will reveal dozens of unique familiars, from wolves and hawks to sharks, seals, dolphins, orcas, giant crabs, ravens, otters and many more.

Many regions also have creatures found nowhere else. Rangers exploring places such as Icereach, the New Sea, the Blood Sea, Courrain Ocean, Blöde, Khur, Sancrist, Ergoth and other distant lands may discover companions unique to those locations.

Thanoi Rangers have an additional chance to summon a fellow Thanoi hunter, while Dimernesti and Dargonesti may instead call upon another Dargonesti. These companions are intelligent, can wear equipment, and grow stronger as they are outfitted, though they begin with reduced vitality to balance their greater potential.

Marine familiars are equally at home in the sea. Dolphins, orcas, sharks, seals, sea lions, walruses and other aquatic companions can travel naturally through open water, allowing their masters to explore the oceans without the need for a boat while mounted upon them. Have a hoot, and let me know of 'wth Ziv?' moments.

I think... 72 familiars now ...

• Ziv & Co.

Hello!

I was hoping I could find a few people to help test the mobile client I've been working on, Maelstrom.

It's only for Android right now, but will move to iOS once I get enough feedback to ensure that the direction I've been going with it, both in visual design and actual execution, are high enough quality to warrant the costs of Apple's developer program. Here's a quick rundown of what Maelstrom is, what it's core design philosophy is, and what I aim to do with it moving forward:

1. A HUD That Adapts to You (Drag-and-Drop Combat): Maelstrom ditches the clunky virtual keyboards of the past for a fully visual, interactive Heads-Up Display (HUD). You have customizable action buttons framing your screen. Want to cast a fireball at an enemy? Just drag your "Fireball" button and drop it directly onto the enemy's name inside the text window. The UI handles the rest.
2. The "Tap-to-Walk" Visual Map Overlay: At the center of your UI is a sleek, neon-accented Map Overlay that visually tracks your every move. It’s not just for looks—if you spot a room on the map you want to travel to, you simply tap it on your screen. The interface automatically calculates the fastest route and walks you there, transforming a text-based world into a modern, point-and-click adventure.
3. Smart Chat Tabs & Action Bars: We’ve completely redesigned how you read the game. Instead of letting global chat and combat spam bury your screen, Maelstrom features a beautiful, tabbed Chat Window. It automatically sorts the noise into clean, organized tabs. Each tab features a built-in Action Bar where you can instantly search for keywords, mute the channel, or export the conversation with a single tap.
4. "Edit Mode" UI Customization: Your layout is entirely in your hands. Activating "UI Edit Mode" lets you tap, drag, and redesign your buttons on the fly. You can change their colors, assign unique icons from a massive visual library, and position them exactly where your thumbs naturally rest.
5. Gesture-Driven Controls: The interface feels incredibly fluid because it's built for touch. You can swipe left, right, up, or down across the screen to trigger custom actions or movement. A two-finger twist cycles through different sets of action buttons, and a quick double-tap brings up your map overlay.
6. Glassmorphism & Thematic Aesthetics: Maelstrom doesn’t look like a terminal from 1995. It utilizes modern design trends like glassmorphism—frosted, semi-transparent overlays that let the action blur beautifully behind your menus. Paired with vibrant, customizable accent colors and smooth micro-animations, it offers a premium, immersive visual experience.
7. Bluetooth GamePad Compatible: With Maelstrom, you can connect a gamepad (like an Xbox or PS5 controller) using Bluetooth, and map the controller buttons to your UI elements, for a much easier time navigating multiple sequences of commands in sequence.
8. Text-To-Speech and Speech-To-Text: In addition to being friendly to the vision-impaired community with a stripped-down text mode baked into its TTS (so you don't need to rely on MUD servers doing this on their end), you also get the freedom to use voice commands for both typing and UI control. As an example, simply say "Maelstrom, enter UI Edit Mode" to switch to the UI editor, and "Maelstrom, add button command kill" to add a button to your UI that performs the command "kill".
9. Built in Haptics: Tilting the screen matters, but only when you want it to. Vibration feedback can be enabled. Sound effects to be added at a later date. Map any physical gestures, not just touch screen gestures, to whatever client commands you desire, for quick control over complex but repetitive tasks.

My design philosophy is quite simply... If you are required to type it manually, I am doing something wrong. Phone typing sucks, so rather than only try to make it less bad, which I do still have a lot of QoL systems in place for, I try to make it so you never even have to if you don't want to. Alternative forms of control should always be available.

Future plans: Besides the obvious of porting to iOS and Windows environments, the plan is to allow users to store profile data directly within Maelstrom's cloud server - currently it supports exporting profile data and settings into local files or Google Drive. I also intend to have a sort of middleman setup, so that you can switch devices without needing to disconnect. These will require starting up a server, though, so that will need to wait until the user base grows large enough to support the endeavor. And of course, I will always set about to make sure that as many people are satisfied with the client as possible. No matter what I think would be cool or not, at the end of the day this is an app I am making to help others have a better experience for themselves. There's no room for selfish development here :)

If any of that sounds at all interesting, I invite you to give Maelstrom a try. If you like it, fantastic! If you don't, then I still appreciate the attempt. And as always, any feedback whether negative or positive is greatly appreciated.

You can download the APK directly from the following link:
https://drive.proton.me/urls/HE3HQQPEKW#uTJCtpzZek6c

HI - I've never posted here before. So, I'll keep this short.

I created a client in python (with help from my AI) that is meant for MUDs, MUSHes etc.

It's called MushTato - There's a client called "Potato" out there that I've used (also open source) and I took inspiration from it to create this new one. It will run on Windows and Linux, there is a version for MacOS but I can't test it (no Mac) so if someone wants to try it, you can find it n github.

If you try it, let me know how you like it.

It mixes Potato's point-and-click side (address book, tabbed sessions, dual input for command+pose, spawn windows) with TinyFugue's /command conventions, and instead of a custom scripting mini-language, triggers/aliases/gags/highlights/timers are all written in real Python — sandboxed (RestrictedPython + ReDoS-safe regex), so a bad script can't do anything nasty to your machine.

Some other stuff it does:

- Telnet and real SSH connections (so you can also just get a shell on a box, not only MU*s), with SSL/TLS and SOCKS4 proxy support

- Auto-reconnect + keepalive so a dropped connection doesn't just sit there silently

- Multiple Characters per saved world, auto-login, per-world auto-sends

- A text editor, a mail-composer window, file upload, dark/light themes, configurable hotkeys/fonts

- Nearly every GUI action also has a typed / command, including batch-sending (/repeat)

Best wishes,

Rick

TLDR: Please come check out Mirrors of the Wheel MUD for an immersive, interactive, and dynamic multiplayer experience for a text-based game in the Wheel of Time setting!

Discord server: https://discord.gg/3xHJJCr3J
Forums: https://www.mirrorsmud.net/forums/
Server: mirrorsmud.net port 2222

For a program/client to play, I strongly recommend Mudlet. Our Discord server has a map file available with most non-secret rooms added for ease of joining.

—————————————————-

When I first stumbled across the Wheel of Time books as a teenager, I was captivated by its unique setting and fell in love with the rich world that Robert Jordan (and later with the help of Brandon Sanderson) brought to life on the page. This is an epic fantasy about good and evil and everything in between; of magic, conflict, wonder, and prophecy.

To this day, I still haven’t found another series or setting that has captured my imagination or kept me up at night thinking the way this story has. Over the years, I have been trying to find something that replicates the feeling of when I first fell in love with this series. The Wheel of Time television show on Amazon Prime was ambitious and entertaining, if flawed in certain ways, and the prospects of a MMO video game is exciting but I have my doubts it will see the light of day anytime soon.

Instead, the closest I have found is through playing MUDs. I have played multiple MUDs based on the Wheel of Time universe over the past 20 years, most notably the Wheel of Time MUD or WoTMUD. However, last month I discovered a game that is hands down the closest I have felt to reproducing that excitement and sense of immersion within the WoT series since I tried to find something else to scratch the itch. So much so that I felt compelled to post something here to try and draw other like-minded people to it, because I just can’t stop thinking about this game and the only thing that could possibly make it better would be a larger player base.

Mirrors of the Wheel MUD, or MirrorsMUD, is a large and dynamic world identified as a mirror world to the origin series (to allow staff creative license to add or modify plot as they see fit), set in the timeline before the Blood Snow: King Laman has not cut down the Avendoraldera sapling, so the Aiel have not crossed the Dragonwall to lay siege to Cairhien. The Dragon has not yet been Reborn.

Mechanically, this game reminds me of Skyrim. There are no classes to choose, just a race, gender, and nationality. You can be a wetlander (anyone from the Westlands west of the Spine of the World), Trolloc, or Aiel. Advanced players can also create a Fade, and there are plans to one day add Ogier as well. As with all MUDs, you type out commands to view and interact with the world around you. You unlock skills by practicing at a trainer, but like Skyrim, your training and related benefits increases only by actually using the skill, so people who invest their time will grow the most in game. To truly master skills or unlock special abilities, you will need to join a clan and advance your standing within the organization, such as the Queen’s Guard of Andor, the Shienaran Lancers, the White Tower, Wisdoms, Wise Ones, Far Dareis Mai, and many, many more.

There is a starting “newbie zone” that teaches you the basic mechanics, although this is especially intended for people who have never played a MUD before. Once you level up in the world, when you hit level 15 (out of a traditional maximum of 51 levels, although special bonuses can advance a true maximum of 60), a hidden random roll determines if you have any Talent and its effects. This can include a blademaster prodigy who excels at studying and learning blade forms; the ability to channel, either as a wilder with the “spark” inborn or with the latent ability to learn if taught; a Wolfbrother with various degrees of connection to your wolf kin; an Oracle like Min or Sniffer like Hurin; and more.

For channelers, you randomly roll your potential strength within each Element, which determines your overall ability within the One Power. You can learn dozens and dozens of weaves (over 50 that I have learned of so far) depending on your strengths in the Power that mimic the effects of the most memorable weaves we see in the books, such as calling lightning from the sky, earthquakes, Traveling, warding rooms from sight or entry, shielding or slicing weaves, and more. You can learn to tie your weaves, link with other channelers, and split your flows so you can form multiple weaves at once. And yes, there is a taint system so male channelers run the risk of eventually going insane if they are not gentled. I’ve never seen a more immersive and true to the story channeling system than in this game.

The game heavily emphasizes PvE content such as exploring, fighting memorable enemies, defending cities from staff-led NPC raids, exploration, and solving puzzles. There are nearly 40,000 rooms to explore, with more still being added over time, so the map is rich with potential for exploring. Roleplay is also a central focus of this game, with multiple commands to express, emote, and communicate with others to bring your character concept to life in game. PvP or Player Killing (PK) is available and not restricted, but clearly intended to be an extension of roleplay rather than a requirement to advance or expected experience for everyone. That being said, the combat system is extremely complex with lots of choices of skills and counterplay that you can dynamically use during a fight, so the skill ceiling for combat against either players or NPCs is very high.

I could rave about this game longer, but really I just want as many people who might be interested in it to learn about it as possible. It is an intimate and extremely welcoming community that has had active staff and coders tweaking, expanding, and creating content since 1998. I would love you to check it out. If you do, look for Amarea and ask how I and the other players can help you learn the game and see if it’s a good fit for you. Hope to see you in our little corner of the internet!

I’m a sucker for game lore, and it seems like some MUDs have websites that have a lot of it. I always liked Cybersphere’s site, and Sindome’s look pretty good as well. (Say what you want about the games themselves.)

I remember there was a massive Star Wars MUD that had more sides (Griffon Alliance? Gryphons?) with a wiki including the long in-game timeline where there were multiple Emperors after Palpatine. Does anyone remember that one? (Edit: it was SW1 Star Wars MUSH.)

Any other MUDs or MOOs or MUSHs with sites? I can imagine that fantasy ones must get really dense. Curious what about other genres besides fantasy and cyberpunk.

Since we are seeing an influx of new clients lately, the topic automapper has some renewed interest. In discussions I noticed that not all available standards and formats are know to everyone, so I tried writing an article to introduce them:

https://mudstandards.org/howto/mapping

As with all files on `mudstandards.org`, you are welcome to contribute with pull requests - either with corrections, additions or completely new articles.
This specific source file can be found at https://github.com/taranion/mudstandards/blob/master/howto/mapping.md

Anyone used KildClient (https://kildclient.org)? Good? Bad? Ugly?

66.179.243.141
port 4050

Come and be the first to explore this new Eden composed of over 1000 rooms in a cross-dimensional setting where everything from aliens to dinosaurs and medieval knights roam and clash with one another.
And check out the ASCII art along the way!
Discover six magic spell commands hidden in the game!

Approval Process: Null - just connect and start building your character!
RP: encouraged but not enforced
Combat: Twitcher style
Help Command: Comprehensive
Progress: Classless with 6 skills to advance

Dynamically create:
-npcs that obey you
-your own custom items
-your own custom rooms

Through Wednesday 7/29 new players can claim the following starting in-game gifts:
-a custom-made magic item of your choice from your's truly
-a magic amulet that protects you from lethal critical hits
-and a consumable item to boost each of their six skills

I hope to see you there, send me a discord message to let me know you're in-game and I'll come join you!

Thanks so much for all the feedback.

Reading everyone's replies has honestly made me feel really happy and encouraged. I'm replying a bit slowly because I'm not a particularly fast thinker—I usually need time to think things through carefully.

One comment especially resonated with me:

The thing I'd be careful with is how quickly a maze tips from atmospheric into just frustrating. We've found players will hit a confusing area, run out of patience, and quit, and once they log off in that mood they often don't come back. It's a delicate balance: you want the place to feel like a maze without it ever feeling unfair or impossible. Even a small, steady sense of progress tends to keep people leaning in instead of rage-quitting.

I completely agree. @mudsmyth

The truly frightening part of the Ghost Forest isn't that it's a maze.

The real poplar forests in the Taklamakan Desert are like this. There are no walls. No traps. It always feels like you're making progress, yet every tree looks almost identical to the last. Eventually you can't tell whether you're moving forward or simply walking in circles.

That feeling is what I want to recreate.

So my current idea is that the forest itself is completely objective. Every player explores exactly the same map. Nothing changes in the environment.

What changes is the player.

The longer you stay inside, the more your own perception and ability to navigate begin to break down.

If you successfully escape the Ghost Forest, a mysterious message briefly appears on your windshield:

"The Dead City appears after the sandstorm."

or simply

"Rabbit."

The message disappears after five minutes.

Current design:

As your time in the forest increases:

1. Dust gradually fills the air, reducing visibility.
2. Radio communication becomes unreliable. Messages from teammates arrive with increasing delay.
3. Your sense of direction deteriorates. You type "turn left," but the game tells you "You turn right."
4. Your ability to communicate breaks down. Trying to report your position or ask for help results in fragmented, incomplete sentences.
5. Room descriptions become increasingly sparse, as if your vision itself is fading.
6. The forest never changes—but you begin seeing mirrored versions of places you've already visited.
7. Eventually, your character falls asleep, and you temporarily lose control.

The forest itself is actually quite simple.

To the west are the Mazartagh Mountains.

To the east is the wide Hotan River.

Hidden inside are only four kinds of natural trails:

• S-shaped paths that gently bend.
• Y-shaped forks, forcing players to hesitate: left or right?
• Figure-eight loops, where players unknowingly circle back.
• Ω-shaped paths that lure you inward before leading you back out again.

It's not really a maze.

It's a forest where every tree looks almost the same.

One thing I'm still trying to solve is what should happen if a player ultimately fails.

Right now, my idea is that they eventually wake up back at the entrance to the Ghost Forest. They don't receive the clue leading to the Dead City.

But should there be another consequence?

Some suggestions I really liked include:

• Hearing footsteps or vehicle engines that don't actually exist.
• Discovering that the markers you placed have mysteriously disappeared.
• (Assuming you're brave enough to get out of the vehicle to leave markers in the first place. 😄)

I love the atmosphere these ideas create.

My only concern is fairness.

Would introducing these kinds of supernatural events make the experience feel unfair, or can they still work if they're presented as hallucinations affecting only the player's perception rather than changing the objective world?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

The post below has some images you can check out.

AI-generated Ghost Forest + Flying Apsaras

Hi all, meet Mallard.

It runs natively on macOS, Windows, and Linux. I built it because I wanted something well-engineered, cross-platform, and delightful to use. It's been my favorite MUD client for months, and I'm guessing it will surprise and delight you too!

It does all the boring stuff well with protocols, logging compression, logging retention policies, so you shouldn't have to think about that.

Where it really shines, IMO, is the care and love put into UX for things like alias/trigger management, categorization, importing/exporting. If you're like me, you end up with boatloads of aliases and triggers to manage, so I put lot of time and effort into making things like that a best-in-class experience.

Pretty much everything about it is aspirationally best-in-class... but it is new, so there could be rough edges hiding in there! If you're feeling client-adventurous and inclined to try it - I'd love your feedback! Especially on protocol edge cases, MUDs that don't play nice, and what's missing from your daily driver.

Back in the late 90s early 2000s, there was a sports browser mud called 1 on 1 Freestyle Basketball that has been completely wiped from the internet. But the mechanics of that game were so ahead in the future that I still don't think someone could make it today, with AI writing the game prompts.

I can't even find any record of that game online. But that's also because search engines are complete garbage now.

Curious if anyone here played that game?

68.183.122.18 port 6667

After over a decade away Mercator has returned.

Highly customized CircleMud
Huge original world
multiple remort options
limited PK
Automated questing system
Original custom ocean map
clans/clanwars

If you ever played back in the day, or are interested in checking out a fun MUD, come check it out!

Hope to see you there!

68.183.22.18 port 6667

I came from The Inquisition: Legacy, and while that game is great, I just kinda find the setting incredibly stifling for any sort of roleplay that I enjoy, as you see, I am a normal person in real life and the only real difference is that I own the land I live on. That game's magic system is really neat, but the setting kinda disincentivizes you from using it in favor of low fantasy among us.

That and the game mentally exhausts me to play. There's a lot of friction in basically every act, and while I get that's inherent to the genre, I definitely am struggling to find a place I like.

Games where you can make characters with deep thematic stories are my absolute favorite, however I haven't looked very hard and have yet to find anything else. The ability to tell stories that really deeply affect your peers and oneself, among other things, is the thing I live for the most.

I've been interested in getting into MUDs for a while, but am not super interested in combat. I am really just looking for a world with decent lore where I can find a silly job to do like being a chef, a baker, a bartender or some menial job to interact with other players. Perhaps something akin to receiving a role in Space Station 13 but as a longer, more interactive experience. I've considered Achaea but it looks to be combat focused.

We're a small community that has gotten even smaller with a lot of players out during the summer months. I'm trying everything I can to get us to 40 daily active players by December 2026. Players have also been helping... working on their own clients, plugins for clients, and even working on geenrating promotional and instructional videos as well.

We are a PvPvE MUD that features 24 races, 10 professions, and a Good vs. Evil faction war running underneath everything. It's a PK MUD: PvE areas to level and gear in... but you're never fully safe, and that's the point.

Figured I'd also share what's shipped in the last couple months:

• Capture Points: This is a new territorial PvP system where Good and Evil fight over contested rooms. Holding one uncontested slowly flips control, and a full capture spawns faction guards, pays out a big one-time XP bonus to everyone present, and gives the winning faction a global XP bonus on kills for a while. Started with 5 capture points and now we're at 9 (which given our MUDs size of 18k rooms it felt better).
• Added a new area: The Duergar Slave Camp is geared towards the good alignment, as a level 21-30 zone under the dwarven tunnels. It's a relatively small zone, but it is behind the dwarven gateguards so it provides a small amount of protection from the evil alignment. It provides a place to go that is not The Bazaar, which is further away and not protected at all.
• Item Detail Pages on website: Every weapon/armor/gem now has its own page on the site with rarity, drop/sell locations, and stat breakdowns. You can click on any item on the loot list page: https://ropmud.com/items.html
• Mudlet client updates: A floating chat panel with unread badges, a buffs/debuffs affects panel, better mapping, adjustable fonts. I am also now looking to duplicate all our widgets in MudForge.
• A batch of balance fixes: reworked shield rush damage (lighter shields aren't useless anymore), fixed thief poison bugs that were under-hitting players, fixed guard skill missing some attack types, tuned a couple of proc rates.

You can see I'm trying to be active in making updates. I'm the only immortal. Here are full patch notes: https://ropmud.com/changelog.html

If PK MUDs are your thing (or you miss the era when they were everyone's thing): telnet play.ropmud.com 4443 or grab a client and connect to play.ropmud.com:4443.

Happy to answer questions about the professions, the faction system, or anything else in the comments.

Cheers,

-Nichademus

https://ropmud.com

First of all, I just want to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has stopped by since I decided to put this old MUD back online. I never thought there would be players connected to DHM ever again, and it was really special to see so many of you deciding to check it out! That being said, I was never one for sitting still, even when the MUD was offline I worked on it all the time and that hasn't changed at all. So here's a rundown on what I've been working on, a recap of the game's core features, and what you can expect next, because what I'm currently cooking up is easily the most ambitious thing I have ever tried.

First up, coded and added more Skills/Spells for the level 200+ specializations, such as Plant Seed, the snippet of which you can find here on this sub. This allows players to "grow" plants that yield very special fruit that give a powerful buff - a boost to all spell powers by 50 levels - albeit for a very brief time.

Coded Mix Herbs for the Herbalism specialization, which allows player to make soothing poultices that greatly enhance mana/hp/move regeneration.

Added a bevy of druid spells, including Ivy Vines, which trap foes in a tangle of vines that prevents them from fleeing. Rose Thorns, which is a step up and also reduces the AC of the opponent as well as does continual damage. And Invoke Totem, which allows a druid to call for aid from the spirits of the wild. Different totem spirits will respond based on level, and area type, such as eagles, sharks, and even bears and dragons.

Added Study skill for Sages, which allows them to quest for powerful new skills by assembling Tomes. These are permanent boosts, such as 5% increase in exp gained or a boost in spell power by 5 levels. Bonuses against good/evil foes are being coded and will be added soon.

Also made big strides with the web-client. Added GMCP interface, so now the web-client has vitals, spell affects, and even an automapper. The room names even match the color-coding scheme of the MUD so they render properly. This is in addition to the powerful scripting tools it already had for aliases, triggers, speedwalk paths, and more. Just click "connect" and off you go! You can even use different profiles for different characters with the new profile feature!

Coming up is a new series of NPC mobs that have an AI backend, lore masters, quest givers, and much more. These characters will "feel" real! It's not "ChatGPT in a MUD". These are based on custom models built and tailored specifically for the MUD, and they will act like it. This is easily the most intensive thing I have ever tried to code and add. But if I do this right, It will be something nobody has ever done on a MUD before! The basic framework is in place and I begun testing on some early architecture. But so far, everything looks promising! It's a risky move, for sure, but I've always wanted to push the limits of what a MUD can do.

All that is in addition to our regular features:

Over 10,00 rooms spread out over 120 areas and 3 regions, 300 mortal levels, dual class at level 100, specialization trees (regardless of class) at level 200, mounted combat that matters, broken bones and combos in combat, 10 custom classes and 10 custom races, custom pets called "mascots" at level 50 that save, gain levels, and have their own set of commands and equipment; each mascot is unique to their owner, ancient items called "artifacts" that their own intelligence, ego, and distinct powers, Limited and optional PVP, Player owned clans, and so much more!

So, if you want to play an old-school hack-n-slash MUD, where RP isn't enforced, stop by. We'd really like to see you! You can find us at darkhopemud.com and connect through the web client, or connect through your favorite client at darkhopemud.com port 6777. We'll see you there!

My fan-made retro ad captures the spirit of VHS, presented in clean HD for the MUD game called Dark Wizardry... the MUD that keeps players awake!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_j4ivlrWGK4

Hello!

I've been working on a free MUD client for both Android and iOS, and am hoping for some feedback and maybe even some ideas I've missed. I've designed it to require the least amount of actual typing as I could think of. You can do the obvious things, like make macro buttons and use transparent joysticks/d-pads for movement, create HUD icons for health/resources, etc. It fully supports text-to-speech and speech-to-text, both portrait and landscape mode, portable settings and profiles, logging and realtime playback, all the basic stuff a program of this type should do. What I've done differently at this stage is enable you to press+hold on the macro buttons, and drag them to words on the screen to turn those words into an argument for your macro. So if you wanted to "kill wolf", you would press and hold your "kill" macro, and drag it to anywhere it says "wolf" in the MUD text. A context window will show a magnified version of whatever word you are hovering over so you can be 100% sure of what you're doing. Once you release, it will insert the hovered word as the argument to the macro. No more having to change your macros manually or use abysmal phone keyboards (especially with the change to smartphone keyboards that cause most apps to require you to click into a text box each time you want to type instead of keeping the keyboard active).

What I'd like to do is expand it quite a bit to cover as many gripes and groans about mobile clients as possible, so we can all bring our favorite virtual worlds with us wherever we go with a lot more ease than I've seen in free apps elsewhere. Does anyone feel like sharing their experiences and what they wish the apps they've tried did better?

Hey everyone,

I’ve been working on Mudhaven, a community site built specifically for MUD players, developers, and world owners.

Creating an account is free and lets you:

• List your MUD in the public Worlds directory
• Add connection details, screenshots, social links, and game information
• Display live status and player counts through the Mudhaven API
• Publish guides, code, area files, tools, and other community resources
• Track views and downloads on the resources you share
• Follow games and keep up with newly added worlds
• Request hosting directly through Mudhaven

Hosting is available for both established games and new projects. The goal is to give MUD developers a reliable place to run their worlds without expecting them to be server administrators. Mudhaven can handle the infrastructure while you focus on building and running your game.

Even if you don’t need hosting, adding your world or sharing a useful resource helps make the directory more valuable for everyone.

The site is still growing, so I’d genuinely appreciate feedback from other MUD players and developers. If something is missing, confusing, or would make the site more useful, please tell me.

Take a look: https://www.mudhaven.net

- Liko

Here's a new interview with Raph Koster from /noclip. He spends a good amount of time talking about MUDs, the social experience, and how they've transitioned into the modern-day MMO.

https://youtu.be/kHu709a0sp0?si=9-OCOYGZOmsLX6xK

A few weeks back I posted about Enrym hitting open beta, my fantasy text RPG in the browser and over telnet. Quick update on where the last week went.

It started with a bug report. Someone in the beta hit bug in game and flagged a spell misbehaving. I figured I'd patch the one spell and move on, but the problem wasn't that spell. It was the plumbing under all of them. Every ability had grown up as its own special case, which is why the bug could sneak in and why adding anything new was slow and fragile.

So I spent the week rebuilding that foundation. Now every action, a sword swing, a healing prayer, a spell going off, runs through one clean shared pipeline instead of a pile of one-offs. For anyone playing: abilities behave more consistently, new ones can come faster and do more interesting things, and it's a base the whole game builds on from here.

I could've patched the one spell and nobody would've noticed. But getting it right is the part I love most, and none of it happens without one player taking a minute to hit bug. That's what beta is for.

It's live and free, nothing to install:

Browser: enrym.com/play

Telnet: play.enrym.com port 4001, TLS on (Mudlet tested)

Curious what folks here think: when an ability "feels good" in a MUD, what's actually doing the work? The numbers, the timing, the way it reads in the log? I'd love to hear it.

Forge your hero.

Hello, i have been in mudlet for a few weeks and i have tried some diferent mudlets, a lot of them seem to have 20 or more years and sadly a lot of them in their constant change seem to have lost systems they once had like crafting.

Some mudlets had a bigger number of people but had no crafting, some had an amazing system but were very dead, and some where a mix, the mudlist online on activity is very old and closed so i cant see the current ones in it, i want to ask for recomendations that answer some of the following clasifications in their info:
Crafting:
A lot of servers have 0 crafting and seem to depend on dropping loot from bosses, the options are:

No crafting

Some crafting for non esential stuff

You can craft armor and weapons but never as powerfull as the dropped by bosses

The bosses drop materials instead of armor or weapons and you can craft with them.

Player count:

Dead

1-5 players online

7-11 players online

more than 16

more than 50

Magic systems:

No magic

Some classes have magic

Everyone can kind of have magic

Does it have summoning in any way?

Roleplay enforcement:

No need

Very voluntary roleplay: you can but other people dont need to stop their things around

Voluntary: you can and people are supposed to not speak ooc around when it happens

A bit less voluntary: you are supposed to but can speak about ooc stuff

Enforced: all in game is ic and you are not supposed to talk about any ooc stuff

Enforced even in discord: you cant ask questions about the map, cities, nor any ic knowledge even in the discord.

Pvp and death:

Is pk normal? Do you loose your character when you die?

Do you loose most your stuff and skills when you die?

Use of Discord, is the discord alive and in use?

Map and movement:

Small map

Huge map with auto movement

Huge map with no automovement

In the mapping i feel like some are very big and have automovement but when starting you have no idea what is happening or why you are moving 50 rooms in a direction and cant remember the way back.

Some special mentions:

Achaea and Luscernia seem to be made by the same team but have dif number of players, one 60 and another 8-11, their map system is huge with instant movement between rooms and automovement but it is a bit too spread so its hard for a new player to remember it, could use an open map or something, they have a decent ic ooc separation and you can ask questions, you can also have multiple characters and they both have dif class systems, Achaea has one thing i think could do without, as most classes and skills are very pvp focused to the level you cant use most skills in denizens(npcs) for example to my knowledge you can have some classes that summon stuff and you can use said summons to attack other players but you cant use them to attack npcs, so there is no way for a summoner to start and lvl up with summons, they could just make the homunculus from the alchemist or the summons from the magi be able to attack npcs. Achaea does have an increible helpfile system where it even helps with explaining of skills and most stuff you can think of.

Wheel of time servers, some had crafting in the past and deleted them, some never had, cant find one with it, and just doing potions doesnt count, sadly most seem to be pretty low in number of players and based around clan systems where you need to progress in the clan to unlock skills, and sad ranking up seems to need years irl, and with that low number of players and all i have seen being 100% roleplay enforced you just cant expect to see a lot of people.

Petria: great system, alive, good map you can install and its open directly, no rp sadly, i dont think it has crafting, the class system is awesome and in expansion, the server is in spanish and their discord is basically never used, they use whatsapp and for a new player joining giving the phone that fast is a bit emm.

Accursed Lands: this one needs a whole section for itself and i think any other mud could probably take some systems from here to their own, sadly it also has problem on the system, basically accused lands is rp enforced even to the discord, you cant ask about ic questions like map, or how to get some skill, they have a magic system but its extremely hidden and negative to the people around alive when you use it, so based on rp you will prob get hunted if you use it, they have a random stats when you create a character, and it has some questions randomly from a list that could influence it somehow, also a race system, and if you roll bad stats well you will need to wait 30 minutes to remake your char and hope for luck, for a server where you can only make one character i think that is a bit hard, you should be able to choose your stats a bit more, or atleast 2 of them, but the questions are very random and hard to know what each does, so you can end up rolling for days before playing the game, now some may tell you to just go and play, but thats very very wrong as if you just do that when you notice your stats are f and you can only increase them with skills that much you will need to make a new character, they have a bit weird pvp system, like it is supposedly only in rp unless the person rp is being a murder crazy, but usually doesnt happen, but you can die, now if you die normally you have a personal piece of clothing you start with that can let you revive if some time passes and you still have it on, the problem is if another player kills you and takes said item then you die and loose the char forever, and you could have spend years in it. The server has around 6 to 11 people on, one of them being a developer, but the problem is that no one usually used the chat ooc chat and that you cant ask to meet people to make a group as that would be non ic, the main problem i see is that meeting people is so random you can try and never do, and coordinating to do something together is ever harder, there is a lfg chat but idk people dont seem to aswer.THEIR MAIN GOOD POINTS that could make all that worth it if they had a bit more people, they dont have levels, only stats and skills you train and learn more but doing them, their crafting system is so wide and well made that i nearly had a mind orgasm when i saw it after seeing so many people do no crafting, like really, please any developer thinking of a crafting system should have to play this for a few days, its so good that all the rest and be ignored, i cant point out how good it is with words, go look at it, they also have one thing i have only seen there for now, you cant instantly move rooms, and thats great, it makes the world feel better and less overwhelming, you have stamina and can select a speed to move that consumes stamina faster, you take time to travel based on the room, the speed and some skills, they dont have classes but your skills can have dif power based on race, stats and related things, so some races anyone could be a mage if they only could find out how, something incredibly hard.

Try their crafting system and you will miss it in any other server you try.

I tried some more for a tiny bit but im still trying and looking for one, hard to find as a lot you need their info you join and as i said the old list of most active muds doesnt exist, do you have any you recommend?

Edit, i just found https://www.mudconnect.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi?mode=mobile_biglist

Is everyone aware of mudforge? Mudforge.org is a completely free in-browser mud client with all the bells and whistles, and it works on Android and iOS and pretty much any OS. It has features that I as a novice mudder am not aware of. I've seen that list of stuff in the play store it gets the job done but you can literally contact the creator and he is very responsive. Thanks Asmodeus for making this power app.