The case for MUDs in modern times

Summary

In the age of smart devices and instant entertainment, can a medium as old as MUDs survive? Driven entirely by text, these Multi-User Dimensions ― or Dungeons, or Domains, or so many other options that they’re often called MU* ― are virtual worlds that consist entirely of text. Often outfitted as RPG-style games, these platforms are also home to niche internet communities on the fringes of the web. The servers are accessed via a telnet client, which is easy enough to launch in a command line. But there are a few popular applications that many longtime players opt to use. They’re rather reminiscent of the various chat programs built up around the IRC protocol, and provide simple functionality like logging, colors, aliases, triggers, timers, and even mapping. At this point, if you’ve never played a MUD before, you might be very confused by this prospect. An online game that’s entirely text? How does it work? More importantly, why would anyone play that? When I first stumbled across MUDs as a preteen, that was my initial reaction. I was an avid reader, but the idea of playing a game that was entirely text felt more like work than fun. Perhaps it did feel like work a bit in the beginning, but I picked up the controls pretty quickly, and soon things felt very natural to navigate. In a typical MUD setting, you are represented as a textual avatar inside of a space called a room. A room has a written description and a list of objects that are inside that room. A room can be anything: a lion’s den, outer space, an old crypt, a classroom, a wide prarie, or even a coral reef! Your avatar can interact with the game world and its contents via commands you enter. These can be as simple as 'get sword' but can be as expansive as any imperative clause. Some MUDs have robust command systems that allow you to be verbose, like 'look at gemstones on tiara' or 'pilot ship 500 meters north', and intricate complexity can follow. These concepts will be very familiar to you if you’ve ever pl...