Massively

This looks like a very interesting game.

I have to say, I first heard about MUD's back in the halcyon days of the BBS. When I went to college in '93, I remember everyone talking about them but I never could figure out how to access them.

Nowadays, I try just about every one that I can find, but I find the huge difference between the text interface vs the usual graphics of mainstream MMO's to be pretty intimidating.

Maybe it's my own lack of imagination, but I find MUD's to be more difficult to become invested in just due to the fact that things are harder to navigate. Most MMO's have a great tutorial level or three, the UI is typically pretty intuitive (especially since they are becoming more homogenized...not a plus, just an observation) and there is a definite linear progression.

I'm gonna play BatMUD with a purpose and hopefully I can figure out what all the hype is about. Thanks for pointing me to this one!

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I totally appreciate interesting subject matter being posted to this site. Discussion topics like this bring an element of depth that goes beyond basic mmo news and happenings.

That being said, this is the second post today I've been compelled to correct "begging the question". It doesn't "beg the question"; it asks the question or raises the question. Begging the question refers to circular logic in which the conclusion of an argument is also an unstated premise within it.

I have not played Batmud, but I used to be into muds back in their glory days, so I might check this out out of curiosity. Several years ago there was another mud that created a graphical interface. I can't remember its name, but it was horror-themed (I think you could play as a vampire, zombie, etc). The gui was for stat tracking, mostly. It had HP/MP bars and, if memory serves, a north/south/east/west compass to move between rooms. I really enjoyed this fusion of "gui mud" until they went to a subscription service, at which point I quit. It was too expensive for having such low overhead costs.

I think the term "MMORPG", or any of its variants, is really outdated. In the late 90's it was popularized to differentiate the typical multiplayer games of the time with what was new about certain products (e.g. that they could support thousands of players simultaneously). Now that these games and services are a mainstay, I feel that throwing around the MMO tag can be done away with. After all, where do we draw the line for inclusion in the "massive" club? We say Warcraft is in, but it supports less simultaneous players in-world than Eve. Other games have less far less than Warcraft per server, so do they count? What gets more to the essence of what we mean is the idea of "persistent world". This also clarifies the debate over whether games like Guild Wars should be considered an MMO. It satisfies the favored terminology, but when persistence is taken into account, we can see how these games are different houses with the same curtains.

Muds like Batmud, and even non-graphical ones, count as (what we like to call) MMOs to me, since they are persistent worlds. I think this differentiates them even more than how many players they support. When you quit playing Quake the game was over, but when you logged off of Ultima Online events were still taking place. Things were happening with or without you, and it's the same way with muds. They may only have a few hundred people playing in total, let alone at one time, but the spirit of "persistent world" places them in the same neighborhood as their commercial brethren.

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"do you feel that a well-written MUD can provide the same level of personal interaction and character development as can the average MMO?"

I almost laughed when I read this. I've been playing in MUDs and MOOs and MUSHes etc. since about 1995. My favorite being GemStone III (now GemStone IV). As far as I'm concerned, there's not a single graphical MMO on the market that does more than scratch the surface of personal interaction, character development, not to mention character customization, as the original text-based games that they're based upon.

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