AUTHOR: David DATE: 2/24/2005 10:53:00 AM ----- BODY:

Back in the day, make that the early 90's, a couple of friends and I were sucked into the insanely addicting world of text-based Multi-User Dungeons (MUDs). This was before the advent of Mosaic, Netscape, and MMPORPGs and I would wager that these original MUDs are still just as, if not more, addictive and fun to play as any of the 3D online games out there today.
Our game of choice was a rollicking fantasy DikuMUD called Sloth. Back then there were four classes to choose from (Warrior, Thief, Cleric, Mage) and a whole evolving world to explore. Great great fun and horrific from a lack-of-sleep point of view. I actually felt a calling to get back into MUDding a few years ago and miraculously found that Sloth was still alive. Its third incarnation, SlothMud III is built around the core of the original Sloth but the playing world has gotten much bigger, incorporating elements of several other MUDs that have since disappeared. Where there used to be one continent now there are five, new classes, more powerful monsters and bigger loot. It all adds up to a good time.
As usual in an any community there are good folks that help out newbies and there are the jerkoffs that loot corpses. All in all it's a good way to have fun, "meet" people, and waste a whole lot of time.
A word of advice though, if you decide to really get in to MUDs stay away from telnet or simple text clients and go for a programmable, scriptable interface like zMUD. It makes the game just a whole lot better.
Geek out!

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