There's only one MUD on MySpace. It's only about a week and a half old, but it's growing fast and it's browser based, with almost no typed text commands. Click Sheath, click corpse, click Contents, click Take, click Stow, click Draw, click East, and so on. It's skill based, with no classes, though there is a 3 god favor system that pushes you into thief (Loki), warrior (Tyr), or skald (Bragi). It's called Vikings. The "classes" are new and not really fleshed out yet, just like much in the game, but it's really fun and much easier to play without all the typing… and what's done is awesome, so the game is going to grow into something really good. There's obvious talent and care behind it.

It also gives you a domain where you can assign peasants to tasks like hunting, farming, building, smithing tools, you can improve buildings, grow your population and army, attack other clans in warbands… and there are markets to trade goods you produce, or collect in the world and scrap (like turn 10 woolen tunics into 1 cloth). You set your own prices, so it's a war and trading game too. It's not a code base like Diku or Circle, though it's most like a Diku. It has full PvP… players aren't any different than monsters.

Though it's listed on MySpace it's actually better to connect directly:

http://www.vikingsrpg.com

Or you can search for Vikings in the MySpace app gallery and play that way.

Looks like it could be interesting, combining two types of games into one.  Of course, still needs some more improvements, I personally found a very irritating bug.  I went into my clan's meadhall (went into mine, went to clan screen, clicked meadhall), and now there's no exit.  Been stuck in there for a bit.

I'd suggest giving more text commands on the MUD side, might make it easier to convert current mudders (without affecting non-mudders).  For example, you can use n/e/s/w but not get.  Perhaps a way to have all converstaions (says, tells and world) logged or shown in another box so you don't miss things when walking quickly.  And some way to go back and look at room descs that have passed (like I would scroll up on a map), would have been very useful when I was running past some kobolds and trying to see if my corpse was in their room.

I have always been impressed with the MUD Crackwhip. The web based

interface is the most unique I have ever seen. It is difficult to

describe, but it can be accessed by pointing you favorite browser to

http://www.tbamud.com/play. This unique setup allows you to bypass telnet,

java, port, and other common network restrictions. It is the only MUD

that I have EVER been able to play from work! I challenge anyone to 

find a computer it doesn't work on. 

Shadowen developed the concept when he could not MUD from work and 

has tbaMUD 3.51 up and running for a record of 211 days (same as 

server uptime) and still counting. He created a global content 

delivery network that matches text from the game to generate related

pictures (over 10,000 of them from servers around the world so you

always download from a local server). Of course it also has an 

incognito mode where you can choose not to display the pictures so 

all that you see on the screen is a telnet window inside your browser

so you can pretend to do work.

Shadowen has been kind enough to allow tbaMUD's development port to

use this unique interface so I encourage people to check it out and

help us develop the codebase by using the bug, idea, and typo reports

in game. TBA is very serious about continuing development and 

continuing to improve the best MUD codebase in existence.

__________________

Rumble

The Builder Academy

http://www.tbamud.com/play

tbamud.com 9091

     As a long time mud player, generally on the same two muds for almost ten years now, I have to admit that I used telnet for all of those years.  For a while I used gmud and Wintin95 (Of which I much prefered Wintin95.)  To me, it is not important to have all the add-ons for macros, mapping, and so forth.  Heck, for me a simple piece of paper is good enough to map an area out, as well as keep a list of all of ones characters.  The only problem I ever had with telnet was color parsing.  Not that it even bothered me that much.

     Now, ten years after I started Mudding, the only clients that I would like to see more development on are mud-specific clients.  I've seen the one for Batmud, which I like, as well as a few others here and there.  However, with that thought in mind, it would practically require a coder just to work on the client for the mud, other than the mud itself.  What can I say, I like to see constant improvement when a good product comes out.

     Hrm…

     Yes, those are my thoughts for this date…