This week I reconnected to the MUD I used to play 20 years ago. I'm amazed it's still running. I've forgotten nearly everything.
I've been having a blast these past few days exploring the vast world.
There's nothing that Google can tell me about it. There's still people playing (and building) it, so I can ask for help - my old clan is still going even - but there's no instant fix on everything.
I don't know how long it'll last, and the time it will take is too much to fully immerse, but I've already started making some maps and trying to tackle some quests.
Out of curiosity, which MUD?
I used to play EliteMUD a ton decades ago. We used to get up at 6am to grab some computer terminals at the city's computer center and play all day.
I could've played from home but the phone bill would've been crippling.
RavenMUD. It's now running on ravenmud.com port 6060.
Please share. Perhaps if a few more join it can last longer.
I remember playing Dragon Warrior on NES late into the night with friends. Grinding away to get that next item and leveling up to fight bigger monsters. It was really fun, really exciting.
A few years ago I got an emulator and fired it up. Played about 5 minutes before I couldn't continue. Just didn't have the desire to grind away. And the emulator had a fastfoward button, which I found. So I just kept zipping around and running into monsters, not even wanting to spend the time to fight them. Spoiled because I didn't have to die, I could just reset to a save point.
I dunno. Maybe that just happens when you get old. Maybe it's just that there's so much instant gratification. I remember playing zelda and meticulously making maps on graph paper etc. Today you can just look it up on the internet in a minute and print a glorious, in color complete map.
It's just not the same anymore.