2021-07-16 - MUDs ------------------------------------------------------------------- Recently I've started playing multi-user dungeon games at occasion And i'm currently quite enamored with the whole concept. I know these MUD's have been around since the late 70's, but somehow i never played one until this year... Talking about missing the boat... However, even though the glory days of MUD's are probably over, i've found that there's still quite an active group of cool people hanging out over there. (Just like gopher i suppose) Although everything felt strange and confusing at first when i was trying out my first MUD, i'm now very slowly getting the hang of it and starting to like it a lot. I play simply over telnet without any fancy tools, and i really love how the mind starts to imagine how the world looks like based on the lovely text descriptions of all the in-game areas. I'm surprised to find that my imaginations of the worlds are turning out to be just as vivid as when playing a full-fledged graphical 3d game. I really didn't expect that. However, i must say the people who make MUDs seem to really have a knack for storytelling, shaping the worlds and making them feel alive as well. [A brown squirrel has arrived from the west] As i'm connecting via Telnet, i've been using a (grid) notebook to keep a map of the world to prevent myself getting lost all the time in the beginning. However, as i play more, i seem to be memorizing more of the layouts of the world. Somehow, i really feel like drawing more detailed maps based on my interpretation of the world. Seems like a fun thing to do. As i wrote, i just started out. And currently i'm mostly trying out various games and try to to figure out how to do things. But i like it a lot. When i was young, games with fancy 2d and later 3d graphics were all the rage. And it's a bit sad to realize i've completely missed out on so much of these wonderful games. But hey, just as with gopher, it's never too late to start! :) [The brown squirrel has left to the east]