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Modern MUDS allow you to automate the repetitive stuff -- although some of the automation has to be pretty complex, as you may not want to sac corpse if you're in a group and you're not the mule.

For something more interesting, try MUME -- it's been around a LONG time and has left its roots (Diku?) way back to evolve into its own entity. One of the things I always loved about MUME was its immersiveness; there's localised weather, seasons, etc. (you might not see something hidden behind a tree in summer, but you'll see it with a single search in winter, weapon skill for various weapons is reduced in the rain, water freezes over when the temperature drops, you can more easily follow tracks of PCs and NPCs when there's snow/mud on the ground, if it's just finished raining, your luck in catching fish in a lake with a fishing rod, hook, and bait of your choice improves (you can then clean the fish with your available knife and cook it over a fire you've made, and eat it) etc.

Since MUME is a MUD that's been under continual development/enhancement for _23_ years, it's way more advanced than most other software packages, let alone modern MMoRPGs. Amazingly, the codebase has improved instead of falling to pieces like other attempts I've seen, and the areas just keep getting bigger and richer.

Of course, I've rarely played it in the past 18 years due to the game's rent structure (it encourages daily participation, which I just can't do), but it doesn't take long playing it to have a way more immersive experience than you get with visual games, assuming you have some imagination.

Oh yes, and you can play to "level" (there are no levels in MUME, you get better at the stuff you do, worse at the stuff you ignore), or you can play to role play (killing things isn't the only way to improve in the game, although you do need to earn enough money some way to pay rent, or risk being rolled while you're offline).

And it's free.

Frodo is not level 70, and is thus unable to use a flying mount.

What are you talking about? Legendhood is level 25, where you get a focus and can call an eagle.

MUME is the Tolkien game on the Net, whippersnappers!

MUME was - and surprisingly still is! - one of the best. I still fondly recall my deadly battles with the crafty orcs, trolls, and black numenoreans or standing watch at guard towers or tracking footprints so I could inform my fellow elves, humans, dwarves, hobbits about the movements of a raiding party.(I played a legendary Elven scout named Vosh many years ago)
The non-PvP parts were great, too; the world was so huge since so many people around the earth have contributed to it(Tolkien has been translated into 30+ languages, so many international fans). I loved exploring it and I also recall my fast-beating heart the first time I had to sneak into Moria for a quest and heard the BOOOM, BOOOM, BOOM, of the Orcish wardrums.

You can see a lot of features in modern MMOs - like WoW and of course LotRO - that existed in MUME 15 years ago. A war between player characters of different races(and you usually lost all your eq when you died :), a warpoint system specifically for pvp kills separate from xp, a questing system, travel points, gathering herbs to make potions, fishing, even the drunk feature which would insert random *hic*s and agrble your words when you spoke, :)

http://mume.org/
Might want to try it out if you want a free game or to see something of the beginning of these types of games. I see that folks have even developed some graphical addons for representing/mapping the rooms of the text-based world.

You have some interesting ideas in there... it makes me think: what could they do if they teamed up with something like MUME?

Ugly == Evil
Pretty == Good
Also, the whole modern fantasy concept of Orcs and Trolls and Undead came from Tolkien, and in Middle Earth, they are pretty much evil. Also in D&D, orcs and trolls and undead were monsters to be fought, not playable character races - aside from half-orc (and you know how that happened). http://mume.org/ was the first game I experienced that let you play as a troll or orc (or evil human: Black Numenoreon). And being a Tolkien based game, those characters were firmly on the side of Sauron in the war. (As a side note, in MUME you permanently died as a troll if you were caught out in the sun and had to deal with pesky elves like me sneaking into the troll warrens to kill them; very challenging characters to play.) :)
Warcraft's cutesy "stop poking me" Orcs are slightly different, but you can't just change decades of opinions and memories that easily.

MUME is a free multiplayer roleplaying game based upon J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth that has been continuously enhanced since fall '91. In MUME players can explore and live in this meticulously crafted world during its late Third Age, and possibly join the epic War between the forces of the Dark Lord and the armies of the West. The action takes place before The Hobbit and after the loss of the One Ring by Sauron. The key of Erebor was just found by Gandalf in Dol Guldur and all the epic tales narrated in The Lord of the Rings may take place.

I haven't played in many mango seasons, but according to the stats on that page it certainly is going strong after 12 years!

The ongoing war between the players of Trolls, Orcs, and Black Numenoreans versus Elves, Dwarves, Humans, and Hobbits was one of the best aspects of the game, but it had many other cool aspects too. Such as the world being absolutely huge; wow, I see they had 19465 opened rooms in 193 zones. Also all sorts of nifty little features like the ability to learn types of herblore and collect the ingredients to make potions, and fishing, and if someone is speaking a language you don't know the text you see is mangled based on how well you know the language. Also, truly difficult computer controlled opponents that took teamwork and cleverness to defeat and plenty of fascinating quests as well.

The whole "Wen Ho Lee fiasco" was a lot of FUD by the FBI to coverup the fact that they knew nothing about how nuclear secrets were stolen.

Yes, he broke a lot of regulations by allowing his daughter to login, copying data onto floppies to keep safe, etc. I know his daughter and we used to play the same MUD and she used to login to his account in order to get a better network connection yet they made it out as if he was letting Chinese secret agents into his account instead.