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The Keyboard is Mightier Than The Sword

Posted by Zonk on from the qwerty-keys-flying-everywhere dept.

Wired has an article up which harkens back to the days of yore, when men played Zork and women congregated in MUDs and MOOs. The Keyboard is Mightier Than The Sword takes a look at the still extant realms of the text-based virtual space. From the article: "For me, asking why I play a MU (multi-user text game) when I could play EverQuest is like asking someone why they would read a book instead of watching the movie of the same story..."

4 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. TinyTIM Needs Food Badly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

    telnet://yay.tim.org:5440

    1. Re:TinyTIM Needs Food Badly! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      Actually, that looks like ass over raw telnet. Download SimpleMU or TinyFugue and use that instead of telnet.

  2. MudConnector, TopMudSites, & MU* Hosting by SilverThorn · · Score: 5, Informative

    For those looking to get interested into the lost art of MUDDING (and the secret art of MUDSEX), take a look at these sites for finding a game to play on:

    The Mud Connector: http://www.mudconnector.com/
    TopMudSites.com: http://www.topmudsites.com/

    And for those that wish to become admins of their own online MU* world and seeking cheap, reliable MU* hosting services, check out:

    MURPE Online Game Hosting Services: http://www.murpe.com/hosting/

    -- M

    --
    Artificial intelligence is no match for natural stupidity.
  3. a minor perspective or two on MUD advantages by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    muds are user/volunteer driven, not corporate driven, so you can have a lot more freedom and variety in your environments and gameplay styles.
    hack-n-slash exists for those who like it, but so does role-playing-ONLY muds. you won't see one of those from a company trying to sell you pretty visuals and/or high-end, overly-priced graphics hardware.

    MUDs don't demand other high-end, expensive hardware like super-fast CPUs and 256MB+ of RAM.
    not to mention 1-2GB of HDD space. they're also dialup friendly, not requiring one to find the non-ubiquitous broadband service in one's area, and pay as much or more per month for the internet connection as the game itself, like you would for mmorpgs.

    playing text muds actually teaches you typing a lot better than most commercial or free typing tutor software.

    playing a mud also tends to teach you the very basics of computer logic, due to the command line format/style.

    And of course, MUDs tend to be free...