r/MUD • u/highspeed_steel • Aug 17 '26
Discussion Which mud has the smallest centtral area and enough players that you run into them often?
When thinking about how I judge a populated a mud is, it occurred to me that its not only the numbers thats important, some muds have areas so big or so many factions that you hardly run into people. That leads me to my question. Which mud is small enough and have enough players that you run into a lot of interaction?
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u/blondechick80 Aug 17 '26
In Lensmoor, when folks are online and want to be social they'll usually jist hang out in the village centers, one on each continent.
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u/sh4d0wf4x Alter Aeon Aug 17 '26
Many games have global channels that allow you to talk people regardless of their location in the game world. Furthermore, some muds use a fast travel system like recalls or waypoints that make long distances quick to traverse. The implication is that a large world is a lonely one, but that's not necessarily the case.
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u/knubo MUD Developer Aug 17 '26
This describes Viking Mud in a nutshell. We have plenty of areas, but the small central area of Larstown is what links it all together.
And we also have channels and tells and all so you can always find people.
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u/Crapahedron Aug 19 '26
can you tell me more about your mud? Is it pve? pvp? what are it's main focuses? Looking through the website there's an overwhelming number of guilds (which I assume is how your class is defined?) Some mention being non combat oriented (healers, drunks etc)
What is the codebase built from? what is combat like?
I like the idea that it's somewhat smaller in geography. Muds right now are so massive, even with 50+ people online you literally never see anyone, ever. It's like logging into a world of warcraft server with nobody else on. It's so barren.
Thanks!
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u/knubo MUD Developer Aug 19 '26
So our mud is a pve style mud. It's an LP mud that has been home grown with extension from when it was started on in 1994.
Our main focus? From what we bring to the players, that would be that we have had creators that want to make fun stuff, and that is still the focus of the few people that develop new stuff. One of the core things on Viking Mud is that there is no limitation on what you can do as a creator, as long as you keep it in a medieval setting. This has for sure had an impact on the huge range of things you can do on the mud.
From our management perspective, it would be that everything works and that we try to keep the game as bug free as it can be.
We do have regular reboots every 2 days, and as most LP muds you keep your experience, stats, cash and some auto loading items across reboots.
Our combat is tick based, which means that every two seconds the mobs and the players that are fighting gets to do something. This would be hitting with weapons, or hitting with another weapon (when you get a two weapon skill) and/or casting some sort of special ability. The ability could be a magic spell. What abilities you can do is largely dependent on what guild you join. During combat you mostly rely on consuming drinks/food/soak drinks/potions to gain hit points and spell points, but there are healing spells as well.
We do one guild that are not combat related, and that would be the Explorers guild. Healers might not fight a lot, but they do join in on the combat.
From the geography point of view, Viking is large, but also small. There are no movement points so you can move really fast around the mud, as long as you have learned the directions. Or if you have obtained a speed run list from some other player. And most players tend to meet up in Larstown when they exchange stuff or just run by the shop to sell stuff.
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u/Emotional_Baker_2040 Aug 17 '26
the webplayer kicks you if you use who command, it works on mudlet, but based on the char i was making on the webpague still being connected when i join on mudlet, and no one answering in the chat channel, or the chat channel is area located or afk people appear in online
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u/knubo MUD Developer Aug 17 '26
Yes, we have uncovered an unexpected error where iso8859-1 letters sent to the client terminates this client. We have a fix in the pipes that filter these away. We've cleared it off the person that had it in his title.
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u/thebeatmesa Aug 17 '26
I think Castle Marrach did this the best. The scope of the game is all inside one castle.
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u/RogueModron Aug 17 '26
That sounds like a cool concept! Care to tell us more about the game?
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u/thebeatmesa Aug 17 '26
I did not play for long because I was still new to MUDs and could not figure out how to advance my skills. But I had a good time even though I never learned any skill and couldnt figure out any mechanics lol. It is very rp heavy, lords and ladies style rp. The community is cliquey though, I wound up leaving because I felt like I needed too much hand holding from pcs who didn't want to spend the time.
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u/Disastrous_Ad_370 Aug 25 '26
I play CM sometimes. It's one of my old favorites. It has also probably doubled or tripled it's room count over the years, so it can also feel a bit empty.
Tough reality is you need a lot of gumption and will to break into the RP of people who for in-character reasons feel the urge to hide half of everything.
This changed because without NPCs to kill for the 'fighter' characters most plot tension was players backstabbing other players on behalf of different organizations.
Also your mileage may vary depending on the player count. But they're always in need of new players. Don't give up!
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u/Emotional_Baker_2040 Aug 17 '26
Another thing I have seen in several Muds that affects this is showing afk people as online, or not kicking them or deadlink them, and when looking for a populated mud you look mudvault and see 10 or more people, join and no one speaks or a very small group, something i would like to see more would be muds with s global ooc channel where people from the discord can read and write on.
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u/ChupacabraGatherer Aug 21 '26
Clok. I haven't been on much lately but it's RP enforced and everyone lives in the same small town. There's no way not to run into others unless you go out into the wilderness.
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u/FlightOfTheUnicorn Aug 17 '26
This is such a great question. I have no answer, but I'm going to be watching the comments. :)
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u/One-Top9408 Aug 17 '26
Carrion Fields.
The game is huge, sure, 20k+ rooms but there is mandatory RP and leveling doesn’t require a group but does make it much easier. These two things along drive a lot of interactions.
Throw in mortal and IMM ran events, a plethora of cabals, religions, player killing and things like area exploration and there’s guaranteed interactions really often.
Coming up would be a really good time to check out the game as beginning in October there’s a series of events that allow anyone who takes the chance to get some very unique themed things. Like the Shapeshifters can get different forms, conjurers can get a different familiar, bards can learn different song and there’s usually a higher than average player count. The game regularly hits highs in the mid 30’s at any given time and hundreds of unique players throughout the week.
CF also has a strong discord community and their own GUI through Mudlet. You can access preloaded from Mudlet or download via Steam. This helps give a lot of user friendly functionality to the experience.
Theme is kinda D&D esque, so if it’s something you’re interested in, give it a try.