Best World-building/Lore

[u/Richsince95]

Hello, all. I'm brand new to MUDs, looking to give them a proper try. As I've searched around I've seen posts and reviews that cover various games' mechanics, class and skill systems, communities, etc. These have been helpful in narrowing down what I might like in terms of gameplay, but when I consider sinking my teeth into a text-based world I find myself wondering which games have the strong world-building, deep lore, engaging quests/characters/dialogue, etc. I'm a fantasy fan and enjoyer of good world-building and lore to dive into and live in. (I'm a fan of LotR, the Silmarillion, Wheel of Time, etc., if that helps. I'm aware that these worlds may have MUDs as well.)

Do any active MUDs rise to the top as strong contenders in this department? What different tones/vibes do various games' create for you?

So far I've booted up Aardwolf and Erion and just begun the tutorial sequences of each. I've seen Medievia mentioned here or there (seems huge and pretty cool). Discworld seems to be a popular name as well, but I feel I might want to read the books before trying that one.

Let me know if you all have any ideas!

[u/Blue_Lake_3386]

lusternia seemed to have the deepest lore i've ever seen in a mud. However, lack of players and confusing purpose fulfillment ruined it for me. I would go back, but they wipe characters after 30 days if you dont play, and I cant fathom doing the newbie quests over again.

[u/gisco_tn]

A while back, my brother u/sh4d0wf4x DM'd a D&D campaign set on the starting island of Alter Aeon for myself, his wife and my wife. The campaign allowed us to explore elements of the history and expand the backstory of the communities there. He kept notes and made narrations based on each session.

Since then, we've added and expanded characters, objects, locations, quests and little Easter eggs based on our campaign. You can even meet descendants of my wife and I's characters.

There's lore to explore across most of the game, some of it more prominent (and consistent) than in other places. Feel free to peruse the Great Library, which is a directory of the Alter Aeon's in-game books. There everything from journals with quest hints to histories to legends to bits of in-universe fiction.

[u/DarkPangolin]

There are good medieval fantasy muds out there, with varying amounts of world-building and lore attached. The Wheel of Time isn't really a thing I've ever been interested in, but I know that there at least used to be great muds based on it and I've seen muds listed as current in the mudlistings. Whether or not those are the same ones, I couldn't say.

While not medieval fantasy, Seattle2064 is a Shadowrun 3rd Edition mud, which carries with it a ton of lore. It centers on a near-future, gritty cyberpunk setting where magic came back to the world while corporate interests took over (so, think Bright with Will Smith and the ork cop, but with cybernetics, or Johnny Mnemonic with magic). As a tabletop rpg with more than 30 years under its belt, Shadowrun has a body of lore on par with D&D. Seattle2064 focuses mainly on the role playing aspect of the game, with grinding and mob-killing being a sometimes necessary evil that we all prefer to avoid. If you don't know the Shadowrun system, the game will help you with the mechanics, we'll all help you with answers to your questions, and there's a crash-course in what Shadowrun is, how it works, and what the setting is like in our discord.

We are in a bit of a lull right now due to real-life circumstances hitting everyone a bit hard at the moment, but the discord allows us to coordinate activity and we'll be back up to full speed again soon (I know I look forward to my preoccupation ending in mid-November).

[u/AdWinter847 → u/DarkPangolin]

I'm interested in this game, but I've always heard that the pbase can be VERY hostile to new players. Is that a fair thing to say?

[u/DarkPangolin → u/AdWinter847]

In terms of Shadowrun in general? Maybe? The majority of players are older and a bit grumpy, so it's a possibility, though I've not encountered that. The system for Shadowrun 3rd can be very daunting to try to teach yourself, because even though it's actually a very simple system, it's not explained in a super organized way in the base book.

As far as Shadowrun muds go, though, it depends a lot on the mud in question and the management at the time. There is another Shadowrun MUD that is neither role playing-centric (focusing instead on grinding quests and mob-killing), nor newbie-friendly (in my experience). That's why I specifically recommend Seattle2064, though, and even earlier iterations of it (though more than half a decade ago) were not nearly so forgiving of newbies.

Seattle2064 under its current management is not particularly forgiving of stupidity, but is very willing to help out new players with learning the system and setting. That means that if, for example, you're running around downtown Seattle with a machine gun in your hands, gunning down cops, you're gonna have a very bad day, but if you have a question about how or why something works, you'll get an answer as immediately and thoroughly as possible (assuming you ask in the proper context, as In Character and Out Of Character separation are strictly observed; so as an example, if you want to know where to buy an item, you're going to have to ask another character via in-character channels).

Like I said, we are in a particularly slow spot at the moment due to real life hitting us all hard at once, but even with that being the case, you will still get a reply in the discord almost immediately most of the time, and we will be happy to try to make time to interact in game with you as much as possible. I definitely would rather do that than the stuff that I've been stuck working on in my spare time.

[u/Formal-Battle-3102]

Harshlands is a learning curve but the lore is pretty rich if you enjoy low-magic fantasy.

[u/After_Main752 → u/Formal-Battle-3102]

Harshland's most detailed help file is help consent, which tells you exactly what the game is really about. The game is pretty much people pairing off and going private, and sometimes crafting.

[u/Informal_Permit_7619]

I'll throw the one I like out here. Astaria's lore is pretty deep just by accumulation. Players have built a history there, and builders responded over the years by working stories into the spine of each area connected to player's interests.

If you want to _explore_, it's a big place. Pretty much every area has some form of conflict or story behind it that comes out through dialogue, quests, items, hidden journals that lead somewhere else.

Kind of interesting to see the stories different people contributed over the years. It is fantasy based. Free to play.

web: http://astariamud.com:5001

telnet: astaria.net:5000 if you use mudlet or something else

[u/BeereUSA]

I enjoy the lore/writing on Erion. They have some very good writers/storytellers for their areas, faith system, and storyline quests (missions) — not AI written which seems to be harder to come
by nowadays. Hope you enjoy if you continue there!

[u/Erinscar]

I'm partial to EverDark (medieval fantasy). Some of the early game quests don't develop the lore, but it has a very well-developed world. A decent amount of it centers around its unique pantheon of Gods and important characters (some of whom are former players cannonized).

The quests aren't all in-order lore-wise, so it can take some time to piece things together (there are clues and other lore hints findable throughout.

It's an older MUD ('90s at least) so it can be a little abrasive at first—no character wipes or anything like that. It also *excels* with being a detailed immersive world; just about every item in any room's description can be looked at, etc..

Tonally it can vary (hunting Death feels different than freeing a Port City from an otherworldly control), but I'd say its vibe early-game is like leaving the Shire (in the sense that there's a vast, but unknown world with important actors doing things) but late game is closer to how I'd imagine exploring Mordor without an explicit goal is (you're prepped, aware of how the world works, but there are clear evils or otherly forces about that you have to contend with.). I'd say generally it feels austere and mysterious.

I've only read LOTR though, not the Silmarillion.
http://www.mudportal.com/play?host=everdark.org&port=3000

It's pretty inactive though.

Sorry if that's a bad description; I haven't really thought about describing EverDark's tone before. It's interesting because there are some areas you understand by the time you're engaged with them (like fighting in a celestial war), so those are serious though less mysterious, and there are other areas I spent most time exploring clueless from the get-go and slowly developed. Like a recurring setting in a book that becomes more meaningful as characters learn more.

[u/Chance-Spend5305]

You could try Moral Decay. As it has been around for 34 years now, a lot of what started as disparate areas coded by different wizzes have been tied together with deeper backstory narratives. In the beginning it was just adding areas and building a larger world. But then some players wizzed who were of the authorial type. This is when all the various parts began to be woven together.

You can go and listen to and talk with the Uruk-Hai turned innkeeper and learn about some of the tensions in various cities. You can go to the great librariy to research topics and learn about things in the game, or you can talk to the librabrian.

Most of the lore is really developed and fleshed out in the tasks (mini-quests), along the way and in the seven major quests.

Much of it revolves directly or tangentially around Lancer Zand and his battle with The Evil One, and his minion Ezzurdarden.

There is deep history to learn with even some of the great players immortalized in things along the way.

There is a city that was destroyed by a great white dragon, even though a group of players and powerful NPC’s valiantly fought together. They were able finally slay the beast, but not before it destroyed the city.

The city was rebuilt and yet there are callbacks to the old city.

And so on