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PaperclipPerfector  18hr ago (text post)   471 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for December 12, 2025

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Do people actively play/did people use to play MUDs back in the day?

20-30 years ago, I was deep into a very niche MUD - small enough that naming it might even be an opsec liability. Maybe 50-100 max players online. I'm shocked to see that they now have a discord, and about 1-2 dozen people who still play. No idea how they manage to RP/PVP. I'm also surprised to find a fairly active subreddit for MUDs, possibly enough to make me consider trying it again.

I played a few MUDs in the mid 90's. Real social experience. Its also where I learnt about ganking, PvP and trolling in general.

First thing kids do with games like that is griefing. Fun times.

MUD's were kinda proto-mmorpgs, but really were just colourful chatrooms where you could fiddle with the content while meeting and catching up with people. Also back in the day, the internet was a new frontier so moderation was very loose. I got exposed to stuff that probably wasn't normal for kids to see until well into adulthood.

I played a WoT MUD, no idea if it's still going.

A lot of it really is the same people who played back then, now in their fifties and sixties. The same is true of EverQuest, the average player today is probably late 40s / early 50s now, some in their sixties and a few in their late 30s or early 40s who are the kids of the former category and started playing at 10 or 12 with Dad.

My dad told me about MUME along with some stories he read on some forums and set it up for me to briefly try when I was 11 or 12 or so. I checked recently, it's still going, but I told him that it's still got players, and he went into a rant that there's some kind of noob farm going on at the Ford of Bruinen, high level players luring people there to kill, or something. I am probably misremembering the rant, though. I think Two Towers is also still going.

Runescape kind of resembles those old MUDs. It's a great format. I hope the genre can make a comeback somehow.

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