Great open source MUD is recreated for web audience.

CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄ƷDer Millionendorf- Icrontian
edited March 2008 in Gaming
Back in the late 80s/early 90s, a few of my friends and I (one of them is Colgere on Icrontic) were really into dial-in BBSs. We found several in our local calling area which each had a small selection of MUDs. most of these games were 'turn-a-day' style RPGs or strategy games.

There were different games on each BBS, and we played all of them, but there was one game that was on every one of them, and which was, by far, the most popular game in our calling area: Legend of the Red Dragon

LoRD was an open source MUD, so it was different from board to board, but the fundamental game stayed the same: You are an adventurer, you must visit the forest to kill baddies and get gold and experience, so that you can level up, and get better equipment, so that you can eventually challenge and defeat the Red Dragon. You only got so many actions per day, so noone could get too far too fast by just playing non-stop. Along the way you can fight the other players (never in real time, since usually only one person could be logged in at a time) and interact with the NPCs in town. The real meat of the game, however came from the modules.

There were literally hundreds of different modules that could be added to the game, most of them user-created, each one would add another building in town, or a random event in the forest, or an NPC in the Tavern, or whatever, and each board loaded different ones, so each was a slightly different experience.

Even though I was already playing every day on five different servers at the time, I loved the game so much, I even started my own BBS for the original purpose of running my own variation of this game (although it expanded a bit over the year or so I let it run), and loaded in my own favorite modules.

I've seen web versions of this game created before, but they were always off somehow: they would add too many cheesy graphics, or would fail to include any extra content, etc.

Finally, just the other day, I stumbled upon a truly excellent remake of the game, under a slightly different name: Legend of the Green Dragon

It seems to have stuck to the original almost completely. A few of the NPCs names have changed, and the monsters are a bit different, but the feel is there. Also, it's just as open and modular as I remember the original game being, with different servers around the internet hosting different variations of the game with different modules loaded. The only thing that seems to be majorly different is the addition of more towns, each server can have several towns, each with different modules, in order to reduce the load on the main town.

It's also still free, so that anyone may download the software and open a server for their friends if they like, which is really cool (can you imagine if Travian was like that, and we could open our own Icrontic Travian server with, perhaps, a smaller map to play on?).

The main server for the game is here: www.lotgd.net

The game that is running there has 3000 or so players across 5 towns (which are connected in-game). it also has a list of other servers that are open to the public.

Comments

  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    No one else used to play this game?
  • Gate28Gate28 Orlando, Florida Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    only mud that got my attention was Ansible, http://www.ansiblemoo.org
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    I played Elite for a while. I also played lord but not very much. It didn't hold my interest.
  • CBCB Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ Der Millionendorf- Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    Which one was Elite? I remember the name, but I can't remember which game it was.
  • primesuspectprimesuspect Beepin n' Boopin Detroit, MI Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    It was a space trading/colonization game.
  • BuddyJBuddyJ Dept. of Propaganda OKC Icrontian
    edited March 2008
    Gargoyle used to play LoRD and he found a bbs we could telnet into during our sophomore year at college. Soon we had half our hall playing it every night. There were death threats of "I'll kill you in your sleep!" and taunts like "Last one to bang the wench is a rotten egg!" It was glorious. I'll give the remake a try.
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