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When it comes to free Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games, you really can't do better than to go back to the roots of the genre, and investigate the MUD scene.

MUDs are Multi User Dungeons (Or Multi User Dimensions, as some will have it), and have been around in various forms for over twenty years. The original, simply called MUD, was created by Richard Bartle in the mid 1980s for British Telecom, and has remained popular in various incarnations ever since. It has also inspired scores of variant MUD servers and code systems over the years.

The major difference between MUDs and the more recent MMORPGs is simply that of presentation: MUDs are a far cry from the flashy graphics of World of Warcraft et al, as they represent their world in a text-only format, relying on descriptive prose to fill in for polygons. Devotees would argue that the mental images these descriptions conjure up in the mind far outstrip the capabilities of any graphics card.

There are currently hundreds of MUDs of varying sizes in operation around the world, from almost-private servers where a few friends hang out to socialise, to decades-old worlds where hundreds of people can be online at any one times. The themes run from pure fantasy to science fiction, a blend of the two, something else entirely, or purely a social setting. A good listing of these can be found at both http://www.mudconnector.com, or http://www.topmudsites.com. The vast majority are entirely free to play. Players can connect to most using a simple telnet interface, or download one of many several free clients, a list of which can be found at http://www.mudconnect.com/reso urces/Mud_Resources:Mud_Client s.html

Have fun, and happy MUDding!

Learn more about this author, Dave Simmons.
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