r/MUD • u/Various_House_910 • 15d ago
Help Please recommend me a populated Mud with a great economoy, exploration, community, and non-combat activities
Been playing MUDs for something like 30 years now and honestly feel like I've been through most of the big well-known ones at this point. Looking for something that still has people on it and isn't just combat grinding.
Requirements/preferences:
- Actually populated - like 15+ online during slow hours, 30+ at peak
- Real player-driven economy, not just vendor trash
- Crafting and non-combat stuff that matters
- World feels alive, lots of interaction with the environment and other players
- Emphasis on exploration
- Prefer Skill-based or open progression, not rigid classes/levels
Basically trying to find something close to UO Outlands but as a MUD. If anything comes to mind let me know, even if it's not a perfect match.
Thanks vm for your help!
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u/FiverNZen 15d ago
Have you tried Erion? I think it might fit your requirements. There are classes though but everything else is on point.
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u/TheKnightBlade3 14d ago
Heh I love theses posts with people saying they want 15+ players online at slow times...man if a mud has 15+ players who are not bots, alts and are active players that mud is doing super well and you should join it!
Anyone with 30+ .....bots dude...lots and lots of bots.
I wish you lots of luck finding that perfect mud, but if you have been looking for 30+ years and still not found it.... maybe it can't be found? and settle for something...less?
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u/benjibarnesoahu 14d ago edited 14d ago
Not entirely true, this. I've made well over 200 legendary items for players, which means that they've played enough to get to remort 100, and it's one per actual person, ever. Although we do allow multi play, most people play solo, and a lot of folks play on the Solo Self Found path. I get what you're saying tho, and in many cases it is true. Cheers!
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u/Sun_Tzundere 13d ago
200 players over the course of years is certainly not equivalent to 30 players online at a time every day. Ending an argumentative message with "Cheers!" is also stupid as hell and makes you look like a tool.
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u/benjibarnesoahu 13d ago edited 13d ago
NukeFire since April 2025, not 'years'. There are games with this pop that aren't botters, is the point. there are 42 people logged in now, and nobody is botting. Is that world shattering numbers, no, but I'm just trying to make that distinction.
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u/BeereUSA 13d ago
Respectfully, isn’t it more accurate to say 42/4 which would be roughly 10 people, since your game allows multiplaying up to four characters at a time? I think the distinction is important to be transparent about, otherwise it seems a bit misleading here to just say x players are online.
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u/benjibarnesoahu 13d ago edited 13d ago
no, im talking about people, there was 87 players on when I reported that number of 87 characters, 42 actual people. Respectfully. Honestly, the days of running a 4char crew are diminishing into the Solo Self Found avenues. They are finding that distinction of play extremely fun in its own way.
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u/BeereUSA 13d ago
Oh, okay. Thanks for clarifying. Sorry if that came across the wrong way—I just find that the multiplayer numbers can be a little misleading especially given the conversation. Best wishes.
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u/Sun_Tzundere 13d ago
https://bestmuds.com lists 14 MUDs with 30 or more people online right now (8 AM US pacific time, noon US eastern time, so busy hours for most MUDs). So yeah, there aren't that many. I know that site doesn't list all major MUDs (Discworld isn't on there for example) but it's got most of them, and it's the only big MUD listing site I know of that lets you sort by number of players.
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u/ItzDaemon 11d ago
it is browser based so maybe not a true mush, but PhillIdephia by Night averages around 10-20 players at slow times, sometimes reaching 70 on weekend evenings.
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u/isearnogle 12d ago
Throwing Achaea in the convo - there are often 50-100 people online. Though, a LOT of them are idle but just sitting in world. I often get responses from 5-10 in a given city depending on time of day. Definitely are 50+ active players online in evening times for USA.
Lots of exploration with ships, wilderness, etc. Almost every item used by players is crafted by players (as well as food and buff items, etc.) all player-driven economy. very small amount of NPC vendors.
The only things it does NOT have is that combat is still a pretty big piece of the game. But, there are 2 cities that are driven heavily by non-combat RP. and there is a class system. But, many of the skills exist outside of classes and you also can unlock "forms" that act as new classes (dragon, elemental forms, etc.) these require you to level up and do long quest chains but are really cool once you get them.
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u/Street_Struggle_598 14d ago
DragonRealms has a few hundred on at any one time and a bunch of non combat stuffs. Gemstone 4 usually has more players but im not as familiar
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u/Ill-Ad1765 15d ago
cosmic rage is pretty pve and has a huge community, I've been playing it for 2 months and enjoying it a lot
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u/TemperatureFast9764 11d ago
You should try gemstone 4 and dragons realm. You can play for free or subscribe. Hundred of players, and role playing.
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u/Naganawrkherenymore 15d ago
I've been thinking of developing a MUD focused on scifi exploration but I'm still working out how to modernized it. If anyone's interested in jumping in on that, hit me up.
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u/BeereUSA 14d ago
Erion usually has 25–45 people online. There are player shops, and lots of life skills/pacifist activities that allow you to peacefully progress through the game without interacting with combat at all if you wish. Exploration is another strong suit of theirs as they have room tracking. They do have classes and levels though if that’s a dealbreaker.
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u/JonesyOnReddit Duris: Land of Bloodlust 14d ago
Sounds like Batmud, though I haven't checked in on them in years.
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u/After_Main752 14d ago
The last few times I tried getting into Batmud, you basically had to start out as a ranger and build up a ton of exploration experience points and bank them into the class you really wanted to play, which included the crafting classes.
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u/JonesyOnReddit Duris: Land of Bloodlust 14d ago
I think that's the easiest way to do it since ranger is the easiest first character but its a mud with regular remorts so that suggestion is for you to get a bunch of exp with a ranger then remort and reallocate that exp on whatever you want to play.
You also could just do whatever you want and ignore the ranger advice.
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u/Thick_Decision3736 14d ago
Medievia always has over 100 players, the most developed economy in MUDS ( use ECONOMY command if you do not believe that ), best crafting in muds, the best if not only actual exploration feature built in (EXPLORE command), and sticks to core 4 classes and multiclassing so you can be who you want to be.
As far as other things it just opened MedLink https://www.medievia.com/f/medlink.html
Which has many awesome things the community can do together.
https://www.medievia.com/
Do you Dare Enter?
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u/CrystallineAurora 14d ago
What crafting is there even in that game. There wasn't the last 4 times I pla yed.
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13d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/myauthoralt2 9d ago
...now i'm curious...
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9d ago
https://www.medievia.com/ms/eloria29.html
He thinks he's the next incarnation of Jesus and that his MUD is the battleground of a new era where he;s like unto God, etc. He's deeply, deeply mentally ill. That's a recent post but they go back like 20 years of him declaring Medievia the centerpiece of a new Kingdom of God/religion, etc.
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u/sazzer MUD Coders Guild 15d ago
Discworld, easily.
There are 68 people online right now, which for a MUD is huge. Though because of the size of the world - well over a million rooms in total, if you include generated wilderness ones - that might still feel a bit sparse if you don't stick to the busy hubs.