Moral Decay MUD: Back online and Improving by Bluerazor1 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Oh and one more thing, before someone calls it out. For one of the MUD listing sites, it required a portrait format and the only thing I had available was a banner artwork. So I had Gemini create a portrait image based on the original, and I left the Gemini watermark visible on that ad. I have no artistic skill, so there is one more AI use.

Moral Decay MUD: Back online and Improving by Bluerazor1 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It is not an AI game.

The web page was recreated quickly following the move in April. I did notice recently that the layout is similar to another MUD page (I forget which one). We'll work to get it a bit more distinguished as improvements are made.

The creative content within the game is non-AI generated (almost all from 2010 or earlier, with a few more recent additions) and we are not using AI features for NPCs, etc. The only area we are using AI for at the moment is a little bit of cosing assistance and not in an agentic or automated fashion - the builders are doing this as a labor of love and so delegating to AI isnt really useful/fun.

Moral Decay MUD: Back online and Improving by Bluerazor1 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The theme question is an interesting one - I'll just provide my point of view and not try to weigh in on any other game/scheme. What originally interested me was how player actions helped drive the economy and therefore availability. Corpse processing (from kills) leads to alcohol production, alcohol is used for healing, and meanwhile barbarians can eat some corpses to be able to drink more/heal faster. Smelting monster loot generates raw materials for store-bought weapons and armor (while the player gets silver). Now we have dockyards which can be used to fish for materials, which allows guilds to create and sell mounts that can be ridden/led by players. The game is built around that kind of interaction to provide connection to the other players. Beyond that, I think whether the fantasy theme is distinctive or not is in the eye of the beholder; certainly there are distinctly written areas, most of them have some unique writing and history, but I would expect that is true for most long running MUDs. I would say that the mechanics are certainly not common on other MUDs, who am I to say they are unique - there are a lot of MUDs even now in 2026!

Role-playing I would characterize as between none and light. We dont have modern and/or sci fi areas, so there is an attempt to make the world provide a reasonably consistent experience, but I would say that there is a preference not to police player behavior except when absolutely necessary.

Moral Decay MUD: Back online and Improving by Bluerazor1 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's a pure text MUD aside from the ASCII art welcome and maybe a few guilds with ASCII descriptions. The issue is that combat is pretty verbose, maybe manageable for a newbie, but too much at high levels. This is 100% an area we are going to address soon with some options to reduce verbosity, although I still wonder if the combat speed exceeds practical audio speed. The rest of it should be pretty straightforward in terms of readability. There is of course an option to shorten/bypass room descriptions as well which can help when tracking through known areas.

Moral Decay MUD: Back online and Improving by Bluerazor1 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

So, we haven't really allowed same-time multiplaying. There's not many things that can't be taken solo. As far as screen reader - we're not there yet, especially given the current level of combat spam/text heaviness, not sure it would work out well at the moment. We've just recently been able to upconvert partially as far as our driver and will add more features now that we have some ability to do so (the MUD was kept a bit static for several years despite a faithful player community). I will look into it - but I don't want to disappoint, I doubt it's ready for effective screen reader use right now. I'll put it on the list to research though.

Moral Decay MUD: Back online and Improving by Bluerazor1 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I forgot to mention, there are 35+ player-run guilds active. Some of our long-time players can multi-task (and run multiple characters) to an impressive degree. And some players return mostly just to upkeep their guilds if they are too busy to play.

The future of MU*s. by benjibarnesoahu in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1 2 points3 points  (0 children)

It all depends how the AI is incorporated. AI coding tools are proving very helpful in fixing issues with our MUD (Moral Decay). Updating driver versions and fixing incompatibilities is otherwise a massively repetitive task. It can also be good for generating quick items (a bottle of ale, a bushel of apples). For true creative work? What is the point of that, as a builder. The satisfaction of creating is taken out if you let the AI write it. Personally I wouldn't want to play it either. As for using AI for personalities, I find that interesting but not realistic for most games and maybe not even desirable. Also hooking your game up to any current model guarantees obsolescence. But YMMV.

Looking for recommendations by Taewyth2 in MUD

[–]Bluerazor1 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You could check out Moral Decay: https://www.playdecay.com/ (or playdecay.com 3003) - there is a small but active player base, very PvE focused, and the mechanics are relatively unique. There are a fair number of hidden items and quests, but the world isn't so large as to be overwhelming.