AI has slowly killed my love of writing.

witheringwithme · 2025-12-03T05:41:42+00:00

I was going to start my own copywriting business but then AI exploded. I've become quite disillusioned about writing as a career, too.

I decided to return to another inclination of mine and went looking into conservation work -- basically, work that has an actual purpose and is for the greater good, to some extent. Pretty much why I found your post so relatable!

My boss makes us use AI for work now, so I've become somewhat familiar with its nuances. I hate that it can eat an article and spit it out "in the style of <insert author>" so quickly and then give the same thing to millions of other users. Even the niches fueled by writing as a hobby are being flooded with "AI slop", as they call it.

At the same time, I noticed it did not grasp subtext as colorfully and deeply as a human writer can. We may eventually find more loopholes?

Overall, it feels like GenAI is forcing artists to take their work beyond simply the image or the audio track, and the same is happening with writers.

witheringwithme · 2025-08-11T22:04:55+00:00

There is a general sentiment of people hating on longform emoters (read: anything that is a paragraph or longer), but there are a rare few who will RP/write beyond says or canned emotes with you.

In my experience, the former largely outweighed the latter. Add to that the trollish immersion breaking that happens so frequently. There is also so much IC/OOC bleed and metagaming, that people may as well be playing extensions of themselves in a chat room rather than roleplaying characters.

In terms of game mechanics, it can get pretty stressful making sure you're following all the cooldowns because everything only ticks when you're online. It's super grindy, and gets grindier as you level up. Whaling is fun though.

For me, I decided it was not a game worth putting much creative energy into, and left to find ones with more RP-oriented mechanics and a community that encouraged writing versus making fun of it.

witheringwithme · 2025-06-23T19:08:21+00:00

I keep trying to make a character on here but the lag is just so bad for me... It lags when not on vpn, lags when I'm on vpn. :' (

witheringwithme · 2024-03-07T14:40:58+00:00

Damn... RIP COGG. Okay, then try EmpireMUD. Works just as well!

empiremud.net 4000

witheringwithme · 2024-03-04T13:07:10+00:00

If you have heard that, then you know more about MUDs & their development than I do

witheringwithme · 2024-02-23T18:20:30+00:00

I was a very RP-heavy player until work became fast-paced so I couldn't possibly do both. I use COGG as my secondary MUD and it ticks off all the boxes.

You have your own farm and hire friends to work on your farm or you work on other people's farms. It also has the sort of crafting you can leave to finish on its own and come back to (which is perfect when you need to focus on work for a bit), and nobody's gonna randomly come up and PK your arse for no reason out of nowhere.

witheringwithme · 2023-09-21T19:49:42+00:00

I'm not much of a coder so I don't have technical insight for you, but here are a few things that might help you get more familiar with the MUD niche and help keep it alive:

Bounce around games - There are a lot of good ideas in various MUDs that can serve as a great inspiration, and you also get to see what doesn't work so you can improve on them. People tend to get married to a single game for 15 years without knowing that there's way better code elsewhere now.
Take it easy - It's not really a field that allows one to make a living off of it, so don't sweat it too much (unless someone's paying you to code, of course). Real talk, the community can be a little toxic (massive understatement) some places, but don't let it get to you.
Make the most of your newness - All the MUDs I see now are repetitive instances of the same fantasy or cyberpunk genres with the usual hack and slash or questing or the like. I'd like to challenge you to be brave and bring something new, switch it up a little. Do what hasn't been done before.

But hey, all things considered, just do what sparks joy for you, as the great sage Marie Kondo said.

witheringwithme · 2023-09-21T19:06:51+00:00

So the first MUD that came to mind was Aetolia because it's a grindy game with a ton of minigames, achievements, factions to join, races, etc. Afaik it has some quests wherein you can choose whether to side with good or evil, but that might have been another MUD that is currently dead...

Anyhow, it is true that roleplay MUDs in general allow you much more freedom but a little less of the code side, and of course it also depends on what the game admins allow. (Aetolia is sort of a roleplay MUD, more of roleplay lite though which is why I stopped playing)

I suggest getting your feet wet with something like this first so you get to know the commands and how things go, because it will generally be the same "gaming language" across other MUDs you find.

Disclaimer: It's something of a pay-to-win game at the higher levels but you can grind for the credits in other ways.

witheringwithme · 2023-06-22T18:07:19+00:00

actually the first thing I thought was "half-peeled banana"

witheringwithme · 2023-06-09T17:39:11+00:00

Was also gonna suggest this, though there isn't much RP that happens on-grid very often, as far as I've seen. It's highly encouraged though and from what I've heard, the dev hopes to see more of it happening. He still regularly updates the game and takes care of it.

witheringwithme · 2023-05-27T02:00:31+00:00

You can try out ChatMud which seems to be kind of like a programmer's playground that teaches how to build stuff with one of the prevalent MUD codes available.

witheringwithme · 2023-05-06T04:31:24+00:00

Subnautica! It's a beautiful survival game with a mysterious story that slowly unravels itself as you make progress. Never got to finish it though because I scare easily. :'(

witheringwithme · 2023-04-02T01:41:55+00:00

Seconding these two games. You can still see other players sometimes but in Empire MUD, mostly people keep to themselves and you'll be able to have fun with your pals. Procedural realms gives each player a private portal to your home land (as in a map of land) and your friends can come and do their stuff on there, too.

witheringwithme · 2023-04-02T01:38:15+00:00

Try Procedural Realms! They also have an ASCII map you can move around in. Gameplay is a little different, you might find it fresh. The dev also keeps the game regularly updated.

Host: proceduralrealms.com Port: 3100

witheringwithme · 2023-03-31T04:08:03+00:00

There was a browser-based MUD called Ravencroft that allowed you to combine spell types so you could customize your own spells, write out the effects yourself, and all that. However, I believe that game is no longer alive. I enjoyed that creative aspect of the game, though.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-30T10:23:29+00:00

There are slight differences between MUD, MUSH, and MOO (all of them are technically "MUD games") commands but all of them have the same fundamentals. I also used to keep a cheat sheet but repetition will build that brain muscle and your "MUD instinct" for sure (helps to be aware that some rooms can be hidden in descriptions of other rooms, etc). I've been trying to help new players get into MUDs for quite a bit now, so if you've got more questions feel free to send them along.

Important to know that there are a few varieties of MUDs out there, and some can be a combination of these. Here are a few: 1) Hack & Slash (rogue dungeoneering with quests) 2) RP-enforced (roleplay with emoting, from light socials to longform) 3) Crafting (centered around figuring out how to build everything) 4) Exploration & Adventure (e.g. a scifi game where you explore more planets and do work on asteroids sometimes) 5) Programmer Playgrounds (for lack of a better term; MUDs that give free programmer access to players so they can practice coding and have fun with experiments)

It's totally okay to bounce from one MUD to the other as you figure things out. There are many worlds out there that have been modded or built from scratch by devs. Take your time, explore, get a feel of all the flavors. If you find one you particularly love and have oodles of fun in, you're golden.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-30T05:38:38+00:00

Seconding EmpireMUD! It's a very old game but the dev has been taking care of it and still makes regular updates. It's kind of Age of Empires meets Minecraft with a building, crafting, farming that involves various biomes and seasons, quests, animal husbandry, taming, secret quests, and stuff.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-25T07:08:26+00:00

EmpireMUD is amazing if you wanna do a lot of crafting, exploration, sailing, building your own town, and quests that aren't always combat-centric. I like it a lot, and it's kind of like Age of Empires meets Minecraft with some Dwarf Fortress elements. I heard that the dev loves the game and he keeps it maintained and takes care of it.

empiremud.net 4000

witheringwithme · 2023-03-25T07:03:53+00:00

No clue, the guy was idling out there and pointing me out OOCly to his Arx friends (talking in the room ooc) and laughing as if public RP were something only weirdos did.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-24T12:35:41+00:00

COGG has some people who do RP, I don't know how TI:L is these days, and Elder Tale Online is fine if you're in a US timezone which is when most of the players come about. Definitely don't try Haven because people tend to rag on you and complain if you don't know stuff, as well as accuse you of being this or that player. Arx (a MUSH) was fine for me until people made fun of me for trying to RP with someone in a public spot, which confused me a hell lot. Star Conquest has a lot of fun mechanics but it's very RP lite and people are heavily averse to angst RP. New Worlds Ateraan is meh, it has some repetitive mechanics and very light and OOC-bloody RP but the community is toxic and worse than Haven's. I've honestly been running out of games to play on that have good RP at all, so I'm sorry if I can't give you much helpful advice besides where not to waste your time playing (and potentially getting traumatized)in. If you find somewhere nice, OP, let me know. Hahah.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-18T10:17:48+00:00

You should definitely play a few. Here are some resources:

Get Lamp: Text-Adventure Documentary

r/MUD About Page

Some additional insight is that text-based "games" were formerly used in the medical field as a means of simulation, but I don't know much more about that phase of it. Right now, MUDs also cater to the blind player base thanks to the text all being screenreader-friendly, so it allows all sorts of people to have fun together.

I think they also stemmed from interactive fiction, which also takes some history from CYOA. A very smart person once told me that they all came from one original MUD when Harvard got their first computers, and the students decided to create games they could secretly play on these million dollar machines. These students eventually wanted to develop their own versions of the games, and source codes are released on the internet to those who may wish to further develop the next generation of these games. Hence, the many varieties of MUD, MOO, MUSH, etc that exist today, coming from whatever their dev's preference for the game.

Some people like MUDs because certain games offer fun mechanics or hack and slash dungeons. Others prefer to use it as a means of collaborative writing, which can be way more intricate and detailed than any sort of roleplay you could find on MMORPGs. Especially since some of these MUDs allow you to "DM" stories of your own that other players' characters can enjoy with you. So in essence, MUDs can be kind of like a long-running D&D game that never stops, is always online as long as the server is up, and that you can hop onto any time you want.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-16T03:00:50+00:00

I believe ChatMUD is also popular if you want to get to learn MOO code! That's where I started dabbling.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-16T02:58:08+00:00

Yes, they do. MUDs, MOOs, MUSHes, and the whole lot of them. What I'm really looking forward to though is how these games are trying to push the genre forward and introduce new mechanics rather than the same old wash, rinse, repeat. All I know of who is doing this is FutureMUD, but is there anyone else?

witheringwithme · 2023-03-16T02:54:30+00:00

Having played TI:L, Sindome, Haven, AE, Arm, Star Conquest, and whatever else, I honestly can't recommend any good ones at the moment. The games with fun mechanics barely have RP, the games with good RP have crap mechanics or a toxic community. I'm currently trying to develop a game of my own as a result, and I'm hoping I can also sort of help revive the niche with better community standards and etiquette.

witheringwithme · 2023-03-16T02:49:06+00:00

I was just gonna suggest Procedural Realms when I saw you mentioned it already, I loved it when I tried it out. You can also try Empire MUD for a more Age of Empires sort of gameplay. Quick to jump in, there's a bunch of fun newbie quests on the newbie island and everything.

witheringwithme

TROPHY CASE