When you live with difficulties you find certain things that are UNACCEPTABLE. One those trolling for trollings sake, which happened. And two, next to no advancement even in six years. I have been playing a long time and never even made it past newbie levels due to the game letting the newbie sink their toe in the water then push them in. There is a lot good about this mud. But it's playerbase is dwindling. I remember high times of 48 players. Now the imms are rarely on. The fools who play are becoming elitist.There are trigger users abound. What's worse, the game is being soiled with the playerbase being fused with trolls, and internet fools. I am sorry Retromud. But you are no longer my home. I advise anyone to steer clear of this tourist trap. Even paradise can be spoiled by the right souls.

I first got into mud's after finding one that was themed to a favorite series of novels back in 2009. I was not satisfied with the limitations on character types so i started checking into other muds. The next one i tried had syntax heavy quests and level caps unless you did this and that and only 1 character allowed. I kept poking in here and there until I found Retromud. Here, a player has race and guild combinations that would require a mathmatician to figure out the number. 63 different races and 19 guilds to choose from when making a new character. After 20 levels in a players starting guild they can choose secondary and tertiary guild pathings depending on what that player wants their character to be. The game is very finely balanced and if a balancing issue is discovered, fixes are made. Player equipment is 'threaded' to that character so storing equipment between boot is not necessary unless you want more than your character can carry ;). Characters use a combination of experience points and gold to train skills and study spells so character advancement is more a matter of what the player does than what higher leveled players one travels with do. The difference in levels between party members affects the exp division between party members as well. This balances out power leveling and in my opinion, gives greater satisfaction when you reach the higher levels. With all the different race and guild combinations, one may after playing a bit, want to try a different character but not want to start completely over. The Druid guild members have the ability to reincarnate a player. After dropping off equipment in safe spot and banking gold, a person can go off someplace to die spectacularly and have the druid can invoke the reincarnation spell. The player can then pick whichever new race and guild they want with only a minor tax on experience points. The player with their new body and career can then go pick up their stuff and play in their new role. The volunteer staff are very fair and are always at work making new places to explore and fine tuning the mud. New races occasionally pop up as well as new secondary guilds. As far as muds go, I do not think there is one better. Daemian

RetroMUD is an old MUD spanning six worlds with many dungeons and thousands of rooms to explore. It is highly detailed and original and features many races as well as many classes and subclasses, and the attention to detail is perhaps its greatest asset. Characters in RetroMUD join a guild which teaches them the skills and spells they will need to survive as adventurers. As they master their guild, they can go on to more specialized guilds to learn new tricks to make them more useful in and out of battle. The combat and advancement systems seem to be unique to this MUD, though some spells are clearly homages to games like Dungeons and Dragons or shows like 'Dragonball Z' and 'Inuyasha.' Players advance their skills and spells 5% at a time, and the percentage most often determines how likely the skill or spell will fire successfully. Each advancement costs gold and experience, though at newbie levels the gold cost is waived up to a certain percentage. Unfortunately by the time a player has to start paying gold to train a skill or study a spell, the skill or spell is still at a level that is somewhat unreliable. Players save their experience points to advance not only their skills and spells, but also their character levels and guild levels which mercifully only require experience. Recently RetroMUD allowed new characters to start with every spell and skill up to level ten at 100%, which saves a huge amount of time and expense, but the next ten levels are still very difficult and time consuming to advance through if you want to have skills and spells that are at least somewhat reliable, and this seems to be a big turn off for new players. Gold is very scarce at low levels, and often an hour and a half of farming will provide enough gold to advance only one or two skills or spells by 5%, assuming that you know the best places to farm and can farm them alone without dying. Unlike gold, experience is in abundance, and it is easy to accumulate a lot since you earn it from exploring rooms as well as killing monsters. The disparity between the rate of earning gold to experience is so great that you will eventually carry around a lot of unusable experience points and risk losing it by dying. Though RetroMUD has always prided itself on being a party-oriented MUD, parties are rare and generally the people who put in long hours of farming to get into the upper echelon are the ones who make and attract parties. Newbie and lowbie parties are not uncommon, of course, but they do impede the already slow advancement since everything has to be split at the end and so the emphasis tends to be on solo farming. Once you do get to the point where gold is not an issue, you've probably spent at least a couple years in the game, but can... Read More

Around since 1994, RetroMUD is one of the old MUDs out there that is still around and flourishing. Under constant construction, RetroMUD has expanded itself to have six vast worlds worth of exploration, 18 very unique and individually themed primary guilds to join, with many, many more secondaries and literally hundreds of tertiary guilds, as well as having over 60 different races (and UNIQUE races, like unicorns, dragons, floating eyeballs, energy people. . . We're NOT talking about 60 different flavors of humanoid with minor stat changes. This is a MUD, not a Star Trek convention, after all.) to choose from, giving an unparalleled level of customization to every character. Now, I'm a roleplayer, though not everyone is and that kinda' makes RetroMUD interesting. The game is a 'roleplay encouraged' game, so there are perks for roleplayers, in order to keep enough around for a stable roleplaying community, yet without the mind-breaking rp enforcement of some games. This means, for the roleplayer, that if you ever feel like just relaxing and talking about game related things in an ooc context, you're perfectly free to do so, without an angry admin breathing down your neck about how ooc things don't belong here and you need to find another MUD, etc. It also means, unfortunately, that you might be trying to roleplay, and along comes Billbob, the level 89 powergamer, saying things like 'Any of you wanna' midrow blast for a farming party? We're also short a protter.' RetroMUD offers an outlet for pvp activities, but pvp is not a part of standard gameplay. This means if you want to constantly live your life on the edge, fearing an attack while plotting out the destruction of another player, this isn't the place for it. Pk is essentially outlawed, except under special circumstances or in special places. To let out your pvp urges though, there's wars and capture the flag arenas, where anything goes, and fields may be mapped out with ancient shrines, flying islands and bridges, and even trebuchets, to name just a few. Plus, it's anything goes, and with a game as diverse as RetroMUD, with as many classes, spells, powers, skills, weapons, and a well ordered party system, this means group tactics can quickly become quite diverse, altering the whole face of gameplay with everything from teleportation, barriers, summoned pets, and attack spells, to diverse status effects, stealth abilities and prots. In general, though, RetroMUD is a party MUD. As your level increases, you'll find that it becomes more and more necessary to cooperate with your fellow players to accomplish your goals. There are always places to farm or mess around solo, of course, but after a point, one cannot expect to tackle the local boss monster alone, eventually needing to get as many as eight different people together and combining powers in order to finally take out the foe. Parties aren't usually hard to find, fortunately, and the social aspect of this makes for a great but... Read More

First of all, I would just like to say that I have been playing this MUD for almost 10 years now on and off, mostly on, heh. But my point is no matter what game's I play sooner or later I always end up with this one. With dozens of guilds and over 20 races to choose from you will never get bored making a character here. There are always people on willing to lend a hand, if you are respectful and courteous, people who log on that are annoying will quickly be shunned by the player base. If you're just starting out on RetroMUD I would suggest a Dragon/Monk, this is a good way to get a feel on the game and explore some, you can always find a druid to reincarnate you which means you get to choose another race/guild with a tax to your total exp gained. Most likely the greatest learning curve would be mastering the world transport system...ie. navigating through the Retroverse's 6 planets, but with patience and a little research, world transport becomes easy. I could go on and on about how great Retro is but you should probably just give it a try yourself, you wont regret it..and you may even become hooked...like me. Come in and play. Links: http://www.retromud.org http://retrowiki.wikidot.com http://www.spheral.com/retromud/forum/

RetroMUD is an LP-type MUD with fully customised areas. There are usually between twenty and fifty players online, depending on the time of day. Roleplaying is encouraged, but not mandatory. The MUD is free to play. The RetroMUD universe is structured in six planets, each of which has different cities and areas. Not counting the planet surfaces, there is a total of over 15000 rooms to explore. Characters can be one of currently 62 races, many unique to RetroMUD and all different, such as the anakim, a race of good aligned half-angels, or the evil, reptilian vypirs. Each character starts in one of 18 primary guilds, which provide spells or skills according to the guild's nature. After finishing the primary guild, characters choose from many secondary and tertiary guilds which expand on that training. The MUD's overall theme is medieval, with a battle between the good and evil gods and their followers being the driving force of most player and non-player characters. A large number of quests are available to players which vary between pure puzzles and difficult combat. Individual themes are original or inspired by carefully researched historic environments, ranging from Dark Age Europe to Mesoamerica and Polynesia, and including various fantasy settings. RetroMUD is friendly to newbies, who receive free equipment and various advantages in terms of the rules, a newbie guide that helps with getting around and access to many newbie areas of appropriate difficulty. Combined with a channel for questions about the game and a very helpful playerbase, newbies can thus be assured of getting answers when stuck or confused. Newbies are also encouraged to begin playing by exploring the cities and areas; at low levels, this yields a considerable number of experience points which get the character far enough to be able to fight. Among negative aspects of the game, the lack of freeform emotes is the most noticeable. Although there are several hundred defined emotes with a similar number of adverbs to modify them are available, there are still situations where these are insufficient. Another is that because roleplaying is not mandatory, interacting with other players while staying in character can be difficult. Nevertheless, there are usually opportunities for roleplaying with like-minded players. The game is addictive and can be played for years. Few players have seen everything. The players and staff are friendly and helpful. I recommend RetroMUD to anyone interested in playing with nice people in a beautifully designed universe.

RetroMUD is a complex and unique universe (referred to in-game as the Retroverse) populated by many different races. Players are known as Gifted Ones, beings with psychic and other superhuman powers, allowing them to perform feats of magic and raw strength beyond that of mere mortals. With 30+ races to choose from and even more guilds, the possibilities are endless when it comes to combinations. You could be a Werewolf Fallen, wielding a living sword and reaping souls for the glory of The Nameless One, or you may choose to be a Treant Monk using your powerful martial arts to maintain balance in the Retroverse. No matter what your roleplaying style is, RetroMUD has a combination to suit it; from blaster and support types to tank and ranged combat, the only limit is your imagination. RetroMUD also has a dedicated staff of Wizards and Administrators to enforce the rules of RetroMUD. For instance player killing is strictly forbidden, but several times weekly a war event is held in which players can freely slaughter each other without any penalties such as experience or stat loss. Also, theft and cheating are dealt with quickly and strongly, and rules such as this are what makes RetroMUD stand out to players looking for a peaceful and fun mudding experience free of diablo-esque smack talk and abuse. This MUD also boasts a strong newbie helping system, every guild has a leader, a mentor, and a champion all of which are capable of and expected to help the beginners to gain a strong foothold in the game. Since RetroMUD is a party based mud, there are obvious advantages to teaming up with your fellow players, most areas are specifically desiged to be tackled with the help of your peers, which helps to generate a strong fellowship among players as they depend on each other to acquire equipment, as well as a healthy level of competition as players collect rare pieces of equipment or, explore more and more of the Retroverse, or even complete the 90 or so level quests which halve the cost of the next level upon completion! All of these factors have influenced me to stick with Retro over the years, and there are many more that i haven't included that are sure to have you hooked just as surely as me.

RetroMud is an extraordinarily diverse and detailed fantasy mud. It is mostly team combat oriented, and while roleplay is encouraged and rewarded, it's not required. This is, in fact, it's biggest drawback: it's one thing to assault a nun or a demon-summoning cultist, it's another thing entirely to do so when accompanied by someone who spouts hitpoint totals. On the other hand, the areas are vast and immersive, with engaging descriptions and (normally) great attention to detail. I come from a MOO background where each room was expected to have dozens of unique verbs or examinable features, and while RetroMud doesn't normally hit the dozens, it certainly has enough to give it a great feeling of depth. NPCs are plentiful and interesting, though conversation is normally a little thin. Quests abound: roughly 100 are 'official' level quests with a few details up on corkboards at all the pubs in the world, each granting half-cost advancement for a particular level. Counting these there are probably over 200 available, ranging in difficulty from simply asking the right person the right question to requiring dozens of hours of research and exploration and combat. Possibly best of all, exploration gives experience. Just entering a new room gives xp! Many areas are intricate and mindgame-like, as well, holding secret rooms or intricate backstories for those willing to look at the right clues, search under the right beds, destroy the right weapons, or bribe the right guards. Many players forgo levelling entirely until vast swathes of the six planets have been explored. In terms of sheer numbers, I've never seen a mud with as many rooms (over 15,000), races (over 60), guilds (19 'primary' ones, such as Templar and Merchant, and hundreds of secondary and tertiary guilds that you can path into), and skills and spells (over 1,000). Especially impressive is that these seem to be quite well balanced, no mean feat as any game designer could tell you. For new players, an excellent help system a 'mentor' ooc-channel are available. There are a few other notable pros: there are great themes for each planet (ranging from dinosaur-inhabited jungle to subterranean cave systems), there is the ability to reincarnate and keep most of one's experience, people spend experience on skills and spells instead of using the idiotic and tiresome 'practices' idiom, there is equipment that grants flight or water-breathing (and the worlds are 3D, you can soar through clouds or flit about in the seas), and there is beautifully detailed weather. Ok, fine, sometimes it rains, still... There are also a few other notable cons: you need to buy a castle (or rent a room in one) to keep equipment across the daily world-cleansing, there's a slight tendancy towards fighting over roleplaying, there's only very restricted player killing, and being in-character doesn't guarantee that others will interact with you in-character. Still, as examples: Leprechauns can only see in light and ultra-light places, Shadows can only see in dark and ultra-dark places, and Hephastians see... Read More

--Newb orientated-- Having tried several other Text based games, I had grown to find most muds lack in giving players easily located/readable help. Either it be in the form of channels/message boards or news groups, it always seemed they wanted you to wade through 3+ years of backlogs cause "its been asked before, the answer's there." RetroMUD has most of the questions that newbies will ask laid out in helpfiles, sometimes as easy as typing "help " will give you a helpfile with pointers to others or even the answer you were looking for. This was the biggest turn onto a mud that I've had. Retro started me into the text based adventures that I've taken part in for nearly 2 years now. High praises for newb friendly help system / website. (http://www.retromud.org/) --Players-- The player base was rather cold at first, "oh god, another newb learned how to turn on the mud channel!" After you play for a while you'll learn how to ask questions in a way that result in the fastest answer, and hopefully recognize which is the correct one (esp if you don't ask on the mentor channel :P) In general the players that have been around the longest and played the most and have gained the most 'respect'/exp/gold are aloof and won't associate with newbs. But there are plenty of newbies and newbie helpers to go around. --Battle-- When first starting, you're dissallowed attacking 'most' mobs, they want you to explore the game to gain exp to advance untill your character is strong enough to encounter a battle. Thats fine&dandy till you walk into a room and the uber_death_dragon kills you with one hit. They have no intention of fixing "old code" monsters that agro newbies, or even monsters that will use offensive skills/spells at you. (sometimes you won't notice till you're corpse is twitching on the ground) Battle can be face paced, especially once you've become skilled enough to fight multiple monsters at once or powerfull monsters that have special abilities. RetroMUD has a party system which allows fighter classes to protect their physically weaker caster/support classes. Retro's party is a three row system, front is melee range were the monster can smack you whenever it feels like and you can smack back (if you're still concious). Middle row is generally reserved for Blaster/Healers/Ranged melee people. Middle row can't be targetted by skills/spells/melee damage and is generally safe from damage. Area affect spells can hit all players reguardless of thier position in the party, monsters that use ranged/missile weapons can also hit mid/back rows. The back row is seldom used as its just as safe as midrow. --Advancement-- They have guilds (classes) that are spread over thier six planet retroverse, when you first create your character you're set into a race/guild selection rooms and are joined into your primary guild from the start. Players advance in ADVNETURER levels and GUILD levels at thier leasure, it is not automatic/forced. Guilds are split into... Read More

Diversity and complexity are large factors in this MUD, giving a wide range of race and guild choices, with a player being able to choose more than one guild--which is a very nice feature, something I've never found anywhere else. The worlds are humungous, and even though I've done a fair amount of exploring, I've only gone so far as 23%. Opportunity awaits, here.

Welcome to RetroMUD, A complex and expansive world of fantasy adventuring. RetroMUD is challenging, exciting, and player friendly. It is a PK restricted MUD, and very newbie friendly. The diversity of races and classes makes 'Soloing' hard. Basically you will need to team up with other players to take on tough monsters and complete bigger quests. The great part about this is that non-serious, abusive, or disruptive players tend to go away all on their own. Once they figure out that they will have to work with others, they simply look elsewhere. This makes for one of the best player-bases in the MUD world. I have also noticed that the admins are quick to remove abusive players and fix bugs. Roleplaying is encouraged and rewarded on RetroMUD. To me, this is a valuable and important part of Retro. I enjoy immersing myself in a role and sticking to it. If you like roleplay give retro a try! The combat system is well thought out and challenging. No matter what your level you can always find a place to be challenged in combat. Races are slot restricted in a logical way, and yes, they are actually correct about wielding (EG you can't hold too many things at once). This also makes for logical racial compatibility with Guilds. For example, creatures without limbs make poor fighters since they can't wield weapons. These limitations are conversely rewarded with other benefits that make those creatures ideal for certain guilds. Put these various races/guilds together into a party and you have a small army working together to conquer big monsters. The magic system is also excellently designed. There are literally 100s of spells in the game, ranging from very general use to VERY specific. I also appreciate that spells can't be spammed. If you start another spell, you stop your old one! This makes complete sense to me, and is considerably more logical than MUDS I have played in which you could step up and spam Magic Missile 50 times, then walk away and have a snack while your spam did the work. This also applies to skills as well. The skill system seems to be great, I haven?t had much experience with it, since I play a race and guild, which doesn't use many skills, but rather relies on spells. From what I have seen and read though, it is nicely done. There are also literally 100s of skills, ranging from a simple headbutt in combat, to very complicated and difficult skills like resizing high level EQ. Basically there is something for everyone there. If you want to make items and assist players with their EQ, there are guilds for that. If you want to just Smash and kill, there are guilds for that too, and various combinations of both. Enough about the greatness of RetroMUD, lets talk about some downsides. The biggest one for me is travel. There are several planets in RetroMUD and once you pass a certain level getting... Read More

I have tried many MUDS. I have found most to be too silly, too boring, or simply not well made. RetroMUD is none of these things. RetroMUD is to me the perfect combination of complexity, challenging puzzles, teamwork, and adventure. RetroMUD offers an incredible variety of races and guilds, each with unique features. It is a Role-Playing environment and good role-play is rewarded. RetroMUD is newbie friendly, and supports their game-help files with a comprehensive Website that answers almost all your character related questions. Further, Newbies have their own channel to ask questions and help is always close at hand. I am relatively new in RetroMUD, but I'm already hooked on the rich world, and wonderful variety found there. I have also found the players to be one of the best crowds on any mud I have played. Strong Points: Rich and complex world, Great role Playing environment, Good character Creation, Friendly helpful players, Great race/guild variety. AWESOME combat and spell systems, ADDICTIVE!!! Weak points: No clans (except unofficial), expensive to keep equipment you have found, especially for newbies. Travel is very confusing at first, although newbies get special travel. Overall: I give it a 9! RetroMUD has something for all, and is one of the best MUD’s I’ve played so far.

I play regularly on Retro as a druid (Loktai) and I can tell you that this MUD is an experience unlike any other. From the beginning, people were helpful. Now that I'm "older" I can help others. The MUD is party-based, and it really helps player cooperation shine. The wizzes are also dedicated and thoughtful, even if the players whine occasionally. Although I can't speak of the other guilds, the Druid guild is well thought-out, and each spell or skill complements another. The classing system is well-written and allows for real character customization. For example, I'm playing a treant, and I'm going to become a Shaman, then a whirling dervish, and use daggers to cut down my enemies. All in all, this MUD is fun for people who want to enjoy talking with other players, role-playing, and cooperating. People interested in player-killing on a regular basis may want to pass this up, though.

RetroMUD is an exciting MUD that is challenging at all levels of character. The guild system is rich and varied. At my guess there must be about 70 guilds to join. There are over 900 skills and over 1000 spells in the game. This makes the play rich and exciting. RetroMUD is a party MUD and so player-killing is limited. Most monsters and areas will require a party to tackle. This encourages socializing and cooperation. The MUD has a large number of rooms. Spreading the MUD over 6 planets makes it easier to get to know each planet. The ability to refer to online maps (or in-game) makes it easy to navigate however. The MUD is very newbie friendly. All newbies are provided with a guide who is able to heal, provide lighting (or darkening), and teleport the player around the world. An extensive web-based help system makes it quick and easy to read up on the game mechanics. This is a big advantage of RetroMUD. RetroMUD could be classed a big MUD with a large playerbase. There are normally over 50 people online. I can highly recommend RetroMUD.

Capsule summary: RetroMUD is a mixed experience. First and foremost, I would like to state two very positive things about this system: The MUD itself is EXTREMELY addictive, and the people on the MUD are lively, kind, and highly intelligent. That's the good part. The bad part is that the wizards suffer from a bit of a "god complex", most notably the head wizard (who is as unforgiving, spiteful and petty as the vengeful God of the Old Testament). If you can avoid problems, RetroMUD is delightfully fun to play, with a diverse and well-developed guild and race system and dozens of players online at any given time. THE GOOD: The race and guild system on RetroMUD is absolutely amazing. It is obvious that a lot of thought and care went into it. Each player can select one race (obviously) from a menu of dozens, and then must select a single primary guild. As they grow stronger, players can join a single secondary guild, and as many tertiary guilds as they wish. Players are kept from becoming overly powerful by being prevented from taking all guild levels in their secondary (where they are limited to 14 out of 20) and tertiary (where they are limited to 9 out of 20) guilds. This system allows for rich and multifaceted characters to be created-- for instance, healers ("biomancers") who dabble in barding, or fighters who study alchemy and perform odd merchant duties. The system is flexible enough to dovetail nicely with all sorts of character ideas, yet unified enough in theme that you don't see Jedi Knights running about, or mega-powerful fighter/healer/blaster combos. Each player has the opportunity to carve their own unique niche in the Retroverse-- it's not a simple matter of "I'm a fighter, so all I can do in life is get all 20 fighter levels". The players on RetroMUD are diverse, youthful, creative, full of energy, and amazingly intelligent. I have hardly met anyone who I wouldn't want working with me on an English project. Players from all over the world share diverse conversations over a nice array of communications channels, including CB-like chat channels, mud-mail, global news boards, guild bulletin boards, and libraries. In any given day, you can find yourself immersed in a conversation about obscure SNES games, world football (read: soccer) scores, or just "shooting the breeze". It is the players that make any MUD, and RetroMUD has a truly wonderful mix of players. I cannot stress this point enough. RetroMUD has 100 "mortal" (non-wizard) levels, which is more than enough to keep anyone occupied for years. On any given day, you see players ranging from level-4 newbies fresh out of the player creation area to level-90+ highbies who've been on the system since it was first created. The MUD is _HUGE_, and there are a billion fun and varied ways to gain levels. You can explore the thousands of rooms for experience points, you can perform level quests to make your "cheaper"... Read More

I'd never really been a fan of the MUD genre. They were all very plain, very repetitive affairs from the variety I'd tried. Until I followed up a rather interesting advertisment for RetroMUD. That was 5 months ago. I count myself as a fulltime adict to Retro. The sheer scale and depth to the game means there's always something new to try out. And even for the biggest players in the game, I know for a fact there are still bigger challenges available. I've seen them die enough to prove that. Two things really, I should point out that really make this mud something unique. Firstly, the player base. Everything relies on interaction between other players. Want to take on a big creature? best get a balanced party together, as you won't solo it. Need to store your items? Find a merchant to build your castle. And conversely, you can profit greatly from providing services to your fellow players. Secondly, of course, the wizards. Some of the coding is simply outstanding, not simply challenging but superbly amusing at times as well. Try getting in a fight inside a bar, and watch a host of npcs dive over the tables to join in the scrap! The depth of classes and races playable is amazing as well. You can be non-combat or dive into the middle of a melee, range from a heroic human, to a noble titan, to a lowly ratfolk. Even after over 10 years, there are some monsters ingame that have never been defeated. To my knowledge, Cindar has never even been seen, let alone fought. Simply put... I can't ever see this game becoming boring. the sheer depth and scale of it... whereas most muds would have a world or dungeon to roam through, retro has 6 whole planets. a single percent of explore takes over 100 unique rooms. Of course, there has to be a downside. The learning curve can be somewhat steep, however there are exstensive help files to help ease people through the harder steps. On top of that, there is a 'mentor' channel specifically for people to ask about things they need help on, where those who are more knowledgable can give assistance. Overall, I think I've made my point. The sheer size of the game makes it impossible for me to sum up satisfactorily, aside from saying that I find it absolutely superb. I would reccomend it to absolutely anyone, the people and staff will always keep me coming back, even if the place wasn't half as interesting as it is. On top of all that, it's completely free, so there isn't really any reason not to play. One of the most enjoyable games I have ever played, and still do.

I first began playing RetroMUD about a year and a half ago. I have been playing MUDs since 1996 and have played a lot of MUDs. Very few MUDs have ever met my standards. What I look for in a MUD is something that is unique and offers something more than just repetitive combat. I first learned about RetroMUD from a banner on a MUD search engine. To tell the truth the name RetroMUD always turned me off trying out the game when I frist saw the banner about 3 years ago. I would see the banner and go RetroMUD? What kind of name is that. Finally one day i decided to take a look at it. I first went to their website. There was a lot of information and I learned that it was an LP MUD. Why is that important? Well, it completely depends on personal preference. I tend to like LP Muds because of their system command structure, and that they usually have races and more focus on RP than DIKU based MUDS, but that is just a personal preference. RetroMUD's website was very well done and provided alot of information about the game, races, guilds, skills, and spells. This was important to me because I have played a lot of games with poor websites (little or no information) and was simply turned off to the game from the lack of effort in their public presence on the web. I am not saying this is one of the most important features, but it was a major factor in helping me decide to try RetroMUD for the first time. I was intrigued by the many races and the significant differences between them. I was amazed at how many guilds you can choose from, and the idea of a guild path. Probably the number one factor in my trying this game for the first time was the Dragon race. I mean whoa, I can be a dragon? I wonder if they are powerful? How is it balanced? Those are some of the questions that led to my first character on RetroMUD. In RetroMUD you get exp for every new room you explore. This is a very good thing for newbies and at first I found it to be fairly entertaining. I began to explore the 'Retroverse' and I began to see some really neat features that I had not seen on other MUDs. There were 6 worlds with their own individual features, methods of interplanetary transportation, layout, and theme. The first feature that stunned me was depth. And when I say depth I mean that you can fly and swim above and below the current plan. RetroMUD has a color ASCII wilderness map, and that map is not two dimensional but three dimensional. This means you can fly up into the clouds or swim to the bottom of the ocean. An example of a neat feature that I have not seen anywhere else is the planet Raji... Read More

I first began playing RetroMUD about a year and a half ago. I have been playing MUDs since 1996 and have played a lot of MUDs. Very few MUDs have ever met my standards. What I look for in a MUD is something that is unique and offers something more than just repetitive combat. I first learned about RetroMUD from a banner on a MUD search engine. To tell the truth the name RetroMUD always turned me off to trying out the game when I frist saw the banner about 3 years ago. I would see the banner and go RetroMUD? What kind of name is that. Finally one day i decided to take a look at it. I first went to their website. There was a lot of information and I learned that it was a LP MUD. Why is that important? Well it completely depends on personaly prefernce. I tend to like LP Muds because of their system command structure, and that they usually have races and more focus on RP than DIKU based MUDS, but that is just a personal preference. RetroMUD's website was very well done, and provided a lot of information about the game, races, guilds, skills, and spells. This was important to me because I have played a lot of games with poor websites (little or no information) and was simply turned off to the game from the lack of effort in their public presence on the web. I am not saying this is one of the most important features...but it was a major factor in helping me decide to try RetroMUD for the first time. I was intrigued by the many races and the significant differences between them. I was amazed at how many guilds you can choose from, and the idea of a guild path. Probably the number one factor in my trying this game for the first time was the Dragon race. I mean woa I can be a dragon? I wonder if they are powerful? How is it balanced? Those are some of the questions that led to my first character on RetroMUD. In RetroMUD you get exp for every new room your explore. This is a very good thing for newbies and at first I found it to be fairly entertaining. I began to explore the "Retroverse" and I began to see some really neat features that I had not seen on other MUDs. There were 6 worlds with their own individual features, methods of interplanetary transportation, layout, and theme. The first feature that stunned me was depth. And when I say depth I mean that you can fly and swim above and below the current plan. RetroMUD has a color ASCII wilderness map, and that map is not 2 dimensional but 3 dimensional. This means you can fly up into the clouds or swim to the bottom of the ocean. An example of a neat features that I have not seen anywhere else is the Raji.... Read More

In 1994, the Admin of Retro followed a vision to make the best mud they could for everyone to enjoy. Ten years later, their dreams have become reality in creating a well-balanced, defining game with a large universe spanning several planets, a large number of guilds and races to choose from, and multitude of quests and areas for players to explore. First off, there is a great diversity in guilds/races that allow for a large degree of different playing styles from the person who enjoys to solo or for those who enjoy partying/grouping with others. Overall, one may tend to think RetroMUD as "party"-type of mud. The guild variety includes 19 classes such as the "standard" classes like fighter, mage and druid, but RetroMud also offers some fairly unique guilds that one may normally see in other games. Be a member of the evil Fallen Guild and feed your sword with the corpses of slain foes to make it more and more powerful, become a Monk and choose between the hard and soft paths of the martial arts using special attacks to slay your enemies, or be a prankster Bard and use your bard songs and spells to aid your party. Along with the 19 primary guilds, dozens of secondary and tertiary guilds to choose from, there are 40+ races to give a large variety of combinations. There are also other ways to enhance your character. By performing "tasks" or making cash donations, you can collect PE (primal energy) points to give yourself a variety of wishes that will improve your character better and making your character truly unique. For those just starting, there is plenty of help to get started for such a complex game. To begin, anyone below level 16 can summon NPC guides to help them navigate through the various worlds, answer questions and even heal them in combat! There is also a mentor channel where beginners can ask questions and a friendly wiz or mortal will answer as best they can. As you become more familiar with the game, the more you can find your niche and style of play. You are allowed to have multiple characters but there are strict rules and limits to how they can be used, i.e. you can *never* have both of them online at the same time and they can never interact directly with each other, i.e. transferring cash directly or indirectly from one character to another is prohibited. Once again, the wizard staff has provided a number of documents for you to read on understanding the rules of play. While there are plenty of pros to the game, one can certainly find some cons. For example, there are limited versions of playerkilling and if PK is your thing, RetroMud is probably not for you. Transporting from world to world can be annoying until you become more familiar with the transport system. I'm sure many have their opinions on "what's wrong" but *by far*, the positives of mud... Read More

Just like every other mud on the internet Retromud has both positive and negitive sides. We get people who want to break rules, kill newbies and idle players. We get our share of trollers and cheats, and yet, they have not really done much to the game play iteself. When a troll comes on we know that they came because Retromud is a great mud. We know that when we even have the worst people coming the the mud that alot of people do know who we are. Unlike most muds we even have support guilds, guilds that help in fights but they themselves do not fight. Merchants work with equipment and weapons, the protect, resize, and repair them. Alchemist enchant weapons and equipment with different elemental powers like fire, lightning, cold, holy, or unholy. Biomancers heal people and remove the scars of defeat. Bards help chear on and enhance others who do fight so that they will do even better. We also, like other muds, have fighting guilds. Monks can use both weapons or fist as they advance in the guilds. Paladins have shields they can enhance to become even more powerfull than a normal shield would ever be. Fallen have a sword that they can enhance and enchant as well. We have Fighters who use little to no magic at all and a Jomsviking uses both magic and might to win it almost every battle. We have over 15000 rooms in which you get experince points for exploring atlest 12000 rooms. We have guilds that can make and maintain castles, chests, and castle golems for defending the castles. Out of all of this, one of the greatest problems new players have found is that this mud is not for soloers. I came to the mud wanting to make a powerfull Monk, after a few years I saw that I prefered Merchant to Monk and so do others. So why not come and see for yourself, who knows, you might start Fallen and end up Bard.

Http://www.Retromud.org is a beautifully done mud. At first, I admit, its a little difficult to get used too, though maybe its just because I use telnet, and one cannot see what has been erased, and it has a terrible tendancy to scroll up, yet you're forced to keep writing. However! It does supply many programs to run the Mud on. (I am merely to lazy to DL, and now used to Telnet.) Between the "Wizards" (Admins), and the guild leaders, not to mention other players it is easy to find help. It promotes both chatting, and roleplay, though does well to keep them seperate through "Channels", those not interested in chatting may turn off the chat channel. Variety is amazing, humans-dragons-vampires, everything in between! Roughly 60 races, 20 guilds! Many characters are permitted, so one may expiriement, though no more than one on at any given time, this isn't a bad thing, however, because its so addicting, and involved, I don't think anyone would have the ability to enjoy 2 characters at once. Retro Consists of many worlds, each diverse, different from the other which makes for many terrains, and many different expiriences. In game maps aide in navigation. Warning: Extremely addicting.

I used to play MUD long time ago and I wanted to get back to it. I spent a good deal of time looking for a good place and finally I tried Retromud, it is free and looked like a good roleplay-oriented place. First it was a bit difficult to pick up a race & guild amongst the very vast choice, but their the website nicely provided relevant info. Then I started playing and immediately I was amazed by the level of help you can get from both the system [wonderful online help] and also the players [guilds are a friendly users-classes system]. The game itself is very well planned, with area locked by levels and the very useful newbies advantages. Guilds are well balanced and if you ever get bored, you can always reinc into something else. My personal favorite feature of retromud is the built in command / alias system that allows me to play without too much hassle even from my old telnet terminal. Right now I am still a newbie, but have already made many friends, got involved in my guild development and keep exploring the really vast world. Every time I log on, I find new things to do and new place to visit. For me retromud is definitely a five stars place.

RetroMUD is by far one of the best Multi User Dungeons I have ever played. PROS: With 62 races, 19 primary guilds (classes), 63 secondary guilds, and over 100 tertiary guilds, RetroMUD is one of the most diverse MUDs I have ever seen. With the races and guilds to choose from, there are thousands of unique combinations to fit everyone. There are six worlds: Welstar, Sosel, Raji, Wysoom, Perdow, and Crypt, making RetroMUD huge! A useful 'map' function allows you to see where you are going, but also keeps the essence of the MUD by having a vision range, usually only a few squares. Transporting between planets is also easy. Each planet has their own unique transport system. Welstar has statues, Sosel has pods, Raji has a rift, Wysoom has ships, Perdow has limbo, and Crypt has shafts. Also, a helpful newbie-advantage (for low-level characters) is a newbie-transport system for each planet, where the newbie enters the transport system, and can simply choose the planet they wish to travel to. Upon gaining enterance to a different planet, they appear in the adventurers guild of the main city, making it easy to know where you will appear, so you can quickly get to where you need to go. The players of RetroMUD can level up to 100, and on top of that, there is one quest for each level. By completing the quest for a level, you reduce the amount of experience needed for that level by half. For example, if you have lq16, level 16 will only cost half of what it normally would. There are also Guild Levels. You can advance up to level 20 in your primary guild, 14 in your secondary guild, and 9 in tertiary guilds. You must have an 'adventurer's level' (Normal Race Level) to gain the corresponding guild level. Each normal level will race a couple of stats, and perhaps make you grow. Guild levels will increase your stats AND skills/spells. CONS: Mortals can only advance to level 100. This may seem high, and leveling does take a long time, but it would be nice to be able to level past 100. Clones. I hate these things with a passion! If a player dies, his corpse has the possibility (as all others do) to be re-animated. While monsters are reanimated into spectres, ghosts, skeletons, ghouls, etc, Players become clones. Even though you can't always tell if something is a clone or a player, killing a clone is highly recommended. While Playerkilling is restricted, it still occasionally happens. I, myself, was attemptedly murdered by a different player while my character was asleep (I had gone to get something to eat, and wasn't at my computer). I came back to see a huge combat sequence, and my attempted murderer was killed at my character's hands. I knew this was not a clone, because the player contacted me, informing me that he had tried to kill me in my sleep. What a foolish thing do,... Read More

RetroMUD is a MUD with a large scope of options. It has 19 primary guilds (classes), 53 secondary guilds, and around 220 tertiary guilds (Divided into paths). To further diversify the choices, there are a total of 62 races available for selection. This allows for a large variety of combinations to choose from. This, of course, runs into the problem of functionality. Not all combinations work, such as giant mage, which would fail due to a low hermetic max. Some races require good alignments, making Fallen a less than optimal choice. The way guilds work in RetroMUD is quite complicated compared to other MUDs that I have tried. You have a primary guild, where you may level up to 20. After that, you have a second guild, which is in reality flavor and is nothing more than a few more spells and skill. The real point of the second guild is to determine what Tertiary guilds you may join, which specialize you and give you the largest bonuses to statistics and skills/spell. Unfortunately, not every path works out as you would hope. The secondary guild Dischordian is a literal dead end, leaving those who choose that guild rather lost as to where to go after level 34. Luckily, not many are actually like that, but asking around about guild paths before you follow them is usually a good idea. Something I enjoy about the MUD definitely is the community. Everyone in general is friendly and helpful, assuming you listen. Many people are more than willing to help Newbies on the mentor channel and the MUD itself has coded in Newbie advantages to help Newbies ease themselves into the flow of the game. Many questions that are asked are covered in the numerous help files located in the game, so it?s a good idea to check there, and if you can?t find it, ask about it. General tip, don't ask a question on mentor then whine about the answer. RetroMUD is, in its complete form, a party MUD. This is not a solo MUD. Newbies in the beginning solo yes, but in later levels parties are *required*. General form of a party is tanks in front, bios healing tanks, and blasters casting damaging spells. If you don't function well as any of these, good luck finding a party. Luckily, most guilds can perform somewhat decently in one of those defined roles, assuming you train your skills and spells. A few points to mention is that storage in this MUD for your equipment is pricey and takes a long time to get enough money to afford it. If you don't have storage, you can't keep your equipment. Newbies start with some equipment every time though. A factor I personally dislike is that if you die many times with enough scars, you lose stats, sometimes even PERMANENTLY, which I guess is even more incentive not to die. They may be minor, but it bugs me personally. Also, if you come this... Read More

RetroMUD is a MUD with a large scope of options. It has 19 primary guilds (classes), 53 secondary guilds, and around 220 tertiary guilds (Divided into paths). To further diversify the choices, there are a total of 62 races available for selection. This allows for a large variety of combinations to choose from. This, of course, runs into the problem of functionality. Not all combinations work, such as giant mage, which would fail due to a low hermetic max. Some races require good alignments, making Fallen a less than optimal choice. The way guilds work in RetroMUD is quite complicated compared to other MUDs that I have tried. You have a primary guild, where you may level up to 20. After that, you have a second guild, which is in reality flavor and is nothing more than a few more spells and skill. The real point of the second guild is to determine what Tertiary guilds you may join, which specialize you and give you the largest bonuses to statistics and skills/spell. Unfortunately, not every path works out as you would hope. The secondary guild Dischordian is a literal dead end, leaving those who choose that guild rather lost as to where to go after level 34. Luckily, not many are actually like that, but asking around about guild paths before you follow them is usually a good idea. Something I enjoy about the MUD definitely is the community. Everyone in general is friendly and helpful, assuming you listen. Many people are more than willing to help Newbies on the mentor channel and the MUD itself has coded in Newbie advantages to help Newbies ease themselves into the flow of the game. Many questions that are asked are covered in the numerous help files located in the game, so it’s a good idea to check there, and if you can’t find it, ask about it. General tip, don't ask a question on mentor then whine about the answer. RetroMUD is, in its complete form, a party MUD. This is not a solo MUD. Newbies in the beginning solo yes, but in later levels parties are *required*. General form of a party is tanks in front, bios healing tanks, and blasters casting damaging spells. If you don't function well as any of these, good luck finding a party. Luckily, most guilds can perform somewhat decently in one of those defined roles, assuming you train your skills and spells. A few points to mention is that storage in this MUD for your equipment is pricey and takes a long time to get enough money to afford it. If you don't have storage, you can't keep your equipment. Newbies start with some equipment every time though. A factor I personally dislike is that if you die many times with enough scars, you lose stats, sometimes even PERMANETLY, which I guess is even more incentive not to die. They may be minor, but it bugs me personally. Also, if you come this... Read More

I have been playing this MUD for a few months now. I really like playing this one for several reasons. 1) You have a very large selection of races to choose from. Each one with thier own advantages and disadvantages, it seems to me that there's a type of race for every type of person. 2) You have quite a few primary guilds to choose from, and from those secondary guilds, and even further Tertiary guilds. You choose 1 Primary guild which determines your skills/spells you can learn and some stats you will build on. From there you can choose 1 Secondary guild after you reach a certain level in the Primary. Then you can start on a path through the tertiary guilds, which take you to specialize in a certain area, like using a broad sword, or casting fire-based spells. 3) The Newbie advantages is something i haven't seen before. Because everyone is in the same world, the newer characters get special advantages to help them get started so its easier getting around. This aspect really helped me get started. 4) This MUD has an amazing amount of area to explore. You aren't limited to just 1 area and always bumping into someone, giving it a more realistic feel. There's always an area you haven't seen all of, and more keep getting added on. 5) You don't have to always kill to get experience. By exploring areas (excluding the overworld) you gain experience. This makes it easier for the newer players to level-up and kill for experience. 6) The different channels are another part that I like. You have guild channels, Mentor channels, and more. It may seem unrealistic to be able to talk to anyone anywhere useing these, but they're there for asking questions, giving advice, or just chatting (which has its own channel).it can be really helpful. 7) The events are always interesting. When things like a war happens, or a meteor hits a planet, or even getting attacked by your own clone, its always fun to check them out. 8) for such a large MUD, there's virtually no lag at all. even when you have 150 people on, you can barely notice it. It makes it all the more easy to play. well that's about everything. I may have forgotten a few points, but that's the main part of it. Overall i'd say (on a 1-10 scale) that it would rank at 9. Not perfect, but then again, nothing is.

This is a very interesting MUD, playability is sharp, even the help files are well written. The only thing that I do not understand is the heavy emphasis on non-player killing. Since in creating your character you choose everything from alignment to clan, there is a strong emphasis that it would be the opposite, ie. intense clan and/or guild wars, etc. For example, I play a Fallen. One would think that based on my particular ethos (kill everything in sight for the Nameless One), that when I went a killing spree amongst some priests that this would spark some form of reaction from the 'good' guys. However, it seems that to initiate any form of PK, there has to be a reason, a review, and permission to do so.

RetroMUD is a phenomenal game. The work that has gone into it presents a player with six different worlds, complete with cities, towns, wandering monsters, and special items. That's not to mention the abundance of player races or the different guilds which one can go into. There's something for every type of player. You want hack'n'slash? Grab a tank race and a warrior guild. Want to RP? Grab a charismatic race and be a bard or merchant. And, these can be mixed to come up with unique charcters. And the environment serves to bring these different characters together into parties, giving it a social aspect if that's what you're after. (Good reason to get a few friends who can be on with you!) Much nicer than MUSHes, since events can go on without any wiz's being involved or running things, and yet it's not a simple dungeon. The level of play is subtly shifted so that it gets more challenging as you raise up in levels. A hearty endorsement from a RPing Jomsviking ...

Retromud is a complete and descriptive MUD with a well developed fantasy world. With its countless races and developed guilds, it gives your imagination a vivid insight on the elaborately written 6 worlds Retromud has to offer. Developing your character with experience, gold and exploring hooks you on to this MUD's most enriched gaming experience. Competition goes strong with wars and surprises are at every corner with random events. As you continue your character's journery, you may strive for more strength, better eq and be the most well knowned player in the game. Despite the all too familiar blood and gore, the knowledgable players inside retromud gives you a warm welcome and you may not even have to fight at all. You may sit down and chat on one of the channels Retromud has or explore the worlds containing all types of terrain. This MUD is not one of your regular MUDs who bore you but it may intrigue the most dull minds.

I've been playing at RetroMUD with various characters for at least 6 months now, and am proud to say that I'm a hopeless addict. RetroMUD takes the concept of a party MUD to a great new level. Their party system, with front, middle, and back rows, allows for casters to be effective, and necessary parts of the group. As I've progressed through the game, I've come to enjoy the community immensely: their friendliness to new players and lively discussions add a social element to the game that I havn't seen anywhere else, social networking is as big a part of this game as training your character, because if you can't get along with people you're not going to be invited to parties. Another things that keeps me coming back are the many original race/guild combinations, with over 60 races, as well as 20 starting guilds along with hundreds of secondary and tertiary combinations, you can find all sorts of interesting characters, as no one-combination is over-balanced, and we like it that way. Finally, the areas are superbly written, each with its own secrets for players to discover, and a whole guild dedicated to exploring. I find it refreshing that experience is gained through exploring as well as killing, so that players don't just "farm" one area, but have a chance to experience everything the MUD has to offer them. This truly is a unique MUD, it took me 5 years to find it but now that I have, I'm never going back.

Lemme tell you about a lil known mud called " Retromud" this is a mud that will keep you busy for hours upon hours.....for the rest of your life. It is so fun, addictive, interacting, exciting, and challenging. It takes you to 6 worlds of adventures. You can join guilds that are very diverse, fron the usual "AD&D" type guilds like paladins, rangers, clerics, etc. and also guilds that are unique, monks, death knights, fallens, cultist(black clerics) and alot of secondary, and teritary guilds. So needless to say you wont be bored with this game.. I give it a 10/10

I came across a RetroMUD ad a while ago while reading an online comic, and like all other ads, i just ignored it... but, it kept appearing so i decided i'd just try it out, because i was looking for a good MUD at the time. To say the least i was very surprised at the amount of races, classes, and even planets. Unlike most MUDs, RetroMUD has more than one planet. To be more specific, RetroMUD has six planets, each with their own races, climate, creature and cities (and you can even travel between them!). RetroMUD has 60+ races, all with different appearence, size, skills, and history. And they have a race i've never seen before in a mud; Dragons! Even more surprising is they manage to keep them balanced. Anyways... the class (Guilds) system is quite nice. This is how it works: first, you choose a primary guild when you make your character, and you go kill monsters, do quests, etc, etc... but, whenever you want to (preferably after you've maxed out your level in your first guild), you can change to one of several secondary guilds--each with their own skills and spells--and still keep the skills of your primary guild. And when your done that, you can train in tertiary guilds, and gain even more skills and spells. Of course, there's also a large amount of skill, spells, and racial abilities. Overall, a great game, just a bit annoying due to things like losing items when you quit the game, and a few other things.

Retromud review by Satin. When you find something as close to perfection as RetroMud its hard to know where to begin. I stumbled into Retro Mud less than a month ago, within the first day I was so wrapped up in its gigantic array of races, guilds, spells, and skills, I forsake a mud that ive been playing at for 6 years.. and became a Retroaddict. The codebase is a very very clean and stable. Im not sure who the head coder is but he knows his beans. At RetroMud there are around 60 races to choose from.. now to some of you this may not be impressive.. but what if i tell you that each race is very unique and not a clone of another race with a makeover. The guild system (classes for those that played circle muds) is awsome, the combo's you can make with your charecter are astounding, you could spend years and years trying all the combinations.. and im not exaggerating. The spell system is a one of a kind.. with 2 major types of magic, spiritual and hermetic, each has their own way of using those spells. Now, the players.. you will love them. On average there are around 100 unique players logged on.. even at odd hours.. I myself have played an average of 8 hours a day for the last couple weeks .. and have never seen it drop below 50. The players are pretty nice. I havent met many in a personal way.. but they are helpful on the public channels. Haven't met the immortals personally yet, but I have not seen them meddle and torment ANY player since I've been there, they seem to work in the shadows, making sure the mud is stable and fun. It is with out any doubt, the most fun you can have without spending money. On the other hand, Retro has an unique system of turning your charecter into more than what you could normally build, by a method of donating. For a relatively small sum, you can give your char abilities she/he would not normally have access to. Don't get me wrong.. you can be very powerful without spending a dime, but after playing here for a little while, you will want to send money for shame that you are having to much fun for nothing, I myself plan on sending some money just because im a power hungry freak:) One last thought on the donations, I have yet to see anyone that donated become so powerful that it makes those that dont donate feel weak. In other words.. you wont really notice who has donated and who hasnt, hope that made sense. As a newbie, it is my advice to read help files.. now there are more helpfiles at RetroMud than any mud ive ever been to. and this is a good thing.. read alot, explore alot and ask alot. Ive never seen a newbie get treated bad yet.. im... Read More

RetroMUD was my first, and shall be my last mud. 5 years ago, i dove into this mud at the suggestion of a gaming comrade. I had no idea what a mud was, and the only help my friend gave me was telling me that typing commands made my character perform actions. I found this game of text to be utterly confusing, and my slow pace of learning this great and overwhelming world was almost enough frustration to make me quit. The obvious complexity of the game, however, whispered golden promises of things to come... Playing retroMUD off and on (more on than off) for these 5 years has been a great experience, though very challenging. The first and most obvious aspect of retroMUD is that it is definately NOT for the casual gamer. If you are wanting to actually make some kind of progress and become a truly powerful character, you are going to have to be prepared to devote many, many hours to trial and error learning, helpfile reading, and then hardcore MOB killing sprees (AKA farming). That being said, let's take a look at the features. RetroMUD instantly amazes most newcomers with the extremely vast range of Race and guild choices... including 60+ races such as Giants, Kreen, Illex, the standard Humans, Ettins, Titans, and a race that almost no other mud offers, Dragons. Guilds available from the start as primaries include evil demon summoning Cultists, powerful offensive magic using Mages, Fist fighting Monks, Pious Paladins, hitpoint healing Biomancers, and many more. Each race offers unique stats and racial powers that suit them to particular guilds, though you can combine ANY race with ANY guild. After your advancement to level 20 in your primary guild, there are even more numerous choices of secondary guilds up to an extra 14 levels, and a dizzying plethora of Tertiary guilds after that which one can advance another 9 levels in for each thereafter. All these amazing choices, combined with untold amounts of unique weapons, armor, and equipment of greatly varying types, not to mention the alluring vastness of 6 enormous planets that are rich with diverse cultures and exciting themes which, if i might add, are ever expanding, make for a virtual universe that rivals real life in complexity! This MUD finds strength in its high degree of newbie friendliness, found from the character creation room, to helpfiles of all kinds, and of course a newbie guide which can be called upon for help until level 16. Another high point of this mud is its focus on developing groups of players, or parties, to take on exceptionally powerful foes for special equipment and/or lots of experience and gold. Another fantastic feature of retroMUD is the Events system where unique happenings occur on a certain planet, such as meteorites falling on one planet, and vicious squiggles trying to overtake the city of another planet, and many peoples' favorite events, the WARS! Player-killing is usually heavily restricted and regulated, on... Read More

This is definately a unique and excellent MUD. The guild system is incredibly rich, the worlds (yes, plural, and each is expansive) have great depth, and the variety of truly unique races to choose from is astounding. I mean, I am a Jinn Bard. :) Just doesn't get any more awesome than that. But most of all, the great thing about this MUD is the mature and fun player base. This is very much an up-and-coming MUD, so if I were you I'd get in on it now and get a headstart on the rest!!! Check out www.retromud.org for details on the guilds, races, worlds and game concepts, and I hope to see you in the Retroverse soon!

RetroMUD is a fun little game. By "fun", I mean life-wreckingly addictive. By "little", I mean 6-MUDs-in-one huge. This is MUD is one of my favourites ever, if not the favourite. There are around 130 people on at peak hours and around 60 during off-peak hours. The MUD consists of 6 planets, all of which have numerous interesting areas for players of various levels. New areas are being constantly worked on by many developers, as if it wasn't humongous enough yet. One of the cool parts of this MUD is that it gives a HUGE customizability to your character. To just to give you an idea of the customizability, there are 60+ different races. And they all somehow are balanced reasonably and not be copies of each other. They have different abilities, diet, stun resistance, natural habitat, bonuses, disadvantages, number of limbs, and visions etc. etc. which all makes them unique. And there are 20 primary guilds to join, all of them with unique themes, abilities, and spells. Those primary guilds then opens the paths up to secondary guilds, which you can choose to join after progressing fairly high in your primary. Then you have the tertiary guilds. You also can have other primary guilds as secondary and tertiary guilds, although you won't be as proficient in those guilds. You can take a little of one guild, a little of another guild to mix and match some spells and skills. For example, you might be a psionicist, who might take one level of abjurer guild to gain access to the darkness and light spell which can allow you to see in various lightings. You might choose a secondary/tertiary guild that gives bonus to the abilities you already have or one that gives access to new ones. As you can see, the possibilities are nearly limitless. Another cool thing about the character system of RetroMUD is that you are not stuck with the same character all the time. It allows one person to play multiple-characters, (with some restrictions) and more importantly, allows reincarnation through a player spell. The spell allows you to choose a guild and a race and starts you over from level 1. You keep most of your experience, gold, and equipment so you don't have to start from scratch. If all this sounds complex, it's because it is. However, RetroMUD has a, (seems like I'm saying this way too often), a HUGE well-organized website, RetroMUD.org, that describes most of the guilds, races, skills, spells, and rules. It has excellent in-game help files too. And there's a special channel dedicated to support, which has helpful players who are willing to answer your questions (as long as they're not moronic or about solving quests). Additionally, if you're a low level newbie, you get advantages that will help you get used to this complex game. Then there are the events that add the spice to playing, although many of them might cause some frustrations, like a certain horseman suddenly... Read More

Well, I feel I've played this long enough to give a review. Started in the monk guild, and am now at level 14 (The levels are different than ROM and kin, so don't get all huffy about me not playing it at all). RetroMUD's world is impressive, with 6 worlds, all heavily built upon. There are some assumed emotions within the room descriptions and enviroment events (where it says that I'm doing something, and I may actually not be, I.E, gasping from the height of a tall mountain peak, when my race is naturally winged), so that distracts a bit, but not much, since you can ignore that. Experience system, while not my prefered levelless, classless stuff, was interesting enough for me to keep playing. Lots of guilds and races ensure almost all characters are never exactly the same. Each guild, even the "secondary" guilds, have an impressive number of documented, useful, and unique skills. The problem is, the only way to gain experience, as far as I saw, was to kill and explore. A pacifist healer, for instance, can only hope to join a party and heal his members, effectively aiding death to the poor critters they are currently slaughtering. The people here seemed helpful in aiding my learning, and thus I picked up quickly on the game's dynamics. RetroMUD currently accepts donations from players to gain Primal Energy points, at the rate of 3 PE to 1 dollar, as well as for other tasks such as writing reviews, submitting bugs, and making graphical maps for unmapped areas. PE can be used to make wishes for things like giving your character wings, infravision, and increasing the max percentage that your skills and spells can be practiced to. I don't particularly care for the donation bonuses because of rich kid syndrome, but I suppose that it's part of the reason RetroMUD is so good. Still, it has a good set of rules that insure against abuse of this. Overall, I would definately recommend this MUD. While not perfect, it is very playable and unique.

Very intrigued by the set-up of this MUD (I spent over two hours reviewing their web site), I finally mustered up the patients to start. Although completely overwhelmed at the beginning, I found the players to be particularly nice and helpful. One thing I found lacking is RP. After joining a guild named "CLAN", I was quickly greeted with a barrage of "Was up!?!" and "Where are you from?". Which is all fine and good, if your in a chat room. But I didn't come to chat, I came to immerse myself in a fantasy realm. The constant reminders of RL from the players actions, titles, etc, put a damper on my experience. I didn't want to chat, I wanted to develop my character. So perhaps this is a note to the IMMS of RetroMUD. You have the potential to be a fantastic mud if you would encourage or even enforce RP. All of these games (MU*'s) are based in fantasy, not some used up Budweiser commercial. PUT THE RP BACK IN THE GAMES! My two cents. dp

Ah, Retromud. Before you read this review and decide to play, I should be fair and grand you this warning: Playing RetroMUD has been cause to a number of afflictions in a high percentage of it's playerbase, namely sleep deprivation, caffeine dependency, obsessions, a loss of RL social skills, and logging on without conscious decision. Should you end up suffering from any of these affliction, please contact RA (RetroMUD Anonymous). For further information, open your dictionary to the word 'ADDICTION'. RetroMUD is a fantasy-based MUD, a text-based gorefest in full ANSI colouring. Otyughs, evil warlocks, divine angels and a noticeably wild variety of beasts seemingly await the clashing of blades and the brilliance of crimson flames. An equally wild variety of species awaits the player's choice upon entering the MUD, for unlike most D&D-ish games, the player is not limited to Elves, Dwarves, Humans and Halflings. A small taste of the species list involves Dragons, Dragonians, Unicorns, Atomy, Treants, Mummies, and a multitude of even stranger creatures, among them fungus-creatures, slimes, and the race I chose myself: The Argoi, a race of sadistic beholder-kin. The class-system, for yes, it -does- have one, is remarkably loose in it's design. I is based upon a collection of Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary Guilds. A Guild, in this case, being somewhat like a class as found in D&D, but rather than choosing a single class and being stuck with it, one expends experience (gained through exploration or battle) and acquires Adventure Levels, which form slots you can fill with Guild Levels, a Guild Level being a level of whatever Guild you desire, and have access to. The more levels you have of a certain Guild, the more of it's powers and skill become available to you. So, for instance, one could fill half one's Adventure Levels with Guild Levels of the Biomancer Guild (a healing Guild), and the other half in the Telemancer Guild (a teleporting Guild). The whole thing seems very complicated at first, and honestly, when I first came into the MUD, I was quite overwhelmed by it's sheer extensive nature, and was soon quite lost (a mere few steps outside of my home Guild, to my considerable embarrassment). To aid with this problem, the Wizzes of the MUD have implemented a series of Newbie Advantages, abilities and edges that help a newbie gain his or her feet in the complex, and seemingly huge worlds of the Retroverse. As the character gains levels, these Newbie Advantages slough off, until the character is finally forced to stand on it's own. In addition to these advantages, there is also the Mentor Channel, which allows a newbie to broadcast his or her pleas for assistance into the ears of all the players on the MUD, who are all too willing to help. Newbies will be a bit alone-ish in the beginning, as they explore the area around themselves a bit, gain some experience, and try out the Newbie Areas. After that, at level... Read More

RetroMud is a widely diverse community from all around the world. There are 50+ users on. This allows for a unique playing experience. There are over 50+ races to choose from and over 20+ Primary Guilds as well. There are also 6 unique worlds to play on and each one with their own distinct theme. Leading from Welstar (Medieval European and ancient Roman culture), Perdow (Dead lands), Sosel (Asia), Wysoom (Atlantis), Crypt (Planet of The Dead), Raji (Middle East). There are many paths you can take through the “Retroverse” leading from your Primary Guild to secondary and tertiary guilds. This allows for customization of characters. The combat system and party system also allow for players to group together and fight those nasty monsters. The party command allows for people to either go front row, middle row or back. This can be quite useful in event of a low Hit points Etc. There are many forms in witch you can fight a mobile, there are general melee, offensive spells and ranged combat. When you just start out on the mud you will find that it is most friendly and people are always willing to give you advice. If you can’t find what you are looking for within the help files them don’t be scared to ask on the “mentor” channel. RetroMud’s unique way of level advancement makes for more customization of characters. First you must level your Adventuring levels, then followed by you guild levels. But you must have Adventuring levels first before gaining your guild levels. Adventuring levels do not give as nearly as much bonuses as Guild levels. If you’re looking for a new mud or just starting out look out for RetroMud, it’s friendly, exciting and always looking for new upcoming players!

RetroMUD is my very first mud, but at the rate that it is going it is very possible it will be my last. This MUD is the coolest in my personal opinion,Although it may not be the most popular it is without a shadow of a doubt one of the best.The training system rocks,It makes you earn the exp and gold instead of simply using the skill and spell to death to get its % up. I have pointed out the good now time for the BAD. There can be some very annoying bugs at times. Some of the guilds suck beyond belief. Well other than that it is very cool. It gets 8.5 out of 10 from me

RetroMud is a very Unique LP MUD. It is a very fun and origina MUD that doesnt have pracs and trains.IT is a large MUD which has close to if not have 12,000 rooms.I would suggest RetroMud to anyone. In my eyes RetroMUD gets 10 out of 10

This MUD is one of the best-designed I have stumbled upon in my time playing MUDs at all. The wiz staff ( admins ) are helpful and aren't really stuck-up like on some MUDs. The atmosphere is newbie-friendly which realy just seems to provoke a friendly atmosphere throughout. The engineering of RetroMUD makes it impossible to play for a week and have an effective level 40 character unlike some MUDs. The MUD has a vast array of cool events ad forces you to basically rely on the Retro community as much as you can rely on yourself soloing for exp, equipment, and gold. The Retro-economy is more realistically based than one where you can rely just on you, as well as just little things. Play it. Now. It gets a 9.8/10.0 on the Scale. Yay. It's fun. Lovable... and addictive!

Retromud is the toughest Mud I ever played. That’s why its my favourite, and the best thing about this game is the community. The game is tough, advancing is hard work; so there is real respect for highbies, and everyone helps out the newbies (or is at least willing to try). Everyone on is great and will give you all the help you need, in fact its impossible not to get into the community as everyone needs everyone else, just like in a real economy. My strongest advice would be to go to the site, read the help, THEN play the game. Retro mud has a truly awesome depth, but this can be more than a little intimidating for the first timer, talk to players. Most of all, take their advice, I didn’t and my character is far from max, but I’ve learnt my lessons, and the great strength of retro mud is that it is so well balance I still find myself drawn back for another bout of farming, partying or just chatting with the friend you will make. Retromud is about commitment to a character, and so you learn to see more than a page full of numbers. The combination of skills spells and starts is a very balanced advancement idea, with balance for new players in terms of newbie advantages; the lure of that next level or new spell often can seem irresistible. The character comes alive in the PC interactions and whether IC or OOC U get to know more about your character and everyone else. IT takes perseverance and work to advance and start gathering your strength and equipment, but his means you appreciate their value more than in games when these come easily; you really do care when you find a new sword, or die, or slay a great beast. Play Retromud, talk to the people, and by the time you have finished your first level you will be coming back for more- with new character ideas, aims, “Grand plans”, and most of all friends. Zoso Davies

Let me tell you a story. Once upon a time i was seeking some entertainment on the net. I've discovered such thing as MUDs. While trying to find the best of them, i've noticed that only one kind of them can satisfy me. It is a LP-MUDs. Now I am playing two of them - RetroMUD and ZombieMUD. I'm playing Zombie when i'm tired and want to get some rest, hack'n'slash, seek and destroy and so on. I'm plaing Retro when i want to go another world. Being tired of lots of similar MUDs, i found unique (or almost unique, i haven't tried all of them) world, with detailed spellsystem (AHH, magic, the wonderful dream of everyone), skillsystem, guilds and so on. The first thing I've noticed was the whole world. Retro has 6 different planets, with different climats, landscapes, features and guild. And the secon thing was: THIS WORLD IS BALANCED!!! If you choose race carefully, there's no guilds that are easier to start in than in other. I've tried every guild in this MUD, and selected The Path of Evil. I was a Fallen, bastard with living blade that collects soul of slayen foes. Now I am Cultist, evil demon summoner. Being reinced i am clueless newbie now, just 10 levels and almost no skills/spells. But Retro doesn't give you easy playing. It gives you the feel of REAL LIFE!!! So come on and join this beautiful and dangerous world.

What amazes me about this MUD is its breadth. It's enormous, with six worlds each containing many dozens of areas. New areas are added fairly regularly. Occasionally, usually in major updates, old areas close down. They become nearly forgotten, the equipment from them becoming rare and highly prized. This gives a sense of time to the MUD, giving it a greater sense of reality. The selection of classes is startling. Although the MUD has been running for years, I have played racial and class combinations which have never been done before. The level of detail is amazing, and occasionally humerous. Each world has its own biosphere, with a detailed food chain and ecology. This means some characters must hunt for insects to feed themselves. RetroMUD is well-balanced, with newbies becoming gradually more powerful. Group partying is encouraged as the player becomes more experienced, and at higher levels becomes necessary for nearly all quests. Player killing is heavily restricted, but there are voluntary pk competitions in which no penalty is imposed for killing another player, or for dying. The MUD is mostly well-written, with detailed descriptions. Occassionally, the detail becomes spammy, flooding the screens with jabber from random passers-by. This is occasionally irritating but sometimes humerous. Certain predilictions on the part of random npcs is irritating, and as a result the MUD requires great care with equipment; a small error can result in the loss or destruction of valuable items. Overall, RetroMUD is an excellent MUD, and worth a try. I would particularly recommend it to veteran MUDders, who have a grasp of the basic concepts of MUDs.

I've been mudding off and on since my college days (this is how all the reviews I've read started so I assume this is how it's supposed to go.) I've played a variety of muds. Started with a Diku based, very friendly but lacking a challenge. Soon I had maxed my level, and I knew the mud like an imm. In short I had beat it. I loved the comunity but I needed something. Late on night, a friend and myself searched for mud after mud to try. We found Retromud. To be honest, we were scared. The amount of options was staggering. Race after race to play. And with a slew of charecteristics for each. What kind of stats they had, powers unique to the race no matter which guild you were. And the guilds were something else to behold. Each had a particular theme and skills revolving around it. A bard casts flight, he can fly, a cultist though summons demons to lift him from the ground. With setting and flavor an important factor, each guild is a new way to play. I'm not a coder so I can't tell you how complicated it is, but I can tell you that there are options here that I've never seen before. The fact that I can be in the front of a formation keeping the monster's attention while my ranger friend is firing arrows over my shoulder at the enemy (assuming he doesn't hit me :P ) That suprises me, and the fact that every day I can expect to log in and find some tweak or change to further reflect this attitude of roleplay over rollplay. The player's themselves run the gambit, from gruff to manic, and almost all are friendly. Ask on the mentor channel and you'll likely get an answer, though in some cases there are lessons, better learned through experience. Remember to be courteous and you should always get a response. This is not a mud to run to if you want to randomly kill players. If you try, the sentinels (a player open guild) will police you up. And if that isn't a deterrant, the wiz's will. If you have a justified reason (roleplaying only) then you have a chance. Overall, it will be the mud I'm going to stick to. I've been here a year and I've explored 48% of the mud (a fact that I'm proud of) That means I've still got another half to go, and most of it's in the fun areas. If you do try it out, give me a tell, I'll try to give you some pointers. While retromud is perhaps not best for beginner's it is by far the cream of the crop, and well worth a shot - new or otherwise. Otherwise Loknel the ex-pudding, now shadow friendly fallen out.

In my few months with this mud, I have been astonished with the amount of coding, effort, teamwork and devotion both the immortals/wizards and players put forth. I have been mudding for over four years, and this is by far the most detailed MUD I have seen yet. Within lies six different, unique worlds, each with their own residents, terrain, advantages and disadvantages. A HUGE selection of races and guilds/classes await, with much devotion put into each, as well as detail. Each action has a process, much resembling real life which makes this game quite realistic and moreso believable then most others I have seen. The players are very friendly, with a touch of humor and excitement, and the wizard staff, though few in numbers, very helpful and willing to listen. I find the MUD to be very newbie friendly, with a npg guide supplied to each newbie, as well as a devoted channel simply for the purpose, newbie helper players, and a great amount of help available. Not a real good choice for beginning MUDders, this is the university of mudding. I highly reccomend it for those who are sick of finishing games in a week. This is a long term, ever fantastical experience. sandoz

RetroMUD was my first MUD. Then I wondered why I never heard it before, because 'if this is just a random pick, every other MUD should be at least this fun'.. I was wrong though. I played RetroMUD for quite some time, and after a while I checked out some other MUDs around a bit.. How disillusioned I was.. So I went back to RetroMUD and started liking it more and more.. And the Wizards don't sit still either! They seem to never stop adding new great areas. All with all.. Try this MUD.. You'll like it

Retromud is a big mud. With six worlds and many races is it not hard to get lost. Best part about it all is that when you do get lost or just need some answers all you really have to do is ask. Many players love to help out others and since there is very little player killing Retromud is peaceful and quiet and at some times boring enough to make you go read a book. You can be a great and very strong fighter with little to no magic or a great and powerful spellcaster that has weak hits or you can be in a guild that has both weak hits and weak spells but earns the most money in the game. In Retromud you can group with others and it is a great way to earn both money and exp unless you get into the wrong group and end up against a monster that is much stronger than you party. In short it can't hurt to try Retromud.

I would have to say this is a great mud, lots of races and guilds to pick from. With 20 primary guilds and alot more for multi-classing. The mud recently just got a newbie boost, so dont be afraid that your the only new kid on the block. But like other muds, this mud has its downsides, some of the players arnt very freiendly, but most of the time, there are friendly players to answer your questions, just ask. THe mud has about 60+players in its peak hours and around 20 during real off-peak hours. If ya got the time, jump on and take a look, you can always look for me, Avenger, i will try to help ya if i can.

I've been playing muds for close to 8 years now. I got my start on a fairly well known lpmud called BatMud. I befriended a few players on there, and one day a few of them introduced me to a little known mud called Retro. Back then, there were alot of similarities to Batmud because the coding staff at the time had their roots there as well. However, having played Retromud for almost 6 years know, I've seen the playerbase and codebase grow into something more, something greater, than its already ambitious beginnings. Retromud is an engrossing mud. It boasts 19 primary base guilds. These guilds form the basis of your character. On Retromud, you can be a stalking ranger, a destructive mage, a holy priest, or an evil knight. This just scratches the surface of the possibilities that Retro offers. Once you choose a base guild, there are dozens of secondary guilds which let the player customize their characters in ways that suit their vision. It's not uncommon to see one warrior become a master at defending with a shield, and another to become a deadly accurate crossbowman. Along with the multitude of guilds comes a choice of races. A player on Retromud can choose to be anything from Angel to Vampire. There are over 60 races to choose from, each with their own unique language, speech patterns (Uruks, an evil ork like race, talk in cockney english!), statistics and specialties. No one race is perfect. Each has it's own benefits and disadvantages. So many choices can overwhelm the new player, and again this is an area in which I feel Retromud delivers. Players can be "Reincarnated" by asking a Druidic player (another primary guild) to cast a spell on them. There are penalties for being reincarnated which depend on the player's current experience total, and training new spells and skills require gold. However, this gives someone a chance to play whatever combo they fancy. Tired of being an evil priest? Reincarnate to a Holy Templar and atone for your past incarnation's offenses. Again, the one thing Retromud allows you to do is play the character YOU want to play. There are many ways to "succeed" in Retromud. The best part of Retromud, that I see, is that the reward is determined by the player! Let me explain. If you like to make a lot of experience points and become powerful, there are many parties to join and monsters to kill. If you like to roleplay, and interact with others there are perks and advantages to be gained through acting out your character. At it's heart, Retromud is a monster-killing mud, but a player nevers feels cornered into finding enjoyment solely through it. There is ALWAYS something to do, whether it's exploring, killing, or chatting with other players! One important thing in most muds is balance. This is another area in which Retromud excels. The coding staff are some of the best I've seen on ANY The... Read More

RetroMUD is a very well planned and designed playing environment, which is designed to constantly test your character and playing styles. While Retro can be fun for those who loke to 'go it alone', it's true purpose is to be a 'party mud' where through joining together with a group of friends, you can accomplish some truely amazing feats. Equipment is saved over boot, once you have a place to store it. This can be as simple as hiring a 'rent-room' for a hefty fee, or building/renting a place in a player owned castle. Retro is a guild and skill based mud, where you are required to select a guild as part of the character creation process. The skills and spells available are guild specific, and training them can be a very taxing experience. Skills and spells not only cost experience to train, but after a certain level, they begin to cost gold as well. This is fine if you happen to have some high leveled friends who can help you with occasional gifts of gold, but for new players, it can seem overly excessive as gold is not really all that available until higher levels. Your chosen race also has a large impact on your character, with each race having it's own limits on skills and spells, not to mention indivisual experience rates. This may be a factor in some new players not 'sticking it out' as at first, it seems very daunting to only be getting 58% of the experience for a kill - especially at the early (newbie) levels. However, if you consider that each race has it's own special abilities/skills (that don't need to be trained), are dependant on varying light levels, and also has limits to the percentages of skill and spell training, one will see that the races are all carefully balanced to make sure that no race can be called 'more powerful' than another. Balance is a very big deal on retro, and every decision made by the wizards is examined long and hard to make sure that it does not over or under balance the mud as a whole. Overall, Retro is one of the best muds I have played in my reasonable experience of mudding. It is designed to make you work for your character, and not be a 'monty haul' (to coin a phrase from D&D). Once you have got your character to where you want him/her, it's not over. You will find yourself constantly challenged to bigger and better things. So, if you feel up to the challenge, drop on in, and the friendly residents of the retroverse will be able to explain many things much better than I. (alternatively, have a good long read through the RetroMUD website before logging in)

I’ve been playing RetroMud exlusively for about a month now. I say exclusively, because I used to play a lot of different muds sporadically; mainly the muds on Top 20 lists found on the web and just very popular muds. Retro was just one more mud for me; I didn’t fall immediately in love with it or anything close to that. In fact, I remember it was one of the harder muds, of the ones that took more effort to play and thus I visited it less frequently. But, each time i went in, I discovered a little something new. Each time I got a little more used to the way things work there. And every time, I found something that went beyond where I thought it would go. Gradually, I started playing more and more, until one day I made a new character (complete with TRUE INFO about myself and everything! :) ) and dived in, and haven’t played any other since. In this review I’ll try to go over each aspect of what mudding is for me, and give a fair and objective view on how Retro handles it. First a bit about me as a player: The greatest thing for me is exploring (hence me playing so many different muds, I just liked the constant exploring :) ). After that is chatting, roleplaying and meeting people. Then, achieving, as in gaining levels, skills, quests and money. Then I like strategic combat where you have to think and plan, and lastly I like the usual hack-and-slash-fest combat. I appreciate and take part in everything though, and I know people on Retro who are completely dedicated to combat as well. So first of all, the exploring aspect. Simply put, if you’re into exploring and discovering stuff, this is *THE* mud for you. It was the greatest thing for me when I discovered that I actually got experience from every new room that I visited!! Plus the worlds are each huge, interesting and varied, and there are six of them. A lot of places are in secret areas you can get into by solving adventure puzzles, which I really like. It has anything you look for somewhere, forests, antartic, hidden assassin guilds, Temple of flames, an undead world, dragon monasteries, Ice palace, underwater cities, thunderclouds, etc etc. The room descriptions are excellent, you WILL NOT FIND a mud this big, with this good quality in rooms. Trust me, I know. The game keeps track of what % of the world youve explored, so far the most % any player in the whole mud has is 90%. New areas and guilds are being made all the time, too; its a requirement for every new wizard. What do I not like? Well a lot of places are blocked by monsters who wont let you pass. And in my eagerness to get in I usually end up trying to kill them and dying very quickly. Another thing, the syntax for puzzles... Read More

Hello, I am Avala Warchild I have player retromud for about 3 years i have tryed alot of mud and currently am active on 2 and this is a review of on of them. Like to start off bye saying this is the best mud I have ever tryed bye far with a very friendly player base they hold mud cons and etc so I have even been able to meet quite a few of them in real life. This is a very well thought out game well designed offers many races about 60 about 20 prime guilds and 200 plus guild to brance off to in your multiclassing. That is also i love retro no on is the same every one has something different to offer. And compaired to 95% of all the other muds i have played or tryed it i way advanced. Thre is a ton of eq and castles to store your eq in. The wiz staff most of them are really cool. Alot of them are former players. As coders they have Aloron who comes and updates drivers all the time so retro is never down. And if you ever have a problem i dought there is any bug tht Rayzam cant fix in just a few seconds There is about 8 to 12 coders some more active then others so new stuff is always being added. Now that i have told you all the cool things i will tell you some ove the bad i am trying to show this review with out any favoritizem. This is a mail post i was sent bye a player and over the last few months i have gotten quite a few of these saying about the same thing. I have taken names out ust so no one may get introuble. Well man I am sorry to inform you but it seems I have decided to call it quits on retro. This mud has gotten to the point I like to call DMRS. Dungeon master realistic syndrom. They keep trying to mod everything to make it realistic and forgot the real reason people play, TO HAVE FUN!! There are plenty of ways for me to have fun without worring about all the bull@#$% that this mud has turned into. All the people whining and all the people b$%^&*% and then you have the code staff with the attitude of if you dont like it dont play, so F@#$ Them! I wont play. I might return but this mud would need a serious overhall to get back to the point of being fun again. Thanks for all the help and fun that you brought me in this mudbut enough BS is enough. I just feel this mud is getting more f@#$#$ up ona daily bassis and noone seems to notice that all the little mods areslowly sucking the fun from this place and giving it a feeling of real life hassel, and lord knows I dont more... Read More

Hi, My name is Azaroth and I am a mud hopper. Yes I am, like a lot of people, an addicted mud hopper. To many times I have found a mud I though was that one special one only to be disappointed by a lackluster spell or skill system that the interesting spells where mostly cosmetic or pointless, a weak race/guild/class selection. Boring races (Elf Dwarf Human Troll and Lizardman). Abusive Admins, childish players etc. I gave up mudding for several months. I even tried my hand at Wizzing on a couple of new muds (one has gone defunct the other is on hiatus) Nothing offered me a challenge or the ability to RP beyond a little sword rattling or boasting. PK Muds where chalk full of newbie hunters non RP muds were boring etc. And what do you get in most muds when you advance to a certain level Hero status WOOHOO.....zzzzzzzzzzz. Then I dled Portal and saw a banner ad for Retro. The number of races they advertised seemed absurd. Its in the neighborhood of 20 or so. Everything from the standard Human/Elf races to Insectoid races, rock creatures, Titans, Half Angels and Devils, Shadows etc etc. The list goes on. I spent an hour or more just reading up on the races on the website. Each race has advantages, disadvantages, varying stats, and regeneration rates, some races have massive hit points and str (Titan) but they regenerate damage and spell points at a lower rate than a Werewolf who has lower strength and hp to start but the regen is phenomenal. Each race has at least 1 racial skill some have more. Titans get the use of ancient runekeys of the Elder Titans which cause damage of a certain type depending on the key traced, werewolves get 3 transformation options, enhanced olfactory senses and the ability to take a bite out of their opponent which can end up with the opponent turning into a werewolf (works only on NPCs, players are resurrected as themselves) Then the guilds. With something like 15 primary guilds and secondary and tertiary guilds the guilds number in the 60's. And your not stuck with just one. You get a primary guild. where your base stats, skills and spells come from. Choices range from the evil Fallen and Cultists to the Paladins and Templars with at least 7 different mage classes and even a player run police force, The Sentinels are more than a guild, they enforce the in game laws of the planets, able to issue warrants, pardon criminals and even arrest players which ends up with the player facing an actual trial and possible jail time. The Sentinels are run by the Admin and a guild leader so the abuse of the powers is near impossible. A sentinel who abuses his powers is in danger of being pwiped. You can select any race and guild combination, you could be a Dragon Merchant if you wanted, but the sheer of... Read More

As a long-term mudder (one who plays on a mud), I have spent many hours searching for that one 'special' mud that had everything. I have finally found it! RetroMUD has it all! Over 60 Races, more than 20 primary guilds, with multi-classing available with a further 100+ secondary AND tertiary guilds/classes! Each guild has it's own UNIQUE spells and/or skills. The mud itself is HUGE! with six different worlds, each with it's own unique theme! Travel between worlds has been coded in a way to so as to make it actually believable, too! RetroMUD is extremely Newbie-friendly! In my first hour of playing here, I was constantly asked if I was ok, if I had any questions, etc. Everyone is almost sickenly friendly . On a scale of one to ten, i would definately give RetroMUD a fifteen!

Large mud, friendly players, dedicated staff, newbie friendly, limited PKing, and its free. What more could ya ask for.

I started mudding on simultronics products and became hooked. But do to recent cash flow problems I was forced to find a cheaper alternative. After playing several muds I gave up for a bit thinking I'd never find a solid Mud which combined gameplay and decent code. After going thru the typical mud withdrawal I decided to try again and found retro's ad. Well I have played several muds that described the variety that RetroMud had listed and been disappointed. So I didn't take a look until the next time I saw the add. I popped in for a look and found that the variety was real. The guilds aren't all the same and each possesses nice advantages. The races aren't different just in stat potentials, but in size and vision as well as many other ways. And ranged combat wasn't a nonuseful gimic of shooting from another room. A party is necessary in RetroMud promoting group effort and a more enjoyable interaction with others than getting stabbed in the back by someone trying to move up a Pkill list. RetroMud has strick rules about Pkill and it isn't a hunt other players mud. Although it is possible. The wizards are active and adding areas. The Admin is efficient in dealing with problems that arise. But I think the most important thing is that after a month I am still learning and having fun, which I really couldn't say about other muds. Thorne