I thought I would start a new WIP series. While browsing my archive of dead internet things, I found the greeting screen for Realms of the Lost Dimension, a MUD I used to run back in 2002-2003. Apparently, the codebase it was built off of was popular with the US Airforce. I had a quite a few US military who played from Afghanistan back when all that started.

I thought it'd be fun to re-create the screen that greeted players when they logged in.

Original


WIP, 9 May


17 May: Complete!



Link to bigger version

hahaha that's nice so far, I like that idea. xD

What is a MUD?? :O

They were the predecessors to the modern MMORPGs. They're completely text-based - you'd log in with Telnet or some similar kind of client. They're still around, but I think they were more popular in the early days of the internet, when speeds were too slow to handle much graphics.

text based?? How do you play with text? XD
(I'm sorry this isn't related to your image ops )

I remember MUD's, in fact I used to play one. Medievia. I spent a good 2 years in there. MUD's teach you two things, how to read real fast, and how to write even faster, lol.

merrak: love the idea ! you started out good too, i like the mountains.

mokonafan: you're sooo young, moko . i love text based games, my own imagination of a world and persons in it is always better than any graphics. muds work a bit differently depending on what kind of mud they are, but basically you get some sort of written description of objects or events and you respond to that by typing commands, then you get back a new description. if you want to see for yourself here's a fun and rather cute little mud that accepts guest players: fluffMUCK, info and connect link
and if you prefer playng a one player game this might be fun to try: the library

hehe, you now know what gets me into geek mode! i even wrote some text based games (in an editor, i don't know ant programming) and one of them was based entirely on bad puns - i still feel the pain after losing that game in a hard drive crash!

I really like MUD's, they're very good for your imagination

You made a good start merrak! I'm curious about the size you work on, because I assume the WIP you're showing here isn't the fullsized image

Sketched a city, and filled in more of the mountains!





AnMal pretty much covered it. You do have to read fast Back then most people had dialup connections, and I remember sometimes the text would come so quickly the connection would be lost.



I never played Medievia, but I remember hearing a lot of people complain about it.



I always liked building them more than playing them. I had a lot of players from the Netherlands once - almost all of them from The Hague.

I usually zoom out to 25% on MyPaint, which puts the canvas on the order of ~6,500px wide. When I get to the "GIMP stage", though, a lot of that gets trimmed away. Usually I end up with an image about 4 - 5,000 px wide.

I'd prefer to zoom out to 12.5%, but my computer just can't handle it. I have enough memory, but the processor can't keep up.

it's amazing how you can get so involved in the mud games, they use your brain so much more than a game based on graphics.

The game code was outright stolen from another, even older developer team in I wanna say either finland or sweden. the only reason the guy that crowned himself god of Medievia isn't in trouble with intl copyright laws is because it would have cost those poor sobs more to sue him than the game ever brought in. But Michael Krause, the guy in question sure did rake in some bucks with his stolen property. Medievia was a fun game though and at the time I didn't care so much about who owns what on the internet. That came later.

merrak: looks quite idyllic now!

Thanks


@ek22
It was Diku, I think - the basis for a lot of derivatives.



The medium certainly made creating them accessible to the hobbyist.

Yus, Diku, I remember now.

It's beginning to take shape now Merrak. I like the concept and I'm looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

The city is starting to get filled in!



Zoom:

merrak: i love the city! doesn't look like a spot i'd choose for a holiday, but it looks like an interesting place. i like how the mountains look too.

The city looks really cool.

Thanks for the comments

Put some final touches on the city. Getting close to done

it's looking fantastic!

Thanks!