Portalborn

If you like the idea of Erenshor but prefer MUDs to tab-targeting, this is a really interesting way to experience some nostalgia. The dev is bringing a lot of modern system concepts to the legacy format, and they're clearly passionate about what they're up to. I recommend it in its current state, and I'm excited to see how it grows from here.

So far so good. Reminds me of playing Achaea or Starmourn (without the predatory P2W!). It looks good, controls well. Dev is responsive on the discussion board. I very much like the idea of a Steam-based MUD that is new and being updated (IRE is going to end up putting all their stuff into legacy any day, I'm sure). Being on this platform might also mean attracting newer generations to old-school gaming! Otherwise, the workshop concept is pretty neat.

I love classic MUDs where your imagination and a keyboard is the only requirement. I think this one hits the marks at a very basic level and makes the genre more accessible to a modern audience. I would love to see a deeper investment in the worldbuilding and dungeon mechanics. Right now it's essentially a barebones experience, but the game did just come out only 2 weeks ago as of writing so you shouldn't expect a huge amount of features. With that being said, my suggestions for additions: - More skill checks - Traps - Advanced enemy mechanics - Nerfing rogue (you can literally permastun every enemy in the game right now) - Persistent party members (contract system is nice, but a permanent party or companion would be even cooler with scaled rewards and difficulty) - Longer dungeons/raids - More variety in the procedural generation algorithm for rooms. A lot of dungeons contain too many empty rooms - Real sense of danger from enemies pursuing you through the dungeon - Multiple floors to each dungeon - Way to solve the Labyrinth portal besides bruteforcing - Tutorial explaining more advanced mechanics like the portal shards, crafting, alchemy - Hotkey to move (atm I have to click the compass to move or type even after rebinding) - More interesting gear. Ex: special modifiers and curses on gear - Better implementation on market, for instance a suggested price for items that the Sim players would buy for - A more developed overworld, perhaps a main questline or overlying goal. ATM it just is grinding levels and gear which is fine for a basic MUD but it would be nice to have something to follow outside of the grind to motivate you. Randomly generated stories perhaps? Definitely worth it if you have a PC that can run a terminal window. For people concerned about the AI stuff: I asked Google Gemini Pro to make an example MUD terminal emulator and the dungeon it made was called Whispering Woods. The first dungeon you find in the game is called Whispering Woods. Whether that's a coincidence or evidence of AI generating the content is up to you to decide. It doesn't bother me because the names of places doesn't really affect the experience besides thematic dressing.