.. Greetings and welcome to the official homepage of WaterdeepMUD, the Forgotten Realms & Final Fantasy online game. Since 1997 we have provided the world with a free online community and roleplaying game based on these two major genres. For our 'modern people' who have no idea what a mud is, please allow us to explain.

For those who do not know what a MUD is...

.. MUDs or Multi-User-Dungeons are the original MMORPGs of the internet, and are concidered the grandparents to such major games as Everquest or Worlds of Warcraft. They were first created in 1975 as social communities where people could interact with an avatar/player, and quickly developed into something such as tabletop Dungeons and Dragons. MUDs have provided countless free entertainment and despite the concept of the game are educational in nature, as they allow the player to use their imagination while also improving their reading and typing skills. But there is a catch in this modern age of eye candy, they are nothing but text. It is possible you may have played such a game before, either an internet novelty or such old classic games such as Zork (or the Harvey Birdman text game on AdultSwim.Com). A modern graphical online game doesn't allow you to use the full extent of your brain, as the world you see before you is designed by someone in their own vision. A mud is like reading a book where you create your own visions or well, graphics.

.. There is also a unique social community created with muds that most have yet to witness on a graphical game. The place feels more like home and players are closer to each other. Sadly with the younger generations so graphically oriented and the onslaught of major games like Worlds of Warcrafts, Muds across the internet have taken a major blow to their player bases. We invite people of all ages (well 17+ in our case) to try out these games, though we hold in theory that younger generations will not play due to the fact that the game is 99% text based. Many of us who are on these games grew up in the Atari, Nintendo and Sega era of gaming when the games had graphics, but you still had to use your imagination to improve the experience. Games now a days are handed to you with no missing details.

And to our fellow MUD players...

.. Waterdeep "City Of Splendors" aka WaterdeepMUD opened their doors on August 12th 1997 as a stock RoT 1.4 codebase. Over the next 12 years vast changes would be made to the game, which in general runs like a RoT/RoM style mud with a 101 level, Remort (2 tier) system but has countless improvements and additions, both code and zone. We feature restricted Player Killing (+/- 5 Levels) with a Loner / Clan system and are not a full PK mud. We encourage Roleplaying but do not fully enforce it with the exception of a few rules such as character names and descriptions, and provide a RP Flag System which allows you to tune out certain channels and alert people when you are active in roleplaying. In the end we wish it to be your own choice to take part in our fantasy world, or just the game itself.

.. Our world is over 30,000 rooms in roughly 150 public zones split into two continents. Our 'main' continent dubbed The Great Realms (Continent of Cruoris) which is a mixture of original stock zones, allowing players from other Rom/Rot games to be familiar with their surroundings, but also expands well beyond the original game map. Stock zones have been edited to fit into the theme and ideas of this unique continent which is based on themes and ideas from the Final Fantasy 6 & 7 games. Our second continent is based from The Forgotten Realms (Continent of Faerun & The Sword Coast) and feature landmark zones such as Waterdeep, Icewind Dale, Candlekeep, Baldur's Gate, Shadowdale, Myth Drannor and more. The two continents are seperated by the Sea of Swords.

.. Besides the universal activity of levelling and training your character we have a wide assortment of features to keep you entertained. Like most muds we have your generic quest system with rewards but also feature area quests which uses special codes to make a more complex quest. Staff members are random times will put on Immortal Quests (IQs) which can range from simple trivia or killing a powerful mob to complex quests. We have an automated PvP arena with mass-event option and again staff members will at random put on arena events. Players can purchase their own drivable airships, edit and customize the interiors and then use them to haul cargo from port to port for platinum coins. Players can also purchase 'property' where they get to create and design their very own rooms on the mud (Player Housing) in the same manor of mud OLC (Online Creation used for zone constructions). Available with these houses are Equipment Lockers which allow players to store equipment and items off of their characters (not to be confused with the old 'store your eq in a locker' before you log off style muds). The list goes on.

.. So if you're interested in trying out a mud, or are a mud player in search of a new home, we invite you to try out WaterdeepMUD, running since 1997 by the same people on the pledge that we won't shutdown until there are no players left. Damn the man (and by that I mean Worlds of Warcraft).

- Nisstyre I. Bloodstoner, Owner & Founder