Most people played MUDs for the grind. Levels and loot. They care about the story as much as you care about it in Path of Exile.
Even though I didn't play a MUD for the text, it's entirely false to say that the text didn't add a lot. The writing made or broke the game, since it was all text-based.
The people who played MUDs for the grind will, genuinely, have a lot more fun playing PoE or some other modern adventure game. MUDs were the only option for that sort of adventure experience for a while but there are other options now that simply have more tools at their disposal than text based communication offers.
If a MUD is going to survive today it's going to be driven by those RP focused players where the freedom to describe actions in text allows a flexibility that's unrealistic in graphical games.