Ah! Well, enjoying a MUD is still a great shared experience haha. Nothing like them since. I still gravitate to punishing games with obscure mechanics and steep learning curves, and I imagine I'm still chasing that MUD high.

I think what made them special was that they were populated by others that put in that effort, and so the community felt invested. And you'd see the same names every time you logged on cause there was a single server, and reputation mattered. Ah man, what a time of life haha.