Arctic MUD

Arctic MUD is a MUD, a text-based multiplayer online role-playing game, set in the world of the popular Dragonlance fantasy series. Artic opened in March 1992. The player creates and develops an in-game persona, advancing their character to higher levels through adventuring, defeating monsters and completing quests.

Development
The game was originally based on the DikuMUD codebase, but the code has been modified to add to the mechanics and player classes.

Gameplay
The game currently consists of ten playable classes: Mage, Cleric, Druid, Warrior, Paladin, Thief, Dark Knight, Barbarian, Shaman and Scout. Mages, Clerics and Druids are known as spellcasters, their primary focus being the casting of magical spells. Warriors, Paladins, Thieves, Dark Knights, Barbarians, and Scouts are the fighter classes, who use weapons and skills (and instincts in the case of scouts) to further their ends and combat their opponents. The Shaman class is a hybrid of the cleric, barbarian and druid classes. The class is a new addition and is currently being tweaked as needed. Spellcasters develop their repertoire of spells through adventuring for spellbooks (for mages), tablets (for druids), prayerbooks (for clerics) and charms (for the shaman). Some fighter classes also have limited magical abilities, which they are granted as they progress. Fighter classes develop their skills through combat and training.

The game mechanics are loosely based on a system akin to Advanced Dungeons and Dragons (AD&D). Each character has six natural ability scores or stats: Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma. These are rolled when the character is created and change with character age. The spell system, true to AD&D, is one of memorization and spell slots as opposed to the mana system used by many MUDs.

Player characters begin at level 1 and advance their character towards the highest player level, which is 30. With each level gain, the character increases in power. Upon completing level 30, players may then begin to level through "ranks" by collecting rank points awarded when defeating powerful foes. These points may be saved up and spent on bonuses, chosen from an extensive list, including the ability to boost the stats.

Quests
Players often will run into mobiles that are either the beginning, or part of, a quest chain that results in rewards of items, money, experience or any combination thereof. Quests are not linear, with a certain chain of events that is outlined for the player to complete, but rather are reflections of what people in similar situations would say, act like or attempt in real life.

Public contributions
Arctic MUD developers Dean Gaudet and Jeffery Stine contributed a software patch to correct a common Internet socket problem in DikuMUDs.

Reception
In 1996, Arctic MUD was used as an example of a MUD to connect to using TinyFugue in Internet After Hours.

Arctic MUD is included in The Historical DikuMUD List hosted on the official DikuMUD web site, marking it as one of the longest-running DikuMUDs.