Follow improvements to MUDVerse, including new player features, game-owner tools, reliability work, and community resources.
Game owners can now purchase and manage MUDVerse advertising directly from their account.
Added a new Purchase and manage your ads area where signed-in users can buy one or more banner ads through one-time PayPal checkout for $10 USD per calendar month, with no subscription or automatic renewal.
Each self-service ad is associated with an active MUDVerse listing, while its banner can link either to the MUDVerse listing page or directly to the game’s home page.
After checkout, advertisers can finish and publish a paid draft, replace its title or banner, change its associated active listing, disable or re-enable it, and renew published active, disabled, or expired ads.
The ad editor now previews the real banner placement, recommends 728×90 artwork, validates new images by their actual format and dimensions, and keeps larger legacy advertisements usable without stretching the site header.
My Ads now distinguishes running, expired, and disabled campaigns visually, offers optional one-week expiration reminders, and shows a concise history of completed purchases and renewals.
Administrators can review self-service and manually arranged ads together, including aggregate impression and click totals, while paid terms and transaction history remain protected from ordinary editing.
PayPal webhook processing now handles completed and pending captures, refunds, reversals, and disputes through an idempotent payment ledger, with improved operational diagnostics when PayPal requests must be retried.
Registration and password-reset forms now show password requirements as they are met, giving members immediate guidance before submission.
Privacy-preserving product reporting now includes aggregate views of guide, developer, and game-owner resource pages, helping us understand which resources are useful without storing full referrers, query strings, or persistent visitor identifiers.
A comprehensive MUD protocol catalog and local reference library are now available.
Added a searchable and filterable MUD Protocols catalog covering 53 player-session protocols, terminal foundations, client and ancillary conventions, and inter-MUD networks.
Every card distinguishes documented current use from legacy status, with separate labels for widely used, current, niche, compatibility, historical, and experimental protocols.
Added a dedicated local reference page for every catalog entry with first-seen information, transport details, implementation essentials, compatibility and safety notes, and clearly attributed links to original specifications or preservation copies.
Added MUD Protocols to the Developers navigation and developer resource hub.
MUDVerse added a research-backed MUD Dictionary and expanded its engine catalog.
Expanded the MUD Engines catalog with source-backed licensing, commercial-use, stable-release, deployment, platform, persistence, protocol, lineage, migration, and support information.
Added advanced filters for starting point, commercial-use terms, Docker support, integrated web experiences, in-game programming, and persistence model, alongside clearer setup-difficulty labels and improved checkbox spacing.
Verified stable releases for 15 engines using official project release pages and stable tags. Prereleases such as LambdaMOO 1.9.0alpha are intentionally excluded from the stable field.
Corrected LambdaMOO to identify its in-world programming and building capabilities, and removed Custom, Other, Oblivion, Eye of the Storm, The Forest’s Edge, and the generic MOO, MUCK, MUSH, and MUX family labels from the public comparison so the page focuses on 39 identifiable engines and lineages.
Added a prominent validation date and retained source links and explicit unknown states so visitors can tell when claims were reviewed and where gaps remain.
Added a searchable MUD Dictionary with 137 general, community, MOO, MUSH, TinyMUX, MUCK, LPMud, Diku, and Evennia term senses, cross-engine comparisons, visual maps, provenance labels, and links to primary manuals and project documentation.
Game engine taxonomy refresh
We refreshed the Codebase options available for game listings to make them more accurate, consistent, and useful when searching MUDVerse.
Added support for 12 additional engines: AresMUSH, Evennia, FluffOS, Fuzzball MUCK, GodWars, LDMud, MudOS, PennMUSH, Rapture, RhostMUSH, TinyMUX, and ToastStunt.
Consolidated the previous MOO options under LambdaMOO, added a dedicated ToastStunt option, and reassigned the two known ToastStunt games to the new codebase.
Standardized several existing names, including CircleMUD, CoffeeMUD, EmlenMUD, ROM, RoT, SMAUG, and Valhalla Mud Engine (VME).
Removed the overly broad MUCK, MUSH, and MUX options. The 25 listings that previously used them were moved to Other, so no games were removed or unpublished. Game owners can now select a more specific engine where applicable, such as Fuzzball MUCK, PennMUSH, RhostMUSH, or TinyMUX.
Removed 14 unused legacy Codebase options and an incorrect MUSE entry from the Game Type list, leaving the listing taxonomy cleaner while improving coverage for engines actively used by today's MUD community.
Added a source-backed MUD Engines catalog comparing 48 engines, frameworks, drivers, mudlibs, families, and historical codebases with accessible filters and current MUDVerse usage counts.
Account tools provide clearer feedback, and MUDVerse now explains its work more transparently.
Newly generated API keys now include a one-click copy button with clear success or manual-copy guidance. Keys are still shown only once and continue to be stored securely.
The Account menu now shows whether a visitor is signed in or signed out using both text and a distinct visual treatment across desktop and mobile navigation.
The refreshed About MUDVerse page now explains who operates the independent site, its history since 2007, and how rankings, connectivity checks, player observations, and editorial research work.
The About page also provides a clearer path for reporting incorrect information and explains how corrections are evaluated.
A broad platform modernization strengthens MUDVerse security, reliability, testing, and long-term maintainability.
Upgraded the application and its development tools for PHP 8.5, refreshed frontend and server-side dependencies, and tightened automated dependency checks so the platform stays on a current, supported foundation.
Reorganized the application so private code, page templates, and scheduled jobs live outside the publicly accessible web directory. The site now has a single public PHP entry point, substantially reducing the amount of application code exposed to direct web requests.
Strengthened validation, database access, file handling, redirects, response handling, and security headers across the site, with clearer and more consistent handling when an operation fails.
Consolidated scheduled maintenance behind one protected command-line runner, added stronger safeguards around destructive jobs, and improved operational records for administrators.
Expanded automated coverage with 43 new focused PHP test files, stricter static analysis, dependency auditing, browser checks, and faster test execution without reducing coverage.
Added local security and mutation-testing tools for release reviews, along with updated architecture, testing, deployment, migration, Apache, and scheduled-job documentation.
In total, this modernization touched 464 files. Most of the work is deliberately behind the scenes, creating a safer and easier-to-maintain foundation for future MUDVerse features.
Image delivery and the MUD rankings page received additional reliability and presentation improvements.
Game banners and advertising images now use dedicated object storage with CDN-backed delivery, so uploaded media no longer depends on files stored on an individual application server.
The MUD rankings page now places its voting explanation below the game cards in a clearer callout, with a separate highlighted section showing game owners how to request votes.
Mobile navigation, player reviews, game banners, and administrative tools are easier to use.
On mobile, the main navigation categories are now always visible without an extra Menu button. Each category stays compact until opened, and game search has its own full-width row.
The review editor now supports paragraphs, bold text, italics, and lists while preserving natural line breaks in submitted reviews.
After submitting a review, players can open their newly published review directly from the confirmation page.
Added a new Game Banner Guide with dimensions, formatting advice, and the 1 MiB upload limit. Banner upload errors also provide clearer guidance when an image is too large.
Expired advertisements are now highlighted in the ad manager so administrators can identify campaigns that are no longer running at a glance.
Crawler reporting no longer counts web-only games as never crawled, keeping administrative health metrics focused on games that support direct MUD connections.
The MUD rankings page now explains how monthly voting works and uses one consistent, shareable pagination format.
Expanded privacy-preserving product measurement beyond game exits to zero-result searches, filter-name combinations, completed community actions, guide-to-game transitions, and first-time API key creation.
Added an Active MUD Games page showing worlds MUDVerse reached within the last 48 hours, with transparent connection and player-observation evidence.
Game discovery, reviews, navigation, guides, and developer resources received another round of improvements.
Added a new Most Reviewed Games page highlighting the ten active games with the most player reviews, with a direct link in the Games menu.
Reviews now show when they were last edited, and authors can open the edit form directly from their review page. MUDVerse also guides returning reviewers to their existing review instead of creating a duplicate.
After voting, players who have not reviewed the game are invited to share their experience, making it easier to contribute useful feedback while the game is fresh in mind.
Logging in from the Account menu now returns you to the page you were viewing, including its active query options.
Improved the beginner play guide’s common-command table so related commands and directions are easier to follow, and made all next-step links consistent buttons.
The MUD Clients guide now includes a contact path for client maintainers who want to submit a client for consideration.
Expanded the read-only API with paginated public review endpoints, submitted and edited dates, review links from game details, and clearer documentation and examples for finding the most reviewed games.
A refreshed MUDVerse design, expanded guides, and new community tools are now live.
MUDVerse has a refreshed visual identity with an updated logo, icon, default game banner, and IBM Plex Mono typography throughout the site.
The main menu has been reorganized into clearer Games, Guides, Developers, and For Game Owners sections, with improved keyboard and mobile navigation.
My Account now uses a responsive sidebar and brings My Games, My Reviews, Watched Games, account settings, listing transfers, and API tools together in one place.
The homepage has a shorter introduction, clearer paths into games and rankings, and a compact recent-updates section linked to the full Development Blog archive.
Added two beginner resources: What Is a MUD? explains the history and appeal of text-based worlds, while How to Play a MUD covers choosing a game, connecting, common commands, and troubleshooting.
Expanded the MUD Clients guide into a filterable comparison of desktop, mobile, and web clients, with platform guidance, advantages, considerations, and direct download links.
Added a Voting Guide for Game Owners explaining monthly rankings, the 24-hour voting limit, vote-button setup, and fair-voting expectations.
Added a Developers menu containing the MUDVerse API and a new MOO Resources page with LambdaMOO and ToastStunt history, source code, starter databases, manuals, videos, and learning material.
Player review pages now show consistent 1–5 star ratings, and the main Player Reviews page is paginated so visitors can browse the complete review collection.
The review form now includes clearer rules encouraging balanced, firsthand, constructive feedback while protecting privacy and avoiding major spoilers.
Game owners can add an optional Discord community link to their listings, giving players a direct way to join the game’s community.
Success and error messages now appear consistently across the site as clearer, dismissible notifications.
Removed third-party analytics and rewrote the Privacy Policy to explain more clearly what MUDVerse collects, which information is public, how cookies are used, and how correction or deletion requests can be made.
Improved page headings, navigation trails, and link-preview information so game listings, reviews, guides, and other public pages are easier to understand and share.
New account, listing-management, security, and reliability improvements are now live.
Game owners can now securely transfer a listing to another MUDVerse account, with email notifications and controls to accept, decline, or cancel a transfer.
Account email addresses can now be changed through a verified self-service process, including resend and cancellation controls.
Cleaner, easier-to-share URLs are now used throughout the site, while existing links continue to redirect to the correct pages.
Game listing forms now preserve entered information when validation fails, so owners do not have to start over.
Listing website addresses are normalized automatically and checked more carefully for validity.
New members now receive a welcome email with quick links to explore games, add a listing, and manage their account.
Account security has been strengthened with longer password requirements, safer sessions, and protection against repeated login, registration, and recovery attempts.
Game details now render validated MSSP-provided web and contact links more safely.
Listing updates, including tags and banner uploads, now save more reliably without leaving partial changes.
Accessibility and mobile usability received additional polish, including clearer form labels and a responsive vote-code field.
Database tuning improves common listing, ranking, review, voting, watch-list, and account lookups.
We completed a site-wide review of games that have not connected successfully in the last three months.
46 games confirmed to be offline have been archived while keeping their historical listing pages available. Game owners can update and save their listing to have it automatically unarchived.
12 games that are played through a website have been updated with the WEB ONLY designation.
Web-only listings now direct players to the game website and no longer show connection or MSSP information that does not apply.
Game search now makes it easier to find games by how they are played.
The Games search now includes All, Web Only, and MUD Client Support options.
Confirmed Online filtering is clearly disabled for web-only games because website connectivity is not tested by the MUD crawler.
The same connection-type filtering is available through the MUDVerse API.
The MUDVerse API is now available for developers and community projects.
Create an API key from the API tab in My Account to get started.
Query top, recent, recently updated, and matching games, along with listing details, tags, MSSP snapshots, and player history.
Visit the API page for the quick-start guide, interactive console, detailed documentation, and curl examples.
Game owners and administrators can now archive listings for games that are no longer reachable.
Archived listings remain available through their direct MUDVerse listing link, where they are clearly marked as archived due to non-connectivity.
They are hidden from search, rankings, discovery pages, sitemaps, and API collections while archived.
Editing and saving an archived listing automatically marks it active again.
MUDVerse now has dedicated listing support for games that are played entirely through a website.
Game owners can select Web-based only when adding or editing a game that does not accept MUD client connections.
These games display a WEB ONLY badge, and their play links take players directly to the game website.
Connection, connectivity, and MSSP sections are hidden when they do not apply.
Major platform, security, and reliability upgrades are now live.
Upgraded MUDVerse to PHP 8 and a newer version of MySQL.
Moved the site to an updated server for a stronger foundation going forward.
Fixed a number of bugs and hardened the codebase to improve security and stability.
Updated the MSSP crawler bot to the latest Node.js runtime.
Secure connection support and listing text cleanup are now live.
Game owners can now add an optional TLS Port on the game edit page for MUDs that support encrypted connections.
Play Now uses the TLS port automatically when one is configured and no custom webclient URL is set.
Improved game description handling so legacy escaped line breaks and apostrophes render cleanly on listing pages and edit forms.
New client resources and major web client improvements are now live.
Added a new MUD Clients page with recommended client options and quick links.
Fully revamped the web client used for connecting to games for a much more seamless experience.
Added TrueColor support in the web client for improved visual fidelity.
Improved mobile support in the web client for a better on-the-go play experience.
Player activity charts are now live on game listings.
Added a new Average Players Online Per Day chart on game detail pages.
The chart uses historical MSSP data so you can quickly see how player activity trends over time.
Search and discovery got a major upgrade.
Rebuilt /games into a modern discovery experience with live filtering, infinite scroll, and load-more fallback.
Added advanced facet filters (theme, type, RP status, player count, PK style, language, location, codebase, and game size) behind a compact Advanced Filters toggle.
Added new sort and filter options focused on freshness and reliability, with improved URL state sharing for active search views.
Added a Confirmed Online indicator to listing cards and watched-game cards when the latest connection attempt succeeded.
New watchlist and account management features are now live.
Added a new Watch/Unwatch flow on game detail pages so players can track games they care about.
Introduced a Watched Games section in My Account with quick actions for Details, Reviews, and Unwatch.
Added watcher counts to listing details and My Games so game owners can see interest levels.
Implemented login-aware watch actions: if you click Watch while logged out, you are sent to login, then returned to the listing and the watch action is completed automatically.
More UI and usability refinements are now live.
Refreshed game cards and rankings views with cleaner card layouts, updated headings, and modernized pagination controls.
Improved site chrome with a redesigned header/nav/search experience and an updated footer style.
Redesigned key account-access pages (Sign Up, Log In, Forgot Password, and Reset Password) for clearer flow and consistency.
Refreshed core information pages (Advertise, About, Contact, MSSP, Privacy) to match the newer site style.
Redesigned the Add Game workflow with better sectioning, clearer required-field guidance, improved mobile validation feedback, and inline contextual Help buttons.
Added cleaner user-review access with new pretty routes, a redesigned My Reviews page, and direct links from review/user/account touchpoints.
Refreshed the My Account page with a modern tabbed layout, account stats, and quick links to My Games and My Reviews.
Shipped review management tools so users can now edit or delete their own submitted reviews directly from My Reviews (admins can also moderate).
Refreshed the remaining review/vote utility pages (Write Review, Vote, Vote Code, confirmation and reset email result pages) for a cleaner and more consistent experience.
Applied a second-pass homepage polish with improved readability, stronger card hierarchy, better spacing, and cleaner recent listings/reviews presentation.
Quality-of-life and usability updates went live today.
Launched a new ad management workflow so admins can create and manage banner ads from the site interface, including image upload, destination URL, expiration date, active status, and display weight.
Improved ad click behavior: MUDVerse links now open in the same window, while external links open in a new tab.
Refreshed the homepage updates section into a compact, click-through carousel so recent changes are easier to browse without taking up extra page space.
Fixed the review form character countdown so it updates correctly while typing and pasting.
Updated the “Submit Review” link on game pages to use a relative path so it works correctly across environments.
Cleaned up read-review display by removing outdated “member since” text and fixing the “I think this game is...” value to reflect the actual rating submitted with that review.
Redesigned the read-review page into a cleaner card layout with better readability, clearer metadata hierarchy, and improved rating display.
Redesigned the game listing details page with clearer section cards and improved mobile behavior.
Redesigned the My Games page with a cleaner layout and improved mobile-friendly listing/action presentation.
Redesigned the All Games page into a card layout with banners, quick actions, review links, and clearer listing metadata.
Added additional hard drive space to prevent issues as the MSSP crawler accumulated several gigabytes of data.
Investigated a few games that may have been botting and requested that they stop.
If I find a game botting or using proxies to pump up votes, I’m going to warn you and delete the votes. If it keeps happening, I will remove the game from the site. This is a hobby project, and I have no interest in creating increasingly difficult systems to prevent this. If you want more eyes on your game, ads on the site have stayed at $10/month since 2007 and they support a good cause.
Voting totals and a disk-space issue affecting logins were corrected.
Fixed a long-standing vote-calculation bug that multiplied every game’s displayed vote total. Rankings remained in the correct order because the issue affected all games equally.
Resolved a disk-space issue that temporarily prevented some visitors from logging in.
MSSP data is now presented more reliably on game listings.
Changed the MSSP section on game listing pages to use a table after the previous responsive layout produced inconsistent results for games reporting different numbers of variables.
Vote records were cleaned up and database performance was improved.
Manually cleared votes for several games whose totals had not reset correctly.
Added a missing database index that had been causing slow SQL queries, substantially improving site response times.
Game listings can now provide a dedicated MSSP crawler port.
Added an MSSP Port field to the add and edit listing forms so games can direct the MUDVerse crawler to a separate port instead of affecting monitoring on their primary player port.
Cleaned up explanatory text throughout the listing form.
The MUDVerse MSSP guide received additional implementation guidance.
Expanded the MSSP page with more information about providing a plain-text MSSP response.
Voting issues were under investigation and an offline listing was removed.
Investigated a vote-counting bug that inflated totals without changing their relative order and an issue preventing the normal monthly vote reset.
Manually reset the affected votes while work on a permanent correction continued.
Removed the HellMOO listing after the game shut down.
Vote tallying and generated web-client connections were repaired.
Fixed a bug that prevented votes from being tallied and ran the tally in lookback mode so votes from the preceding week were retained.
Fixed generated web-client URLs so they include the correct game port.
Voting received further fixes and password-reset email delivery was restored.
Improved the code responsible for recording and tabulating votes.
Moved password-reset delivery to Amazon SES production so recovery emails could once again be delivered reliably.
Navigation, voting, custom web clients, and game listing pages received major improvements.
Moved the site navigation to a link-based Foundation menu at the top of the page and incorporated a smaller MUDVerse logo.
Corrected vote handling so each visitor is limited to one vote per 24-hour period, retained an audit trail instead of deleting tallied votes, and added clearer success and cooldown messages.
Added a custom web-client URL field that game owners can use instead of the default Sindome public web client for Play Now and connection tests.
Restored game banners, fixed broken sponsored-game banner links, and improved banner positioning.
Simplified the add and edit listing experience and replaced several bright green elements with a more readable grayscale presentation.
Small navigation, search, advertising, and review-label refinements went live.
Improved how links are presented across the site.
Changed the search placeholder to “Search games.”
Updated the contact address on the advertising page.
Shortened the game-page review action from “Submit a new review” to “Submit Review.”
The MSSP crawler entered hourly operation alongside several presentation and reliability improvements.
Scheduled the MSSP crawler to run hourly and collect current game data.
Configured a stable public IP and reverse DNS so crawler connections identify themselves as coming from mudverse.com.
Fixed MSSP display logic that incorrectly rendered numeric player counts such as zero and one as NO and YES.
Continued developing and debugging the MSSP crawler with help from the developer of Last Outpost.
Overhauled the presentation of Top Games, Recent Games, and Recent Reviews while beginning a broader readability-focused color refresh.
Prepared password-reset messages for Amazon SES delivery, fixed a recovery issue that could prevent subsequent logins, and corrected several logged PHP errors.
Added information explaining when votes are tallied to the homepage’s Top Games section.
Game pages gained MSSP, crawler, connectivity, and presentation improvements.
Added crawl statistics and an MSSP data section to game pages.
Added the original MUDVerse MSSP guide explaining the protocol and how games can provide status information.
Moved game names above their banners and reorganized other listing information for clarity.
Made the reviews section conditional on a game having reviews and improved game-description paragraph rendering.
Updated colors and other presentation details on game pages.
Game listing forms and connection-status information were simplified.
Removed the tabbed add and edit listing interface so all fields are available in one continuous form.
Fixed and repositioned contextual help icons and replaced redundant character-count text with concise maximum-length labels.
Added connectivity information, the most recent connection-test date, and the last successful connection date to game pages.
A major directory cleanup removed dead games and improved listings, reviews, connections, and URLs.
Removed 62 games that were no longer connectable and had no working website from which updated connection information could be found, while also pruning spam listings.
Corrected connection details for Advent of Mists and HellMOO and consolidated separate host-name and IP fields into one listing field.
Added a Test Connection action to the add and edit listing workflow.
Removed duplicate and spam reviews and fixed paragraph rendering in review text.
Refreshed the contact page, privacy policy, metadata, homepage ranking presentation, and listing pagination controls.
Limited the homepage ranking to ten games, added short game introductions, and labeled it for the current month and year.
Introduced clearer, human-readable game URLs such as /game/519 in place of query-string listing links.
Renewed the site’s TLS certificate and redirected non-www traffic to the canonical www address.
