HellMOO

HellMOO is a text-based multiplayer game, or MUD, with a post-apocalyptic setting.

HellMOO was founded in 2003 by several LambdaMOO programmers in Northern California who had previously worked on a similar MUD called CyberSphere. HellMOO is accessible via telnet or MUD/MOO client, at host hell.game-host.org and port 7777.

Technical Notes
HellMOO runs on a modified version of the Lambdamoo server software, under Linux. It is one of a very few large scale games written using MOO, and is currently the only consistently active such game.

Geography
HellMOO takes place over 100 years in the future, in a world devastated by nuclear war. While the geography does not correspond to anything in the real world, it is generally agreed to be a post-apocalyptic United States.

Players start out in a tutorial reinacting the moments before a nuclear warhead strikes their childhood town, where initial stats and skills as well as character description and gender are chosen. Soon after, players are taken to "Freedom City", the largest population center and a relatively safe place for players starting out, due to the presence of police cameras. There is an ocean to the north, and river to the east flowing into the ocean. Suburbs of Freedom City include CorpClave, gangland, and slagtown. Outside the city is a variety of terrain including radioactive wasteland, mountains, small towns and underground military complexes.

Controversy
HellMOO has been criticized for its sexually explicit and violent content. Because of this, the game has been restricted to players of age 18 and older.

Demographics
As of November 5, 2007, HellMOO had 7 official wizards (administrators), a few dozen programmers, and over 3,200 players. Of these, 78% have chosen the male gender, and 22% female. A few players are gendered "neuter" due to botched sex-change operations.

While the first players came from LambdaMOO, the majority of currently-active players have learned about the game from a long-running thread in the Something Awful Games forum.

HellMOO also has attracted a number of blind players who access the game using screen reader software, and the programmers have put effort into making the game more accessible for them.

Main Menu

See Also

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