[SnowTroll]

There's this mud I played a long time ago, back in college, called Dark and Shattered Lands. () I haven't played in ages, so I can't tell you much about the state of the mud, how populated it is, or any new and exciting features developed over the past ten years, but it's still there and seems to meet most of your preferences. Just keep in mind that some of what I'm stating below may have changed somewhat.

It calls itself a roleplay-required mud, but it's pretty casual about the whole thing. Some people don't really roleplay or only make a token attempt, others get really into it. But you can pretty much ignore the people you don't want to interact with and have a good time with the people you do.

There's no application process. Back when I played, they had this single approval room when you create where an imm will buzz you in after making sure your character name isn't totally stupid, but if nobody was around to approve you, you got auto-approved in two minutes.

It's a straight-up, Diku character class system. You pick one of five base classes to start, mage being among them, and once you're past a certain level, you have the option to reclass into a specialty class. Some are available to everybody, some restricted to certain clans (PK-based groups) or kingdoms (non-PK based groups), and those organizations might have some rules about who they do and don't let access their special classes. But you don't have to kiss too much ass to get into any of those organizations. Most people with any rank are recruiters, and with rare exception, most organizations let in anybody who doesn't come across as an idiot. But other than the small number of classes restriced to certain organizations (which aren't any more powerful or fun, just something else to try), you just pick your class and your specialty class by entering commands. No tasks.

There aren't any rules about area knowledge or secrets. You'll find player websites with maps, speedwalking directions, good leveling tips, equipment lists, and whatever. The world is pretty large, so there's always somewhere good to level, or some piece of gear to chase down.

I remember the players being fairly helpful. You know the type. When you ask a question, everybody races to answer as quickly as they can, because knowing something and demonstrating that knowledge over the internet makes you cool. Unlike the muds you've undoubtedly tried, though, you'll get people jumping up and down trying to give you the answer, rather than people jumping up and down yelling at you about how you're an idiot and a rulebreaker for asking the question.

You delete and create characters at will. Other than prohibiting being logged in with more than one character at a time, and other multiplaying prohibitions like finding ways to help one character with antoher, you can have as many characters as you want in as many organizations as you want, and delete them whenever you feel like it.

It's a Dragonlance-based mud, so there are a lot of races, mostly in the form of subraces. Your 5 types of elves, 3 types of dwarves, 2 types of gnomes, 3 types of ogres, 3 types of goblins, humans, minotaur, kender, 2 types of some kind of cat race, and probably a couple of other races I've long since forgotten. I wouldn't call the race selection unique, but it's definitely pretty diverse. The stats of each race are different enough to make certain classes and playing styles a lot better suited for one race versus another.

The politics and governments are mostly player controlled. Whoever's the leader of their organization chooses who to declare war against, when to try to end wars, and what the organization is supposed to be doing, within the reasonable limits of the backstory of their organization and why it exists. But it's not the sort of mud where you can up and change things yourself with big world events. That requires the imms to run, and if you're expecting the administration to step in and facilitate player rp on a daily basis, look elsewhere. Special events are rare. On the plus side, there are regular recurring events, though, like an annual clan tournament, a gladiator league, and some other things.

There's a player crafting system, but it's time consuming, tedious, and repetetive to get any good at crafting, and the items you can get from mobs are normally just as good. If you just want a unique-looking item, you can buy an item restring fairly cheaply if you catch an imm online and available to help you.

It's also definitely a casual environment. Log in, log out, get as involved as you want or not.

Downsides: It's a grind-heavy mud. You have to kill stuff to level. But not an insane amount of stuff. It traditional Diku style, you select what skills and spells you want your character to have, and you're assigned an experience per level amount based on how much you select. So if you're in a hurry and don't care about being versatile, you can have a 1000/level character. Or you can take everything available to you, even the stuff you'll never use or need, and be 100,000/level. For reference, in the right area for your level and alignment, most people get about 100-200 per kill, though there are times where it's faster to kill a bunch of weak stuff for 50 each, or a couple of strong things for more and have some down time in between.

You also have to put up with the occasional group of idiots who run their mouthes on public channels, can't roleplay worth a darn (or don't roleplay), kids, and so on. It's not terrible. Like I said, you can just ignore people you don't want to interact with, but I remember enough of that going on to feel it's relevant to comment on here.