This is for anyone who is looking for a strong role-playing environment with a Star Trek theme - one that is free and fits whatever schedule you have.
The game is TrekMUSH: Among the Stars (
http://wiki.trekmush.org/index.php/Main_Page). It is a PennMUSH server, a variant of a MUD (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD), the granddaddy of MMO's. It is the oldest and one of the largest Star Trek themed MUDs in existence (
http://mudstats.com/Genre/StarTrek). Current stardate is about 88000, with the MUSH diverging from canon at stardate 49011.4.
MUD's are frequently divided into factions or guilds. The playable factions in ATS are the Federation, the Klingon Empire, the Galactic Ferengal Alliance, and the Cardassian Union. New players (
http://wiki.trekmush.org/index.php/Newusers) are encouraged to start within the Federation, which is considered to be the most newbie-friendly. But once you have an understanding of the game, possibilities for character variations are endless and the admins are very supportive of anyone who has a good reputation and a good idea.
Since the server is over 20 years old, it has a great deal of sophistication. Space travel, the economy, personal combat, character advancement - these are all supported by coded subsystems. ASpace, the code that supports space travel and space combat, is an incredible work of art. It manages to be both technically challenging and very supportive of role-playing situations while working within the confines of a text-based game (
http://wiki.trekmush.org/index.php/Console_Commands).
Yes, MUD's are historically text-based, and ATS is no exception. But to anyone who is more comfortable playing graphical MMO's, I'd say that the graphics take away the role-playing. If you want to be a button-masher, keep your graphics. But if you care about plot and storyline and character development and real role-playing interaction, throw away the graphics.
To play ATS, you need just one thing - a client. I recommend Gammon's MUSHclient (
http://www.gammon.com.au/mushclient/). It's free and stable - it simply works, and works simply. I personally run it in Wine on Linux without a hitch. Once you have your client, you'll want to connect to ats.trekmush.org:1701. That's address ats.trekmush.org, port 1701.
At the connection point, you're given the option to sign on as a guest. From there, you can get your questions answered on the recruiting channel. The syntax is '+rec hello world'. In other words, type '+rec' followed by whatever you want to say.
Which brings me to my last point - like any MMO, the game is always up. There are always people online. It's the deep role-playing you'd expect from play-by-email or play-by-post, but it's real-time, all the time. And once you're there, look me up. I'm Novi, a Trill in the GFA.
J