[adamomada]

Something probably lost to time now but there was this sort of MUD that didn’t really have a game attached, called a Talker

You would telnet to a server : port, usually 3000 by default and sign in to this multi-user chat system. It was divided into rooms or places, with a sort of map system. Meaning you couldn’t just join any room/channel, you’d have to “travel” along and get a glimpse of other users and their chats, mimicking real life in a way.

I don’t know how popular it was around the world, but a major local radio station caught on to it and the hosts mentioned it frequently so it was basically always busy, always a group in it chatting.

This is ca. mid-90s before web browsers were decent, dialup was the norm, and low-bandwidth activities ruled.