Mmm has changed a lot from when I played I think and many of the issues I had with the game such as levelling yourself out of quests are  fixed. Though bare in mind you will still need to do lots of  since locations in mm are pretty huge.

I'd recommend giving it a try and seeing how it goes.

Seriously, what is it with blind people thinking they need a soundpack to even get any level of enjoyment out of a mud? I don't understand this.

While the Alteraeon soundpack is a labour of love and absolutely a good thing, in a way it is a shame that that is so many people's first experience with a mud since that creates waaaaay unrealistic expectations of what other muds should be like.

This is another reason I want to write a newbie's guide to muds and note that these days alteraeon pretty much plays more like  audiogame than a mud and if your forever looking for a similar experience you'll be eternally disappointed.
With Materiamagica, it is true the in game sounds aren't exactly stellar even as compared to a game with similar levels of sound like classic six dragons, but then again the fact that there are sounds at  is a bonus.

hmmm, it must be a different soundpack to the one I know, since last I recall the game just had some downloadable sound files that played via msp, (one of the few games I know that use it), and the only way to get channel history was with the standard history command just like  most standard text muds.

Again, while I appreciate the convenience factor, having just sat for the last while playing aardwolf and making frequent use of the history command with just the games' text when I was in a position to  read safely out of combat, I personally would just recommend just getting used to playing a text game as! a text game.