@amerikranian, Empire has unusually lacking help and the newbie area isn't easy. That's by no means the standard for muds so I wouldn't worry that another mud would have that.
@revan, MushZ will not work for any other mud besides alteraeon, all the scripts and triggers and such are made for Alter not for other games. You will either have to disable half the features, or download a plane version of Mushclient and install a couple of necessary plugins like the screen reader speech one for it to work with other muds.
@caio, I did see the website for harshlands a while ago on whitestick.co.uk, however at that point it looked as if the game was far more a mush than a mud, ie, very very heavily based on rp in it's activities, not a game with quests or tasks to do or things you could get involved in that weren't related to other characters.
I'd be interested to know what activities there might be on the game if you aren't a fan of rp, who is there to fight against in combat if that is your thing, is there crafting? Is the "enemy" you mention in war just an rp thing fighting for your city or guild or whatever as in avalon or are there npc invasions etc.
Also, i personally would prefer if the game had a few low spam modes etc since all that gag and trigger stuff is a bit much beyond me, and I'd prefer a mud that is accessible out of the box.
With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)