Mirage WinSock

[Reece]

If you want a text based game why don't you go with PHP and MySql It'll work 10000x better and be easier to make..

[Xlithan]

Nahh, I want it stand-alone.

http://www.nightmist-online.co.uk

http://www.realmsofkaos.com

http://www.kaldana.com/

3 great examples of text-based games. Rather than using a server app that connects with Telnet, it's all completely stand-alone. Realms of Kaos even has a very nice interface with location images, user avatars, and a minimap.
Might not be everybodys pint of beer but I for one have always wanted to develop and run one of these types of games. The only reason I haven't is because I've never found a good enough engine for one. And if you're going to say "Why not write one from scratch?", well if everybody did that then there'd be nobody on this forum, would there

[GIAKEN]

http://rom.org/

MUDs have been around for a long time...and it's in C. I used to have my own server running with this. It's so easy to edit...it's just very basic C (since it's really old...back in the 90's) and it's very smooth. All you have to do is edit loads of text files and if you want to attach your own GUI to it then you can do that easily enough with VB6 and doing telnet and have buttons to enter in commands and whatever...