Sims, BattleBots, Cellular Automata God and Go (2001)
gamestudies.org
gamestudies.org
There were urban based ones, too; not just about sorcerers and warriors. As they were mainly text based, they could set tons of properties to in game-objects and their relations, truly advanced for their era.
And, no, a lot of LLM's aren't even close to what kind of simulation you could get in a MUD. LLM's can fill tons of details, but they can't get a whole coherent world with ease.