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<channel>
	<title>MUD Quest</title>
	<link>http://mud.adventmud.org</link>
	<description></description>
	<pubDate>Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:16:09 +0000</pubDate>
	<generator>http://wordpress.org/?v=2.0.2</generator>
	<language>en</language>
			<item>
		<title>Crazy Anonymous Emails</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/crazy-anonymous-emails/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/crazy-anonymous-emails/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Nov 2007 11:27:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Updates</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/crazy-anonymous-emails/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Unless you&#8217;re on the admin boards viewing what we&#8217;re discussing, you have no idea what&#8217;s going on behind the scenes of this project.
Thanks 

]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Unless you&#8217;re on the admin boards viewing what we&#8217;re discussing, you have no idea what&#8217;s going on behind the scenes of this project.</p>
<p>Thanks <img src='http://mud.adventmud.org/wp/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />
</p>
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		<title>Audit: ZombieMUD</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-zombiemud/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-zombiemud/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Mar 2007 11:48:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Audit Reports</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/zombiemud-2/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>mudname: ZombieMUD<br />
url: http://www.zombiemud.org<br />
port: zombiemud.org 23<br />
theme: Medieval-Fantasy<br />
focus: Hack-n-Slash with an emphasis on exploration and solving the various secrets of the realm. RP is generally accepted, but not monitored or enforced.<br />
features: -No closed in newbie school, instead you enter the game directly with your own personal guide, a floating skull, to fully walk you through gaining levels, studying in your guildhall, and your first kills. It will interactivly teach you in real time about each new place you discover as you wander the game. As Zombie is a non-standard LPmud, it is highly recommended that new players take the full tour, when given a choice upon character creation.</p>
<p>-Probably most importantly, ZombieMUD is an all original world. Each guild and race has been hand crafted and balanced off eachother.</p>
<p>- Each different in its own right, Zombie offers 500+ Spells and 350+ Skills to be learned in the various guildhalls of the realm.</p>
<p>- The land is vast, with an outworld of over a million rooms, and 13,500+ Hand-crafted rooms complete with an explore status plaque to check your explorer&#8217;s ranking. Exploration of the world expands in all directions, including flying through the skies and swimming deep beneath the ocean&#8217;s waves.</p>
<p>- When playing the game, you will find that the 8 Member Party system becomes an integral part of ZombieMUD life. Through parties, you team your skills with the skills of other players to bring down foes of legendary size and strength.</p>
<p>- For the collector in you, almost anything found upon the game, including Equipment, is saveable over reboots in lockers or chests. You may also build, personalize, and secure your own permanant Castle to store your equipment chests.</p>
<p>- Over 200 Level Quests are available to reduce level costs, but they are not forced upon you. If you love questing, then you may quest to your heart&#8217;s content.</p>
<p>- ZombieMUD&#8217;s Reincarnation system allows your to try out every character combination you wish, without having to re-earn all of your character&#8217;s gained experience.</p>
<p>- An automated Event system runs random activities in the game throughout the day, and there are sometimes special Wizard-run events as well just to keep you on your toes.</p>
<p>- ZombieMUD has an Apprenticeship system for those players new to the game, and many high ranking players are more than happy to take dedicated people on as an apprentice.</p>
<p>- Our internal triggering system known as chaining can be used along with various player defined commands and aliases to customize your play.</p>
<p>- An extensive channel system exists on the game, keeping you in touch with your guild members and party mates. Private channels may be created at any time on the game, and the option to purchase permanant private channels also exists.<br />
excerpt: Since 1994, ZombieMUD has brought orc-bashing mayhem to thousands over the years. With over 100 players on-line to interact with, over a dozen distinctive guilds, fifty sub-guilds, and three dozen races to choose from, your only limitation is your own imagination and will to succeed.<br />
log_snippet: n/a<br />
status: 1994, Fully Functional<br />
codebase: LP: LDmud driver, Zombie Lib<br />
average_players: 100+</p></blockquote>
<h1>Review by Umbra</h1>
<p><strong>Website</strong><br />
Excellent, easy to browse, with lots of useful information. There are some minor typos there, mostly in the form of reversed letters, (example: ’glimsping’), but the text is obviously written by someone literate. There is info about skills and spells, races and guilds, special Newbie info, an overall map with short descriptions of the zones and much more. The world is vast, with all original zones, and you get special points for exploring. Lots of interesting-looking skills and spells too. Many races, which are apparently undergoing an overhaul, to make them more specialised.</p>
<p>They allow full PK, but with rules to avoid it running rampant. Those rules are a bit too extensive for my own taste, but they do make sense, and hopefully they get enforced enough to keep things in check.</p>
<p>They have built-in quests, automated daily events and sporadic imm-run events.</p>
<p>The Newbie introduction on the website is solid. There are several newbie zones, with info about how to reach them at the main page. There is also an apprentice system, where older players tutor new ones.</p>
<p><strong>Credits</strong><br />
Didn&#8217;t see any, but from what I&#8217;ve been told, LP Muds don&#8217;t need them.</p>
<p><strong>Char generation</strong><br />
Easy and fast. In spite of the numerous races and guilds they have, the choices for newbies are restricted to six combinations, or rather they advise you to choose any of those six, since the other are much harder to start with. I think that is good; too many choices just gets confusing for newbies. And there is also an option to reincarnate without loss of all the exp you earned, if you choose the wrong combination, or just want to try something new.</p>
<p><strong>Playerbase</strong><br />
157 players on-line right now, according to ‘Who’s online’ on the website, confirmed by the WHO command. And this is at a low-tide time for USA. The mud is hosted in Finland and the playerbase is said to be mostly European, but it’s still impressive for a free mud. It’s pretty quiet too, so most of the existing channels must be shut off for new players by default.</p>
<p><strong>Newbie Introduction</strong><br />
They have a rather original and interesting approach to this. There is no traditional Mud School, instead you are turned loose directly into the game, but with a personal guide in the form of a talking skull. This worked very smoothly at first, the skull prompting me about what to type in at each new situation.</p>
<p>Eventually there was some grit in the machinery though. The skull kept prompting me what to type to train my skills, and when I did I got a message that no such skills existed. Which went on for quite some time, with me trying out different approaches of what to type, and still getting the same result.</p>
<p>I asked about what to do on the newbie channel, and got several responses, some of them over tell. With me trying to respond individually and the skull still prompting me to train my skills every 30 seconds, it started to become quite spammy, and it got worse, when suddenly warnings started to flash over the screen about an upcoming Armageddon in 25 minutes.</p>
<p><strong>Armageddon and Rent</strong><br />
Apparently they shut down the Mud for a reboot once a day, and when they do all players have to put all their gear in some kind of locker, or they&#8217;ll lose it. Rent is cheap for Newbies, but you still need to find the locker room, if you want to keep your gear.</p>
<p>The reboot warnings got increasingly spammy, with new global 5-line alerts every three minutes or so, added to the nagging from my skull. Through it all the helpful players stayed helpful, and eventually an Admin of some sorts swooped down on me, to check what was wrong. She told me that the reason I couldn&#8217;t train the skills was that they were already trained enough. I am definitely not aware of having trained them actively, so my guess is they put in some code change lately to upgrade them automatically once you entered the guild, and then forgot to upgrade the skull too.</p>
<p>Anyway, I didn&#8217;t have time to dwell on it, since the warnings kept urging me to get to the locker room and save my equipment before the world went up in flames. I asked my friendly Admin if I could just leave before the Big bang and she advised me to just save and quit, since I didn&#8217;t even have any gear yet. Sounded like good advice, so I followed it</p>
<p>Having to rent at logout is a major drawback for most Mud players. As for myself, I don&#8217;t really mind the Rent, but I did mind the Armageddon. Even for me, a newbie with nothing to lose, it got rather stressful, and I can only guess how frustrating it must be if you are in the middle of some task in a remote area.  I think that a long established Mud really shouldn&#8217;t need a full reboot once a day, and even if they do, there should be some more discreet and less disruptive way of carrying it out, without everyone having to rent.</p>
<p>On the other hand, their players seem to have adjusted to it, or there wouldn&#8217;t have been so many of them on line close to that time.</p>
<p><strong>Early Combat</strong><br />
So, I logged on the next day finding myself outside the main Temple, with the friendly Teleport Mob Buju, who offered to transport me to several places of my choice. My ever present skull had stopped nagging me about training, (I guess all I had needed to do to stop it would have been to leave the Training room). Instead it suggested that I go to the Newbie Arena, to check out some combat, and I complied, (especially since that had been my plan all along), and got a teleport there. At the entrance you also get some basic equipment and some sort of log to keep track of your ‘best kills’.</p>
<p>The Newbie Arena consists of a few rooms, all with a number of non-aggro, non-assisting mobs. The rooms all have different themes, a desert, a swamp, a jungle, a polar scene etc. Not very consistent, but the descriptions were well written, and the mobs suited to their environment.</p>
<p>Combat is not much different from the usual Mud setup, at least not at this low level. You and the mob each get one attack per round. My trusty skull advised me to apply one of my skills, by typing ‘use kick at salamander’, and keep retyping it each round if I didn&#8217;t immediately kill the mob. This switches the weak automated attack to a slightly more powerful skill attack. If you try to type it more often than once per round, you lose the option for one round, (which I think is a good precaution against triggers).</p>
<p>Having to type out ‘use kick at salamander’ instead of just ‘kick sal’ seemed a bit circumstantial, but there are of course hotkeys and aliases that you can set up, and the webpage and helpfiles teach you how to do it. I chose not to, since I wanted to see if my skull would prompt me to do it, but so far he hasn&#8217;t. (Stupid numb-skull, guess I&#8217;ll set my aliases now).</p>
<p>You get higher points for trying new mobs, instead of doing the easy thing and stick to the same kind. The first level came almost immediately, and my skull told me to go back to the city to raise first my level, then my Guild level, in two different rooms, and then go back to the Arena. With the free teleport this was a quick operation.</p>
<p>I came across two original things in that arena. The first was that unless you disposed of the corpses of the mobs you killed, by burying them or handing them in to some kind of morgue, some of them very appropriately turned into zombies that attacked you in retaliation. The zombies were slightly tougher than the original mobs, and hopefully only aggressive against their killer. I think the average player will regard the aggro zombies as an extra leveling bonus, since in a newbie area like this they still are an easy kill. In a harder area with other aggro or assisting mobs, they could quickly become a major problem though. Both is OK with me, I rather like the idea.</p>
<p>The other strange thing was a gong in one of the rooms, which you could strike with a stick that you found after some searching. I tried it out, and it triggered a rather long but well-written script with a gorilla that rushed into the room, told you it had escaped from a circus and didn&#8217;t want to return, and then rushed out again. I have yet to discover any real purpose with the gorilla, but I assume it’s part of some quest. Perhaps you&#8217;re just supposed to kill the gorilla. Or it is an introduction to the search command?</p>
<p>After the first easy level, getting the next one required a lot more of grinding, and I eventually tired of it, and decided to have a quick walk around the central town instead.</p>
<p><strong>Gender Bug</strong><br />
Their gender code seems slightly buggy. The teleport mob keeps calling me ‘Master’ although I am pretty sure I created as a female, and I saw it address a guy with an obvious male name as ‘Mistress’. When I asked the helpful Admin about it, she explained that the mobs were confused because they saw me as an ‘it’, and that there was a spell, ‘sexchange’, that I could ask a cleric to perform on me. Still, when she left the room, it was with the message of spreading HIS wings and taking off.</p>
<p><strong>Center City</strong><br />
This is the log-in place that contains all game essential things, like shops, guilds etc.  I keep repopping in the city  regardless of where I log out. Not sure if this is still the case at higher levels.</p>
<p>The room descs aren&#8217;t all that great, they mostly describe the adjoining rooms, and I came across a few ‘You are walking’ and ‘You are standing’. But the zone fills its purpose as centre city very well. There is a map available in game for the City, and on top of each room, you get a small part of that map, when you move around. This makes it easy to navigate. You don&#8217;t get any of the promised ‘exploration points’ for moving around in a mapped zone of course, but that makes sense to me.</p>
<p>There are several shops where you can by different things, like weapons, armour and food, and also sell the loot you collect. This apparently is worth the time, I saw a player in one of the shop sell so many things in one command, that it spammed me out of my screen.</p>
<p>My trusty skull is still helpful, offering assistance when you enter certain rooms, and giving random tips about various things in between. A bit spammy sometimes, but mostly appreciated.</p>
<p><strong>Newbie Zones</strong><br />
After having gotten a couple of more levels, the skull advised me to check out a couple of other newbie zones, giving detailed directions how to go there and back. The one I tried first was a kind of forest grid, and I was told to kill as many animals that I could, but stay clear of the dwarfs. Unfortunately the first mob I attacked (a lynx), handed me my ass on a platter, and only my wimpy saved me. If you don&#8217;t manage to kill a mob, it starts to hunt you, so in the end I had to log out (and lose all my crappy gear again) to be able to go back there. Guess I should have stuck to rabbits and squirrels.</p>
<p>I had a bit more success later, but the fact is that many of those Newbie mobs were on the edge of what I could handle with my crappy gear and single skill, and since my consider command still doesn&#8217;t work it was hard to know what to attack. Even the rats in another of the newbie zones were a bit on the tough side. Most of the newbie zones seem to be &#8216;leveling grids&#8217;, but some offer quests too.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong><br />
Guess this is when it would normally be time to try to get hold of some good equipment and start paying the Rent. Or else try to find a group to help leveling, which shouldn&#8217;t be too hard with this large playerbase. (I see people calling for groups on the global channel pretty often.)</p>
<p>But I think I&#8217;ve seen everything I need to make a conclusion. This is obviously a high quality Mud. Apart from the Armageddon I haven&#8217;t seen anything that I really dislike, the small flaws I can live with.</p>
<p>It’s Newbie friendly, it has a large and helpful playerbase and, in spite of full PK, no jerks that jump out to kill you as soon as you leave the newbie zones. A lot of work has gone into this game, it’s well done and consistent and seems to have just about anything I can think of.</p>
<p>I would definitely recommend this mud to anyone, including my friends. Unless I am missing something really obvious, I don&#8217;t think we should hesitate a minute to accept them on the list.
</p>
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		<title>Your MUD could be removed</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/your-mud-could-be-removed/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/your-mud-could-be-removed/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 Mar 2007 14:21:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Updates</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/your-mud-could-be-removed/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We are going through the current list of submissions and 1. Re-auditing the ones that were never initially audited, and 2. Checking to make sure all submissions provided auditors to help with the workload.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve sent out emails to every MUD listed that has not provided us with an auditor (which is part of the requirements) on Sunday, and have not received a reply from anyone.  (not to mention there were a few MUD&#8217;s that had absolutely no contact information on their website)</p>
<p>If your MUD has not provided an auditor, then you are at risk of being removed from the listing.  If you are curious whether your MUD is one of them, feel free to email us, or sign up on the forum and send Crystal, Molly, or Sandi a PM.</p>
<p>I think the list is about to get a lot shorter <img src='http://mud.adventmud.org/wp/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' />
</p>
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		<title>Two new Audits Published</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/two-new-audits-published/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/two-new-audits-published/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:10:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Updates</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/two-new-audits-published/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Audits for <a href="/audit-deckeon/">Deckeon</a> and <a href="/audit-mirkwood/">Mirkwood</a> are now available in the <a href="/category/audit-reports/">Audit Archives</a> as well as the forum.  We are working on editing already completed audits, as well as getting the current list of game listings audited from when the project was just starting up.
</p>
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		<title>Audit: Deckeon</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-deckeon/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-deckeon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:08:43 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Audit Reports</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-deckeon/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>mudname: Deckeon<br />
email: trip[@]shadowgalaxy.com<br />
url: http://www.shadowgalaxy.com<br />
port: deckeon.mine.nu 2065</p>
<p>theme: Shadowrun (Cyberpunk)<br />
focus: We&#8217;re a role playing enforced mud that draws strict lines between OOC and IC<br />
features: Our players are our best feature, they&#8217;re small in number but helpful and friendly.<br />
Other than that, we just try and stick as closely to the pen &#038; paper game that we base the mud off of, so you&#8217;ll find guns, grenades, magic, ranged combat, vehicles, computer hacking in a virtual world, astral space, spirit and elemental conjuring, a classless and leveless system with some default archetypes to help define your character to help new players. Optional careers as medics, bounty hunters or lonestar police officers in a world where most of the players are criminals.<br />
excerpt: The year is 2065. The world has changed. Ravaging diseases and<br />
computer viruses have brought humanity the brink of disaster.<br />
This is Shadowrun, and the setting for the MUD known as Deckeon.<br />
For nearly a decade Deckeon has strived to recreate the Third edition<br />
Shadowrun game in a role playing enforced MUD.<br />
status: May 1997, Fully Functional<br />
codebase: ROM<br />
average_players: Under 10</p></blockquote>
<h1>Review by Akiko:</h1>
<p><strong>Note:</strong> Deckeon is a Shadowrun game on the &#8216;net. To get the most out of it, you need to know how to play Shadowrun, which means you should have some rulebooks handy.</p>
<p><strong>Website</strong><br />
Nicely done, although I almost missed the scroll buttons in the lower right corner. If I didn&#8217;t know better, I might have thought there were only three races. Also, there are things under &#8220;Contrubutions&#8221; that are just about game mechanics. In fairness, it looks like they&#8217;re still working on the webpage. It&#8217;s a big improvement over what was there 3 months ago.</p>
<p><strong>Credits</strong><br />
All in place.</p>
<p><strong>Creation</strong><br />
Easy. Preset characters are available. The custom creation isn&#8217;t much harder, bypassing the selection of skills in the &#8220;nanny&#8221;. Nicely done. (Note: this reviewer is familiar with Shadowrun.)</p>
<p><strong>School</strong><br />
It&#8217;s not really a &#8220;school&#8221;, though it does cover &#8220;say&#8221; and &#8220;score&#8221;, but where you buy your skills. Well, after about 40 minutes of trying, I realised I couldn&#8217;t buy skills because the preset had spent all my points for me. I can&#8217;t find my SR rulebook, but it sure isn&#8217;t ROM. I&#8217;d say very well done in terms of recreating SR online.</p>
<p><strong>Play</strong><br />
After getting confused by &#8216;i&#8217; not aliasing to &#8216;inventory&#8217; and buying an extra gun and ammo, I walked out into the game and took a bus to Denver. Inside the bus terminal I met a chummer who told me to take a taxi to the Shadowclub. There, the bartender introduced me to a Mr Johnson, who sent me to pick up a package. It was a long walk, I probably should have stolen the Honda left unlocked outside the club. I also should have pawned the extra gun, as when I finally got to the Feathers and Leathers shop (I took a taxi), the briefcase I was supposed to pick up for Mr. Johnson was too heavy for me to carry.</p>
<p>Well, after a good beginning, I can&#8217;t find much to do. Shadowrun is a roleplaying game, and there sometimes is no one online. It doesn&#8217;t seem there are any mobs to kill, and the more I wander the more annoying the exit code becomes. You can&#8217;t open &#8220;door&#8221;, you have to open &#8220;screen&#8221; or whatever, and then it says &#8220;You open the it.&#8221;</p>
<p>The Creator, Trip, helped me with my weight problem, and I&#8217;ve been happily running quests and getting more nuyen (Shadowrun money). He explained the exit problem only occurs in older areas that don&#8217;t support the new code that allows blowing up doors or bashing them down.</p>
<p><strong>Building</strong><br />
Overall, well done with few typos and detailed, thematic descriptions. There are ASCII maps to keep you from getting too lost. Equipment is very well done - weapons take clips, silencers and other accessories, and the cyberdecks are complete with disks to add programs and several displays. The Matrix is nicely described, though a bit &#8220;real&#8221; feeling - I would have colored the descs or something. My Mage never got far enough to try astral projection.</p>
<p><strong>Similar</strong><br />
There are two other SR MUDs, those being based on Circle, and Deckeon is a clear winner. In fact, despite my bias (I was a coder on a Shadowrun MUX and they rock!), I think this game&#8217;s experience compares favorably with the MUXen.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong><br />
While I wish they would fix the exits, overall the game is an excellent online version of Shadowrun, and all it needs is more players to provide roleplay. Still, with the scripted NPCs providing quests, you can keep yourself quite busy while waiting for others. Two thumbs up (as that&#8217;s all I have).</p>
<h1>Additional review by Angkor:</h1>
<p>(Note: this reviewer is not familiar with Shadowrun)</p>
<p>I connected, and spent around 2 hours on char generation, which at least for me seems a bit too long. I&#8217;d rather leave some of the choices till later, when you know a bit more of the game, (but I was also informed that it will be possible to change path later).</p>
<p>Chargen was interesting, but - at least to me - a bit confusing, since it was very different from the mostly CIRCLE-based muds I am used to. Their choice of races seemed a bit weird for Cyberpunk too, - dwarves, orcs, trolls and elves in a future city environment? But then again, I know little to nothing about cyberpunk.</p>
<p>I probably could have bypassed a lot of it, but I decided to go through all the steps, including buying my skills, setting up my desc and answering 13 RP questions about my character, (which I also could have left till later). Strangely enough I sort of enjoyed that part, maybe answering those questions made me feel I actually accomplished something.</p>
<p>There were only two players on line apart from me, but both were very friendly and one of them patiently answered a number of questions about the skills over OOC and tell, which was lucky for me since I didn&#8217;t have a clue what to choose. She also informed me that I had made a bad choice putting magic as my 4th option, since apparently you don&#8217;t get any magic at all at either 4th or 5th choice, so if I had put it last instead, I could have got some other advantage as 4th choice&#8230; Confusing? Well, it was to me, but I decided to finish the chargen instead of taking her advice and recreating.</p>
<p>I only came as far as the shops after Mudschool, didn&#8217;t know what to buy, so I settled for stuff that fit my background, rather than what looked like more powerful armour. It is after all, RP enforced&#8230; One small disappointment is that I managed to buy some sort of implant for my last currency, but then I couldn&#8217;t afford to actually have it implanted.</p>
<p>What little I saw seemed well and consistently done, true to theme, very few typos, helpfiles on most of the things I looked for. The objects apparently have no real descriptions, but apart from that the only irritating thing that I came across so far (apart from the implant, which I guess was my own fault), is that the direction abbreviations n, s etc. didn&#8217;t work, so &#8216;look s&#8217; produced the desc &#8216;A pair of tennis shoes is here.&#8217; (I actually went back twice to look for those damn shoes, before I realised that I was wearing them).  Also it was irritating to have to type out &#8216;push green button&#8217; to get to the next station of Mud school, instead of simply going north or south.  It&#8217;s amazing how lazy you get when mudding.</p>
<p>At this point I had to log out, but I&#8217;ll get back later to check some more. It does seem rather intriguing. And compared to the lengthy char-gen, quitting was blessedly easy&#8230;
</p>
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		<title>Audit: Mirkwood</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-mirkwood/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-mirkwood/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 Mar 2007 12:05:27 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Audit Reports</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/audit-deckeon/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<blockquote><p>email: immortals[@]mirkwoodmud.org<br />
url: http://www.mirkwoodmud.org<br />
port: mirkwoodmud.org:4000</p>
<p>theme: Mostly Tolkien and fantasy-inspired with places like the cozy main city Bree, the cozy hobbit village Shire, home of the evil eye Mordor, the magic-loathing city of Pelios and the dusty desert of Khorum. But there are sci-fi and real-life based areas as well as the pirate heaven Mos Eisley and the hillbilly infested Trailer Park.<br />
focus: The main focus is to create a fun and friendly atmosphere where RP is encouraged. PK however is not allowed.<br />
features: - 100+ areas and 10000+ rooms, mostly original with thousands of scripts making the world seem more alive<br />
- Unique world map consisting of two continents<br />
- Tribes with huge keeps, own channels and a tribal arena<br />
- Race and class based, with more classes available through remort<br />
- 200+ skills and spells available<br />
- Quests available, both built-in and run by players/immortals<br />
- Pets/companions gain experience<br />
- Players can buy and decorate their own homes<br />
- Friendly and fun atmosphere<br />
- Active immortal staff<br />
- Free to play<br />
excerpt: Want a different interpretation of Tolkien&#8217;s world and more? Or just looking for a community?<br />
status: Opened May 1995<br />
codebase: ROM 2.3<br />
average_players: 20-40
</p></blockquote>
<h1>Review by Ketheryn:</h1>
<p><strong>Credits</strong><br />
Check. At top of the short login ASCII and within game in a helpfile.</p>
<p><strong>Creation</strong><br />
&#8216;Normal&#8217; classes, &#8216;normal&#8217; races - about what I had expected to encounter in the genre. Character generation was non-threatening and easy&#8230; almost too easy. I was wary, wondering if this ease of use was going to be a reflection of a simplistic environment.  I need not have worried.</p>
<p><strong>Mud School</strong><br />
Many extra brownie points for whomever came up with this version of Mud School.  They&#8217;ve taken what is usually a vanilla barely-painted experience and made it whole. Once it was evident that there was actually a quest going on and I was supposed to do something, the experience drew me through it rapidly and painlessly - and rewarded me for what I would have done gratefully otherwise.  Their compass mapping system took a moment to get used to, but after that it proved to be inconspicuous and very handy.  Even many more extra brownie points for making it optional and easily toggled.</p>
<p><strong>Website</strong><br />
I did not get as far into the website as I probably should - I tend to run the other way when things scroll and flash, especially if I can&#8217;t turn them off.  After poking at a few buttons, I went back to playing the game. I&#8217;m sure after a while I&#8217;ll pay for my inattention, but ah well, it&#8217;s a game, right?  [Note: I did go back a few times, hoping to find the supporting resources - skills, spells lists, general gameplay information, but didn&#8217;t find what I was seeking. It could be I just didn&#8217;t know where to look, but it also seemed that there was more of an emphasis on adjunct information like their analysis of Perl commands, than there was on actual game support.  The player Blog section looked promising, but I was not able to read contents without making an account.]</p>
<p><strong>Equipment</strong><br />
Gear saves over quit. No unpleasant surprises on relogging. I was right where I left, with what I left with, where I left from.</p>
<p><strong>Color / Presentation</strong><br />
I like that I was not overwhelmed by rainbows in Color Normal mode.  I don&#8217;t like a ton of color, so I didn&#8217;t test full color mode.  What was there was presented consistently and without grating appearance. Descriptions are done consistently as well, although I noticed a great deal of &#8216;you&#8217; which normally sends me running away. In this case, though, I was having too much fun to really find it to be a major concern. Length was consistent. City map of Bree is easy to follow.</p>
<p><strong>Areas and Focus</strong><br />
The fantasy-inspired undercurrent is there, and the area list reveals a hodgepodge of approaches, some promising a thematic approach and some that seem displaced. It stands up to its application claim of having sci-fi and real-life based areas though. I think I found a trailer park&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>Attendance / Assistance</strong><br />
It&#8217;s midnight on the West Coast, and 27 people are online - respectable for any hour on a lot of MUDs.  The public channels are particularly quiet, with a conspicuous absence of inane banter and insults.  What a relief.  At the moment, online levels range from 4 (me) to 98 (probably a deity), with a decent spread of levels in between.</p>
<p><strong>Features</strong><br />
A level 4 is never going to see the full spectrum of what a place offers - and this was no exception. However, I will say that what I did observe fully backs up their claim in the application.   I did go wandering and, being level 4 as I am, got far in over my head rather fast.  If I&#8217;d had my wits about me, I would have hollered for help. But, being witless, I just kept on poking around.  Great fun, frankly.  I did not see a wilderness per se (that is, an ASCII map wilderness) but I was just as convincingly lost as if there were one.</p>
<p><strong>Quests</strong><br />
Lots of them. Loads of them! In fact I still have a few that I have no clue how I got into, like find a new wagon route across the lands.  Since I can&#8217;t figure out yet how to replay the contents, I am just flailing around with them until something happens, but there is no lack of quests.  I go back to the website and try to find more information&#8230; still nothing.  However, if the beginning quest that led me through the Mud School is any indication, much more awaits the curious player in this direction.  Helpfiles refer me to General Quests, Personal Quests, Initiation Quests, Auto Quests, and the like.  The attention to detail at this level is evident.  Four thumbs up.</p>
<p><strong>Combat</strong><br />
Not flashy but not boring.  The suite of skills for a warrior appears stock, though there may be more out of my little level 4 view.  If there is, that&#8217;s neat but it doesn&#8217;t need much more.  I feel quite self-sufficient as is (though of course I haven&#8217;t died yet so I have no idea what is facing me in that direction).</p>
<p><strong>To Summarize </strong><br />
Refreshing and immersive. Granted, my impressions are riding on my level 4 exposure, but so far as I can see, they have paid attention at the lower levels. That is, to my thinking, a strong indicator of what to expect later on.  A very pleasant surprise, from creation onward - this is a place that has taken the stock insertion process into a totally enjoyable experience.  After a moment&#8217;s confusion (this can&#8217;t be what I think I&#8217;m seeing.. a stock Mud School with exceptional paint!?), progress was very gently eased along with instruction, encouragement and an easily understandable initial quest which actually rewarded me for getting on with things. Impressive.
</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Deckeon</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/deckeon/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/deckeon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 03 Mar 2007 03:12:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Free Quality MUDs (Listing)</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/deckeon/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The year is 2065. The world has changed. Ravaging diseases and computer viruses have brought humanity the brink of disaster. This is Shadowrun, and the setting for the MUD known as Deckeon. For nearly a decade Deckeon has strived to recreate the Third edition Shadowrun game in a role playing enforced MUD.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>1. THEME:</strong><br />
Shadowrun(Cyberpunk)</p>
<p><strong>2. FOCUS OF THE MUD</strong><br />
We&#8217;re a role playing enforced mud that draws strict lines between OOC and IC</p>
<p><strong>3. FEATURES AND QUALITIES</strong><br />
Our players are our best feature, they&#8217;re small in number but helpful and friendly.<br />
Other than that, we just try and stick as closely to the pen &#038; paper game that we base the mud off of, so you&#8217;ll find guns, grenades, magic, ranged combat, vehicles, computer hacking in a virtual world, astral space, spirit and elemental conjuring, a classless and leveless system with some default archetypes to help define your character to help new players. Optional careers as medics, bounty hunters or lonestar police officers in a world where most of the players are criminals.</p>
<p><strong>4. STATUS</strong><br />
May 1997, Fully Functional</p>
<p><strong>5. CODEBASE</strong><br />
ROM</p>
<p><strong>6. AVERAGE PLAYERS ONLINE</strong><br />
Under 10
</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>ZombieMUD</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/zombiemud/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/zombiemud/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 Mar 2007 11:47:12 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Free Quality MUDs (Listing)</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/zombiemud/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since 1994, ZombieMUD has brought orc-bashing mayhem to thousands over the years. With over 100 players on-line to interact with, over a dozen distinctive guilds, fifty sub-guilds, and three dozen races to choose from, your only limitation is your own imagination and will to succeed.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>1.THEME</strong><br />
Medieval-Fantasy</p>
<p><strong>2. FOCUS OF THE MUD</strong><br />
Hack-n-Slash with an emphasis on exploration and solving the various secrets of the realm. RP is generally accepted, but not monitored or enforced.</p>
<p><strong>3. FEATURES AND QUALITIES</strong><br />
-No closed in newbie school, instead you enter the game directly with your own personal guide, a floating skull, to fully walk you through gaining levels, studying in your guildhall, and your first kills. It will interactivly teach you in real time about each new place you discover as you wander the game. As Zombie is a non-standard LPmud, it is highly recommended that new players take the full tour, when given a choice upon character creation.</p>
<p>-Probably most importantly, ZombieMUD is an all original world. Each guild and race has been hand crafted and balanced off eachother.</p>
<p>- Each different in its own right, Zombie offers 500+ Spells and 350+ Skills to be learned in the various guildhalls of the realm.</p>
<p>- The land is vast, with an outworld of over a million rooms, and 13,500+ Hand-crafted rooms complete with an explore status plaque to check your explorer&#8217;s ranking. Exploration of the world expands in all directions, including flying through the skies and swimming deep beneath the ocean&#8217;s waves.</p>
<p>- When playing the game, you will find that the 8 Member Party system becomes an integral part of ZombieMUD life. Through parties, you team your skills with the skills of other players to bring down foes of legendary size and strength.</p>
<p>- For the collector in you, almost anything found upon the game, including Equipment, is saveable over reboots in lockers or chests. You may also build, personalize, and secure your own permanant Castle to store your equipment chests.</p>
<p>- Over 200 Level Quests are available to reduce level costs, but they are not forced upon you. If you love questing, then you may quest to your heart&#8217;s content.</p>
<p>- ZombieMUD&#8217;s Reincarnation system allows your to try out every character combination you wish, without having to re-earn all of your character&#8217;s gained experience.</p>
<p>- An automated Event system runs random activities in the game throughout the day, and there are sometimes special Wizard-run events as well just to keep you on your toes.</p>
<p>- ZombieMUD has an Apprenticeship system for those players new to the game, and many high ranking players are more than happy to take dedicated people on as an apprentice.</p>
<p>- Our internal triggering system known as chaining can be used along with various player defined commands and aliases to customize your play.</p>
<p>- An extensive channel system exists on the game, keeping you in touch with your guild members and party mates. Private channels may be created at any time on the game, and the option to purchase permanant private channels also exists.</p>
<p><strong>4. STATUS:  </strong><br />
1994, Fully Functional</p>
<p><strong>5. CODEBASE:</strong><br />
LP: LDmud driver, Zombie Lib</p>
<p><strong>6. AVERAGE PLAYERS ON LINE:</strong><br />
100+
</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>TorilMUD: The Sojourners Home</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/torilmud-the-sojourners-home/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/torilmud-the-sojourners-home/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 13 Nov 2006 19:19:59 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Free Quality MUDs (Listing)</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/torilmud-the-sojourners-home/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[TorilMUD continues the tradition of Sojourn, Toril, Sojourn 2, and Sojourn 3 -- games that set the standard for Forgotten Realms-based multi-user adventures! For the past decade, these games have entertained thousands from around the world. Not with graphics, or 3-D sound effects, but with solid gameplay in a rich text-based environment, all designed to stimulate the imagination and draw the player into a complex world of heroism and magic! Come join us in our latest incarnation, and see why this game continues to enthrall players from around the world!]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>1. THEME</strong><br />
Medieval, Forgotten Realms</p>
<p><strong>2. FOCUS OF THE MUD</strong><br />
RP, PVE</p>
<p><strong>3. FEATURES AND QUALITIES</strong><br />
Featuring over 250 completely original zones, 14 player races, 18 classes, and a wide array of additional features, </p>
<p><strong>4. STATUS</strong><br />
Fully Functional since 2001</p>
<p><strong>5. CODEBASE</strong><br />
Diku</p>
<p><strong>6. AVERAGE PLAYERS ONLINE</strong><br />
70-100</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		</item>
		<item>
		<title>To all applicants</title>
		<link>http://mud.adventmud.org/to-all-applicants/</link>
		<comments>http://mud.adventmud.org/to-all-applicants/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 07 Nov 2006 12:06:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>crystal</dc:creator>
		
	<category>Updates</category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://mud.adventmud.org/to-all-applicants/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[ ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>If you do not submit a contact email and auditor information with your application, it will count as an automatic rejection.  How can we get ahold of you if you don&#8217;t give us an email?
</p>
]]></content:encoded>
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	</channel>
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