Discworld (MUD)

(click on the link above to go the web site)

(click on the picture for a bigger image)

This multiplayer MUD is based on a series of novels written by Terry Pratchett. If you haven't read his books like "The Colour of Magic", go get them, because they are seriously funny. If you are a diehard Discworld fan, you might also want to go out and pick up the two single player Discworld adventure games.

As you can see based on the shot above, this is a text only based game, but don't let that discourage you. This is a very good text based game, and is faithfully updated by a number of dedicated player-programmers, who put long hours into squashing bugs, and adding new areas and quests into the game. The look and feel of the game, as well as the interaction with npc's take me back to the days of such finely crafted text adventure games like Zork.

The screenshot above is using a shareware client called GMUD, a strictly MUDding client, and though you can use the built in Telnet client that comes in Windows 95, you will enjoy the game much more if you use GMUD, ZMUD, or one of the other MUD clients, as they allow more backscrolling, logging the game to a text file on disk, allow you to define your own aliases (macros) and such, to personalize your gaming experience.

Upon starting the game for the first time, you have to create your character. You can play either a male or female, though you are limited to playing a human (no trolls, dwarves, elves, etc). After selecting your name and sex, you are sent on a quest in a newbie area to get you used to how the game works. After exiting the newbie area, you start in a pub known as the Mended Drum. At this point you should go exploring around, locate the guilds, and maybe do a couple of the simpler quests (don't go shouting around asking for quest help, this is considered bad MUD etiquette), after which you should begin deciding on what sort of profession you wish to pursue.

Attributes that are considered in the game (paraphrased from the Discworld website) are:

• Strength - a measure of your physical power and build. Helps to determine how much you are able to carry, as well as perform physical tasks.
• Intelligence - reflects how bright you are. Helps determine bonuses in magic. Extremely important for wizards and witches.
• Dexterity - how agile and graceful you are. It helps determine things like speed of attacks, bonuses in parrying and dodging, as well as skills like thieving.
• Wisdom - a reflection of the power of your intuition and common sense. It is by far the most important stat for priests.
• Constitution - how healthy you are. Frequently used to determine whether you succumb to disease or poison. Unlike the other stats, it has a limited effect on your skill bonuses, only really determining the number of hit points you have. .

Your physical stats start out at 13 each when you begin the game, and aside from re-arranging them (ie take 2 pts away from strength and give them to intelligence, etc), do not change over time (there are items that can enhance physical attibutes, but only temporarily and usually at a cost of renewable skill points). Each stat has an effect on skills that you will be able to master, and are vitally important to the career that you choose. You should read the Discworld web page documentation before re-arranging your stats, because it can only be done once!

Skills are broken into sub-skills, and sub-sub-skills. The main skills in the game are listed below:

• Covert (stealth, hiding, etc) - important for Assassins and Thieves
• Crafts (smithing, carpentry, etc) - not as important to the overall scheme of things, however, used for various funtions like repairing your armor.
• Faith (godly rituals, curing, healing, etc) - important for Priests
• Fighting - (duh... Swords, clubs, and assorted implements of pain) - important for all classes, but especially fighters.
• Magic (spells, magic wands, and that sort of thing) - important for Wizards and Witches
• Other (tracking, swimming, climing) - important for all kinds of things

Professions available are:

• Warriors
• Wizards
• Priests
• Witches
• Thieves
• Assassins

Choice of a career is important, because while you can learn some of the skills of other professions, it will be much more costly than if you started out with that career in the first place. If you want to dabble about in magic, you are better off starting a new wizard character, rather than trying to master the skill as a fighter. Also, some commands are guild specific, like inhume (assassination), and cannot be learned by any other type of player. There are a number of guild playing restrictions as well. Stealing from players if you are not a member of the thieve's guild is a quick way to get yourself either killed by other player thieves, assassinated (the thieve's guild will sometimes put a contract on your head), or killed by npc Thieve's Guild enforcers.

Skill advancement is done via two ways, training, and practical application, known as 'taskmaster'. Killing things and solving quests will get you experience, which you can then go spend (along with money) to get training from your guild (or another player) in the skills of your choice. Additionally, the taskmaster system measures your current skill against the difficulty of a task, and then randomly advances your skill as you actually attempt to perform the task (ie sword fighting, or picking locks).

Players cannot expect to advance rapidly forever, or even for very long. The more you advance in a skill, the harder it is to keep advancing at that skill. This means that you shouldn't expect to become a slashmaster in no time at all (keeps you from getting bored with being omnipotent). It will take you weeks, even months (not continuously playing mind you) to get to a level on par with many of the other players online. You don't need to worry about other players attacking you though, because unless you apply to become a player killer, try to steal from someone, or become an assassin, you will be safe from being ravaged by other, powerful players.

While there is a lot of fighting to do in the game, questing is a major part of the game. A player who spends the whole time online hacking and slashing things will certainly advance, but will miss out on some very interesting, fun, and witty quests (often difficult). I've been playing off and on for some time now, have only solve perhaps 25% of the quests, and I still enjoy coming back for more.

The greatest strength of this game is the social aspect. You will meet a lot of great people here (and a few not so great ones), and this game, more than any of the other ones makes me feel like I'm back sitting at the table with a bunch of friends, playing D&D till all hours, and that, in my opinion, is why I like the game so much.

I suggest that if you're interested, that you visit the Discworld website, read up on the game, and then start playing.

Price: Free, though if you like the game, you may want to check with Pinkfish or Ceres about making a small donation to the cause.

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