Guild Wars, Mudding, and MMORPGs
If there's one thing that can incite my geeky gaming lust, it's a good computer game that's coming down the pipe. Ever since I've heard of Guild Wars I've been pretty excited about it. I missed the E3 free for all they did, but hearing about it got me pretty excited about the game.
You see, I've been playing online games like this for quite some time. About 10 years ago, I started "Mudding". The first mud I played on was called "Aldara ][". I played with my friends Jim and Eric, and we got our feet wet in the wonderful world of stock MERC. We then moved on to play at Sanctuary, where I eventually went immortal and for a time administered the game, until Jim used my account improperly and I got demoted (I think).
My favorite mud of all time, the one I had the best experiences on and knew the community the best, was Rifts. This was a heavily modified CircleMUD, and we had a great community. You knew almost everyone. I was one of the big boys there, a total addict with a passion for leveling. I was in a race with my arch-nemesis, Nazgul (I think) to reach 50 first. I got there first =)
One of my favorite memories from Rifts was when Nazgul and I went head to head. He was from the dark races, I think he was a drow. I was a human monk named Presence, and I had developed a second character that I botted via triggers who was a cleric named Solar. One day, when I was like level 42 or something, I was walking around in this giant town (actually a relatively square castle up in the mountains somewhere) that was a Player Killing (PK) zone. Nazgul had his sidekick too, a thief/healer. He attacked me while I was fighting, I believe, I quickly had Solar refresh his Sanct spell on me (which halved all damage done to me, effectively doubling my hitpoints for a time). But before too long, I realised that Solar wasn't responding to my requests to heal me. When I switched to his session in a panic, I found that he had been "choked" via a spell from Nazgyls bot. In the end, I succumbed to them. I recall being quite infuriated and desiring revenge (which I don't recall if I got or not).
Eventually, a statue was made of my character in one of the zones on that mud. If the game still exists today, I may very well still be remembered.
Anyway, from Mudding, I moved on to graphical mudding (referred to as an MMORPG nowadays) playing Everquest. Again, I was a total addict and eventually burned out when I fell into lava in Sol A. I *though* I had levitate on...
Eventually, I was selected to beta test Dark Age of Camelot by the president of the game based on my forum posts at IGN. I participated in the beta and was active in the beta forums, and some of my ideas were implemented. I'm listed in the credits for that game with about 70 others, as Adam "Marker" Skinner.
I haven't played a game like that in a long time. And I honestly don't want to anymore. I know my propensity for addiction in that arena. But Guild Wars seems different. It's not based around character building, but rather is a combo of character building and real tactical "twitch" play (I think). We'll see. The graphics alone are COMPLETELY awesome. I'm looking forward to the open play at the end of October.
You see, I've been playing online games like this for quite some time. About 10 years ago, I started "Mudding". The first mud I played on was called "Aldara ][". I played with my friends Jim and Eric, and we got our feet wet in the wonderful world of stock MERC. We then moved on to play at Sanctuary, where I eventually went immortal and for a time administered the game, until Jim used my account improperly and I got demoted (I think).
My favorite mud of all time, the one I had the best experiences on and knew the community the best, was Rifts. This was a heavily modified CircleMUD, and we had a great community. You knew almost everyone. I was one of the big boys there, a total addict with a passion for leveling. I was in a race with my arch-nemesis, Nazgul (I think) to reach 50 first. I got there first =)
One of my favorite memories from Rifts was when Nazgul and I went head to head. He was from the dark races, I think he was a drow. I was a human monk named Presence, and I had developed a second character that I botted via triggers who was a cleric named Solar. One day, when I was like level 42 or something, I was walking around in this giant town (actually a relatively square castle up in the mountains somewhere) that was a Player Killing (PK) zone. Nazgul had his sidekick too, a thief/healer. He attacked me while I was fighting, I believe, I quickly had Solar refresh his Sanct spell on me (which halved all damage done to me, effectively doubling my hitpoints for a time). But before too long, I realised that Solar wasn't responding to my requests to heal me. When I switched to his session in a panic, I found that he had been "choked" via a spell from Nazgyls bot. In the end, I succumbed to them. I recall being quite infuriated and desiring revenge (which I don't recall if I got or not).
Eventually, a statue was made of my character in one of the zones on that mud. If the game still exists today, I may very well still be remembered.
Anyway, from Mudding, I moved on to graphical mudding (referred to as an MMORPG nowadays) playing Everquest. Again, I was a total addict and eventually burned out when I fell into lava in Sol A. I *though* I had levitate on...
Eventually, I was selected to beta test Dark Age of Camelot by the president of the game based on my forum posts at IGN. I participated in the beta and was active in the beta forums, and some of my ideas were implemented. I'm listed in the credits for that game with about 70 others, as Adam "Marker" Skinner.
I haven't played a game like that in a long time. And I honestly don't want to anymore. I know my propensity for addiction in that arena. But Guild Wars seems different. It's not based around character building, but rather is a combo of character building and real tactical "twitch" play (I think). We'll see. The graphics alone are COMPLETELY awesome. I'm looking forward to the open play at the end of October.
posted by Adam Skinner at 9/15/2004 01:28:00 PM
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