When I first logged in, I nearly fled to the closest quit room the moment someone looked in my direction. I was a beginner with zero roleplaying experience and MUDs were 'multiplayer interactive fiction/text-based games' to me. In the three years I've played on and off, I have since learned that a MUD is a 'multi-user dungeon'. But it can also be a lot lot more than that.

Enter Armageddon: a rich, immersive experience in a harsh, gritty world reminiscent of grimdark fantasy, with vivid descriptions, a conscientious eye for detail, hundreds of flora and fauna, and a large variety of treacherous terrain. Here, death is a common affair and kindness is a rare resource.

The community is active and generally helpful, if stubborn in their conflicting opinions. The staff, who are players themselves, can seem distant and apathetic from afar but the majority of them are extremely responsive, encouraging and supportive. The coded mechanics, while lacking in some areas, are fairly robust and facilitate storytelling in ways that other mediums cannot.

At its heart, roleplaying is the meat of the game. And it shows in several ways. The heavy focus on immersion sacrifices the predetermined for spontaneity, giving way to unexpected developments. The plethora of lore and documentation opens up a limitless number of possibilities. The unique cast of characters: from silly and comical, to inspiring and frightening. From deep and developed, to the more code-focused. Now and then, you will run into the odd player whose efforts amount to textspeak, but the majority bring a clamor of goals, personalities and backstories to the game. Lastly, the emotionally-driven scenes that will leave you on the edge of your seat, hands trembling or on the verge of tears.

If you are looking for a roleplaying experience that is intense, fast-paced and challenging at its peak, look no further than Armageddon.

The game promotes itself as something it isn't. I usually keep to myself, I don't even have a forum account because I want to keep a distance from the games community. However, one of the players known to be extremely pro-staff insisted that we, the players, should all go out and post positive reviews on all mud review sites, to combat the growing negative reviews from disgruntled players, most of whom are newer players tried of being treated as second rate players because we haven't been around for a decade.

I would be considered a new player, yet I've played for over three years with consistent log on times of about twelve hours a week. There have been unironic posts from players who feel ten years is a good time period for players to be considered trustworthy enough to have karma. As you can imagine, many newer players, by the community standard of new, are unhappy.

So, I came to post a review about the game, though I doubt anyone would consider it positive.

You won't be welcomed or accepted. You can window shop the website and see all kinds of interesting things, but almost none of those exist in the game anymore. I never received karma and have since been locked out from ever getting more, along with every other quote un-quote new player. While people who are popular in discord and on the forums walk around with high powered characters, skill bumps and magic, destroying us lesser players and our plots for discord giggles, any and every new player is indefinitely barred from having access, no matter how honest or talented they may be.

They insist that at some point in the distant future, karma requests will be re-opened. They have been saying this for a long time now and no matter how many new players come, realize they're nothing but fodder for staff and vet alikev and leave, the staff are steadfast in their refusal to let players have a chance.

I urge you not to believe them, or to be ensnared by some of the laughably dishonest reviews floating around. It isn't a healthy game and you will reap nothing but disappointment for your earnest efforts.

It's been three years since I started playing Armageddon. I started as a near complete newbie to MUDs, my only experience prior being a few hours spent running around SlothMUD, trying to level up and rapidly growing bored of the repetition. It was in no way SlothMUD's fault, though. I was never one for hack and slash games.

The idea of roleplay was intimidating to me. The closest I'd ever gone to roleplay, before then, was a small forum roleplay based on Hunger Games my schoolmate had made back in grade school. We 'roleplayed' as ourselves (being badass), in truth, so I'm not sure it even counts. Nevertheless, I waded into these strange waters, hoping for the best.

On my first few characters, I treated Armageddon as if it were just another hack and slash game. I came across these 'scrabs' and -- yes -- I imagined they were scarabs. My first character died because this mistake.

'No biggie,' I had thought, and I rolled up a new character. This time, I started attacking an NPC on the road, in broad daylight, because I somehow thought that was the way to skill up and because my character was in 'desperate' need for coin. My character was promptly taken to a dark cell that stunk of death. Both she and I anxiously waited in the gloom.

It was only a few minutes later when a templar came in, bathing the cell with light. Cockroaches littered the floor. I found that fascinating and the descriptions so utterly atmospheric. The echoes were my favorite part. At the time, I hadn't realized echoes were automatic, shot every few minutes. When a scream filtered through the door and was suddenly cut off, I was terrified.

As I was saying, the templar entered this filthy cell. He came with an offer: for my character to fight it out in the arena or for her to pay a substantial amount of coin by the end of the month. She went for the coin, of course. The templar was visibly disappointed.

That same day, she died in her attempts to hunt. I was hooked by that point. My next character joined the T'zai Byn. It was there that I began to grasp the game.

Armageddon has its weaknesses. There are voices in its community (and outside) who are incredibly toxic. Its hack and slash roots are glaringly obvious at times, one main example being the fixed skillsets.

I shouldn't be speaking generally, because in the midst of this toxicity, I've seen wonderful players in Armageddon. The roleplay I've come to learn and experience is some of the best I've ever been involved in. I've played different roleplay MUDs and have joined few roleplay forums since I started in Armageddon. These include Evolution of Esos, TI Legacy, and Arx, to name a few. No matter what, the level of detail in Armageddon, the quality of roleplay, and the plethora of lore I've yet to discover always bring me back.

I played Armageddon for over a decade, then got deployed overseas. After that long deployment, and taking some time to rest, I decided to check back at my old haunt for what roleplay could be found.

Over the course of the few months I had given Armageddon another try, I was shocked to see how far the game had fallen in the three years I had been away. The game's staff desperately removed Tuluk, a major playing area of the game, in a bid to push players closer together. But the player count has gone down. I remember times that I would see 50 to 60 people logged in at Armageddon's peak times, in the evening. But that number has fallen to about 20.

Further, the players that remain have become more toxic than ever. The game's discussion forum's active members usually promote self-serving ideas for the game, things that are not good for the game but for themselves. Actual roleplay is hard to find in the game, where characters usually focus hard on skill advancement while neglecting deeper character development.

The staff members are generally unfriendly as well. At the beginning of my character's existence I was told to submit monthly character reports on what I was doing. In response to my first character report for the first month of play, I was asked why I was bothering to submit character reports as my character was deemed unimportant, and was discouraged from sending future reports unless my character was doing something that required staff assistance.

Lastly, a player has started a campaign on the game's forum to write positive reviews for the game in an effort to recruit players: http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,53850.0.html

I have to say that this appears to be an effort to game the system. Armageddon should be avoided at all costs. There are better roleplaying games with more players out there. Armageddon is not the top dog by any stretch of the imagination.

A staff member sends: 'You're being banned for participating on a forum responsible for stealing and distributing Armageddon's code.'

wish all What forum?

----------

*record scratch* *freeze frame* Yeah, that's me. I bet right now you're wondering how I got here. Honestly, so am I.

I started playing Armageddon about six months ago. I saw it was rated #1 on this very website, so I figured it was worth a try. What appealed to me was the fact that it's been around for almost 30 years and that the game has extensive documentation describing just about everything in the game.

Immersing myself into the game was relatively hard. After my first character was tricked into following someone into the desert and ultimately murdered - they said they were going to lead me to their clan compound to hire me - I rolled a second character and decided to seek help on their 'live help chat', which is in fact rarely staffed by helpers, which results in having to send an email to helpers for help.

I tried asking questions on the Discord and forum, but quickly found the Armageddon community to be sycophantic and very bizarre. There are weird individual personalities, like the player who thinks revenge porn is the victim's fault. There are weird collectives, like the Discord sub-group that seems to thrive on mocking former players and staff. Yeah, I don't need to make new friends by mocking people that aren't part of the group. That's the kind of thing you grow out of in high school.

Then one day, completely at random, I got the above message that I opened this review with. I have no idea what this 'forum' is and I have no idea how Armageddon's code would be distributed. All I can assume is that, because I use a VPN, my IP address clashed with the person actually responsible for stealing the code, and they assumed it was me.

Essentially tired of the game at this point, I did not bother to appeal. The community is horrid, the staff are insular and paranoid, and you will almost certainly be taken advantage of as a newbie. Stay far away from this game. The only reason they are #1 on the listings is likely because of extensive cheating.

What I love about Armageddon: Roleplaying tools. Once you learn the commands, acting out a character can become a game in itself. Using them, even mundane tasks like cleaning your gear or cooking meat can be a deeply reflective part of your story. The nice part about it is it’s not required. Indulge if you want, paint a really cool picture of how you stormed through a room with murder in your eyes and a bone blade in your hand, or just go west west. The mood and setting. Dark Sun was cool. Dune was alright. For me, Armageddon takes the best of both and twists it around a little. You get back what you put into it. During the pinnacle of my Armageddon days, I played characters that helped me figure out who I am, exploring elements of my personality like trying on different skins. A lot of roleplayers experience this in their game of choice, but none other offers the same depth of exploration. If you can invest the time and give it a serious try, the interactions you’ll have with the other characters will come together into a story you’ll want to tell your RL friends. Some of the best might inspire some new fiction.

What bugs me about Armageddon: The shrinking world. Once upon a time, the most often heard complaint was that it was too hard to get involved with other players. Part of the reason was that they were spread too thinly across a world that can be time-consuming to traverse. Closing one of the city-states had its ups and its downs. It became easier to interact with other players, but the conflicts lost a lot of dynamic. With player numbers on the rise, it’s time to see the Sun King come back with a vengeance. The awkward economy. Let’s face it, a game that doesn’t struggle with this is fooling itself. You have issues of playability vs realism, of incremental growth vs balanced play, the incentives that drive fun things like adventure and exploration. Armageddon strives to create a world that feels real, yet the value of goods doesn’t jive with the value of labor. Some players, new and old, have no problem at all generating thousands of coins, while others struggle to support themselves doing things that, from any logical point of view, should generate reliable income. It’s possible to play a role without rubbing against this, but sometimes, depending on what you try to do, you’ll come across one of the places where gameplay and simulation can’t see eye to eye. You get back what you put into it. It can be hard to appreciate Armageddon as a casual player. It’s doable, especially if you are willing to play a lonely game while you skill up and develop your psyche. But these days, with two kids and a well-more-than-full-time job, I have a hard time enjoying Armageddon like I used to. Accessibility could use some work.

The review: I had a rough start with this game the first time I tried it. It didn't make sense. It was too hard. I ended up dehydrated, lost in a confusing city, huddled in the dark with no movement left, robbed blind when I slept it off. I finally got help, and it wasn't helpful. I got misdirected to a place I could find water, but I couldn't figure out how to GET the water. In my frustration I turned to my hack-n-slash roots and got myself arrested. Jail sucked. So I quit. I was used to speeding around rainbow-text game worlds, killing rats until I was tough enough to kill kobolds or whatever, and this was just NOT THAT. Still, I wanted a game with more roleplay teeth than most MUDs provided, yet more code support than the social-and-pose-based gaming systems that proclaimed deep roleplay experiences. I futzed around with a few other games that teased intensive roleplay mixed with gamified code, but so many of them had cracks in the facade -- the worlds were flat or empty, or the roleplay was a bare-bones flimsy thing stretched over a world of rats and kobolds and badly scripted npc quests. Eventually I gave Armageddon another try, this time with a little more patience and attention paid to the documentation. It took me a while to adapt, but once I 'got it', this became my thing. My character joined a clan as a guard recruit. The veteran players in that clan helped me figure out how to survive, how to interact, and most importantly, how to fit in with the community's then-unspoken guidelines for roleplaying. The first time I emoted something about my character's worries, they suggested ooc that I try expressing it without overtly stating it. I rephrased using purely physical description -- a facial expression, a low sound and a shake of the hand -- and became hooked on pushing the emote line. How far could I stray from objective description without breaking the rules? I got knee-deep in this game and its community, and by some naysayer's standards I could have once been considered part of the 'in' crowd. I went to player meetings and participated in ooc chat channels and I've been on staff twice, though I couldn't maintain the necessary level of dedication. Some of my favorite friends are old players, including my wife of 10 years (we met at a player gathering through mutual friends). In the past seven or eight years, my breaks have gotten longer, but my returns are always deeply satisfying, intense journeys through a character's head. For me, there is no other MUD. One of the biggest gripes about Armageddon is the player-staff relationship. This part baffles me because the discord and in-game interactions with newbies that I've seen have been overwhelmingly friendly and helpful. The staff environment behind the curtain is 98% figuring out ways to help players make their goals achievable in awesome ways, 2% figuring out how to keep openly abusive players from ruining those hard-won accomplishments without abandoning either the awesome or the player. It baffles me because I've been on both sides, butting heads with the other. I've clashed hard with top-level admins over general game policy and I've gritted my teeth over obnoxious players airing out their (serious and legit diagnosed) mental illnesses through the game. So what? Armageddon has always attracted the most intense people. It’s also a horribly unfair and unforgiving game, which leads those intense people to explosive ooc conflict with their perceived oppressors, which in most cases is either the staff itself or uses them as a mediator. The current staff roster is one of the best and most easy-going I've ever seen. In my opinion as a pretty chill and friendly person, the people that are most vocal about this problem are the cause of the problem, on both sides of that curtain. Ignore them and you may end up making some good friends ooc while your character gets involved in some wicked and memorable ic stories.

Armageddon is a MUD that markets itself as a 'tough love' roleplaying game, where nothing is free and actions have real consequences in a dangerous world. Murder, corruption, betrayal, blah blah blah. I was really enthusiastic about this, but the game is poorly implemented and impossible to break into.

You will have a lot of difficulty playing this game if you are new. Armageddon is geared towards old players to an incredible degree - and they do this through the restriction of knowledge. Maps are in ASCII art and lack detail. To craft items, you need to OOCly know the recipe for the craft, which is available nowhere in the game or the website. You need to ask another character to tell you the recipe. For every recipe in the game. There is no information available on how to do most things, such as creating antidotes, locating crafting ingredients, or making money in general.

You see, there's a culture that talking about game mechanics at all in OOC is taboo. If you ask a question on the forums or in their official Discord, the answer will invariably be 'find out IC'. And in Armageddon, finding things out IC will usually kill you.

After you die because you didn't know that one particular room has an NPC which can 1-shot you before you finish typing 'flee west', you're expected to create a new character. This would be fine, in a hack-and-slash that doesn't market itself as a serious roleplaying game. In Armageddon, you need a lengthy appearance description and backstory for your new character, every time. Expect to go through dozens of these characters before you go through enough trial and error to memorise which rooms and scenarios will instantly kill you. If you were attached to any of your characters and wanted to spend time building up an actual story, you are playing the wrong MUD. Sorry.

If you are willing to power through all of this, there's more. Your 1000 starter money? About half of that is protection money that belongs to whatever gang is prowling the starter zone at the time. If you don't feel like paying that protection money, you will get ganked by a guy who has been grinding his combat skills for several months because he is a veteran who actually knows how to play the game.

There's also brownie points which you build up on your account over time for doing things that the staff approve of, or something. I didn't play long enough to find out what warrants getting one of these brownie points, but it opens up a lot of additional options in character generation that only veterans have access to.

The roleplay is okay. That's it. Most of the people you meet will disappear before your next login, and you'll never know whether they got bored of the game, or their corpse is lying somewhere in the desert because nobody told them that the 'antidotes' sold in the game for scorpion stings don't actually work :^)

The only design choice in Armageddon that I would praise is their inclusion of something called 'The Way'. Basically, all characters have telepathy that allows them to communicate with each other provided that they know their name. It's quite convenient for knowing if someone is online, but remember that the benefit goes both ways if you are in hiding.

tl; dr - not newbie friendly, huge gaps in documentation that make the game difficult to play, questionable game design that can't decide whether it's a character meat grinder or a legitimate roleplay MUD. Don't waste your time.

I'm a big fan of the poop sandwich style of writing feedback. In other words if you must criticize something then stick your criticism (the poop) between two nice things (bread? mmm). Anyway, no more cussing. Let's begin.

BREAD SLICE ONE

Armageddon bills itself as a roleplaying intensive game. Its tagline is 'Murder, Corruption, Betrayal'. It is set in the harsh desert world of Zalanthas where you can't even get a drink of water for free. The documentation is extensive. So extensive, in fact, you likely won't be able to read it in one day, or three, or ten. This is not a bad thing. The more fleshed out the game world is the better it tends to be. Clearly Armageddon benefits from being over 25 years old as it has had all that time to form, and reform, and define itself. The idea of Armageddon is extremely good and extremely sound. It has a lot of potential, and undoubtedly hundreds if not thousands of people have found Armageddon fun at one point or another.

Creating a character is relatively easy. There are lots of resources available to a new player, including sample characters, a walkthrough, the helper system and the General Discussion Board. Picking a guild and subguild is easy. Writing a background is pretty easy provided you understand you are writing a Level 1 character here. Keep those origins humble.

Then you enter the game. There's a newbie tutorial that's helpful if Armageddon's your first MUD. There's a pre-game shopping area where you can gear your character up before they head out into the harsh world. Allanak, here I come!

THE ... POOP

This is where the disappointment starts to set in. You start in the local tavern's dormitory and wander into the bar. You're looked at. You try to introduce yourself. There's several people at the bar to introduce yourself to. And... nothing.

It's not like I'm talking to NPCs here. These are PCs. They're talking to each other. They're just too busy to talk to me. One of them is trying to get laid. The other is trying to play hard-to-get. The third is looking for an elf to beat up. The last one is wearing a hood indoors and is keeping to themselves. One or two of them look at you, sure. But they don't respond. They don't try to inquire further.

It's fine. I'll just give a prompt. 'I'm looking to join the Byn, who can I sign up with?' The Byn is a mercenary group and the recommended clan for new players. I'm hoping that by the grace of God there is a Bynner in the tavern willing to recruit me right then and there. Wouldn't that be lucky? I can play a mercenary and learn about this deep game with some in-character friends.

Then I get my first response. 'Sign? What do you mean by sign?' someone asks. Then it hits me. The stupid little thing I had forgotten. Most people in Zalanthas are illiterate. They can't read or write. In fact, for most people, it is a crime to read or write. So I try to correct myself via the out-of-character command to try to explain that my character wouldn't say 'sign', that they would know people can't write, that he can't write, and he would use a different word like 'join'. 'Sorry, I meant to say join!'

The response I got was out-of-character: 'You said sign so roll with it.'

Roll with it. Roll with it how? I made a genuine mistake as a newbie. I tried to tell them that I was a new player and made a mistake and would appreciate if it was just ignored this one time.

'Sorry but no. In-character actions have in character consequences,' was the response I got. Generally, this is a philosophy I can agree with. However, these are my first few minutes into the game. Making such a simple mistake in my first few minutes of play, surely, was forgivable? Apparently not this time.

I hate to admit it but at this point I started to shake at my keyboard. All those hours reading the documentation and crafting a character, and my character could be arrested or even killed for saying 'sign up' instead of 'join' within the first few minutes of play. I moved my mouse over to the X on my MUD client and closed out. I'll try again tomorrow, I thought.

And, yes, I logged in the day after. People were, again, at the bar. I tried to introduce myself. 'You were the guy that said sign up last week right?' By last week they meant the RL day before (1 week in-game is 1 day RL). Some completely different character remembered that I had made a mistake yesterday, although this was a week ago in-game, so this character had the words 'sign up' in his thoughts for over a week.

I tried to work past it, then I closed my MUD client again. This time, I decided to spend time with my kids. I'll try again tomorrow, I thought.

I did not try again the next day.

Trying to ask for help was a nightmare. Between the spammy Discord, the unfriendly forum and the unresponsive live helper chat I could not get a word in edgewise. My introduction to the community was piss-poor and frankly I didn't expect it to get better than that.

BREAD SLICE TWO

It's nice that these features are there. It's nice that some players will be able to find them useful. It's nice that I got my character approved within minutes. It's nice that so many people are so passionate about Armageddon. Maybe I could give it another try sometime. Right now though, I just don't feel up to it.

I would like to preface what will be a rather negative review with the very important fact that this was once not only my favorite Mud, but my favorite game. Armageddon Mud has everything one could want from a RP mud, including a nigh-flawless code, beautiful writing, a deep, vast lore, and many other great attributes. Despite all of this, the game has devolved into one which I would not recommend to anyone; the primary reason for this is the Staff. Staff on Armageddon mud are fickle at the best of times, and immoral/dictatorial at the worst. They treat the game like their own personal sandbox in which they can play god for the benefit of ~20 players who are themselves or their close friends. Try killing the wrong player, for instance, and you will find the player resurrected, and yourself banned. Try making a legitimate change in-game that a staffer is not fond of, you will find your character singled out and targeted with staff-animated enemies until they are dead. The staff-driven plots are ones that have almost no tangible effect on the average player, but provide entertainment for their selected Aristocracy to experience. They tend to ignore any player-driven ideas or changes in the world, unless it is against the grain for the story they want to be told, in which case they will put a halt on it. In the glory-days, you could see 100+ players online on the weekends. Now, you are LUCKY to see that number break 40. The massive dip in players has caused them to close sections of the world, close clans, close guilds, and close race options. At this moment, simply googling 'Armageddon Mud Forums' will bring you not to the official forum for Armageddon Mud, but to a 'Shadow-Board' which posting in overtly will get you banned from the game. This Shadow-Board has hundreds of former players who are equally dissatisfied with the horrible turn their beloved game has taken these last several years. Rather than changing their ways, and attempting to regain a massive playerbase, staff would rather keep playing in their sandbox, and devote their time to making unwanted, unnecessary changes that are universally disliked by the still-active players. The game has also become a haven for politically-correct lunacy. The game's mantra is 'Murder, Corruption, Betrayal.' But try saying the word 'Slut,' 'Retarded,' or any other politically-incorrect phrase in-game, and you will earn OOC opposition from the playerbase and staff. I would love to come back and play this game into which I have devoted hundreds of days of playtime - with great relish, I might add - but without a massive reform of the Staff, it is pointless.

As it is, this is a dying game which I would not recommend to anyone.

I have been a avid mud player since my teenage years in the mid 90's. I have played many muds over the years, some for over a decade. A couple of years ago, after taking a break (as we all need to do sometimes) I thought I would try a new mud to mix things up. This is when I started playing Armageddon.

When first starting to play I really enjoyed myself. The game seem to hit all of the things I liked in a mud. Role-playing enforced, permanent death, a survival aspect that seems real if you are not part of a clan, a rich history with a large enough world to start new characters in different places and experience different play styles.

After loosing my first few characters to silly mistakes while learning the game, I finally settled into a character and joined a clan. I joined a Greater Merchant House as a hunter. It was my job to go out and collect supplies for the crafters. It was a great position and I made some in game friends (and enemies) and the role-play was rich and fun.

As the months went by we were told by the staff that the hunter groups in the Greater Merchant Houses were being removed to improve role-play. The general thought was that the independent players that are not part of a clan would get more opportunity to sell their supplies to the houses, instead of the hunters just going out to get them.

On the surface this seemed like a reasonable thing and everyone role-played out our characters and moved on. I don't want to speak for the other players but this was the first real sour taste of the game I got. A great group of players who all role-played well were forced apart by a staff change that in the end didn't even work out.

The already established independent groups just picked up most of the slack and the mercenary group called the T'zai Byn picked up the rest. My next character ended up playing in the Byn and we were sent to chop down piles of trees for the Greater Merchant House I was just forced to leave (a job the hunters use to do but the now independent players were “suppose” to be doing).

This is an example of how the game seems to run. Instead of staff running the game as Game Masters or Dungeon Masters, they make sweeping changes to mix things up. In the end it usually puts a bad taste in the players mouth and creates animosity between staff and players.

On that note, the staff and player relationship is incredibly toxic (a word used often about this game). To put it simply they hate each other. The forums are full of hateful posts and arguments that seem to go in circles. It is not uncommon for a thread to be locked because the conversation degraded into petty bickering. I rarely post on the forum and never played the game enough to draw the attention of staff in game.

That is until I sent in an application to play a race I have never played before (a half-giant). I read the available lore on the website and put together a character application I thought was fun and enjoyable. The response was that they wanted me to play my character in the main city called Allanak and not anywhere else. I didn't understand why so I asked and the response was that “I only hear what I want to hear” and to re-read their previous post.

I decided that the game was not for me at this point. I replied that I felt their response was rude and I would not return to play. They did respond by saying they were surprised that I would leave because this was the FIRST time I had an incident with them.

I play games to enjoy myself as I'm sure the rest of us do. What I don't need is drama outside of the role-playing. I'm sure my examples seem tame to what others may have experienced but I left before the nonsense could escalate to anything more. The FIRST time was enough for me. I'm sure some players live in a constant drama filled relationship with the staff but this is what turned me away from the game.

I suggest leaving this game alone.

You may enjoy it for the first few months like I did, but once you start getting involved in heavier role-play it comes with more baggage than it's worth. Hopefully staff or players reading this will understand where a new player is coming from and take a step back and look at how they act and how ridiculous it seems from an outsiders perspective.

(This review was trimmed to fit Mud Connector's size standards. For the full review, see https://goo.gl/o7ZQNq)

At the risk of seemingly looking at the past with rose-colored glasses, I will carefully explain a clear phenomenon with any game world. On Day 1 of starting a new game, the game's setting seems vast and exciting. Every place to explore is new. Every creature or character you can run into is a new experience. But play through the game, and start again, and that setting loses some of its luster. You already know it.

It stands to reason, then, that to keep a setting interesting, new things must get added to it. Unfortunately, once you hit Armageddon's borders, that's all there really is to them. Staff have ideas on expanding the world, but they tend to fall through or get shelved. I sincerely hope I am wrong about this statement, but I don't see Armageddon's world growing any time soon. And that is because the trend suggests shrinkage, not growth.

To some extent, it's shrinking because it's practical to shrink. With a smaller playerbase, fewer players will actually interact with one another if they are spread out across longer distances.

Armageddon had two major, opposing playing areas: Allanak and Tuluk. At some point a couple of years ago, Tuluk was closed. Although the high-level staff made this decision with good intentions, they ignored reports from lower-level staff as well as clear metrics from the players showing that Tuluk was gaining additional interest and more time investment from players. Suddenly, Tuluk, which has more documentation than Allanak and was more fleshed out then Allanak, was set to close, with a final storyline to ensure that it would be plunged into chaos and swept under the rug. And while I had fun observing this storyline, it was bittersweet. The community has a loud and obnoxious subset of Allanak fans who gloated over Tuluk's closure, but what they failed to understand is that it removed outside conflict for their precious city.

Since then, the stagnancy of Allanak has been put on full display. While the staff do focus on the players there, and give them opportunities to participate in storylines, the setting as a whole does not change significantly enough to hold a player's interest for long. Staff interest has turned outward, to make minor playing locations like Luir's Outpost and Red Storm Village more interesting. But with Allanak as the recommended starting location for new players, and the main hub of activity, it sets a poor example for the setting as a whole.

The player community, the staff, and roleplay are severely intertwined. And not usually in a good way, unfortunately.

Before I continue, I will say one good thing about each of these things, because there is danger ahead. - Community: Player helpers, the official ones with the Helper title as well as the unofficial 'players who just happen to be helpful', are awesome and dedicated to their work. - Staff: There are a lot of creative minds on staff. They are always looking to flesh out even the most minor aspects of the game's setting through additions of lore. - Roleplay: As far as RPIs go, Armageddon is one of the giants. If, over the course of months of time investment, you establish a compelling and driven character, your investment will pay you back.

The MUD community as a whole is fraught with dramatic people, haughty people, and, yes, even unstable people. It's the fact of life for any gaming community. So when I say that Armageddon's community - a term I use very loosely to describe the amalgamation of internet people that have gathered to play it on a regular basis - is easily the worst I have encountered in any MUD, and indeed, among the worst I've seen in any game, with only online first-person shooters getting lower, I want you to understand precisely what I mean. To do that, I'll break this down into a few parts.

1) Elitism and privilege. This game is a very old RPI, and there are players who have been around for ten, fifteen, twenty years or more. They expect, and often enjoy, rights, second chances, and storylines that the average Amos does not get. This is not an equal opportunity game. If you join this game, expect to play for a long time before you are involved in anything more complex than tavern roleplay and sparring. Expect to have to gravitate toward and kiss the boots of whichever character has the most attention at any given time. Expect that these old players will do stuff out-of-theme just because it's fun and cool. And if you die, expect to start all over again. Staff, at best, do nothing about these privileged players, and at worst, hire them onto staff, despite all the headaches they create for the staff team.

2) A significant portion of the community completely ignores standards regarding out-of-character communication about in-character events. This is one of those things that's meant to maintain the mystery of the game. Cliques of players openly discuss in-character events, spread rumors about unpopular characters, coordinate out-of-game to screw over or kill characters they dislike, and more. It's horrifyingly easy to become a member of one of these cliques: just talk to someone that you think is in one and pretend to be an asshole, and you'll get a Discord invite or Skype handle quickly enough. As of now, staff do nothing about these cliques, and are seemingly resigned to accepting that they exist.

3) There is more sex roleplay per capita in Armageddon than in a sex MUSH, and I wish I was kidding. I have nothing against it, and I'm certainly not a prude when it comes to such matters, but it's not the most story-packed roleplay. Although polyamory is common to the setting, it tends to devolve into soap opera dramatics, which will likely be the peak of a sexy character's roleplay.

4) Many players do not trust staff, and many staff do not trust players. This results in a subculture where many players simultaneously avoid communicating with staff and complain they do not get enough positive attention from staff. For staff's part, they try to reach out to players, but it is easy to burn out when the response is distrust. Like any long-standing conflict, it's hard to trace things back and see who insulted whom first. It's also not important. Players and staff should work together to mend rifts, and they don't.

5) My own anecdote about my experience with this game's community is an unfortunate one, and I won't claim that it is the norm, but it has certainly informed my opinions of the game:

I started playing Armageddon in 2007. I had a lot of fun. I was even invited to staff, but I declined because I was having so much fun as a player. Eventually, though, I was between characters and felt a desire to give back to the game that had provided me so much fun. So I applied for staff, and I was accepted. I worked very hard on providing fun for the clan I was assigned to, and providing new plots, game elements, and scripts.

Looking behind the curtain was a bit of an eye-opener. Seeing how mysterious things worked was nice. Seeing how players operated when they think they're alone was not. Up until this point, I had a rather naive view that because I was roleplaying, and the characters around me were roleplaying, that everyone was roleplaying. This was far from the truth. While I was on staff, I saw code-abusers and people skilling up when they thought no staff were online. I infiltrated player cliques, often to find that big and small players alike were plotting against characters outside of the game, so that the staff body could be aware of them in case those plots came to fruition. I saw storylines created by staff and players alike speculated on and spoiled. I even witnessed, and sought to do something about, staff misbehavior, investigating things from unfair use of staff avatars to sexual harassment.

But I think what hurt the most is when I woke up one morning to a new e-mail in my personal, not staff, account, addressed to my staff handle. It listed y full name, my home and workplace address, and my cell phone number, and it stated that if I were to ban anyone else, that the information would be posted publicly. I did end up banning a player after that, and the information was not posted, but the experience soured me like no other. I think that is when I truly started to burn out. Concerned about the possibility that another staff member was involved, I elected not to tell anyone about it until I sought a legal course of action. Eventually I realized that Armageddon's toxic community had made me into an angry person, one that I did not want to be, and I stepped away, never to return.

Even after leaving, I continued to be harassed with messages and e-mails. Additionally, my personal e-mail was signed up for porn newsletters and other nonsense. Early this month, I resolved to cut Armageddon out of my thoughts. But my story continued to nag at me. So, I post this review in its entirety in an effort to provide myself some relief, so that I'm not held back by it anymore.

Armageddon players and staff will likely be tempted to reply to this review with one of their own. I welcome anyone who can prove me wrong to do so with their own actions. Don't focus on me. Focus on fixing your game and your community. I'm not the one who broke it, but I tried to fix it anyway. The least you can do is do the same.

The setting is interesting and fun and the game code is relatively well built. As a survival mud, it's really interesting. The economy looks good at first but it doesn't take long to see how shallow and confined it is. The gameworld is not very large either. In total number of rooms it's fine, but when you realize that a thousand or more of those rooms are not safely reached without magic (that they've mostly removed from the game now) then you realize that, if you want to play with other people, you're herded into a very small space.

The rules are arbitrarily enforced ... mostly against people who aren't friends with staff and long term players. If you didn't start playing Armageddon in 2005 then you might as well not start now. Most of the interesting and powerful skills are gated by 'karma'. About the time you start earning some under the current system they'll redo the system and you end up starting over again from the beginning. Except, of course, for those who are their friends and have been playing for a decade.

The player community is caustic, both IC and OOC. The staff are just as bad. The complaint system is useless since every complaint you're going to file is submitted to someone about their best friend with whom they've been chatting in IM or emailing for the past fifteen years.

If you could go back in time and start this game in 2004 and play it during its heyday then you'd probably have fun. But in its current incarnation and with the current playerbase and staff, I'd recommend skipping it and investing your time elsewhere.

I began playing Armageddon in 2008. It was my first mud, and I loved it. A newly blossoming gamer fresh off of a much belated discovery of Diablo 2 and still all too wildly in love with the Ashlander elves of Morrowind.

I loved the amount of depth, expression, and freedom this change of platform had allowed for, and the intensity of immersion was like no game I had ever heard of or played before. It was so good, it inspired tens of thousands of hours over a decade or so, of my enjoyment.

It was two and a half years into playing that I was welcomed aboard as a Story- teller - the lowest ranking of staff members. The greatest portion of my time is here, this year and a half or so period between June of 2010 and October of 2011 when I was not only playing but also on staff.

During this period, most of my time was spent as the sole active staffer for the many varied clans of the northlands open for play. A job that was complicated by answering to an administrator for anything from item to room to npc building who was so absent that most of our contact was not recorded on their staff forum but instead done over chat in various forms.

This all led to a sort of stagnation that is apparent in other areas now as back in the day it was in the Northlands. The beauracracy set up which makes the low ranking staff members more or less glorified pencil pushers and ties their hands on doing their namesake and... actually telling stories... has only grown deeper and more profoundly stifling as time wears on.

The culture has gotten so stifling that even your crafts when you have a master crafting level merchant pc are micromanaged to the point 'you cannot use phrasing like brilliant azure when blue would suffice' - and that is not an exaggeration. That is lifted directly from a newly changed help file on the subject.

Only suitable, one must suppose in a game where player glass ceilings have been so lowered over time that you can no longer play mages with a full skill tree, you can no longer make a tribe or family that is not preapproved by staff, you can no longer advance, even in roles which the staff has sponsored in, to senior levels of in game power. In a ranking of junior noble, senior noble, and senator or house head, you used to be able to advance to senior nobility. Not so, now.

A system with blue, red, and black (three tiers) of power for the templarate (a sorcery based noble 'police force'), you used to be able to advance to red robe, and have houses. Not so, now. Only blue robes. You used to be able to advance to senior positions in other clans as well, such as Merchant Houses. And again, now not possible. You used to be able to advance beyond Sergeant to the rank of the Leiutenant in the Tzai Byn mercenary company. Now not possible. In fact, the one Leiutenant they've had in years was sponsored in from a pool of favored players, to the protests of many, only to (not surprisingly) find no success.

The pervasive culture of preferential treatment, hacking up the world piecemeal to try and funnel players together, lowering glass ceilings, and absolutely and totally awful treatment by staff over the years, has bred so much hatred and so much resentment, that the group of people who are now a part of their community of spurned, banned, and wronged former players has ballooned to such a size that now it is not the official game forums that even show up as the prime search result for this game, but that of those who were wronged by its administration.

I myself absconded to this group, the day I had a staff member delete the entire content of my forum post and replace it with a linked video 'whorf is right over and over again'. This was in 2013. In 2011, one of the top ranking staffers who was responsible for so many of the disgruntled players and I came to an impasse and rather than resign from staff when I was moving to a place where I would be without internet indefinitely, I quit staff over it. Naming names, this person was Nyr.

In the past few years since then, I had distanced myself enough from my sense of discontent to return under an alias. Which was fine, until my husband started to come back from hiatus and it made it apparent who I was. This was when I was met with the message that I could not special app, put in requests (the primary sort of method for doing anything, even joining clan forums), or even put in to do master crafting with my merchant pcs (this being the equivalent of saying that your warrior can't use weapons, it's a primary feature of the guild).

I was upset, but willing to play on these terms, as it was something my husband and I both loved, and could sit next to each other and do. Everything was for a certainty quite biased against me, but whatever, it was good escapism. For a time. Everything seemed to be getting better, the voices of many of those who were wronged seemed to be heard, and Nyr stepped down as Producer.

And then in the last six months, everything has moved into a constant backslide again. Nergal is the replacement for Nyr, purportedly, though I'm frankly not at all certain they are not the same person. It takes a certain kind of person to send a player a picture of your penis uninvited. The same kind of person who is able to unflinchingly suggest that a character in an ankle length skirt has on a 'whore skirt', direct quote. The same type of person who would suggest that one upset over the use of sex as a threat to ruin their characters' reputation and use of whore as an insult (in a world which according to its own documentation sees whoring a valid profession and has no western sexual mores or bias against sexually active women) and will decry it as something you should 'expect' to be experiencing, 'if they dressed like and acted like' a person who was covered from chin to ankle to both wrists, sitting in a public place and talking to a person for their boss. The same type of person who would endorse animating the game world to come to life to slander that same person to their monogamous lover as publically having sex with someone the day before.

Of course, that is only the one experience. That leaves out the prior experience where another female pc was slandered and ruined the same way by someone whose name she didn't even know, who was so keen to make the city believe they'd been intimate that they were willing to die to scream it at a crowd. And that's also leaving aside the character after, where staff's solution to bringing the game world to life was to animate an npc superior to seek out a female pc who was on active duty and working and demand a blow job, denouncing her as a whore after she turned him down.

I am permanently banned from the game for posting the log of the incident with the dwarf and the barkeep. Nergal of course, called me a liar twice, and said that the only reason he didn't post it was because he didn't want to embarass me, and suggested that my highlighting the part where his exact response was the very thing he had just said he didn't say. Frankly, I'd rather not be a part of this crapshoot anymore. No one deserves to be harassed, insulted, called names by the staff of a game, and then banned to silence them from speaking truth. In fact, the only reason I am posting this review, is because he himself suggested that it is one way to keep the administration accountable. Fine.

You're accountable. You lost a decade long player, and you're accountable.

Good bye and good riddance.

Armageddon is a great mud, in game and in character. It's amazingly deep, hardcore, and alive. It's a wonderfully crafted world and it shows a lot of passion has been placed into the game over the years. It's worth while mud if your willing to put forth the time and have the capacity for it. It's a bit grindy, and parts of the code are unnecessarily hidden and the community can be needlessly vague about the correct way to build a character, code wise. It is an RPI but it seems be a mini game just navigating the code the first few character so you can actually work into a role you wanna play down the road. I feel this is the games only real down side is it can be difficult stuck playing the same 'I dunno anything' role, or 'I weak as hell and inept everything even after 10 days played'.

Staff are very much human and your interactions can range from bad to great. Be respectful, accept their judgement and move on. There is nothing to be gained from arguing or treating them badly. All my staff interactions have been more then stellar.

The OOC community is deplorable. Basically avoid the GDB as much as possible. So if you wanna play, Play the game, learn to enjoy losing a lot. Avoid the GDB because the OOC community isn't welcoming, unless of course you act like a newbie and keep your mouth shut.

As side not, this review is bound to see comments from other players stating 'such and such is wrong' It is not, Stats matter, skills matter, items matter GREATLY, and very important things are hidden from you. And if you want to play a strong warrior for example, you'll need to know how stats work, how to gain skills the correct way, and how to maximize this in a way that doesn't require months of grinding away. The GDB keeps a thing veil of civility but honestly due the heavy handed moderation expect passive aggressive attacks at your actual character, if you have a different opinion. Certain posters are clearly capable of getting away with more than others, so do not expect to be apart of the conversation. Unless of course you agree with the herd mentality.

To recap: Play, have fun. Learn to really enjoy low level weak roles. OR study up on the meta game and prepare for a grind. Avoid the OOC community, they're toxic and can hurt your enjoyment of the game. Respect staff in all interactions, nothing to be gained by being a problematic.

It's a great place to play, honestly, one of the deepest best experiences I've ever had. In gaming, staff can be hit or miss some days, but its rather forgivable as long as you approach them with a cool head. They're human after all. The world is rather harsh, documentation can be a bit over-whelming some days, but all in all the mud is quality and its with stood the test of time. If you have the heart for it and willing to sink some time into it. It can be very rewarding.

The GDB (forums for the game) should be avoided at all costs besides for clan boards. I will not discuss in length the things that plague the OOC community, I recommend sticking to the game and trying to have fun there. If you need help, use the helper chat option on the front page or Send a request into staff if you have a question not answered in the documentations.

I've been playing Armageddon off and on for quite some time, and I think it is important to warn people that it isn't for everyone.

Many muds attract those whose primary interest is in mudsex, and while 'Arm' is no exception to that, its harsh environment also attracts a certain sadistic element. I have readily detected a certain 'obsession' with protracted torture scenes. The issue is substantial. In December 2013 an announcement was made:

'After much staff discussion we have decided to ban rape and sexual torture plotlines from the game.'

However, this seems to be interpreted as narrowly as possible. Compelling characters to grovel, be spit upon or kicked hit while helpless and for the flimsiest of excuses Indicates a MUD that is still struggling with how to understand 'sexual torture.' Sadists need not focus on the genitals to achieve sexual gratification. The problem with these scenes is that the 'role-playing' quickly devolves into something different than telling a story, rather it becomes an 'Out of Character' desire to impose one's will on an unwilling player, not a character in the story. Power emoting is a strong indication of OOC crossover: 'I kick you in the face' is an example of a power emote; it gives the victim of the kick no opportunity to duck, block, or retreat. They can only submit. It disempowers the other player not just the other character, and is a crutch that abusive and sadistic players readily resort to, and a tell-tale sign of the sadistic player. I've seen this kind of power emoting in torture scenes, reported it to the staff, and was informed it was acceptable play in Arm-- merely a part of the harsh environment they wished to foster.

In short, those who try out Armageddon MUD should not take the prohibition against 'sexual torture' at face value. I suspect what they are trying to prohibit is genital torture. But sadistic torture more generally is actually encouraged in the game, as are players whose desires are more about humiliating and bullying other players, even when their behavior makes little or no sense within the game world or current story line, or if the players being victimized are unwilling participants.

I have played Armageddon MUD and other RPIs for over a decade. I have no complaints about the game itself. There are a lot of good roleplayers and I get a great amount of enjoyment out of playing the game itself. If you are looking for a MUD to participate in a story where every action or inaction can have a consequence and players work toward or against each other or the world around them, then Armageddon is that game.

Staff are very supportive of player efforts provided that the player makes the effort. At times, playing a role where you set out to accomplish something big in the game can feel like work. But it can also be fun if you enjoy that sense of accomplishment.

My main complaint about the game is not actually about the game itself, but the player base. The official forum community is populated by players that are completely toxic toward discourse about the game. A part of game policy is that no in-game information should be shared among players outside of the game, so no one officially knows who is playing whom and it is impossible to discuss details about what is going on in the game lately. This results in some posters resorting to passive-aggressive comments about vaguely-described characters or actions with the apparent hope that the message will get across to the offending players. It also results in arguments about the state of the game where everyone claims their position on something is correct, although it is impossible for anyone to prove due to the No IG Info rule.

There are a few kicked dogs of the community that they will consistently complain about. One entire sphere/section of the game (taking up about 1/3 of the game world and holding about half of the players at any given time) is almost universally despised by the loudest posters, with some calling for its closure. Other hated things include players who play more difficult races 'incorrectly' (in their opinion), sponsored/leadership roles (roles that often feel like work and largely serve the purpose of entertaining the other players and making the world come to life), and 'independents' (characters that don't join clans).

The staff's hands-free approach to moderation seems to suggest a contented attitude toward the forum's current state. It's obvious that they noticed the state of discourse surrounding the game, because they are the forum moderators and are assumed to pay at least some attention to the forum from time to time. They could fix forum discussion by either enforcing or altering the impractically strict rules but have made no move to do so. One excuse that is given by staff is that they expect the players to self-moderate, which they have clearly proven unable to do. A cynic might say that the staff prefer forum discussion to be as messy as it is, because as long as players are having an unmoderated fight with each other, they won't complain about staff.

Not all players are bad in discussion, and even the ones that are bad in some discussions aren't bad in others. Some players are actually very productive and kind toward one another out of game, collaborating on guides for the game as well as outside things, like other games and writing groups. But it is notable that the player base's numbers and voting efforts on TMC are dwindling further as tensions on the forum get higher. I, for one, no longer vote for the game on TMC or similar MUD lists because of the crippling issues with the community.

There are other reviews that say 'Play the game, ignore the forum' or something to that effect. Frankly, I think that is good advice, but incomplete. I would recommend playing and only reading and posting on the following boards on the forum: Staff Announcements, New Player Questions, Player Announcements, and your clan forum. Going anywhere else would be wading into the insanity of the discussion that takes place there.

I've been playing Armageddon off and on since the mid 1990's. When real life hits I stop playing but always return when I can. I have, until recently, always found Armageddon to be a fun relaxing way to get over the stress of the day. The game is a beautiful world, allowing for you basically to have a PC that you can dictate how they act and what befalls them, as long as its kept IC. Roleplay for the most part is always great and well handled. Staff usually are quite fair and very responsive when you need help. They also try to take the time to explain how you could do things better. The staff is quite dedicated and spen a lot of their volunteer time to make Armageddon a great game.

Like I said in the first part of the review I usually have found that its been a fun and relaxing way to get rid of the stress of a day. This has recently changed. Certain members of the staff seem to want to ruin the general day-to-day life when some PCs start getting too good. This I perfectly understand. Armageddon is a harsh world and I expect things to happen. However, recently a situation has arisen where a certain staff member decided to do this by ways of using OOC (admin eyes) information in an IC way of an NPC they were animating. This in my eyes is completely unacceptable. Staff prides themselves on making sure players do not mix OOC and IC information, for them to do this is appalling.

Arm is an incredibly deep mud... but don't bother if you aren't a primarily social player. Exploring kills characters. The imm staff are actively set against achiever personalities. There is a decent crafting system, but once you get geared up, there is nothing to spend large amounts of money on except other players.

Strictly put, if you aren't in the 'in crowd' by the end of your first year of play, only play Arm if you don't need karma or imm interaction to get what you want from the game. If you get sideways with staff, give up, or switch IP addresses and make a new account.

Once upon a time there was this southern-born merchant. She traveled far and wide and gained clients from many walks of life, earned wealth and prestige and a reputation for, not only skill at her craft but, having a soft spot for mutants of all kinds. She adopted a female mutant with Lirathu skin who would blister under Suk-Krath and would grow to follow in her footsteps. She fancied herself a Provider of Pleasure.

That is how one of my characters started, that was her background and she ended very far from where she started. I had another who's mother was a wee bit psychotic and raised her (very flawed) daughter to believe she was meant to be the Highlord Tektolnes' bride. I've played a grubby little street urchin who was such an annoyance?she was thrown in a trough by a Lady Templar. A spy, an assassin, a social climber, a mousy slave, a bubbly half-giant... I've played them all... and you can too.

Armageddon affords you unlimited imagination, the ability to delve into the darkest recesses of your mind, into the nicest, most hopeful champion, the seediest, most evil thing lurking. Your alternate you will struggle, it will hate, it will learn, it will crumble. It will work and love and party and stumble. It will be murdered, corrupted, betrayed... and you...? You will like it.

This is the single most in depth roleplaying experience out there. It is a living, breathing, pulsing interaction that cannot be attained anywhere else. You will attempt to weave a story and find that other characters you didn't plan on end up adding their tale to yours in a way you cannot control. You will be part of a rich history that has been documented from its beginning. You will not be able to escape Armageddon's lure.

Give it a month, I guarantee you will be?addicted too. Trust me, I know, it's been an 11 year courtship that's still as sweet as the first time it entangled me in its web.

By far the best mud I've played, most the player base has strong R.P. Skill and the ever watching staff can and do, make the world that much more fun.I would recommend that one avoid the forum if you do not fall in line with the Uber politically correct crowd, one will see much leniency given to those who rant dyed in the wool 'Dem' views but any non-P.C. view will quickly be dealt with. You will see this bleed over in game as well. Early on they decided that in this harsh world of multi races (Humans, Dwarves, elves, etc...)and many tribes that there would be no sexism(one may act outside the norm but you will player complaints and no brownie points). There is also no sexual orientation-ism, I don't mind much as it's not my R.P. style anyway, just strange I think. Play the Game, avoid Game forum.

I can confidently as this is one of the best MUDs out there today. On their Forums, the best quote to sum this game up is by brytta.leofa

'The great power of Arm[amgeddon] isn't in the stories we intend to make, but in the ones we could never have predicted.'

But, like all games, it has its downsides. One of the things I really have against it is how the staff members wanted to build a gritty, harsh desert world. A place of hardship, starvation, murder, betrayal, racism, amongst many words for it. Racism, in the game, obvious is between species (i.e. Humans hate Elves). People don't play racists in this game often enough (racism is the cultural norm IG). And everyone tends to be nice to each other.

Now, I can understand, in some instances, you can't be rude. That man you're scowling at could know some powerful Templar (a term for an all-powerful person who could kill you on a whim). But it's not always the case. Clans often accept other races (humans are the majority), even Elves, oddly enough. Elves in this game, can't ride mounts, making it very tricky to get around. It seemed to me that they'd be a liability to a clan.

One quick thing I'd like to mention is that the game has a degree of elitism, (in the forums). So, although people won't visibly exclude you, don't expect to make many friends.

Lastly, what I don't like, but it's tolerable about is sexual orientation. People are really careful in the game to not set on toes and offend people IRL. It's bull, I think. Sexual orientation in a world like this is important. People would be discriminated against in this sense. In a world as harsh as 'Zalanthas', reproduction is important to survive. And that'd all it take for discrimination.

So, with those words spoken, and despite my complaints, I'll be sticking around with Armageddon, it's a great game. And I'd recommend it to anyone who seriously wants to roleplay and have fun.

There are very few muds which ever captivated me like ArmageddonMUD did. The atmosphere and culture of the game are rich and documentation is everywhere. This is by no means a simple DikuMUD clone, this is an entirely different experience from your normal hack n' slash. Roleplay is enforced, which can be difficult at first, however it grows easier as you lose a few characters to the harsh game world. Death just means you can create an entirely new concept, from a simple mercenary for hire to one of the most feared mages in the world.

I would recommend Armageddon to anyone who is looking for something new, something unusual and unique. You won't be disappointed giving it a try, just make sure you ask one of their many Helpers if you have questions about the game.

As with any mud, Armageddon has its flaws. Some say it is staff, some say it is the community. I can attest to butting heads with staff when trying to push through a game or history changing plotline, but for the mostpart they deal with such requests professionally and promptly. The community is full of talented artists, writers and is brimming with imagination. Everyone I have met outside the game has been really nice and down to earth.

My only complaint is the expectation that your character act 'realistically' when it comes to sexual relationships. The amount of mudsex going on in this game, which could be considered cybersex, is ridiculous. It is frowned upon to play a character who is celibate or uninterested in sex, because it is such a big part of the game. If you do participate in such ventures, just know that someone is very likely logging every action you take or word you speak.

ArmageddonMUD is a great game that I've been hooked on since '03. What drew me in was the harsh game setting, permanent character death if you make mistakes (oops!), the potential for intense roleplay and the friendly staff. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys a strict roleplay environment that will leave you wanting to come back for more.

One thing that I do find to be quite irritating about ArmageddonMUD is the community of players. If you've spent any time reading the OOC discussion boards for this game (a place for idle chit chat), you will notice that the vast majority of people are very opinionated and cliquey. If you're here to enjoy the game, you'll probably be fine. If you're here to make friends, you may want to look elsewhere.

After eight years I still play Armageddon for the same reasons I played eight years ago. I play for the stories. One thing that doesn't change is that there are still moments where my hands shake, or I stare at the screen open-mouthed. Like a great novel, Armageddon hits on several levels, provoking many emotional responses. Sometimes all at once. I laughed. I cried. Etc.

I know several serious RPers Mush rather than Mud, and the idea of the heavier code may seem counter intuitive. Heres the thing. On Armageddon, the RP isnt functioning around the code but rather the code supports the RP. I find it more seamless than a Mush. The players act and the world reacts. No one stops to roll. Those coming from a Mush will have to make some adjustments. Syntax and custom are different. Some of our best players made the switch, some may have been frustrated at first. They found the adjustment period worth the effort.

Our code keeps evolving. We predate the RPI engine, but I think in many ways, our game style inspired it. Those coming from muds that use it will see some difference. For those people and for anyone new to Armageddon, help files and helpers are your friends.

To someone logging in the first time, (I really suggest everyone log in a first time, if you really love RP because it doesn't get better than on Arm) you may hit some stumbling blocks. I'd like to talk about how to have the best early Arm experience.

First: You want to have an understanding of the flavor of the world. For the most part, we'll know a new player when we see one. It's funny, but even with every syntax mistake a person can make, with every gaff a newbie can make, you can tell the ones who come to RP from the ones who are there to play a mud. An understanding of the game world will make it that much easier to include you.

Second: Contact a helper. They are truly helpful. There's a live helper utility at the bottom of the home page. Operators are standing by. Armageddon seems to appeal to smart people. Several smart people like to wing it, and do it on their own. The help offered is supportive and not intrusive.

Three: Getting your feet 'If we have a drawback it's that Armers can seem closed off. (Another reason to rely on a helper. They can help explain the reactions and lack of reactions.) There have been times when I've sat at a bar with three other people and we haven't spoken to one another because our characters were not outgoing. Often in that situation we just emote at each other. A new player should not feel shy to start a conversation. My suggestion is that you start a conversation that your pc might start. Maybe: The wind?^?^?s kicked up again. Or 'They closed the shop I used to go to. Where can I buy some meat at a good price?' Sometimes you meet pcs who have the luxury of drawing you in. Sometimes the nature of the characters you run across make it more difficult to reach out to a new player's PC. But it's the PC who's getting the reaction. We love new players.

Life is fragile and fleeting on Zalanthas. There are those who say, you'll die early. I disagree. Make each pc like you plan to live forever, and mourn them when they die. Some of the most powerful pc's I've come across in game were first PCs, who lasted real life months or in a couple cases years. You will hurt more when they die, but you'll enjoy them more when they live if you invest completely.

Finally, look for me. I'll be the one laughing and crying and loving and dying. I'm the one who's still having a blast after almost a decade. Of course, it might be hard to find me in the crowd.

There was a review posted, a few months back, that I pretty much have to agree with 100%: http://www.mudconnect.com/mud-bin/prev/review.cgi?rid=29256

I've played this game off and on since long before 85% of the current staff members had even heard of the game, and even did a brief stint on staff myself, back in the early days.

As the previous reviewer posted, it is very much an 'our sandbox' mentality. The staff view is summed up by a quote from an early staff member (who still holds an oversight position) 'My mud would be perfect, if it wasn't for all of the players.'

I do mourn for the mud, it used to be a place of wonder. The downhill slide began a number of years ago when rumors of a so-called notification from Wizards of the Coast started to spread, notifying the mud staff that Armageddon was violating the d20 license in their use of Darksun material since the game accepted donations. This moved on to how the staff needed to change the mud to remove all of the Darksun references, and as such planned to destroy the current game world through a series of 'End of Arm' plots, while they created a new 'Armageddon Reborn' mud, which was the mud minus the Darksun material. This strangely happened about the same time that one of the head staff members started talking about wanting to write a book about Armageddon. Needless to say, over the following year, a hefty chunk of good, older staff members quit the game, the End of Arm plots all stalled out, doing nothing but chasing a way a lot of players. Over 4 years later, Armageddon Reborn is still in the works. And I gotta say, this is the -most- patient group of WotC lawyers I've ever heard of. Typically when they send out a cease-and-desist, you've got a month, not several years, to comply.

There are a few staff members that are top notch. There to help. Always keeping in mind that yes, this is a game. And then there are the rest, who want things done how they want them done, even if they screw over PC after PC. This especially happens during the rare occasions that a PC is able to gather a good amount of power for themselves, without staff sanction. These PCs are almost universally smacked down, in the end, as those who run the game want all the big decisions in their hands alone. Which is truly a shame, because 'back in the day' a PC was able to keep their power, if they were able to grab a hold of it. For good or for ill. Another issue is the blatant favoritism. There are definitely 'pets' who get almost anything they ask for. Much of the time this is due to out-of-game friendships with staff members. In other cases, an example that has come up a few times over the last few months, is the staff member who is the wife of one of the mud forum's top trolls, and the good friend of another of its top trolls. Using thread delete and lock privileges just to support a husband and a friend who everyone else agrees are out of line is sadly very much in line with the way the game staff works these days.

So in the end, if you think you can manage a very low key, low power role that requires no staff interaction, give the game a try. It's one of the oldest and one of the best. But if ever want to move out of the corner, I'd have to reverse quote that earlier phrase: 'This mud would be perfect, if it wasn't for (most of) the staffers.'

Armageddon, like any MUD out there, has its share of pro's and con's. In my time there I found the code of the MUD, as well as the way in which the world was built to be absolutely top notch. It's got a well developed (though heavily influenced/copied from Dark Sun) theme for the game world overall, and the player community surrounding it is likewise filled with some great people who make playing there a wonderful way to pass the time.

But like just about any MUD you go to, it's staff appear to have a very strong 'our sandbox' kind of mentality and a?dishonest, underhanded way of handling things with the playerbase. That doesn't do much to interfere with a player's enjoyment of the game at the start, but has a proven track record of driving away the player base little by little. There seems to be a tangible 'us vs. them' mentality staff-side. Though they have a complaint system, the replies one gets from it are lip service at best, outright admission that they don't care at the worst.

So all in all, it's a great game if interaction with the staff who manage it can be avoided, but it can quickly turn sour and frustrating once they get involved.

Nothing can be said that hasn't been said before. Armageddon presents a MU* experience that can't be found anywhere else. If you hate mindless grinding and love meaningful roleplay with an excessively fun playerbase, sign up immediately. You won't be disappointed.

I have tried several online games. Searching for a real and detailed world experience. From jobs to families, to the drudgery of putting food and water on the table. The only game I have found that has left me feeling very content with the overall world and playing experience is Armageddon. In some, my main peeve was the walking into a room and seeing everyone's name. Which was really annoying to me because logically, I -wouldn't- know the name of someone who I'd never met. In others, it was the fact that I couldn't think or feel -as- my character. In others, it was the heavy focus on combat, which was -not- was I was looking for.

In Armageddon, there is strictly enforced roleplaying in a detail-rich, player-driven, and dynamic world. It can be as harsh and gritty as your southern mercenary would like, or as rich and sophisticated as your northern merchant could care to have it be.

There are -many- different options for a character. Nearly any type of play you are looking for can be found here. I also love the fact that there is a caring and detail-oriented staff on board. It very much shows in the constant improvements, not only in the code, but in the richness of the world around. I have personally, only had to use the wish command to contact the staff once. It was my mistake, in an attempt to lead a mount into an estate, I couldn't enter it. I thought that maybe something had messed up (due to my own misreading the screen). I wished to the staff that I thought there may have been something wrong there, and quickly corrected that. In under a minute, I was sent a kind and prompt response by one of the staff members working.

There is also a rich item creation system in the world of Zalanthas. Everything from cooking, to stonework, woodcrafting, and even wagonmaking. Not to mention the tailors, linguists, and so forth. This is a rich and very fufliflling experience. At first, learning the commands can prove a bit daunting, but there is also a index of helpfiles that you can keep open in your internet explorer window that is detailed and expansive enough to answer nearly any questions you might have.

The system here is skill-based, rather than level-based, and very few people abuse the code. There is plenty of violence and fighting to be found if you look for it as well. From hunting bahamet and carru, to sparring or being hired out in the Byn.

Overall, this is a rich, detailed world, in which the only limits there are, are the ones put there by your imagination.

I was searching for a free mud that implemented rich crafting, depth and originality. In my searching, I stumbled upon something called Armageddon, but didn't try it out because of negative associations with a movie by the same name, thinking it had something to do with fighting aliens and other superficial stuff. Never did I imagine that this game had the depth and richness I was searching for, but couldn't find. A few months later, a forum poster suggested I give Armageddon a try.... Little did I know that a new love affair had just begun!

What kind of love was this, though? It was rowdy, harsh, unpredictable, plus there were no colors. (What kind of girl can stand love without colors??) The world of Zalanthas was beckoning me. Desert, dry, corrupted. I was a tad scared just reading the descriptions of the mud! (I'm a touchy feely type) Vulgar language was allowed, the nobles (played by mortal players like you and me) controlled the commoners, magick and magickers (also played by mere mortals) feared like death, and the world beyond towns and cities - inhospitable and downright frightening. YET.... I loved the prospect of it. Why? Because I could control everything my character did AND I could affect the environment and the course of the history, economy and politics of the game.

I can't begin to describe the road that this love affair paved for me - the process of application, the heplfulness of the 'helpers' and the community, learning the emoting system, or how when I finally got a grip of the technical side of the game, I lost myself in the moment and truely felt as if the character became me as I immersed myself in another world. (It may be just a parallel world in an alternate Universe, for all we know)

I hope many new Armageddon love affairs begin soon :)