Having played Aardwolf for 6/7 years, I felt that my online home, one of the largest and most established around online deserved a few more words….

The main goal of players on Aardwolf is to have fun. There are no strict RP rules, no requirements to level, and no quests that must be completed for advancement. Basically, it’s up to the players to determine how they want to spend their time on Aardwolf and then go for it! There are many, many features to enjoy and you will find people that enjoy the same feature as you and welcome you to their ranks (there are whole clans build around various features such as questing, raiding, spell casting, equipment hunting, exploring, etc…. which may welcome you to join their ranks if you share common interests).

One of the first things people will notice when they log in to Aardwolf is it’s size in terms of playerbase, areas, features, you name it: Aardwolf is big. If you’re used to a mud that has 20 or 50 people logged in, then the 400 to 500+ people (pretty much never drops below about 350 people, generally over 400 and 500+ at peak times daily) then the hustle and bustle of Aardwolf could be quite a pleasant surprise. There are always hundreds of people online, chatting (numerous chat channels: gossip, noble, race, class, clan, more channels than you’re going to want open, you will turn many off), levelling, questing, auctioning equipment, exploring, etc…. There is even a dedicated channel for people looking to group. The size of the player base certainly gives Aardwolf a different feel than most muds- player interaction is one of the things that keeps people coming back again and again.

It’s RP tolerated, so if you’re in to heavy RPI, Aardwolf may not be the place for you, especially if you can’t tolerate others that don’t RP. However, there are opportunities to RP and a channel where you can find people that want to participate in RP with you (although use of the channel is clearly OOC – use it find RP partners).

There are also many other things to do, such as participate in warfare (no loss PK), participate in the clan system (opens up full PK opportunities and lets you raid other clans), quest, campaign, participate in laser tag, really too many diversions to list. Of course, levelling is also a major pastime as the stronger you become, the more power you wield.

The immortals are particularly friendly, helpful and very engaged with the mud and player base. There are generally always immortals around to assist with manor upgrades, restrings, spammers, etc… I haven’t played any other muds for years (since I found Aardwolf), so can’t really compare Aardwolf’s immortals to those of other muds, suffice it to say that in my 6/7 years of playing I have had plenty of interaction with the immortals (even some with the Imp) of Aardwolf and have never had a negative experience with them. Of course, if you’re there to cause trouble, your experience with them may be different, but generally the playerbase are friendly and don’t bite (too much) so there’s not much trouble.

In terms of theme, it’s fairly basic stock medieval fantasy. Nothing particularly difficult to grasp (you will recognize all the classes and races, there aren’t 500 different races which you won’t recognize). There is a HUGE assortment of areas. With so many people building, there are diverse areas that are based on various particular fantasy genres. As Aardwolf has been open for years and anyone can become a builder (after meeting certain guidelines) the opportunity to explore non-stock areas is almost limitless. Your explored percentage is tracked too, so there are plenty of opportunities for bragging rights, but it will always be dropping as new areas are brought in.

A very pleasant aspect of Aardwolf, in today’s world of fee paying or credit buying mega-muds, is that Aardwolf is completely free. You can’t buy special equipment, you can’t buy more levels or immortal status, etc… basically, everyone is on a level playing field. Of course, those people with more time on their hands to play will be stronger and newbies start out weaker. There are always plenty of players that are much stronger and will give you competition.

If you haven’t tried Aardwolf, you should. So many people playing for so many years can’t be wrong.