I started playing God Wars II about 5-6 years ago, and through those 6 years and my playing on and off, there have been many numerous changes. I have to say that it is one of the most advanced and complex muds I’ve ever played, and for that I really enjoy it; it’s not to often one stumbles upon a unique mud with all of the options for character customizations that are available.

One of the most unique features I have seen is the movement and combat in the mud. Movement isn’t done room by room as with most muds, but is distance based; you target a location, NPC or building and then type ff to start your feet moving in that direction. This allows for a lot of combat that still sort of exists in other muds but can’t be exploited to it’s full potential. For example, imagine a ranged build where you are casting; in most other muds, you might be able to throw stuff from room to room, but it’s not exactly ranged. In God Wars II, a caster could start casting and retreat away from another player so that their melee weapons could not hit them. It is then up to the player to find some way to catch the caster or disable him from retreating.

As I mentioned already, the FF command would start your feet moving forward; this idea is not only limited to your feet. Each limb (feet, left and right arm, head and sometimes tail) gets different commands, which are called techniques it can perform. A caster has commands like wiggle, snap, clap and point, which they are able to chain together to cast spells. For example, a caster might type rw rc rp to teleport; It means that they are wiggling their right finger, clapping, then pointing in the direction they targeted; upon completion of the final tech the caster is teleported. This set of commands also extends to weapons as well; when you wield a weapon, it alters the techs you can perform with that hand. A whip might have a lash tech, but it wouldn’t make sense for a sword to have the same sort of command.

Your characters are built up by using powers and talents; you get powers by aging up, and occasionally you have the ability to grab an extra talent. Powers generally give ranked-based bonuses, with talents to add to those or add other abilities to your character. For example, a demon might have powers in Demon form, which gives stats per rank. An age 400 player then, could have demon form at a base of 40 (minus any bonuses you may have).

As mentioned before, apart from powers you have talents which further allow you to customize your character. Talents like ambidextrous, which allows your off-hand to perform techs at the same speed as your right hand, to tough hide, which allows some setups to gain extra resistance.

All in all, God Wars II is a very enjoyable mud to play; it’s loose set of rules and an admin that is willing to work with the players is of course a bonus. One primary problem I am noticing is the trend from players to bots. While I have been guilty of botting (botting your kills and then playing with your character is much more fun for me), it has turned into a war to see who can make the most characters. For example, there is an event that occurs 4 times a day that is called the great war. It is essentially a fairly sophisticated card game. While people would generally bot it sometimes with between say 1 and 4 players, KaVir decided that to make it more fair, if you joined the war with more than one player, the gods (the NPCS in the war) would go after you harder than anyone else. To get around this, two people have created a multitude of alts; essentially what happens is they put enough bots in the war than there are gods, so essentially they always win quite a lot of glory each time they decide to flood the war with bots. This might not be a huge issue, but should you dare to not agree with them while they harass other players (and newbies quite often as well), you get to be the target of some 40 plus odd bots that go after you. While I don’t have a problem with PK, as God Wars II is a PK mud, it seems as if the mud has degraded into a contest of who can have the most bots.

God Wars II has made huge improvements in the time I played; while there have been lapses in new features from time to time, KaVir always adds something new and cool to play with and tweaks it a bit as he goes to make it more in balance with the rest of the game. As I mentioned before, I particularly enjoy the unique setting and gameplay that God Wars II offers, as well as the vast array of customizations open to each player. While there are issues with two people harassing everyone and flooding the war with bots, I believe KaVir will work out a fix that will balance things out again. I would really like to encourage everyone to go give the game a shot.