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Mud Theme
Age of war is advertised as a hack n' slash game with no strong theme.
It has no theme whatsoever from what I saw, which is fine for a
hack and slash game. One of the things which seems to really draw
hack and slash players to this game is the policy of allowing 3 multis
on at one time. You are not, however, allowed to create more than
three characters total. There are a total of 50 mortal levels with no
multiclassing or remort. There are usually an average of 15-50 people
on at any given time.
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Mud Atmosphere
I would describe the atmosphere of the mud as somewhat friendly. I met a
couple of very nice immortals there, Lightbringer, and Bob who were very
interested in player concerns, and even wanted input from a newbie
player like myself. The players were also pleasant, I did not see a lot
of tension or mean spiritedness. And the players were always willing to
answer any dumb questions I had. One thing I found very disturbing was
the presence of an invisible imm who was forcing everyone in the game
to gossip dumb things then asking the entire mud in a threatening way if
all the players wanted to see the new "jail command". This experience
only occurred once but it gave the game a very unprofessional and unpleasant
feel when it happened and it left a negative feeling that stayed with me for
awhile. Some players may enjoy these experiences...
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Mud World
I noticed many stock zones, such as Midgaard, Rome, Newbie Area, and
Moria. In addition to the standard stock zones they also have new areas
such as Transylvania, Prysania and this neat newbie circus area which
was introduced to me by "Bob", one of the higher level Gods of AoW.
Some of their "new areas" are redos of stock zones, but they do give
credit in their homepage, which I found refreshing. When you log into
the game as a new player you will encounter a neat newbie guide prog named
Bolt. The newbie prog has some problems. When bolt says, "If you will follow
me, I can give you a quick tour of Midgaard. Just type 'follow guide' and
I'll do the rest!". If the player then types 'follow guide' it will say
"No-one by that name here". I suspect this could be very confusing for a
true newbie player who may not realize they need to try a different name
with the follow command.
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Additional Comments
Age of war has 6 classes (the 6th is in early development according to
the menu):
Cleric
Thief
Warrior
Magic-user
Vampyre
Necromancer
I decided to try one of their non-stock classes, and chose vampire. I
was pleased to see that the vampire
code required that I bite mobs to feed, and that food and water were
unacceptable. I was disappointed in the skill selection. The skills
consisted of the stock magic user spells. What makes the vampire
different is that they can only cast these spells when their alignment
is evil.
For races they have 8 choices:
Human
Elf
Gnome
Dwarf
Sivak
Kender
HalfElf
Giant
I chose a Kendar for which the only trait I noticed is
increased dexterity. This would likely be the best race for a thief.
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Summary
The world and the code still seem to be very young in development. I
would not recommend it to anyone looking for a roleplay mud
due to its unoriginality in theme, zones and code. If you are looking
for a hack and slash mud this could possibly be the mud for you, but
bear in mind that you may not find anything new or original here
once you have levelled all three of your multis. The fact
that the people there are so nice makes up for a lot that the mud may
be missing in other areas.
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