and now for something completely different ;p

[hellison]

WARNING - this post will make NO sense if you don't play disworld mud [1](tho i'll happily explain in comments if you ask )

So. I have been sucked into playing CTF [2] for the interguild tournament. and So. Much. Fun.
Much flailing, fleeing, vining and a *lot* of getting stabbed.

Tonight, we (witches) played against the thieves in a practice. I managed to not only vine, bee [3] and KILL Carino (after YEARS of trying :p), I had his nose off too! I wish I'd logged it.
But *I* know it happened and has given me a warm fuzzy glow of glee. Tho tho that might be partly the cider...
Also discovered what his backstab is like from the recieving end. Mostly, sudden (FWUMP).

Honestly, the nose thing would almost be worth going PK [4] for. Best friday night in in AAAAGES.
Tomorrow, we take on the Godbotherers in an actual match. But, I hear they suck, so that's ok ;p


[1] a free, text-based rpg-ish/hack n' slash-ish game/community based on the Discworld books
[2] capture the flag, a game within the game! teams compete to find and hoist the flag as often as possible, while slaughtering the other team on the way.
[3] spells available to witches to trap and keeeeeel opponents. Seeing beesaaarggh work on Real people is also much fun
[4] Playerkiller, so you can STAB actual people, not random npcs

Comments

[whit-merule.livejournal.com]

Godbotherers have major. Fear my tinyPishitealt!

[hellison.livejournal.com]

Oh, they *slaughtered* us. Literally - I got killed... 10 times? Never even saw the flag ;p We need more numbers too

You'd almost think someone had riled them up or something.

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

I wonder if Pratchet looks at how his creation now lurks on the internet, and thinks "My Discworld has now gone to MUD"?

[hellison.livejournal.com]

There is a Rumour that he used to play himself years ago. Tho of course officially he's Never Heard Of It and presumably will happily continue to Never Hear Of It as long as it it remains totally free and cashy monies are never involved ;)

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

Oh I didn't realise it was a fan-based endeavour.

What is the system - a finite number of actions a day?

[hellison.livejournal.com]

totally fan based ;) it started way back in about 1992, and has just kept growing - some parts are straight from the books, others are invention In The Style of (eg, for the Counterweight Continent, there wasn't a huge amount to go on, so most of it is totally made up from scratch, whereas Ankh-Morpork is laid out on the plan of the offical Map), some are just ... odd; many other MUDS/MUSHes use the dw mudlib as a starting point for their code. You can always spot them, because of the postal frogs.

And there's no limit, you can stay around for as long as you can stay awake, potter through the cities, do quests, stab/bash everything that comes your way, own a house, run shop - and in some cases - run a guild (Carino, mentioned in the post, is currently the Thieves' Guildmaster), or take up quilting if you're so inclined.
You can even annoy everyone else by owning a hoard of spammy pets *flees from Ceirseach*

The basis is similar to most D&d style games, you get a range of skills which you advance using experience points gained through questing/stabbing/quilting. Each guild (there are 6 to chose from) gets a different set of 'primary skills' which are cheaper to advance, but anyone can learn any skill; there are some commands which are unique to each guild tho (eg only us witches can brew healing tea. Or make people's noses fall off. We are truly Fearsome.)

For a game purely based on text, it's got an impressive range of Things To Do; I've been playing it for nearly 10 years now and I'm still finding new stuff. I am lazy tho, I like stabbing ;p
It's also a very social place; I have friends all over the world (including a lot of my flist) who I met on there.

Hmm. I shall stop rambling and just say check it out (http://discworld.atuin.net) !

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

A Mush? dw mudlib?
You are speaking in tongues.


It sounds interesting, but I don't think I'd have the time to do it justice.

[hellison.livejournal.com]

oops. I thought I had avoided the jargon. Actually, I have no idea what Mush stands for, other than Multi-user... something. MUD is Multi-user dimension (or dungeon, from when it was all v. d&d base ;) Think WoW with no pictures ;p

The mudlib, according to the website is - "In an LPMud the mudlib is the support framework for the world. The MudOS driver provides the very basic fundamentals and the mudlib provides the features necessary to make a working game. The mudlib is what defines how most common objects work and what capabilities they have.". So, the base code all else is built on. incl. postal frogs.

It is a lot of fun, but may eat your life if you get hooked; i just checked and between two characters, i've clocked up pretty much an actual year of time spent on there ;p

[failing-angel.livejournal.com]

I'm familiar with MUDs (well, I've heard of them and understand the concept); I was assuming that MUDlib is effectively the libarary.
The closest I came to this sort of thing was Urban Dead, which was fun, but grew tedious with excessive munchkining.

"Base code" "Postal frogs"? *blinks*
I'll just sit in the corner with the pointy hat in primary colours :)

[hellison.livejournal.com]

*grins* not that many people have even heard of them, so you're a step ahead there!

and from here (http://discworld.atuin.net/lpc/about/ads/2002.html)

"The disc also has a death. It has dragons. It has the dungeon dimensions. It has frogs. It has an efficient postal system entirely run by frogs, in fact." (obviously, written many many years before Going Postal ;p).

The main thing that keeps people coming back tho is the community and other people, rather than the frogs. And, of course, being an Old Timer and sitting in the corner sipping scumble muttering about how it weren't like that in MY day ;)

[tardington.livejournal.com]

Hellison groned as she typed in the letters.

"So.. satisfying!" she panted pervily as her fingers danced, altering the letters on screen by a few characters!

PS http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2008/8/1/

[hellison.livejournal.com]

Sadly, to date, only Granny Weatherwax has the power (on the game) to relieve Gentlemen of any other bodily parts. Tho she does helpfully hand them back in a bag afterwards.

That's while they're alive of course. Once they're dead, you can help yourself!