MUD:

By Kate the Arch-Witch and Frobozz the Wizard

Frobozz the Wizard (alias Ken Farnen) is a wiz from Essex MUD, the original game that started the whole craze off.

We would like to reassure you, nothing nasty has been perpetrated on Zaphod, but because of his job with CCI he is getting less and less time to keep up to date with MUG goings on, and, like us, is suffering from an overdose of Compunet MUD politics (MUD politics is a dangerous and sometimes fatal disease, contracted by some MUGs as a result of going commercial).

Congratulations on Exodus finally making wizard, after many attempts! Poor Exodus found himself on the wrong side of more than a few wizards and witches (did I hear anyone say Plod and Lotus?), and so found himself getting killed off rather regularly. He finally had to resort to using the more pedestrian name of 'Seldon' and playing at those odd hours of the day when most MUD players are tucked up in bed.

Congratulations also to Charesh, who seems to be incredibly lucky (or have friends in high places). Nearly all MUD players wish for piles of treasure to appear by magic before them, but a log of the last game Charesh played shows that's what really happened to him! All thanks to the Eagle-eyed wiz who spotted that one! We're told Charesh has since made it to wiz on his own merits, after his little windfall was deducted from his score!

Mud gossip has it that the two hack-and-slayers Smith and Jones, who, in true berserker spirit, appear and proceed to kill anything that moves,are in fact two usually nice and quiet wizzes (Fill in the stars... Z*rc*n and B*l*n*r). I don't suppose you can blame them too much, as the author of MUD said "There is only so much being nice to people a body can stand"!

The great non-event of the year must have been the MUD Spectacular, organised single-Archedly (where WERE all you other arches that weekend?) by Kate. The idea of a spectacular is that a large number of of usually docile MUD players get together, get locking in the game, and beat the living daylights out of each other until only one survives. Unfortunately, the Sunday chosen for the event was also the weekend Cnet chose to test some new software, so the system wasn't running for long enough between crashes for anyone to emerge victorious! Anyway, all thanks to the wizzes who came along to help (and spectate) and to the mortals who put up with it!

Onto even stranger goings on with Lotus the Arch-witch... Since when was Lotus an Arch I hear you ask? Well, it appears that she fluttered her eyelashes at the newest Arch-wiz, Plod, and managed to extract his Arch password out of him! Peter (in the guise of Brian the Arch-Wizard) discovered this rather major bending of the MUD password security, and a great row ensued! Most people would (and have in the past) gained themselves some form of retribution for this (Look what they did to poor Skweeky the mouse on Pr*s*t*l!), but such is the popularity of Lotus with Compunet at the moment, they'll probably make her an Arch for it!

Bad news for players (and especially Wizzes) at Essex... you're all novices, unless you've bothered to go and work you way up again! The persona file was cleared by Richard, and everyone was zeroed.

Speaking of MUD-2, the last few months have seen massive improvement in the game, and especially the speed of the game (not long ago MUD-2 was so slow you could have played by post!) Bug-fixes and modifications have now rendered the game playable, but it is still incomplete, with many nice new features over the original MUD, but also many very basic things missing. However MUSE have drastically reduced the entry cost to the system. It now costs only £4.95 to sign up, versus £20 before, and is also presently charging time at half price. It's a shame though that all this time has made MUSE a bit paranoid and 'heavy-handed' on the instructions to attack certain reviewers on sight (in MUD I hasten to add) for writing a bad review about the game. Considering the small amount of flak MUSE have actually been given for a product which is, let's face it, over a year late and still incomplete, they should be glad that many of the computer press used to play Essex MUD, and still public relations front. It's a hold it in awe!

Micronet abandoned the idea of running MUD-2 on PRestel (due to delays perhaps?) and has instead plumped for a very interesting game called Shades. More of Shades later, but for now, it looks like a good MUG, well worth the small pittance per hour Micronet are talking about charging for it! Oh yes, and it appeared dead on time too!

I think we have both slung enough MUD for one issue. Hope to bring you better news (and some hints and tips on MUG game playing styles!) next time!

Frobozz the wizard has just disappeared in a puff of Smoke!

Kate the Arch-Witch has just disappeared in a puff of perfume!

<Uncaptioned>
Image size: approx. 15K.