Forbidden Realms

Blane Bramble packs up his Runic Staff, Magic Sword and Marmite Sandwiches, and continues his quest

Ah, I see the faithful are still with me, and one or two new faces besides. Well once again I delve into those Forbidden Realms, leading brave souls who would know all there is to know...

A new name for MirrorWorld, and much more besides.

The MirrorWorld system (not the game itself) has changed it's name to the 'I/O World of Adventure' (or IOWA for short), this is partly to prevent confusion between the game MirrorWorld and the actual front-end system, and also because of the new games being added to the system.

Charging.

Charging has been introduced for the IOWA system at 10.00 for 30 days play (a unit is only used if you actually log-in which is good for occasional players), about 35p a day. The charging system is flexible in that players will not find themselves locked out from I0WA if they run out of credits, MirrorWorld head, Pippin calls his method 'Honour Bright' as it relies on players paying up when they see their credits are getting low (or have run into debit!), which makes for a much friendlier form of charging: players can continue to play even if they are short of money until they can afford to purchase further credits. As many players are young without regular incomes, this has to be the best way of doing things, and I hope that other networks will begin to use similar systems - most dial-up systems ARE a service, and so should attempt to be as friendly as possible.

Expansion.

The introduction of charging is not intended to line the pockets of Pippin (or anyone else at IOWA). The money generated is to be used to finance further expansion of the system, the most immediate being 10 lines on a London (01) exchange. As well as doubling the number of external lines, this will bring local rate access to more people (the existing 0883 lines are already local to the London (01) area).

Avalon

As you may (or may not) have guessed, Avalon is based around Arthurian legend, and set within the time of heroes. Players become spirits within the land, questing to attain the heights of divinity by gathering and selling treasure and killing things. Money has been introduced and players can buy and sell items to help them, including property and other goods (food, animals and so on). As well as this, players may choose to worship the Gods in the land (the Avalon equivalent of a Wizard), although quite what good this will do depends on who you choose to worship.

Parody

Parody is the second new game on the IOWA system. This is where I run into a problem, as it was written by yours truly, and so I can't offer an objective review! [Such honesty! - Ed.] However, I will do my best to provide details so you can try it out and decide for yourself. Parody is set in the mythical land of Wesarg which is somewhat akin to pre-Christian (or just post-Christian) Britain. Players (who choose a class from Warrior, Rogue, Priest or Mage) wander about finding and selling valuable things to gain experience (or score). As well as using this experience to gain levels, players may also buy spells with it, and so may choose how rapidly they gain levels - the more spells a player acquires the smaller their score will be, and so the lower their level.

Emp

By the time you read this Emp should be up and running on the IOWA system, this looks to be a very interesting game as it will run on two PC's - one to manage the game, the other to manage the mobiles (which I am informed are written in PROLOG and should be able to learn!). As I have not seen Emp yet, I can't give further details, but it certainly sounds good.

Gods news

According to Tiger Tiger, the running of Lap of the Gods (LotG) has been taken over 'by persons a bit more vigorous than Tiger' - further enquiry revealed that Heptaparaparshinokh now handles the day to day running of the system.

The Mosaic System - Part Two...

The possibilities for object (and mobile) manipulation with Mosaic should greatly improve the scope of games. In current MUG's, if two players both decide to get the same object, the one who enters the command first gets it, with Mosaic the system can determine the distance to the object (and possibly how quickly that player can cover the distance), and delay the action accordingly.

Mosaic originally started life as 'Vector', obviously enough because positions in the game would be described by x,y,z co-ordinates and so objects could be described by vectors from a particular point (a player for instance). However, this system recalculated the entire game database every time something moved and was far too slow, even on an Acorn Archimedes, and so the system was redesigned to only recalculate the area that was necessary, and Mosaic was born.

At the time I spoke to Pippin about Mosaic, a working demo had been produced, and he told me they intended to get some more work done at the start of the year. Sadly, other events at IOWA have meant thev have veen unaale to work on Mosaic yet.

Well, that about concludes the basics of Mosaic for now, I will be keeping an eye on developments though, and will report anything new. Hopefully sometime in the future a review of a Mosaic system will appear here...

GODS Reviewed

Continuing with the incredible useful and specially sized to be just-too-big-to -fit-in-your-average-pocket reviews, here we have a brief look at GODS...

This is another very popular game, with a scenario that is perhaps based more soundly in historical fact than many others, although the game does join together elements from a number of different 'time-lines'. For instance you will find a coliseum and a set of dry docks close by each other, but this doesn't seem unusual in the game.

Players start of in a setting resembling a Mediterranean port, and from there adventure outwards into wilder lands, as usual looking for valuable items to collect and maybe a puzzle or two to solve on the way. When generating a character, a player can choose to be a fighter, or non-fighter, the difference being that non-fighters gain no points for killing, but neither do they lose points for being killed by other players.

One of the first things a new player has to get accustomed to is the method of scoring points. Most treasure has two values, a point value and an alms value. This means you have the choice of either offering it to the Gods and thereby increasing on your way to divinity yourself, or you can sell it for alms with which you can buy drinks in the bar (to restore your stamina), and gamble at the slot-machine.

Even offering to the Gods is not as simple as it may seem. Firstly you have the choice of which God to offer the treasure up to (the Gods themselves are players who have fought their way to Godhood, and gain benefits from the treasure offered to them); and then there are various ways of increasing the amount you score for your treasure, depending on who is present when you offer the treasure (you will score more if your chosen God is there, and if a number of 'Holies' are also present).

The game itself seems to have lots of nice touches, darkness is properly implemented, and areas such as the forest have location descriptions that change as you move about - which make it hard to navigate, without resorting to illogical exits or changing exits. Carrying too much will result in you beginning to drop things, if you are quick you can get away with being overloaded but it's difficult! Objects are 'folded' into the location descriptions, so that they appear to be part of the text, rather than having them standlng out separately. This is arguably a better system. With the current generation of modems, I personally feel that objects should be readily apparent to players to save time and money. Hopefully in the future when faster (possibly digital) systems; are in use this won't be necessary and descriptions will get even closer to real English. But this is a very minor quibble about the game, and is more a criticism of modems than Gods!

Gods cost £lO.00 + VAT (£11.50) for either a month's unlimited play, or 30 hours play (whichever you prefer). If you want more information about how to pay, then log onto Gods and enter GUEST at the account prompt. Payment details can then be gained from the BB system on Gods (and you will be able to look around the game as well, but only one guest may be logged into the MUG at any one time, so you may have to wait awhile).

Other games?

If you know of a MUG that I haven't mentioned or you have any comments, feedback or questions to ask me, then please do contact me, either via the Owl Service BB (leave a message to BLANE BRAMBLE), or via the IOWA mail system (leave a message to GEOLIN).

INTO THE CRYPT- a run-down of MUG details...

Gods/Zone/BB
(01) 994 9119 ** Log in as GUEST to have a look around.

Shades/Trash
(0342) 810 905 * * Free to play (Shades test port)

Essex Mist
Available via PSS ** Free to play, but only after 2am.

Stop Press... Stop Press... Stop Press... Stop Pre

As of 21st February 1990 the IOWA phone numbers have been changed as part of BT's exchange improvement plans. The numbers for the IOWA lines are now (0883) 744044 and (0883) 744164. Note: the numbers are Identical to the old ones except the first 8 of the six digit number is now a 7, the Godstone code (0883) etc remains the same. IOWA costs £10 for 30 days' access.

BLANE BRAMBLE