Crazy Happy

I’ve begun work redesigning and updating the Age of War website. Its turning out fairly nice. Its not turning out as good as I hoped, because I just can’t come up with original designs anymore. I’ve shown it to a few people and they love it, so I guess its good enough. I just dont feel its my best work. Design aside, I know my HTML skills are still as good as they ever were. That means the content of the site will pose no problem at all.

Aside from the website, I don’t seem to have any other duties as an Immortal on Age of War. I still need to take care of standard things, help newbies, make sure people aren’t being disruptive, etc. However if people are being disruptive and they don’t stop when I say stop, I have to post about it on the message boards so those with more power than I can do something. Overall, its pretty much like being a hall monitor.

For those of you that don’t know what a MUD is, here’s a short description:

A MUD (Multiple User Dimension, Multiple User Dungeon, or Multiple User Dialogue) is a text based computer program which users can log into and explore. Each user takes control of a computerized persona/avatar/incarnation/character. You can walk around, chat with other characters, explore dangerous monster-infested areas, solve puzzles, and even create your very own rooms, descriptions and items. They have been around for over 20 years. They were the games that inspired newer graphical games such as EverQuest and Dark Ages of Camelot.

The game I’ve played almost exclusively since 1997 has seen some bad times and its now getting back up to speed. A few years back they implemented Jihad, a clan war system. It was a system of player-killing. It allowed players to fight and kill one another to gain the items the player had. Only Jihad members were
able to be killed by other players. This was fine for a while, until the players got bored of being super powered and lots stopped playing. The coding behind the Jihad system was brilliant and well thought out. However the implementation wasn’t as well thought out. People in Jihad were so powerful they could run through areas by themselves. Areas that normally requires fairly large groups of players. Jihad would be perfect for a Role-playing MUD. However Age Of War is a self styled hack & slash MUD. The current admins of the MUD are slowly bringing back players by phasing out Jihad.

I’ve been there trying to help new players all I could. Lately I’ve even helped the staff with a few things, such as coming up for names for NPC characters or towns, etc. Since the player-base has been growing lately, I’ve wanted to do all I could to help Age Of War All I could. Today I received an honor, I became an immortal. On MUDS immortals and gods are staff of the game. They take care of problems, handle disputes, and build more areas onto the game.

Unfortunately, I’m not good with coming up with room descriptions or coding. That leaves me with my Web design skills. The website is a few years old. It needs to be updated. With any luck, it may entice more players to give Age Of War a chance.