CRASH'S NEW PLAYER DIARY - DAY ONE
Im not even sure why I decided to give MUD2 a go. I mean here I am a veteran Quake 2 Player of some repute and Im tryin out a text only RPG type thingy ? Hmmm. Anyway I was on the Wireplay site, it said the game was free and I was more than tired of Quake 2 so I downloaded it and popped into the tearoom.
No-one was around as I tried to leave the tearoom without success but it easily clued me to DRINK THE TEA, so I did. Nope didn’t work, you SIP THE TEA it tells me. Oh boy what a horrible game. Fine sip the tea if I have to. Happy now ? Sheesh. Out I go into the world. Directions are fairly easy but I have no idea where I am or what I have to do. I wander for a few minutes without finding a thing except forest. OK quit out of this I need to read a bit.
On to the web and the wireplay site and on to the 2 webpages on offer. Two ? That cant be right ! What about the boards and the millions of sites like for Q2 ? This clearly is not a very good game. Well plod on and dive in. The sites looks nice, they link to a few more and I quickly find the help section for newbies. Right I have to get treasure and dump it in the swamp. That’s enough for me, it should only ever take 5 mins to learn to play a game and about 4 hrs to master it by my reckoning. Back I go to the new text only fussy world I found.
Back in tearoom and I listen to a couple of people having a chat about the mudmeet coming soon. Aha ! So there is a community here. Good ! Right I know this bit out I go and click swampwards until I find the swamp. There, here I am that’s dandy !. OK lets try North, its always my favourite direction. I cant stand the long descriptions, I have to read for 10 minutes just to find out which ways I can go. Anyway I make my way to a house that I see in the description and wander inside. Oh dear this is still too confusing, well I’ll try my best. I find some objects aha ! Grab the postcard and the dish and the fire OUCH. Oh wow I don’t believe this nonsense ! As if by typing GET ALL I would want to touch the fire ! How ridiculous. Er where was that swamp. I cant retrace my steps so I use the swamp button until I find it. OK, DROP ALL in swamp. Woohoo points ! This is going to be easy. I then spend about half an hour in a largely fruitless search for more points and I see the occassional person flit by in the blink of an eye. Well I have a few points anyway. But its hard work I havent a clue where I am. OK time to cheat, back to the web !
This time I spend no less than 3 hours in a search for clues, secrets and most importantly a map ! Its not that Im a cheat but Im used to finding this stuff available for a game. Its how they are played these days. The fact I couldn’t find anything just urged me on ! FTP searches, newsgroups, all the heavy WWW tricks I know. Nothing, not a damn thing. In fact I managed to get only enough info for a few lines of notes. What is it with this game, is it that unpopular ? No it isnt, I can instantly see that. Millions love it and there are all sorts of reports about it, just no hint information. OK I have found I can go OUT to get to the ford. Well that’s a start, and I find a general map, VERY general. There us also a very good newbie guide which I fail to read properly and could have saved hours of play. This will have to do. Back to the tearoom.
This time there is another novice hanging around, I wont mention his name. The first thing he says is ‘Hi’ and teaches me how to get 200 exp with one command. Wow ! Look at that ! Im up a level. Hey this game is good. The rest of the day was spent chasing treasure and dumping it all in the swamp. That night, I read the stuff Id found and realised I should be doing a VALUE ALL as some treasure is a minus score ! DOH ! Im not impressed but I liked going up a level and Ill go back tomorrow.