This is a good MUD if all you really want to do is grind. The questing is little more than an expansion on the old Diku-type fan favourite. I like the way it's done, mind you...somewhat repetitive, but very worthwhile. Crusades are a way to help out NPCs who shout out over a global channel regarding items they've lost or had stolen. They seem to be geared somewhat to the level of players currently active, which means even newbies can get in on the fun. PK is not enforced and you aren't really bothered if you don't want to PK, though a couple of areas you might be sent into for quests require you to go through PK areas. I have never once been preyed upon by a playerkiller. Midgaard is still very much in evidence, though most of the areas around it are completely different. The theme of this game is a bit on the sludgy side, inconstant and unsure, but it stays at least within the realms of fantasy and science fiction for the most part. Crafting allows you to create wickedly strong gear very early on if you have the items required. You can raise a pet, but I've yet to see a particularly compelling reason to do so. Secret areas often require very obscure keywords to get into, and spelling/grammatical mistakes abound in room descriptions, I'm afraid. Some places are more well-written than others. Nevertheless, the combat is fast and furious, the players are helpful and the experience comes quickly. I haven't been here long enough to speak too well of balance, but it seems the best way to win at this MUD is to stack about half a dozen damage-over-time spells on a mob, then make it bleed and plink it to death. Easy since you level in all five classes before remort. If you want to play the deepest, most well-conceived or most original MUD of your life, you may need to go elsewhere. If you just want to have a good time whomping stuff, gaining tons of levels, crafting items, and getting rewarded for exploring, then give this game a try and you'll not be disappointed. A note: the blind and visually impaired may have more trouble with this game owing to the fact that some of the aforementioned keywords are coloured, which is useless for a screenreader. I am assured that this will be rectified soon though. Thus far, the immortals have both proven very friendly and open to suggestions and fixes that will improve one's ability to play the game.

I'm a current player of Stormhunters, who is both an old player and a new player. I played it years ago when it was under a different name, and moved on and did different things for over 10 years. Recently I was having the itch to just dig into a good mud again, but couldn't find one that really had the enjoyment to keep logging on like I wanted. I tried 4 different muds to no avail, until after some idle searching I found this MUD, After a cursory glance, it appeared familiar! I logged on, and it was actually the mud was years ago still up with the same staff who had been working this entire time updating and adding things. I was immediately greeted by people I knew from then who still log on and play, because its a fun place to be. This MUD has a lot to offer, for all types of players whether you enjoy pk or just digging into a pretty deep and lengthy crafting and quest system and a huge world with huge areas hidden within huge areas like the immersive large worlds you would find in a large MMO. Definitely a big recommendation for anyone wanting a fun, immersive experience.

I have been playing different muds for 13 years now. I have run and operated muds, built, coded and enjoyed muds of all types for years.

I had thought I would never find a better mud than the one I have played for 12 years now. After playing Storm hunters I can happily say I have found a new better mud.

To start, their quest system is by far the best I have seen. No simple quest master that has objectives you can complete in a few seconds. These quests can take quite a while to complete. On top of this there are crusades that are always happening which require you to learn and explore the land.

The areas are all unique and interesting with ascii maps and all. The EQ and mobs are so well balanced that leveling is entertaining while challenging.

The remort system is also the best I have seen anywhere. With iirc 6 remorts with various forks, it makes all characters unique in play, skills and abilities.

As with all muds there are a few downsides. The boards system requires you to find the board (in the mud) to read/write to it which I have never liked. Also, because of some downtime the mud is not very active, but once more people find this place it will get packed, so join up and check it out!

About 7 years ago I was attacked by a band of rabid pirate cannibal chainsaw-wielding zombie ninjas from outer-space. I was able to fight them off, but I have since lived under constant pressure, always watching my back. I am constantly pursued. I can not even go to the store without having to fight 5, maybe 7 ninjas.

Then around 2 years ago, I found this mud. This mud is so awesome that through it, and a combination of pizza and Chinese-food delivery, I never have to leave my house. I have safely barricaded my walls and surrounded myself with weapons. The food comes in through a mail slot and is billed to my credit card. I train 8 hours a day with my Katana in case a ninja does manage to break in, but the other 16 hours are spent playing this mud, and sometimes sleeping.

Sometimes the idea crosses my mind that the ninjas may learn to mud, and that they may log-in to the mud and pursue me there. This is where the immortal staff comes in very handy. Koron, one of the implementers there has assured me that he would act swiftly and with extreme prejudice in eliminating any imminent ninja threats. This gives me a feeling of great ease, a feeling that I will never know in the real world. This mud let's me live the active life that I would normally never know. Thank you Stormhunters mud.

Reasons for liking Stormhunters: *Much original content. *Active, helpful imms that are always working on something new. *Codebase modified to the point that it's practically original. *It's a lot of fun. *It keeps me safe from Ninjas.

I've been playing Stormhunters for a while, and i figured i would throw my two cents in after reading that review left by 'J'.

I've been playing ACK!muds as well as other types (godwars, swrs, circle, etc.), and at no point have I ever been on a mud where the immortals are not only constantly coding and bringing in new concepts and ideas, but actively fixing old bugs to improve the simplicity of gameplay. The typical problem is ACK!mud is messed up to begin with so much of the normal ACK!mud functions such as areas, regen, walking around, casting spells, melee damage, etc.. is almost ALWAYS exactly the same on every ack!mud.

The difference here is it's all been completely rewritten whether with snippets of code or manually. Much of the problems the previous reviewer ('J') had were based on a lot of this new code coming in without being able to anticipate new players who aren't familiar with the old way of doing things reacting to the new code. I can honestly say the biggest problem I had was figuring out the new creation system. As far as getting around, that i kind of learned through exploring and asking players. Now I know my way around pretty much entirely by memory.

In response to Jethro's claim that players are AFK or don't help, I'd have to disagree entirely. Many players do idle AFK, but I don't think i've logged in a year when i was the only active player or immortal online. One of the best things i've found about this MUD is that if as a newbie you ask for help or explain you have a problem with something, the imms will either give you an answer or fix it 9/10 by the next reboot whether it's adding code to make the mud easier for a screenreader (used by blind players) or simply adding a helpfile.

I've found if you want to get the full experience of this mud, you need to play it for around two or three months. Like every other mud out there, you need to put time in to really enjoy yourself. 10/10

This is not a flame, but I need to be factual about this mud. I do not believe this mud can be called newbie friendly. The staff and players are very nice, but the game itself is not for those who have not played an ACK! before. While it has most of the same features that an ACK! does, there are some differences that completely change the gameplay and make it very hard for new players.

Fighting takes your movement points...all of them. This wouldn't be too bad except that you cannot flee if you have no moves. You also cannot recall from combat. These two things together mean that if you're in a fight that's going badly, you're going to die. Wimpy is obsolete, again because you can't flee. Even casting refresh to regain movement points is pretty much useless due to the fact that the mobs will just follow you wherever you flee to. Since you can't recall for a certain amount of time after a fight, you're just going to have to let them kill you.

Also they have taken out the multiple attacks, so no matter what level you reach, you're only going to attack once per round. Kind of takes the power away from any warrior class. With all this combined, you can be sure to die often...due to the fights lasting longer with less attacks and not being able to flee from them if they go badly because of having no movements.

Nearly everyone I've seen logged on has been a Realm Lord or higher, so they've already been through the low levels. Unfortunately since these changes have recently been put into affect, they do not know how hard it is to be a newbie here. I will continue to play here, but for now only because it's the only ACK! around with players. However, I cannot recommend it to those new to the ACK! code base.

I played Storm Hunters for only a couple weeks. Not a mud that I enjoyed at all.

-Creation- Seriously, had someone not been around to guide me through the creation process, I would have had to refer to the lame youtube videos that happen to be way out of focus. Better off writing a step by step instruction guide.

-Getting Around- You might just as well stumble around drunk, because you can't find anything. No special directions are posted anywhere, players get transported to various recal points, with no hope of manuvering the mazes to get back to a reasonable point. Quite a few no recall rooms. If one gets lost, it's best to abandon all hope.

-Players- Alright, I found the players, to be decent. Several seem to enjoy logging long hours...of not being at the window. Using public channels to ask for help will ony get you answers if you ask, repeatedly. Eventually someone will get back with you. That is if you stick around long enough to get the answer you needed.

-Areas- With no auto map function, you might get lost in areas rather easily. I know I did. I'd spend ages wandering in all possible directions, either attempting to find an area for a low level player or attempting to manipulate my way around the area or out of the area.

-Help- Nearly all MUD's contain a special help file for new players. Storm Hunters doesn't. Even the most obvious helpfiles appear to be omitted.

All in all, I rate my expirence on Storm Hunters a 2 out of 10, with an added bonus point for players being logged in, even though they aren't really there.

The mud has some very dedicated staff who keep adding new and exciting changes to the code. It's something i haven't seen in quite awhile. The changes mean to enhance the playability of the mud for sure, and keep it relatively simple. This is no oRDINARy ackmud people, this is the epitome of dedication to codeing and building! Come check it out!!!

-Prince Pain Jasper Lightbane..... longtime ackmudder

PoS~ Staffed by a rather large group of imms for an Ack!Mud, there are at minimum four active IMMs working on code trying to get new things implimented.

Reboots happen once a week now, typically on Sunday night. Reboots can bring in anything from new areas or skills to a batch of new bug fixes or tweaks.

The mud has two active playerbases. I say this because there's the American crowd, and the Asian crowd. There are typically 6-10 active American players on during normal hours, and 4-6 Asian players on late at night.

Low end leveling (A nightmare on most muds) is rather easy here, allowing for quick immersion into the world. There is currently a lot to do upon realming (Attaining the highest level group), including questing (You can have up to 5 uniques wearable at a time.), and rare checking (The mud offers a wide variety of rares at realm, which can keep you busy for weeks trying to find them all).

Upon reaching Legend (The highest achievable point currently in the game. Technically, you can only wear two more pieces of equipment, but you do get several new skills), you can trade in experience points for quest points, encouraging high level characters to do more than just idle, with more things in the works for legends to do and strive for.

As with all ack muds, classes and races are a little unbalanced. Good aligned adepts still struggle to do some of the things evil aligned adepts can do easily (IE, quest/gather equipment), and not all races are currently useful, but unlike most Ack muds, the imm staff on PoS are working with the players to fix this and strengthen the variety players have when chosing their character.

The PK system is the same old established Ack Mud system, and isn't really stressed on PoS as the playerbase is still trying to establish itself. Most players are old Ack players who have known each other for years, and tend to do very little serious PKing verse each other. That is not to say the mud does not cater to people who want to PK, as there are several players who can PK well and spar often to keep their skills up.

The class system is very tiered. There are 5 basic classes everyone gets (War, Thi, Cle, Mag, Psi), with 80 levels per class. This in turn translates to two remort classes (Necromancer, Sorcerer, Knight, Monk, Assassin). After that, players can choose from 1 of 6 (Exorcist, Living Shadow, Dark Templar, Blademaster, Malakim, or Deity) realm classes, each which has two different Legend classes to chose from at end game, for a total of 9 classes worth of skills at max level.

Character paths are heavily defined by the remort classes you take, as well as the realm classes. Legend classes for the most part add a little flavor, but only a few REALLY affect how your character will be played.

Unlike most Ack!Muds, eq stats are insane or extreme. A race with low dex will find its AC lacking before uniques and rare equipment, just as a race with low strength will find its hitroll/damroll lacking.

A stock adept probably won't last verse a fully equiped, rared, uniqued adept, as it should be. I view this as a reward for people who put forth the effort to gather that equipment, and not as a punishment for people who want to be able to stand toe to toe with more experienced players without putting forth the same effort.

There are currently 5 clans, of which 3 are active. The current five clans are Helsing, Unleashed, The Fallen, The Unforgiven, and Celestial Abyss.

Celestial Abyss is a neutral, newbie friendly clan with a lot of good information for begining players.

The Fallen is a pk active clan with a lot of active members. Unleashed are 'Team Asia' so to speak, with most of the muds Asian-located players in it.

Helsing are a semi-active clan that claims to hunt 'Super naturals' with 3 active members who are almost always on, and several semi-active members.

The Unforgiven is sort of the dark horse clan. Sometimes they are very active, and sometimes you can go for days without seeing their members.

If I was just starting out on the mud, I'd chose CA, Fallen, or Unleashed and then make a choice on a permanent clan once I had a better grasp of the mud. Or, better yet, bring your friends, and push an inactive clan out of a clan slot. Haha.

There -are- supers (Werewolves, Vampires) in this mud, but they aren't currently active. (There may be a few active supers on the mud, but not many) Supers are currently in the process of being re-vamped and re-balanced, so ideas are welcome while this is being done.

The quest system is standard Ack!Mud fair, being level/mob/timer driven. There are a few alternate means of getting quest points, but questing still remains the fastest.

Other than that, the atmosphere is very friendly and people are incredibly helpful. The imm staff is active, or will at least tell you when real life issues are piling up so they have to take a few days off. The only bad thing is that maybe they are a little too relaxed when it comes to dealing with problem players, and maybe other than the big three, there isn't much power delegated.

There was one problem player who drove away at least 5 other players that they kept trying to rehabilitate rather than get rid of.

Two or three of the imms don't have the power to run games or imm quests, which is a shame.

Still, easily the best Ack!Mud I've played in forever, and with a continued growth of it's player base, I can see it becoming the best.

One wish of mine would be that they contact other imms or allow people with code experience the chance to add to the code. There are tons of ACK! snippets out there and players with ACK! coding experience who have little things to offer. Allowing those players the ability to volunteer their code to the mud would be nice.

-Redrum 16MAY06