Well, I gave it an honest try. Some days a few people were helpful to me, but most days they were not. I received quite a bit of 'know-it-all' mentality from the players on this MUD. The gameplay itself felt a bit limited, even for a hack and slash style game. The quests that were presented to me were fairly boring, very spammy, and generally quite basic.

There was almost never any immortal staff visible to help with problems. The 'quests' run by staff members (I assume?) were just copied off of puzzle websites. There seemed to be a facade of friendliness initially, but most players revealed their true colors pretty quickly and I got a lot of snobbery and apparent expectations that I should already know things.

There was no roleplaying of any sort experienced. There is no PK that I could find. For the levels I was at, it was running around by myself trying to figure out what was going on. I was told that grouping happened at the next tier, but upon reaching that tier I still never found a group and found any sort of worthwhile gear impossible to reach. It was like playing a massively online one player game. Most of the time, there were maybe 30 people online and more than half of the are either bots or seem to be constantly AFK.

There have been heavy modifications from standard DIKU it seems, so a lot of work looks to have gone into this place. But most of it looks purely superficial. I couldn't find any hint of community or purpose to play, so for now I will keep looking for another home game to play on.

If you're looking for a fun and friendly environment, this is definitely not the place for you.

I've been mudding for about 15 years on and off and recently was looking for a new mud to play. Wanted something I could get into fairly easily and that I could solo without too much of a huge learning curve. Well in the space of a couple of days I tried 20 different muds and didn't find one I liked until I came across Avatar MUD. Let me tell you why this mud caught my eye and has kept my attention.

First off, every. single. mud. will claim they have 'a super dooper friendly player base!' who love helping out new players etc. No, no they don't, half of them don't even have a playerbase, the other half are afk or don't care and some are downright rude (not looking at any muds on top of the rankings or anything).

Avatar Mud was different. I was greeted, I was talked to players, they answered my dumb questions (without snobby 'read the newbie manual you idiot' comments)...I was shown certain tricks to the game and even had players help me with CRs. Truly friendly and helpful player base.

Their mud school was clean, quick, easy to understand and helpful. This makes it better than 99% of the mud schools out there.

The interface is very clean. Can't tell you how many horrible interfaces I've looked at over the last two weeks but how people can play some of these muds without their eyes bleeding I don't know. Avatar's is simple, easy to understand and without a fit-inducing level of color use.

They have a huge number of zones, a very nice wiki and plenty of quests it looks like. Looking forward to many months of Avatar Mudding.

As player on and off for over a decade I have come to respect and enjoy this realm as not only a way to play a game, but to also enjoy the players personalities as an outlet for my busy working life.

Avatar, i leave for many different reasons, almost exclusively real life distractions. Yet, when i have time for new distractions i always come back for some more fair, in-depth and ever-adapting game development that can always provide many new experiences that i never thought possible from a simple text game.

The more players that play this MUD the faster it adapts and evolves to subdue the thirsty players looking for something new to do.

I strongly suggest this MUD to other people who are even vaguely interested in playing a game with so many outlets to absorb yourself into. You can play to be the super-player, or even play strong RP. It is your choice at the time you log-in, and everything in-between is possible.

Avatar is a rare jewel among MUDs as it presents an environment that is ripe with variety and filled with opportunities for new experiences and challenges every time a player logs in. With 200+ areas, 30+ playable races, 20+ classes, and 4 tiers of game play, no one player’s experience is exactly the same as anothers.

The game’s flexible and developed play-scheme, mixed with a large and diverse playerbase, in a family-friendly atmosphere makes Avatar a place to where one can have many different adventures and meet life-long friends.

One of the best things about Avatar is that the game is constantly changing (for the better) as a result of the efforts of its dedicated Angels, Staff Members, and Immortals. These individuals help keep the MUD vibrant through friendly and helpful interaction, new area/race/class/spell/skill additions, and ensuring a safe and enjoyable player experience.

Having played Avatar for over 8 years now, I would highly recommend it to both new and experience MUDders. It is my sincere hope that you will consider joining us. I know you won’t be disappointed.

Sincerely, Ferrix

Disclaimer: Account of a brief (~1hr) experience. Apologies ahead of time if it seems like it's jumping around or otherwise disjointed, but I'm writing with little sleep.

Perspective: PC gamer (since late 80s/early 90s), MUDder; also console experience (Intellivision, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Gameboy, DS, PSP, PS3). FPS, FPS-spinoff, RTS and RPG genres preferred.

Pros: Free, populated, playable, responsive (lag-free), bug-free (so far) and with plenty of character variety. A player dropped by in the first few seconds of my character's existence to say hi.

ANSI color is not always available in MUDs and can be horrendous to behold in others, but is decently represented here.

Stats are visible, which can be good or bad depending on your perspective. Disguised stats (in other MUDs) are prettier to look at, but can be hard to decipher until you learn what numbers or percentages they're roughly associated with.

Cons: Character creation was a bit odd. I had to look up race/class descriptions on the website, since it wouldn't let me access them while creating.

'Roleplaying encouraged,' but not supported. I'm sure this isn't the case in other circumstances, but it was immediately apparent with a 'who-list' screenfull of titles just shy of leet-speak. The player that dropped by to say 'hi' was caught in the awkward situation of both of us automatically knowing each others' names, but trying to introduce herself anyway.

Yes, names are immediately known to everyone in a room, which precludes the use character adjectives (not that I could find the command anyway). In some MUDs, there's a bit of tension involved if a grim-faced male dwarf walks in the room. Not so if you've already met and know him as Baldie the Pacifist Candydwarf. Knowing someone else's name right away removes the point of introductions the moment you type 'who' (if their titles are of any indication).

Because the site's helpfiles weren't all the way fleshed out, I wasn't exactly sure of what racial characteristics my character had. In-game chat was able to tell me that my race was 'cute' and 'crazy' but that was it. When I went to their site to ask on the forums, I found out that I had to level to 15 first (eh...). That would be a waste of time if it turned out that the particular race looked like everything I didn't visualize it as. This prevented me from writing anything more than one generic line in the description box. So if you're at all ignorant of the lore, you'd better hope there's a good helpfile somewhere because everyone else knows it and so should you.

Stats are incomprehensible. Is a 497 on something all that much different than 503?

Final Thought: I suppose a MUDs either your type or it isn't. Given some time, I could get into it, but I'd probably end up moving back to one of the more RP oriented ones (PK-enabled, of course).

AVATAR, which has always provided a fun and friendly atmosphere, keeps getting better. It is amazing how much energy has gone into new areas and new quests in the last year. The commitment of the player base and the immortal staff is strong. Of course, not every change meets the approval of every player. But player input is taken seriously.

As an Archangel I am really impressed with how much the experienced players support the new players.

If you have never played Avatar or haven't played for a while, check us out.

I have played a lot of MUDs and AVATAR is by far the best! The atmosphere is definitely THE BEST I've ever seen in a MUD! Everybody is very friendly and helpful. n00bs are treated with respect and are given a lot of advice and help when and if they need it. The HOG-a-thon is definitely a fun event to participate it and really brings out the fun community of AVATAR. But you'll never know until you check it out yourself! I guarantee you'll have fun! ^___^

~ Alandra [alts: Devara, Ilsa, Dora, Miya, Ariana, Ravyna, Ardnala]

If you haven't visited AVATAR lately, know that we are constantly growing, updating, building. With many new unique areas across all the tiers of play, there are diverse adventures for all. Legend tier is under construction for a PvP environment for advanced players. Remort races and classes have increased our diversity and our newest prestige classes have changed the way some people play the game.

If it's been awhile, come back and see us again. If you have never graced our realm, we welcome you. Be sure to check out our world famous mud school.

Avatar.... the legend continues..... Cerdwyn