TMC Player Reviews: Buffy Mud

Review Submitted By: BuffyMudder
Author Status: Player
Started on Buffy Mud:
Submission Date: Jan 1, 2006
TMC Listing: Buffy Mud

The following review is the opinion of the review's author [BuffyMudder] and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.

Okay, I’ve played BuffyMUD for a long time, since about halfway
through the Beta phase. Having recently given up on BuffyMUD entirely,
I’d like to share why.

The grid is ridiculously small, which isn’t as much as drawback as it
would seem, as you will spend almost all of your time in either the
Bronze (a dues ex machine to force character interaction, since only
in the Bronze and Demon Bar under it can you regenerate hit points at
a reasonable rate). The pbase is also equally small, which is only a
drawback in that you know that you are always playing with the same
people, to the point that you recognize their new characters or alts
on sight.

The “extensive tunnels” are simply a grid that follows exactly the
street grid above it, contains no descriptions, and leads nowhere
interesting except for three locations: the demon bar, the demon spa
(where demons and vamps go after losing a fight to a mob or PC) and
the demon market ( a single room shop, like all other shops in the
game except for the weapons shop and the mall. The rest of the
locations vary in room number, but none exceed five except the Bronze,
the Mall, the Demon Bar, and the Hospital/Demon Spa. Also, mobs do not
spawn in certain areas any more than on the street, so often hunting
becomes a routine of “leave the Bronze, kill a vampire or two on the
road, go back to the Bronze, rest, repeat”. The tunnels are absolutely
as pedestrian as the streets in this manner. I would consider the
overall feel of the game not “intimate” but “cramped”.

Character customization is superficial and negligible. Ethnicity and
accent never come into play, except for the occasion in character
joke, or walking stereotype. Stats are uniform, and available to every
race and class, albeit with experience costs based on classes.

Race is basically just an RP tool, except for Demons and Half-demons,
who get their own skillset of expensive, but cool skills that are
dearly bought using a different cost system than the rest of the
skills. But basically, there are only a few successful character
builds, those most suited to combat and pk, since the game focus is as
much or more on combat and pk than roleplay. The battle between good
and evil is hardly epic, and is often reduced to vampires and humans
throwing childish insults at each other in the Bronze. Few characters
are truly good or evil, with most people preferring to play in the
morally ambiguous gray area.

Such characters are only defined as being on a specific side by the
presence or lack of a soul, which is coded into each race. You cannot
be an evil human unless a character removes your soul.

The MUD also has a history of slayer-vampire romances and in general
the atmosphere is dark and grey, with only a soul separating the good
from the bad. The only time that alignment comes into play is in pk,
defining who is a safe target, and sometimes even that doesn’t matter.
Humans can go anywhere, do anything. So can halfies, who are
essentially humans who can turn into a demon on command and remain
“good”. Vampires can go anywhere, do anything, except during the day,
when they take damage from sunlight. Demons are in no way limited to
the tunnels, or anywhere. “Public” is defined only as the interior of
certain buildings, such as the Bronze, Mall, or Hospital. The streets
are not. Also, a cheap, common item on the game is an Expectency
Charm, which can be bought for 15 dollars in the demon bar, which
allows a demon to enter public areas with no penalty. Vampires in
‘grr’ face or half- demons in demonic form have the same restriction,
but can simply use the ‘face’ command to appear completely human.

Combat is almost entirely automated, much like most MUDs. Martial
Arts styles are confusing, complex, and, as the head immortal Tyr once
admitted, largely random. The other combat skills are mostly
automatic, except for a few that include usable syntax.

Ranged combat is strange, as you get one shot before the fight
becomes melee (no matter how far away the mob is, once you hit it, it
is suddenly in your face and fighting you with no transition). Claws
and fangs are not abilities, but rather physical modifications that
give a slight advantage in combat.

X-ray vision is in no way combat-related, like all the other skills
in the Demon Mystics skillset.

Social attacks are based on level rather than stats, so that the
uppercut social will only knock back a character above you in level
but much weaker than you, while it will throw lower-level character
into another room, regardless of their stat in relation to yours.

Head ripping is a slay power, which is to say that it does absolutely
nothing in combat, but does give you a cooler option to killing
vampires than simply staking them. Playerkilling is entirely
unregulated. You may pk anyone you wish, so long as you have the
ability to beat that person in combat. It does incur a small exp
pentalty, but this is really negligible, as the cost is so small
compared to exp gained from hunting.

Normal pvp combat ends when one combatant is incapacitated, leaving
the victor with the choice to leave you to heal enough to walk to the
Bronze, or to “slay” you, which sends you to the hospital/demon spa
with an injury timer based on their level.

High level characters can give ten to twenty minute injury timers,
where you are confined to a single hospital room and may not leave.
Permdeath is much more off-balance. With their system, a character,
who needs no RP requirement or reason at all and is never asked for
one, simply contributes a certain amount of experience in return for
the ability to permanently kill another character, regardless of their
level or combat ability in relation to yours.

High level characters risk very little in permkilling a low- level
character, except for the period during which they are generating.
However, it’s easy enough to hide the fact that you are generating a
showdown, so that it’s not uncommon for characters to secretly buy the
right to permkill another character for no reason and succeed.

In finishing, I’d like to point out that while the playerbase is
generally helpful, since Hazgarn is right and helpfiles are crap, the
immortals are another story. Immortals are not only allowed to have
mortal alts, but are unregulated in doing so, and their mortal alts
almost always occupy the highest positions of power in the game, as
well as forcing RP to move in the directions they wish it to.

The immortal Scarlock, the younger brother irl of the Main Admin Tyr,
is notoriously foul-mouthed, sarcastic, and abusive to the players,
reacting to criticism or even honest questions with scorn and
ridicule. He has been known to harass players he doesn’t like, and his
mortal alt is almost always the Villain (the top bad guy, with very
nice stat bonuses) of the mud, being one of the most powerful
characters in the game.

The immortal Tyr is the main administrator, and his mortal alt has a
preference for taking the position of Hero (good- aligned equivalent
to Villain), as well as forcing himself into the RP of others and
steering it in the directions of his choosing. He’s often also one of
the most powerful characters on the game. Accusations of immortal
abuse abound on the game, and a large number of players have deserted
the game in the last month or so because of the administration.

In short, they have been known to be immature (giving shorter penis
sizes to players they don’t like, and yes, penis sizes are coded,
semi-random, and unchangeable throughout the life of the character),
abusive of the players, unresponsive to suggestions from the players,
and everyone who plays the game tacitly recognizes the favoritism that
is the hallmark of immortal/mortal interaction.

In short . . don’t waste your time. The game is extremely promising,
but the administration is unfriendly to players, the code is sloppy
(frequent crashes are another hallmark of the game, sometimes as many
as a dozen or two per day) and the RP is not of any remarkable
quality, as the mud is based extremely heavily on leveling and pk, to
the exclusion of non-combat-oriented characters.