Review Submitted By: Tymbir
Author Status: Player
Started on Ancient Anguish: Over 10 years ago
Submission Date: Jul 16, 2006
TMC Listing: Ancient Anguish
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Tymbir]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I've been playing Ancient Anguish off and on for over 10 years.
It is far less daunting to the newcomer than many others MUDs out
there. There IS, however, a LOT to see and do. Between the 10
classes (Artificer {new class}, Adventurer, Cleric, Fighter, Mage,
Necromancer, Paladin, Ranger, Rogue {if they existed}, and
Shapeshifter), the 6 Guilds (The Realm of the Black Bear, The Courts
of Chaos, The Eldar, The Knights of Drin, The Monks of Antana, and
The Scythe), and the 5 races (Dwarf, Elf, Half Elf, Human, and Orc),
you have a LOT of choices for your character.
The MUD is immense, I have not even approached seeing all the 'rooms'
in the MUD. Even more areas are added regularly by the Wizards. The
Wizards were players like you and me who have demonstrated an extreme
level of knowledge about the MUD and are given the opportunity to
make additions and changes. I've had a few friends and many
guildmates make it to Wizard status (Hi Fairydust!). Though they
have not told me what they had to go through in their wizard
training, I do understand that the rules for additions and changes
are VERY strict.
The quests in the game are some of the best kept secrets. You may
not discuss them in any sort of detail. Do a web search on 'Ancient
Anguish Quests' and you will have a lot of trouble finding ANY
spoilers. Quite an accomplishment for a MUD that is over a decade
old.
There are many very good maps of AA available out there to aid your
wanderings. I mostly use Methos' map, to keep from getting lost! :)
|
Submit Comments About this Review
Comment Submitted By: Fir
Author Status: Player and staff member
Started on Ancient Anguish: 1998
Submission Date: Dec 3, 2006
(The following review comment is the opinion of the comment's author
[Fir] and in no way represents the opinions of this website
or its staff).
I've played Ancient Anguish rather actively since 1998, and been a
wizard (part of the coding staff) since about 2000. I still play
actively, and I love to explore new and old places and draw maps -
there's a lot of AA to map out, I've got a couple of notebooks filled
with notes and maps on areas and a map of half the wilderness
(continent of Anguish) that takes 6 A4 pages of squared paper.
We actually have one more guild since this review was written, the
Snowfolk of the far north. ;)
The process of becoming a wizard involves exploring areas and solving
a percentage of the quests, and I decided it was for me because I
wanted to take the job of running the bimonthly local newspaper, The
Canticle.
Tymbir mentioned about the process of getting new areas in: it
involves having the area checked so that it fits in with the AA
history and theme, and a thorough spelling and code check so that bugs
won't inconvenience players. I've been to a couple of other muds and
was kind of disappointed at the minimal descriptions which weren't
internally consistent. In AA, I feel I'm living inside a fantasy book
(or series) that's had a really good editor. :) Besides that, I think
the things I like the most are all the great friends I've made there,
and the exact right amount of seriousness - I can role play, but I
don't have to, and most of our areas have bits of subtle humour that
you keep running into, while not being tacky.
To balance it out, we're kind of bad at upkeeping websites and
suchlike (we're too busy having fun on the mud side, maybe? X-)), but
don't let first impressions on externalities turn you away. ;)
|
|
