I’m an old mudplayer who started all the way back in the late 80’s. Avalon became my primary game sometime in the early 90’s and I’ve returned to it on and off over the years for varying session lengths from just a few weeks to anywhere up to a few years. I’m deep into a 6 month session so I can speak with authority about Avalons long reign as what I consider the most exhilarating MUD out there.
Avalon was a pretty solid game even back in the 90’s with well-developed and evocative skills sets to support the numerous guilds it supports from Demon Summoning Sorcerers, Ritual and Fiery Mages and Knife wielding NIghtblades (that’s me!). It has a huge range of spheres in which to play from city politics and a vast economic and trade system which is supported by substantial labours and farming skills sets allowing players to run cities literally from planting seeds in fields to harvest, livestock breeding and a vast array of creatable items not including the more magical stuff like potions, poisons, herbs, arms, armour.
Combat? It’s PvP system is absolutely second to none and can be approached as simply as just getting out there and chasing your enemies down and doing whatever your guild does to them or complex well laid ambushes, traps and overarching strategies to play into your strengths. I challenge anyone to demonstrate a more in-depth PvP system.
Each of the cities and even individual guilds can engage in a comprehensive strategic warfare system from enlisting troops, training them up, bribing or killing other cities men. Legion formation, control, siege, bombardment, mine laying all done across a landscape of literally thousands of locations. It’s got all the usual stuff you would expect in a MUD with a large and mysterious questing pool from simple fetch and give to earn small rewards to huge world affecting ones whose steps to complete are often carefully guarded secrets or simply forgotten to the mists of time, I’d like to see some ways of learning quests but maybe that’s part of it’s mystery still. My one criticism is there are limited areas to go CCC bashing but it’s all about player and city interactions rather than mindless CCC grinding.
From what I can see this last six months it’s in a huge expansion phase with daily updates and substantial skill and system additions with exciting ones being shapeforms which allows for the transformation into different creatures or other races. Though that’s not fully available to players yet I can’t wait to see what comes from it.
I’m blowing Avalons trumpet but this is a personal review and it’s entertained me over the last 23 years. It went free to play last year but you can still subscribe to support the game and there are purchasable for RL cash magics called trinkets but from what I can see they are much more convenience items than pay2win and in fact everyone that played over Xmas was visited by Santa and got a specifically chosen trinket gratis for their character, so you don’t need to spend cash to acquire them.
A great mud that you would be remiss to not have a crack at.
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