How did you start playing Armageddon?

[Boggis]

I started playing muds when I was in university. First mud I ever played was a hack 'n' slash called Darkness and Despair. After finding the Mud Connector I came across a glowing staff review of Threshold. Gave that a whirl and ended up staying for two years. Eventually tired of the, ahem,  RP there and went in search of something more intensive and realistic. Mud Connector threw up the Armageddon web page along with some other RP-enforced muds. At first I kinda breezed past the name Armageddon for some reason but eventually read the reviews and read some more reviews on TMS. Sounded good so I read the docs and thought it really sounded good. Made a char - an sneaky char with the word "wiry" in his sdesc but of course - logged in and quickly got introduced to all the pleasantries the 'rinth has to offer.

[Angela Christine]

In 1995 I briefly flirted with some WoD MUSHes, but then got shot down; apparently the university I was at didn't approve of computer resources being wasted playing games.  So I had to wait a couple years for commercial internet access to become available in my small mountain town.  The first RP MUD I tried was Threshold, back in 97 or 98.  At first it was free, then after a while they introduced a donation system, and since a new server -was- needed (crashes o plenty) this made sense.  After enough money to buy the new server was raised the donation system didn't go away, but became the registration system, with a $50 US minimum.  The new server deserved a faster internet connection which had a higher monthly price tag, I got it, but the culture of the game became too focused on money for my tastes.  

So, still playing Threshold, I started looking around for a RP game as good as Threshold but where money wouldn't be as much of an issue.  Sometimes I'd try 10-20 games in a single day, so it didn't take much to turn me off a game, eventually just landing in Midgard was enough for me to quit and move on to the next MUD.  I submitted a character for Armageddon, but when the approval came a week later I had alreadly lost interest, I really wasn't that crazy about a desert theme.  MUSHes were too hard to break into, supposed RP muds had people rounding up newbies to haul along on quests because they got more XP that way, no people at all, or chatting endlessly on channels (I especially hate the "gratz" channel where people congratulate eachother for raising a level, and some people use stupid automated triggers to do it, making the gratz even less sincere).

Eventually I came accross Armageddon again, a year or two after the first time I tried to create a character here, I think it was a post by CRW in the alt.mud.* newsgroups asking about other permadeath muds that sparked my interest again.  This time my character was approved in under 24 hours, yay!  I'm still not crazy about the desert theme, I prefer my post-apocolyptic landscapes to be frozen rather than baked, but the theme was worth putting up with for a good permadeath RP game that didn't contantly pester me for money or mix up IC and OOC elements.

AC

[deviant storm]

My road to ruin had a lot of twists and turns. It started out with the game "The Sims". Yeah, you know the one.

See, five years ago I had never even been on the internet. I grew up in the stone age before it grew into place, and I had little access to a computer after it bloomed. I managed at last to get the computer I still use today (433 mhz, but hey, it gets me here) about four years ago.

Then I discovered The Sims. It was cool, mainly just playing virtual dollhouse. But you could get things off the net to add to it, and so I began to train as a netsurf ninja. While surfing, I typed 'sims' and found a strange thing. Sim Star Trek games, where people roleplayed being in the ST or ST: TNG universe once a week on irc.

I tried it and -loved- it. Couldn't get enough rp. But they met only once a week, only for an hour or two. So my wanderings took me to msn chat rooms, of all places. There are some where people role play all kinds of things. I was there quite some time, where I learned a lot, mainly about who you don't want to roleplay with. (powerplayers, griefers, hackers, etc).

Someone in one of the rooms told me about muds. Seemed strange, but I began to look into them. I don't even remember the first one I tried, as there were bunches. I blush when I remember the large amounts of money I spent on Elysium and Threshhold (driven off by probably the same things others were, but this isn't the place for that). Finally, mud after mud later, I found Armageddon in The MudConnector listings. RPI, no levels...what's this permadeath?

Applied, got rejected, reapplied, tried it. And didn't like it at first. I quit playing for like a few days. Then out of boredom tried it again, and got my pc killed. Applied for a second, this time starting in Allanak. And thanks to a certain Borsail Noble, I got hooked.

So here I am. It's been great!

[Malifaxis]

I was born here.

At least, that's the way it feels... everything else is superfluous

[Suganya]

I started on Arm back in '95 per the recommendation of the BBS ISCA Mudding forum (remember that?). It took me quite some time to get the application process down. Naturally, my first character was a beautiful assassin. Thinking I was on some other regular MUD I was walking around with my kewl daggers out, when I walked into this tavern called "Trader's" something or other.
Naturally, when I walked in with my daggers out, everybody else pulled their weapons out. To which I replied, "Can someone tell me where the assassin's guild is?" Of course everyone knew I was a newb by then. Two guys took me under their wing. They taught me "NO, you do NOT walk around saying you're an assassin." and that there was an organization that was what up my alley.

From then on I became a guild member. I met a couple of great characters, then something happend. The guild playerbase dwindled and I got dumb and bored, thought I was good, and left the city with a half giant(yeah I know). He took me all the way up to Tuluk. In Tuluk I met up with a couple of people and thought I could be a hunter. *beeeep*

After that pesky Erdlu killed me. I became a water cleric. I think this was before the karma system was implemented. I was swept away from Allanak by some roving band of bandits or rebels to dish out water. That was really fun. I was about as clueless as my character. I don't even remember the name of the group. Their save positions kept moving around, and boom, one day I woke up in the desert alone. Someone contacted me by the way and found me, they had to quit out and told me if I wanted to risk getting to the new camp, the directions were XYZ. I risked it and out came a Mek. *beeeeep*

Since then, I've played warriors with the byn, house guards, nobles, I don't think I did a templar or merchant yet. Heck, I even played a noble without IMM support. That took a lot out of me, and I got a little burnt, especially--well that's a long story.

While, I've become slightly more partial to MUSHing, I still keep a character on Arm, and log on everyonce in a while. Maybe one day I'll app a desert elf or something one of these days. But the love is always there.

[Inquisitor]

. . .I think it was a post by CRW in the alt.mud.* newsgroups asking about
other permadeath muds that sparked my interest again.

That very same thread inspired me to have a look at Arm.  I read the
docs and gdb archives religiously over a week, then submitted the
recommended human warrior.  Unable to see the wood for the trees, I
didn't include eye colour in his description, on the basis that he would have
his eyes closed sometimes...  Yes, I know.

One rejection later, I started playing, joined the Byn in short order and
died after about a RL week.  By this time I thought I was ready for
anything and made a sneaky character who, surely, would destroy
the 'Naki nobility.  He didn't.  But I'd had another great idea...

Over two years and many more brain farts later, I'm still playing on and
off.   And it's all CRW's fault!

[the traveller]

The old days at Uni were cool. Twelve hours of class time a week, chilling in the Caf', and all of us (studying Comp. Sci) trying to find things to do with a few 386 and 486 pc's, and a whole bunch of SunOS sparc workstations. After heaps of trial and error, I finally managed to get moria to compile on the Sun boxes. It was ugly as the makefile had the incorrect configuration, and I'd never used/seen makefiles before. The old moria caretaker told me he'd fix it for the next release, but I'm not sure there's been one yet, and that was some years ago.

But moria got a little old, you get all downhearted when you loose a long-lived character, much like you do in Arm. So one day, a friend at Uni mentions this here mud. I've heard of MUD's of course, but it didn't sound like the best RP experience, if I'm just gonna go round collecting items and beating up things, I might as well play moria. But I give it a go anyhow, and a group of us all submit characters, rogue-type youths, all from the same street gang.

Of course, we've got no idea what we're doing, so the four of us just wander around the Rinth' exploring. One guy is in the lead, and he steps through a doorway guarded by some form of magic, which busted him right up I imagine. I know this because along with the other two chars, I of course was following him, and got chewed up myself. It all ended with two of us getting caught, and promptly killed by a magicker (the other two got away).

The other player whose char was killed, complained to the mud about the lack of RP and reasoning by the magicker, in hunting down a group of newbies. This was my first experience of dealing with an IMM, who promptly tracked down the magicker, and forwarded on an explanation from him. I didn't expect it, I didn't require it, but it was nice to know that someone cared enough about the death of some newbies to even investigate.

Thanks for all the little things.

[X-D]

Grin, I remember moria, played that for a while, Course at the time....well, lets just say it was interesting trying to keep an account on the university's VAX when you were not a student. I love VMS.

[spawnloser]

Grin, I remember moria, played that for a while, Course at the time....well, lets just say it was interesting trying to keep an account on the university's VAX when you were not a student. I love VMS.

Wow!  You didn't go to school at Winona State in Minnesota did you?  They had/have the VAX/VMS system too.

[X-D]

No, as I said, I did -not- go to school there :twisted:  So, I am not going to say which it was, and this was around, 1988 or 1989 at the latest, but maybe earlier, and MORIA was pretty much the closest thing to a mud that existed...no WWW either and for the most part you had to either be a student to get on the net (telnet/gopher) or do as I did. Hhhmmm, the very first mud I played was called Epic, it was diku I think, then PR then here.

[SailorMars]

say (throwing back another shot) What you mean this a game?
:gives ~you a skeptical look.