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Player Testimonials
A while back, Wonko Asked players to reflect on TMUX in terms of:
- Why do you play, what governs your participation in the game?
- If you could change stuff about the game, what would your top 5 changes be?
- If you held some things important, what 5 things would
you want untouched in the game? - How did you find out about the game?
- What was it like as a n00b?
If you have responses that you would be happy to have published here, email wonko@wonko.info
hungryobento | bruce | evilthing
warg | ferni | mazil
I found out about Terramud really only because I was at open day and decided to give it another shot, (after trying the previous version and failing miserably). I feel that despite the idea of a "dungeons and dragons" being a common genre, the way this particular game has been constructed (maps, beasts, and quests) mean it is quite different from any other game. In this respect, the game has great appeal, once you have learned to master the commands and movement. I also feel it is these two elements which prevent many other people playing. They are unable (or so it seems) to adapt to the different gaming environment as it is a skill in itself. I think the maps for early stages are extremely helpful, as it was my first stepping stone. I was completely disorientated when I initially logged on, and I think that this disorientation is what turns most players off. However as soon as I found the school map, I was able to navigate, and this small victory spurred me to continue playing. I feel this is the main "roadblock" preventing people who are interested from playing. I believe a more comprehensive noobies guide or maybe a "tips" section would be a great idea (it may exist but I haven't checked hehe)
There are really two main reasons for which I play terramud. I find the unspoken challenge - to be the best at levelling, and spell finding - almost irresistible. The plethora of quests you can engage in, and knowing that every detail has been put there for a reason means you are never short of something to do. Other than wandering around and massacring students and the like. The amount of effort put into the game construction is something to marvel at. It instills a sense that you have the duty to complete the tasks set before you, and to do otherwise would be measurably lazy. The second and most important reason I play terramud is because it's a multiplayer game. There are others sharing the same problems as you, others far less experienced, and those who are light years ahead. It gives the opportunity to work with your equals, help those who can't help themselves, and mark those far superior as a benchmark to what you want to achieve. These are the two most important things in terramud. Some other things I would not change are the keyword chats with beasts, the interface (cos I'm used to it) and the fact that you don't lose xp when you die of misadventure.
The only real thing I find irritating is getting lost. This namely occurs in the "commune". I understand it is meant to be a labyrinth, however I feel that even a very simplified version of the layout would help immensly. i.e just a map of the road from the entrance-gate to the "manual arts department". Perhaps I only think this because I have not spent enough time down there - it's of course only a suggestion that I think would help inexperienced players immensly. I also think that the no help rule regarding quests should remain. However I believe giving subtle hints is very beneficial as it helps create a sense of community that would not exist if noone helped each other.
Why do i play?
Largely because i enjoy the game, I enjoy the game play, and i enjoy the games constant improvement through redevelopment. There are other reasons, such as i want to break 100 000tnl and i don't want warg catching up to me, but these are more or less tied into the enjoyment of the game itself and are really secondary. Also play to feed my addiction ;) I am also being to enjoy the player interactions and getting to know the new people in the game, when i first started playing there were fewer players and didn't interact with them, so this is a new and enjoyable experience as well.My top five changes in the game are as follows:
- ALLIANCES, WE NEED THEM. THEY SEEM REALLY REALLY REALLY COOL. enough said.
- I don't really agree with the new pkilling restrictions, personanally i think that if your over lvl 10 then it should be open season and we can all kill each other. At first glance this seems like a recipe for total disaster but here is the reasoning behind it. Firstly there are only two players who have characters significantly above lvl 10, as in lvl 10's can't fight us.
Now, because both myself and warg seem to enjoy the occasional pkill, and our primary characters are to far out to do it, we adapted and created lvl 11 or 12 pkillers, with warg fielding halloween and myself berigan and matthias. Firstly i want it changed because this is a pain in the ass to do. Secondly in essence it creates a buffer in which high lvl characters can
pkill with absolutly no risk to themselves. Even if our pkillers are defeated we lose some minor gear, and even if hey are totally outclassed, we just don't play them for a while and go and play our primaries. If our primaries were allowed to pkill down to lvl 10 then we would have to worry about a group of say 6 mages coming after us and would be a lot less reckless in pkilling. While we could certainly be able to kill with more ease, however the fear of reprisals, would provide a strong enough deterent to massive pkilling throughout the lower ranks. Also i just want the lvl
10's to fear me. I realise there is about a 0% chance of this getting implemented but i'd though i'd through it out there anyway. Below lvl 10 i think one above and one below is sufficant.- We need more spells released, i understand that they are released in areas, logically but we're missing a lot of them that are really useful in normal gameplay. There's nothing really that needs to be done to answer this just pointing out we're short a couple of significant spells (the 2 third realms spells, levitate, invisibility, resist-fire, resist-cold, resist-magic, fly, summon and track, spring to mind)
- Personally i think there should be more special style events, i understand that these take a lot of work to organise and don't work unless players support them, but they are some of the most enjoyable events in the game imho. Recently there has been a bagful of these and i have enjoyed all of them from clowns to leopards, ( just please refrain from immolating me in future >.<) Invasions, college leopard wars, guild wars, terrawars are all great fun. On terrawars there should be no top limit. If i'm just goin to win, let me do it and get on with it. We also need a grave marker for the college leopard, and the resuurection of carrot mucka, etc would be real great as well, so are fugitive hunts. Also storage rooms would be real great, saves me having about 10 storage characters.I've outlined my ideas on this before.
- We need some more social commmands, namely whistly impressed and waves goodbye.
My top 5 things that i value as important.
- The game itself, i love it, please don't destroy it or shut it down or something horrible like that.
- Your decision to allow me to lvl up, i really appreciate it.
- Your always give a second chance policy, players are dickheads, i should know i'm one of them, we often do the wrong thing and most of us realise it later and we really appreciate your second chances.
- Tennyson grandstand shouldn't be top lvl limited.
- There are to many enjoyable aspects created for me to list them all here, while i've requested a lot that i would improve i don't want to hurry along the pace at the detrement of the tremendous quality and deptht of the game up until this point. I've perfectly happy to wait for spells if they come released in area of great depth as they have been till this point, my only request is that the spells are proportional the difficulty in obtaining them.
How did i find out about the game:
Phew a long time ago i think i watched people play terramud 2 in the library got curious about it started playing then the whole thing blew up and when x came out i restarted playing.What was it like being a noob:
Another long time question, Being a noob was hard, i had no skills and was learning gameplay from almost scratch, we didn't have nice helpfiles then and there was hardly ever enayone on. I think now it has improved a lot. But being a noob to start with was disorientating and i survived by more or less killing handballers till about lvl 7, then i killed lvl 5 then i went to tennyson. But exact recollection of events is lost in the deep fog of my brain.
Wonko,Just some things that popped into my mind, that I think are important with regards to TMUX. Sorry if they are negative...
- I don't know what the aim of the game is, and I'm not sure where I am headed. Is there a level cap? Can I reach level 1 million if I had the time?
- The fact that level (experience) is the only indicator of game progress. Maybe there should be other ways of progressing.
- At this stage the biggest problem is the lack of purpose, and I feel I'm only trying to out level others.
- Hard to tell what items are useful and stuff that you should recycle.
- Wearing 'armor' doesn't seem to provide any real bonuses.
To even out the negatives, some positives:)
- School layout makes sense and its pretty cool.
Npc's names and response's seem well thought out and humorous.- Help is always close by.
Why do I play?
Just seeing what tmux is all about since alot of new players have started recently.Top 3 Changes:
- different weapon and armor names with clear ranks on weapons and armor (e.g. rusty dagger, jagged dagger, razor dagger)
- more things to happen when level up occurs. atm its just that you have more MP and HP.
- more command shortcuts. e.g. w or t to tell/whisper, and player name short cuts? e.g. t wo opinion (tell wonko opinion)
2 things untouched:
- terrace map/layout
- the style of talking with NPC's
Always knew the game existed, I guess I 're-found out' about it through mates. Being a noob is kind of overwhelming and is accompanied by about 30 minutes of 'what the?' until things start to make sense. Noobs die alot.
For me, the reason i play X is text games > graphics. X is great because it offers such a intricate and diverse world in contrast to the real Terrace. Killing teachers is always fun, too... The whole leveling thing is great, but the most fun i get is out of quests. Levelling seems a natural part of the game when finding quests, it all falls into place.
5 things to change would be:
- Rename the classes in time to offer a more schooly feel, like instead of barbarians, jocks or gym-junkies.
- Add more armor slots and reduce the amount of rings. Belts and earings would be cool.
- More emphasis on grouping together. The old mud was cool when we would get large groups of 10 and hunt dragons and other manly things.
- Pkilling to have the same delay as normal fighting. When a mage can do 30 damage every 2 seconds while a fighter only can do 18 every 9 seems a bit unfair.
- A tracking system for pkilling to find players, or the area which they are in.
Untouched:
Really the new areas are great. They dont need to be changed.
How did i find out?
Not too sure, but i remember being the 1st level 4 with a druid on the first day. Flower power!
What was it like being a noob?
Being a noob is fun. You just never know whats going to happen. Im a pure lv16 noob. The randomness of the game is great (come one, everyone loves being bloodboiled for 78 damage in the sewers).
Why do i play?
This is kinda a long and different story from the last time. I first went to the lab at lunch time for sanctuary, YAH, some of the people in the playground I just... wanted to avoid, with terramud being a smally played game that was my best safe place. THEN, the addiction of the game took over and now im hooked.
Top 5 changes:
- I was in science class the day I sent this, we were studying electricity, which gave me an idea. The 3rd, 4th and 5th wind realm spells are all related to electricity, but hurt and dustgust arn't. I dont see any relevence in those two spells to wind at all! So I think a change of the realm and some of the spells should be in order. eg. change hurt to "zap" and dustgust to "volt" or sumthing like that and keep shockbolt, lightning and thunderbolt there. I have shockbolt and one of the reasons im a wind user is because the electric based spells appealed to me also the wind realm name should be the electric realm. wholy the dustgust quest should be changed completely.
- THE PKILLING IS JUST GETTING ON MI NERVES!! sure it is fun OCCAISIONALLY but some people think its fun to kill people in my lunch time hunting party. It really annoys me when an experience player in my party is scared off because he doesnt want to be pkilled. If this goes on, I might not be very popular with hunting partys.
- More spells!! Where are the resist spells? I keep on stumbling into sum place where i freeze or burn to death! And when is burstflame and shatterstone gonna be released? I'm AM level 12 with a new level 10 mage (meet ferlin everyone!), the required level to get those level 3 realmys.
- There should be a way to make a monster more stunnable, some way to rid of the monsters magic resistance, could you by any chance have stunning exp based as well as intel bonus based to? Along with circleing, I've been circleing since level 3! and i havent gained anymore proficient than I was that level except for my level based dexterity increases! It is not fair that bashing gets better the more u use it.
- More terrawars, they're great fun, and the last time i went in one i got 17 kills armed with fernitas dustgust and i even killed mazil! Lucky me. This time i have ferlin with SHOCKBOLT. When's the next one?
Things i like about the game....
- Terramudx, dont shut it down or anything please! I find this as the most creative and hardest game I've ever played and i love it!!
- Also the hunting party concept is really fun, I love taking advantage of the group numbers by killing big cheeses like the custodian, head jock and hector the hippy in charge. but the last time the occelot came for a bite IT WAS A COMPLETE WIMP!! it kept on fleeing and it knew we'd own it!
- Also I love the just recently introduced place, THE B-ARC. It's so scientific and creepy and its the homeground for one of mi most favourite spells ;)
- The quests are also fun, I was exstatic when i found detect-magic! I had no help at all with the quest and the satisfaction of finding the spell was completely overwhelming. On top of that I was placed 2nd in the race for the spell too.
How did i find out about the game?
Well, it was a long time ago back to terramudII, I played it a few times but it was kinda hard. I didnt use two chars! I completely forget how I came to know it though
What was it like as a noob?
When I started playing late last year in terramudX, things realy started to heat up and so did my success. I started with ferniater as a mage. I found waterbolt in the pool, not knowing the fact i would drown. I managed to get close enough even to see the scroll and the monster but not to look at it. I also learnt how to get to level 4. LOL, I mis-read the description on the text in side the mage room thinking once i was level 3 i had to go somewhere else.... hey wonko could u make that more clearer please? That same time I
pulled up a thief named fernithethird, and raised him. Unfortunately after a missap with leveling down I retired. NOW, I have ferni and mi new mage ferlin who i have introduced earlier in this article.
why do i play? i play Tmux for a few reasons:
- to try and be the best in the game. low amounts of players makes it easier to be ranked highly. Different classes also give more players a chance to be ranked number 1
- at times the game can become heated and exited, which is what all games should be. when a a player kill frenzy starts, or a mass perm rum commenced, it can be really fun to participate in
- the openness, and a chance to make friends.
5 changes?
i cant really answer that, as the changes... well... change what the mud is really about. i once had a cool idea for an object type, and they lifted a certain stat when held. but it is difficult to program and altogether silly... if you have a problem with your stats, you need to restart...
the mud is fine the way it is, and does not need changing from its master-plan
Things i love about the mud?
- wonko, the time-wiszened, benevolent, dm and builder of this mud
- the quests, it gives a sense of fulfillment from using your brain, some of them are very in-depth and took me many days, weeks, months, to figure out
- THE MUD ITSELF. i must also give mention to you, wonko, for creating it in the first place... bravo!
how did i find out about it?
ah nows heres a story
okay, i was playing bots2 in a lab, wonko walked up to me and said sorry, not allowed to play this kind of game, work or mud only. i thought, okay, i cant be bothered to go outside again, ill play this so called 'tmux'...I had played the game before, but i didn't really like the concept of text based gaming. this time around i had better typing skills and a friend was there to help me. 2 days later, i was lvl 2, and from then on i was hooked. but of course i knew about the game since i came to terrace in 2005.
what was it like as a noob?
it was actually quite fun, still learning, a new environment that was overwhelming
i re-learnt what it was like starting out when i tried the flat-stat competition, i will never cut off new players that seem confused againthere are 3 players (past and present) who i will always view as great teachers and mentors to me, bouncer (never be chaotic around him), Warg, and Swampy.
everyone is constantly learning here, and we are always going to be new to something. i had a lvl 16 character when i first learnt how to get curepoison, (but i never explored that area either)
hungryobento | bruce | evilthing
warg | ferni | mazil
Got something to say? email wonko@wonko.info
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