It has been a while since the last State of the Mud-post. In the past we have
tried to summarize recent events and changes as well as give some insight into
some of the projects that we are currently working on adding to the game this
coming year.

So what are we up to? During the last few years we have woken up to realize
that for this game to prosper now and in the future, it is crucial for us to
keep on recruiting new players and also entice them to continue to play here.
We are represented relatively well on the MudConnector and Top MUD Sites. On
behalf of the whole developer crew, I'd like to thank all of you for playing
the game and for your continued voting for BatMUD on the Internet. A
recommendation from a person who actually plays and enjoys the game is always
the best form of recommendation. As we realize the importance of new players
to keep the game going, we are investigating possibilities to make ourselves
more publicly visible via social medias such as Facebook and Twitter. We have
also received some criticism that because the mud mainly operates via a telnet
connection, we aren't that active on the website and it might make us look,
for want of a better word, deserted. This is an issue that we're currently
working on and aim to have a much more active website in the coming year.

Over the last few years, many new things have appeared, some are awesome and
others are for utility or flavour. So here is a _very_ condensed list of
some of the more interesting changes.

- The old Lords of Chaos have closed their doors and made way for the new
guilds; Followers of the Scorpion who worship the Goddess Aelena, Legions of
the Blood God who worship the God Kharim, Slaves of the Beastmaster who
follow the God Tzarakk with their foundation upon the Disciples of Chaos.
- Other new guilds include; The Flight of Archers who are nomadic masters of
slings and arrows, The School of Folklorists who use their knowledge of
nature to their advantage in civilized society, The Order of Ghost
Liberator Paladins who liberate ghosts for the sake of all that is good in
the world, and the Riftwalkers who venture to other worlds to enslave alien
beings called entities, and the Guild of the Animists for good religious
folk.

- The Brotherhood of Sorcery also saw a major re-structuring, taking in the
former member of The Conjurers.
- A good number of new areas have been added as well; including, but not
limited to, Tyr Farwyn the Dwarven Capital of Laenor, Beaumont Hamel where
Lord Faroon needs help to regain his status, the Old Oak Forest in which an
elderly Hobbit Grandmother needs help getting to sleep, and others.
- Over the years we have also had some exciting one-shot events such as the
Invasion of 2007, the Gladiator showdown and Exomorphs of 2008, the ravenous
Crimson Moon of 2009 and the Blitzkrieg and Redfang events of 2010.
- During the last few years, we have also sponsored the creation of a custom
game client just for BatMUD called the BatClient. With this fancy new
addition came many other new improvements including the 'show effects',
'party prots', and 'protset' commands.
- In April of 2010, we celebrated our 20th Anniversary with a Gala Event in
Kaivohuone, Helsinki, Finland with a huge turnout of both players and
developers from all over the world.
- Melemkor, Ulath and Darol have joined the ranks of the archwizards; Tarken,
Gurth, Acidia, Moss, Ens and Freld have immorted and made strides, some
giant leaps towards improving the game for all.

Like so often before, I saved the best for last (I think). I'm sure you're
already waiting to read on the projects that might make us the game of year
2012, so here are just a few things that we're _hopefully_ expecting to see:

- The Islands of Tormentas and the city of Gutrota
- A dwarven mine near Tyr Farwyn
- A brand new Duzel
- Raiding party of orcs, led by Shangutr the young
- The Rothiki Horse Chiefs
- The Triad of Darkness (aka. the new evil priests)
- Bearers of the true Rot (aka. Nergal)
- Village of Dortlewall, aimed to be a tutorial system for new players
- Some changes on the web:
+ Web broker
+ New version of the forums
+ Full site searching

There have also been talks about the development of Batclient and it's
possible that we'll see some new features before the end of the year, like
drag & drop of items and equipment with inventory and paperdoll-style
functionality, implemented in a unique batmud way.

Finally I'd like to mention one new lore concept that we're working on.
You already know our continents by name, but we would like to make the
world a bit more fantasy-like. To that end, we'd like to make it so that
you could learn the names of our countries and know where their borders are.
Don't worry, we won't make you take a quiz on them, but in the future you
might be able to see this information while in the wilderness. There are also
other places designed to take full advantage of this concept.