Civmage is a great newbie guild. I've enjoyed it very much. I can solo and party. This guild is what attracted me to Batmud in the first place, as it rather uniquely allows me to create a mounted mage who is not consigned to the status of back row caster. While not the powerhouse caster of a magical background mage, the civmage has some very solid casting abilities in addition to the capacity to be versatile and join guilds such as knights and cavaliers. This uniqueness to the mudding world, this versatility of character creation, is what makes civmages so appealing to me.
I keep hearing rumors that the guild is slated for closure. I hope these are just rumors, but I note that the guild has no active discussions in any newsgroup or in this forum, it has very few members currently (not surprising, as it is discouraging to invest time into a guild that is probably going to be closed), and I don't think there is any one wizard who actively takes care of the guild. Therefore I have concern that there is some validity to the rumors. Had I heard the rumors before I created my character, I probably wouldn't have bothered starting a character here. I would have continued playing the stereotypical mages I play on other muds.
Where are official discussions of potential closures posted?
Is there any validity to the rumors?
Does the mud have any plans for civmages in the works?
The problem with civmages is that there are three other caster guilds in civilized backround that are a lot more versatile and a lot more interesting to play than civmages: bards, folklorists and runemagi. Also civmages lack the power to be useful later on. It's an ok guild choice for beginners only because it's so simple and straightforward to play. Those same reasons make it boring in long run.
Oh, these are dead because everyone uses the ingame news system. Most players probably don't read these forums at all so you might have to wait for answers here for days. If you need an answer to a question fast, better just use the newbie channel ingame.
civmages haven been in going_to_be_closed list for 5 or 6 years so maybe in next 5 or 6 years they will actually be closed. So do not worry and play with them all you want. And if they actually get closed while you are in them you will most likely get free reincarnation.
It is outdated guild with no special flawour so most people consider them dull and they do not really work after a while as they lack in power so nothing there really attracts players.
You must note that it takes few months to half year to get 1 full guild with semi active playing and from several years to never to reach highbiehood so most players are not newbies so newbie guilds always have only few players.
"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and
wrong." -- H L Mencken