A Mudder's Dilemma

I enjoy playing muds that have complex guild systems. I enjoy trying to find the perfect build for my multi-guilded characters. However, this creates a big problem every time I create a new character on a mud. I end up spending way too much time in my spreadsheets and still can't decide on my builds.

Consider the following scenario. I created a character on a mud and invested time to level it up. For some reason, the guild did not work out, the race was not ideal, or maybe the build was just boring to play. Should I recreate a new character? It would be a big junk of time wasted on the first character...

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The Reincarnation System

Batmud solves this problem with an ingenious solution, the reincarnation system, aka reinc. When a player reincs on Batmud, his character is reset to level 1. The player chooses a new race and a new guild just like when creating a new character. The original character's experience points and equipment are saved, and available to use on the new reinc. In other words, the characters
on Batmud can be recreated as the player sees fit, and keeps all the hard earned rewards!

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The Guild System

Batmud uses a multi-guild system. Every character on Batmud is composed of 3 or more guilds. First 10 levels of a character are spent on background guilds, level 11 to 15 are spent on racial guilds. 16 to 100 are spent on real guilds such as Ranger, Priest, Mage, and the likes. Each of these guilds are usually composed of 20~35 levels. For example, a character at level 100, could be 10 Nomad, 5 Minotaur, 35 Ranger, 35 Barbarian, 15 Archer. The background guild puts restrictions on what guild combos are possible.

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The Party System

Batmud uses row system for parties. A party is a 3x3 matrix. There are three front row slots and six backrow slots. Only players at the front row can deal or receive melee damage. In parties, the guilds in Batmud break down into four categories:

Offtank: primary physical damage dealer - Front Row
Stunner: stunned monsters hit less and take more damage - Front/Back Row
Blaster: non-physical damage nukes and buffs - Back Row
Healer: heals and buffs - Back Row

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The Economy System

Batmud has a player-run economy. Players buy and sell equipments to each other through the "broker" system. In general, equipments from npc shops are just junk. Most stuff players can find soloing are sold to shops for gold. Almost all worthwhile equipment in Batmud is through questing or monster drops. Most of these quests and monsters require raiding parties not unlike of those in modern MMORPGs. Other than buying equipments, players can also buy player rooms, ships, and cities. There are guilds that focus on the economy system such as Merchants and Alchemists.

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About me

I have been a mudder since 1998. Muds I've played include Batmud, Aardwolf, Dead of Night, Dragonswords, Necromium, 3 Kingdoms, Tron, Starwars, God Wars, and Reality's Edge. I prefer LPC over diku and ROM, because all the diku/ROM I've played seemed hack-n-slash heavy. I am more of a munchkin than a role player. I am literate in scripting and I use customed triggers.

That is a nice overview, of the guild system. Its shed some clarity on it for me. batMUD looks like a big MUD where a lot of people had different ideas and someone said lets just implement them all! Even if they were bad. From a new layers perspective its very garbled and confusing.


What about crafting? I like crafting. Does batMUD have good crafting options with gear usable at the end game?