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This is our news page, the most regularly updated section of the site, and written by Wdi. Aim to come back here as often as you can :). We aim to include anything of topical or current worth, and event information - such as bash reports. Oh, and don't forget to look at everything else on the site - you could even write to us if you have time...

News

Friday 25th March 1999

END OF AN ERICA GRACILIS...

It is all over. The displays closed, the prizes given and the floor swept of high-grade potting compost, we present to you the final extract from the week's events here at the Birmingham Expo. But first! You want to hear about the mobile bash, yes?

25th March Bash Report

Beginning slightly late (enough for me to miss presenting the closing ceremony at the Expo...), the mobile bash exploded into action with the survivor count dropping rapidly from the start. Generals were voted for; Benny and Wdi were the two top candidates, but Wdi seemed to just pip Benny at the post and became the Bash General... As a Hero. Right.

Anyway, I think it went quite well :-). The mobile count fell to 125 after only fifteen minutes (there were thirty players on) and, happily, some of the larger and more frightening mobiles were taken out early on, such as the spider and the keep crew. Other mobiles supposedly killed were actually not - that's the life of a bash general, people :-).

Bong! Bloke the necromancer died to an invisible player. Meanwhile, in a version of the universe twenty minutes onwards, some players were having problems with the Pagoda whilst Prettyboy the warlock was dying to the touchstone. The state of 'last few mobiles' approached...

They ended up being the Shark1 and the Itchydispydispysaurus (or whatever that damn thing is called). Shark1 was killed, and that damn dinosaur synonymised as 'Derrick' <chuckle>... So, Derrick was meant to be the last mobile alive. But oh no... That was not to be the case. Derrick had actually been killed by a mortal pirate with a seaboat. Derrick, the REAL Derrick, was in fact a fox, hiding in the Olive Groves. The real Derrick was soon put to rest :-), bringing us victory and contentment.

A mortal reset was attemped, but failed.

...

So, the plants gone and the exibition brought to end, Muddy resumes normal service from tommorow. But first we must announce the prizes of the various events as I'm sure you're all wanting to know them - some of you even entered!

Most Imaginative Use of Colour - Joey (MUD2)
Biggest Plant Pot - Thwomp (MUD2)
Most Explosive Display of Horticultural Violence - Supersonic (MUD2)
Largest Sunflower - Jacob R. Rogers (Shades)
Potted Plant Award - Andrew Baker (RL)
Best Newcomer - Crowley (MUD2)
Most Nutritious Compost - Jenny Cotton (RL)

Best of Show - Gabrielle (MUD2)
[Chosen, specifically, for her modern piece: "Tree + Axe"]

Thursday 25th March 1999

EXPO 1999!

Well, as we come to the end of our stay at the CRGHE Birmingham Expo, with only the prizes to be given to the event final winners tommorow, we at Muddy feel it is time to sit back, relax... and witness the new turbo-powered Crowley-engine-based website. The new site design is interesting, if a little lacking in fully rendered interactive house plant multimedia content. :-)

http://www.hildrew.force9.co.uk/mud2.htm

Sunday 21st March 1999

CHANGING ROOMS IN THE GARDEN HOME EDITION BIRMINGHAM EXPO 1999

My word, this is amazing! Thirty seconds ago, half way through the judging of the potting championship final, a black limousine screeched to a halt at the arena's entrance and out jumped Gabrielle the necromancess, brandishing an axe in one hand and waving a sheet of paper furiously about in her other hand...

Therefore: news just in - last week's bash report, courtesy of Gabrielle :-). Here it is:

18th March Bash Report

After last weeks fiasco what we needed this time was some good strong leadership, and it came in the form of...... oooh errr, me. Don't we ever learn? Here is how it went.

Early on Orion led a team into the Mine to see off the Dwarves, Porthos and Blackout took on the Keep, and I did my best to get everyone glowing and armed with a weapon. Also the Spider was killed early, something I always like to see. The Ogre, Golem and even the Skeletons were also dealt with swiftly. Porthos and Blackout then teamed up with Vulnax to do the Pagoda, but struggled a bit with the upper floors. Shangtsung was despatched fresh from killing the Basilisk, and the Pagoda was soon done. In the meantime, Goblins had been done, and I heard someone shout "When the Dragon dies, can everyone help me for ts". Cool, not going too badly then.

As the numbers came down, I was desparately trying to identify the remaining mobiles. With 5 to go in about 15 minutes I did it. Octopus, Mermaid, Wolf, Hedgehog and Mouse. After 5 minutes we were down to 2, the Octopus and the Mermaid. 2 in 10 minutes, easy. 2 in 8 minutes, yes. 2 in 6 minutes, urm, come on you guys. Then I realised the problem, lack of boats. I think someone else must have realised as well, as a few extra boats started appearing. Once this happened, the last two mobiles were seen off, and once more peace reigned over the land.

Did strong leadership win the day then ? More like the 20+ persona, distinct lack of PK activity, and only one death all reset to a Dwarf. Still I can dream <g>.

Gabrielle

Thursday 18th March 1999

... BIRMINGHAM EXPO 1999

Hello my pretties! Wonderful, wonderful Crowley the necromancer is here with me now, live at CRGHE Birmingham Expo. So, before we go to our other news, I'd just like to ask you a few questions about your horticultural lifestyle.

"Oh, go ahead, fine sir..."

When choosing a houseplant, what sort of colours do you go for? Specifically, with regard to achieving greater inverse luminescence using the Barton/Seldon cross-pot triangulation technique.

"Well, naturally, I'd choose mainly greens and reds, with perhaps a hint of puce or lavender. Or black?"

Black; ooh, a daring venture... Anyway, lots of news today, so I will quickly press on. What, Mr Crowley, will you be putting forward as your favourite houseplant for the exhibition?

"Why, Wdi, the rose of course!"

That's great, Mr C. And now on to something that actually happened...

NEW MUD2 SITE FROM FIZZY

Fizzy the highlife has released a new MUD2-related website entitled 'The Magic Tower.' For a new site, it actually includes a fair few many articles, all written by Fizzy himself. It's sectional in nature, which is... um, nice. :-) ...

Look, just take the address - stop hassling me...

http://www.btinternet.com/~g.j.wright/index.html

Unfortunately, no potting tips or re-plantation techniques, though I guess these will arrive in later updates.

'XOOMBAR' PROBLEMS

In their infinite wisdom, the XOOM.COM web space provider who host Muddy have decided to withdraw their entry into the CRGHE Birmingham Expo houseplant awards competition and have directed there attentions to ruining all their clients web pages by adding the 'XOOMBar' to the top of all their sites... Apparently, it is to force all their users to comply with the Terms of Service laid down by the company, specifically the 'must link to XOOM.COM homepage' clause. So, even though most users do link to them, they're forcing everyone to. Oh, and this so-called 'XOOMBar' also includes an advertisement, something which XOOM.COM stated that they would never add to their users' homepages.

I am not happy about this, and am considering moving the site (again).
Hey, but you should see what some users are doing!
XOOM should watch their back...

...and their houseplants of course, which need to be watered regularly and tended to with love and care.

More next time!

Tuesday 16th March 1999

HELLO!

We're live at the Changing Rooms In the Garden Home Edition Expo 1999 in Birmingham this week, and from today we'll be exploring the inner-most indoor botanical and horticultural secrets of some of The Land's greatest movers and shakers... and mortals. We'll also be investigating what effect the end of Milliionaire's latest series is likely to have on your plants, and, of course, your old floorboards.

But who's this right here? Give a big hand to Joey everyone, who comes from his latest player killing excursion to talk exclusively with us about his houseplants.

I first asked about his current favourites. "As you know, Wdi, I prefer the vibrant red varieties of the euphorbia family, such as the charming poinsettia, two of which I currently have sitting cheerfully atop my bookcase in the lounge." That is most interesting, but surely the question of everyone's lips asks whether the young Joey uses plastic or ceramic pots? "Of course, Wdi, if I may be so bold, it seems only right that one should use ceramic pots for every plant. Plastic, though more economically sound, is, I believe, garish on the eye and unattractive to the plants themselves, and one should always consider the opinions and feelings of others."

So there you have it, everyone: a true Gentleman.
We'll see you all tommorrow. :-)

Saturday 13th March 1999

A celebrity bash report with... Crowley :-). [I really can't believe you people lost just because I wasn't there... - Wdi]

11th March Bash Report

Well, as expected, once again, we fantastic Wireplay MUD2 players showed off our fantastic knowledge of the land and its creatures, and mercilessly fought our way to the end of another successful ba..... oh, hang on a minute, this ain't right, [reality error, reality error], we FAILED!

Yes, we are truly rubbish in every respect, 23 players on, including up to 5 warlocks, and still we have not one, but TWO mobiles alive at the end of the reset! The shame! And so, we must look for the causes at the root of this tragedy, over to you, Trevor..

Well Crowley, I must say that the reason the bash failed is the presence of two pks, apparently known as Flashback, and Superted, if it wasn't for them messing up the bash, as we all know pks do, then I'm sure it would have been successful, don't you agree?

Well Trevor, to be honest, no, not in the slightest, no no no no no. This is what happened - we were doing ok, Flashback was causing a minor nuisance, killed Prodigy (ok, not so minor for Prodigy), but he was quickly summoned to the crypt by a team of warlocks and a necromancer (mentioning no dorothy's, damn, names), where he fled within an inch of his life (take a note Miss Barker, things to do: learn to re-attack). So we got on with the bash - Mankoid was general, it was 76 left in 62 minutes, 62 in 54, evens really, not great, but nothing to worry about. Then a warlock by the name of Superted turned up, and tried stealing various things from people, wafers, good weapons, and so on. Panic seemed to set in among the highlives, most retreated to hiding places, and tried to summon him, to no avail, then sat wondering what to do for far too long - the bash began to grind to a halt, as most of the active participants sat around saying "erm", a lot.

Have to butt in there Crowley, may I ask what the rest of the 23 players were doing at this points?

Good point, Richard knows mate... I'm sure people were doing something, but we have to ask ourselves, have some players started to look at bashes as the easy option? Turn up, let a few do most of the work, kill a firefly, and claim the 3000 points? Who knows...? Anyway, back to the story, so with 23 minutes left till the reset, and 21 mobiles still alive, we put Superted to the back of our minds (well, I did (G)), and tried to get on with it, although things were beginning to look tight, especially since we were now general-less, as Mankoid, having lost his magic, decided to call it a day, rather than risk the touchstone with a rather good pk on the loose. Up in the pagoda, to my immense embarassment, Superted killed me (miss barker, take a note, things to do - learn to flee on more than 5 stamina), and while people reeled in shock and mourning (I wish), the time ticked away. The reset clocked off - extended - several still left - there were even 2 zombies in the inn! Mole died to me (heh), pagoda mobiles were killed (thanks Superted, bit late for that now though...), Octopus slaughtered, Basilisk bit the dust, and what else - what else?!!! Aargh, we couldn't find out! A skeleton bit the dust - 2 left - aaaaargh! 10 seconds to the reset - quick shout of "Crab, anyone?", wh crab - one found in the place known as "south part of the Isle of Woe" - oops, reset, no points, one lucky crab, and a mystery mobile...

Sort it out wireplay! Rubbish!

love Crowley

Sunday 7th March 1999

SORCERER WAR!

What a great competition this was!

It began at nine o'clock on Thursday 4th March, with the arrival of twenty or so novice personae to the the tearoom. Looking at the names, it was evident that some people were obviously trying hard to win the extra little prizes such as 'best name' etc... The game was reset, and the novices again piled into the tearoom. Foddy the arch-wizard arrived on his cloud and, as usual, did his best to explain the rules over the din of the chattering lowlife mass. Unfortunately for him, even dumbing everyone didn't exactly help - I can't quite remember when everyone learnt sign language... Anyway, Foddy sorcerised everyone. :-)

Players burst through the haze into The Land.

Immediately fights broke out! Biff, bang... Whumph. That sort of thing. Weapons were captured, and some players even attempted to horde wafers (though these were all swiftly consumed, bar one...), but overall kit was thinly spread. Except where one competitor was concerned. Mute the sorcerised sorcerer has a really good kit, and was scaring the pants off a lot of people. Most avoided him.

People who were killed within the first thirty minutes were resurrected by the wizzes, and allowed to re-enter the competition. At 9:30, however, Foddy declared that no more resurrections would take place, and the masses were silent... The silence was broken by a FOD. In fact, there were literally loads of FOD attempts during the competition. Apologetic (twice), Vraneth, Para, Suicide and Simba all died to FOD rebounds. Actually, Simba tried twice - the first time he was successful, and managed to FOD the super-kitted Mute! I'm sure Mute would have gone on to win a prize had he not been killed in this way.

It came to be that only ten competitors remained after much fleeing and killing. These ten were Lemming, Rowena, Python, Inquisitor, Monkpiece, Vixen, Dairy, Calavera, Bananaman and Comet, and of them Calavera was in the lead. These players nearly all had decent hiding places (with sites) and at least one piece of kit. Python was the first to die, followed by Inquisitor. Then after a pause whilst nothing much happened, Rowena died whilst attempting to hide in the gardens. After her death, nothing much happened for a long time - more than ten minutes, I think. Then suddenly Lemming FODded himself... He was losing a fight.

Dairy the sorcerised sorcerer had apparently been hiding throughout the entire competition, but came out shortly after Lemming's FOD. She was killed immediately :-). Next to go was Monkpiece, who had been running around on less than 10 stamina for ages due to his insistence on turning himself invisible every minute - he FODded himself in a fight.

Only four remained! And they were taken to the Dragon's Island... Vixen, Comet, Bananaman and Calavera (who was a necromancer by this time) were dropped by Foddy and began to fly around the place in complete panic. Vixen quickly found herself fighting a fight she couldn't win... She didn't win :-). Skirmishes between the last three players left a situation where Calavera was on almost full stamina, Bananaman was on slightly less, but Comet was close to death. Calavera and Bananaman both hunted Comet, sure that either one could kill him in his critical state. It was Calavera that did it, and he shortly after caught Bananaman sleeping under the slab, so he killed him too. Victory, eh? :)

The winners with their prizes were thus:

1. Calavera the sorcerised necromancer - £30 voucher and a 32k necromancer
2. Bananaman the sorcerised necromancer - £20 voucher and a crown
3. Comet the sorcerised sorcerer - £10 voucher and two icons
4. Vixen the sorcerised sorcerer - one icon
5. Monkpiece the sorcerised sorcerer - um...
6. Lemming the sorcerised sorcerer - er...

Did these last two win anything?... I can't remember...

Prizes were also given to players for coming top in various categories. All the following players won either a £5 or £10 voucher for winning in a the listed category:

Best Role Player - Lemming the sorcerised sorcerer
Best Persona Name - Suicice the sorcerised sorcerer
Most Gruesome Death - Strontim the sorcerised sorcerer
Player Most in Need of a Map - Inquisitor the sorcerised sorcerer
Most Picked On - Comet the sorcerised sorcerer
Most Blood-Thirsty - Python the sorcerised sorcerer
Luckiest Escape - Vraneth the sorcerised sorcerer

Friday 26th February 1999

THIS WEEK'S MOBILE BASH...

25th February Bash Report

This one came close... I can't be sure, of course, but it might have something to do with the return of Gdn to the game. His first game in six months for yesterday's bash... I mean, otherwise, there was no reason why it should have come so close; there were more than twenty-five players, including a few few midlife to highlife players.

Anyway, the bash began and Athos was voted in as Bash General with only a few votes and the bashing began at his command... and was very shortly interupted by a failed attempt by Mystical the mage to FOD the spider - an action for which he offered no explanation... A few players - including Athos himself - tried to kill the golem, but had a really big problem with it. Athos died, and the golem might even have killed someone else. Benny was elected as the new Bash General.

The killing, meanwhile, was continuing, but at a fairly slow pace. With one hour remaining, seventy mobiles still remained in The Land. Other killing was also taking place, notably that of Dragonbait, who summoned and attacked a whole bunch of people, and killed others. He was later killed himself by a large group of players who wanted his blood... Perhaps this was what stopped people paying attention to the task in hand: the bash. It began to get very tight.

With six minutes left on the clock, six mobiles remained - skeleton0, the mongoose, the octopus, the basilisk (<growl>) and a few unknown others, including the scorpion which, when identified, was very quickly assaulted by an army of idle players. :-)

The bash passed over into the auto-reset countdown time, and groups of players organised themselves to finish off the last few. Skeleton0 was the last one, and it was successfully summoned to the rapids and attacked there by a large group of the competing players. It managed to flee, but (interestingly) was quickly summoned by Crowley - to the crypt beneath church, which only he himself had access to.

He managed to kill it anyway :-). We succeeded with only 125 seconds remaining!

Wednesday 24th February 1999

MAJOR UPDATE TO CAT THE WIZARD'S SITE

Cat the cheshire wizard has updated his website, giving it a new, multi-page design and some new articles, including a beginners' introduction to MUD2, the player killing article recently published on Wirenews and updates to the two incredibly useful object ranking lists (mobile and weapon).

I suggest that you view the site as soon as possible...

LAST WEEK'S MOBILE BASH

Apologies for the lateness of this celebrity mobile bash report, brought to you by Tom.

18th February Bash Report

Yay! We did it! another Thursday, another spot of bash the mobile and another 3k in the bag. Smart. No are we getting good at this bashing marlarky or what, eh? Maybe we need a super mobile to slow us down, like a Hydra which gets one attack per head on you. (G) Ok... maybe not. Everything started well, the usual crowd gathered in the tearoom with a few notable exceptions. No Wdi? Who am I going to try and get voted as bash general now?! (G) Things started well, with Porthos getting voted in as Bash General about 10 mins into the bash. The killing went very smoothly, with not too much shouting and awaking of the sleepers.

For once. :)

Elise's deathly shadow skimmed over The Land, but she was quickly sent into the obit by Fizzy and 'Big Fish!' Mankoid. I didn't see it happen, but apparently Dalek was the victim of a mass attack. Won't want to be around when the revenge attack comes in (G).

We swapped over the sv/reset mark at 72 mins, proving our abilities to mobile bash. At the 55 minute mark, we had just 48 left to do. The dwarves were being swept away, the vampire was dispatched by Mankoid (again), Fizzy (again) and Cruces with a value of 956 points! The wraith was worth 704.

Blackout was the victim of a mass attack according to the obit; was there anyone playing that didn't help kill him? (G) Or was that a K SOMEONE WI WP mistake? (G) Porthos mysteriously dissappeared - perhaps he has borrowed Laog's marvellous modem. Marvellous for hammering nails in, crap for playing on. After a short press campaign Mankoid was voted in as the new Bash General, but by this time so much was already done or about to be done that it seemed inevitable that we were going to succeed anyway.

30 mins and 13 mobiles left... then things slowed up... 24 mins and 8 mobiles left. mainly the usually suspects, but a few surprises. The spider (again), Octopus, Wold, Shark and... a couple of unknown others. The time began to tick away... 20 mins... 15 mins... 10 mins... then CHEER! 3k (G) The last two mobiles had been a group of goblins that had been missed. With 8 minutes remaining we once again 'Did the biz!'

Here's looking forward to another 3k bonus next Thursday.

[um, tommorow. :-) - Wdi]

Tuesday 23rd February 1999

LEXLEY REACHES LEVEL 11!

Yesterday evening, Lexley the mage was attacked by a warlock and won the fight, throwing her over 204 800!

She therefore made wiz. :-)

An immense amount of congratulations is required!

No, no; bigger than that! Look:

CONGRATULATIONS!

Monday 22nd February 1999

Sorry for the long pause, folks, I've been on holiday. :-)

MUDDLED TIMES ISSUE 3

Suzy the witch has released Muddled Times Issue 3 for general viewing. A very interesting one it is too: Lexley's look into the mobile population is continued, as is Mystic Keg by Blackrose (very amusing :-) ). There is also an article by Xena on mapping techniques. It's interesting to note that the publication of her article has taken place in the official wiz-run magazine, as the amazingly comprehensive map which she produced using her system was banned from publication by the wizzes. Ok, so it's not that interesting...

This issue also includes some... words... by Mojo and a poem by Topcat. :-).
Click here to view Muddled Times on Muddy.

PREFIX WATCH

Snypster continues to regularly update his column, which contains lists of prefixes, postfixes and persona descriptions for more people than you actually thought played the game... Click the link on the 'column bar' at the top of this page to view Prefix Watch.

CAT THE WIZARD ON PLAYER KILLING

Cat the cheshire wizard has posted an article on Wirenews (the HTML-based, in-built news section of the Wireplay service) regarding player killing in MUD2. It is not yet available from his web site, so you'll have to look on Wirenews.

In the article, Cat the wizard discusses the merits and failures of player killing within the game, and charts the development of various attitudes related to the pratice from the perspectives of different types of players. The article is not quite as in-depth as the 'Not Updating Persona' article recently published by Lexley in her new MUD2 magazine, Witch?, but is worth reading as it gives an insight into the topic from a wizard's point of view - quite a rare thing.

Interestingly, following discussion on the wizzes' relationship with player killing, Cat comes to the conclusion that wizzes should attempt in some cases to find (new) ways of dealing with excessive killers - ie. players who player kill too much and in a way which is damaging to the game. To quote Cat, some killers "just don't know when to stop."

Now, I wouldn't normally say anything controversial or dangerous here, but this time I will as I feel it's necessary. Cat the wizard appears to have contradicted himself: unfortunately, investigations by groups of mortal players have revealed that the most powerful and persistent killers - that is to say, the ones that are the most likely to be destructive and damaging to the game - are, in fact, wizzes playing as mortals, such as discussed in Lexley's article in Witch?. Because of this, it is very interesting to note that Cat has included a formal disclaimer on his article, stating that it is his own view only, distancing the opinion from the rest of the wizzes.

I suggest reading the article on Wirenews when you next log on, if you have not done so already.

Friday 12th February 1999

11th February Bash Report

Hmm. Some bright spark thought it would be a good idea to elect Mojo the insane mage as bash general. Well, ok then...

Anyway, as we're so very good these days, the immediate bashing was efficient and fast-paced, with lots and lots of mobiles being put to rest at a very early stage. Some attempts were messed up, notably the original keep assaults, but there were no major problems. Apart from Mojo, of course :-). He disappeared half way through and Mankoid was elected to take his place.

The remaining larger and harder mobiles were despatched in the middle of the reset, leaving fifty alive with sixty minutes remaining. This went down to twenty-eight five minutes later... The SV count continued to spiral downwards, leaving only a fish as the last mobile with around twenty minutes remaining. Mankoid attempted to organise an assault on the sea creature, but I believe it was Lexley who attacked it first and Requiem who killed it, after attacking Lexley at sea whilst fighting the fish... Something like that <cough>.

Requiem went on to FOD Lexley, unsuccessfully, killing himself. Odd behaviour for a PK after points, eh?
Also, Monk the warlock FODded himself almost straight after Requiem cast the same spell. Odd.

Following our victory, a special mortal-reset attempt was set up. The reset button had been moved to the crow's nest, but this problem was worked around adding 350 extra points from the mortal-reset to everyone's 3000 point bash bonus.

And look: My own press of the button was not the last press. Ok? Anyone who says it was is going to be... moaned at.

Wednesday 10th February 1999

EXCELLENT NEW WIREPLAY MUD2 PUBLICATION RELEASED

Lexley has just released the first issue of her new Wireplay MUD2 web-based magazine, Witch?

It's really, really good! No better than that: it's really good. You must simply read it right now - it's much more lovely than Muddy.

The address: http://www.lexley.freeserve.co.uk/witch/witch.htm

Tuesday 9th February 1999

Danhossy has updated his column with a new... song. :-)

Click the link to 'Danhossy's World' on the column bar to view his work. <G>

Saturday 6th February 1999

Celebrity bash report, with Crowley!

4th February Bash Report

A fairly uneventful bash started slowly, but quickly speeded up to show off the almost superhuman mobile bashing powers of MUD2 players..! There seemed to be a lack of players for the normal Thursday offering, but that quickly picked up with the number going up and down randomly between 18 and 26 depending on whether Laog's modem was deciding to work or not at that specific moment (eventually sorted by throwing it against the wall, apparently...). We were attended by Azzuri, Droo, and after a little bit, Suzy, who seemed to be the subject of a "is she the most fabulous person in the world or not" shouting competition <G>.

A large part of the bash's success was the distinct lack of PKs, although Mojo, er, ahem, Moe, apparently had a go, failing miserably and dying painfully to the touchstone after our collection of 3000 points at the horrible death of the spider and ape4 with 20 minutes to spare, poor fella. Havoc the Warlock did turn up about half way through, and displayed the nasty traits of collecting the horn and wh'ing the longsword a lot (not that I was snooping him, <cough>, and not that Snypster was going to let go of it), but he was nobbled by a couple of eager necromancers, and left rather quickly. The only downside was Moon the bash General being rather messily killed by 6 apes - our commiserations to his family.

Friday 5th February 1999

I have altered the player profile table found in People to include various changes requested by players.

It now appears to be twice as large. :-)

Saturday 30th January 1999

WHAT THE...?

Cat the wizard has finally updated (<G>) his charts for last two weeks of MUD2 on Wireplay. I copy the ones found on Muddy from his site, and whilst doing this today I found a rather strange entry... Well, look for yourself at the persona placed tenth on the charts of 28th January and realise how the top ten must consist of some really low-scoring players... :-)

Hint: I'm only a warlock...

Friday 29th January 1999

MOBILE BASH!

28th January Bash Report

A bash of both good and bad... We started with more than twenty players on, and of these enough voted for Link for him to become Bash General. Killing began, and almost all the kit was taken by two fairly unknown persona, Elise and Eacaw. "Oh dear," thought everyone, "PKs - and so brilliant of them to take or steal all the kit. What a fiendish plan." Anyway, suddenly everyone became invisible. Except those who could invis themselves, we were told by the wizzes... After a short time, most of the players became visible agai. Then invisibility was banned for no apparent reason. Perhaps so the killers could get us more easily?

Oddly, Link the necromancer then dissapeared, and Smokey was named the new bash general. Unfortunately, he was soon made to flee by the two killers and sat out almost the rest of the competition in the tearoom. Still, the mobile count dropped quickly to around thirty with sixty minutes of the bash left. A small party of players was formed to take out the larger and more powerful mobiles whilst the stragglers were killed by everyone else.

The last mobile remaining was the skeleton0, which Laog the warlock and Wdi the persistent took out. 3k for all. And some bright spark also tried to organise a mortal reset (it wasn't me!) - and it was successful. My word.

Highly unfortunately, Lexley the warlock was killed by the two ... killers, Eacaw and Elise in the middle of the competition. This prompted some retaliation from the players present but they were mostly underkitted and badly organised. The killers caused a few more fless before quitting with much of their kit still intact.

MANKOID!

We all know how good it feels to laugh at Mankoid :-). Now, being a kind fellow, he has presented something of his for us to smirk at whilst he is 'away' from the game. Find his 'Diary of a Mank Without MUD' in The MUD2 Section.

Tuesday 26th January 1999

DANHOSSY!

I'm going to stop trying to tell jokes, Danhossy is much better. :-)

See him in his excellent (I mean it) and controversial column, linked to on the above 'columns' bar, unfortunately replacing Fleet's column.

It's really good - just think about it for a while.

Sunday 24th January 1999

Archives are nice things. I've been looking through the Muddy ones a little recently.

Some of you might not be quite old enough to remember Mojo when he ran his guild, but he once really did. It was called the APK Guild and it once had a page here on Muddy. Not that I remember, but apparently it had this lot as members: Mojo, Assin, Skunk, Saffron, Fleet, Dunbad, Madhog, Vulnax, Falco, Khaos, Undertaker, Gdn and Benny. It seems more of these players are still around than I thought! Anyway, the guild was run by Mojo and Assin. Assin was, at the time, a devout Anti-player killer. And he did, of course, go on to become the notorious PK Droo, who recently wizzed :-). Crime pays, my friends!

Also existing around the same time as the APK Guild was the PK Alliance, who we also had a page for. This guild was supposedly run by Slain and Sun. Both guilds disappeared a short time before the introduction of Houses.

Here ends the lesson for the day.

Saturday 23rd January 1999

An incredibly upset Joey presents the 21st January Bash Report :-):

Despite having a complete fool for bash general, it went well, with most of the hard mobiles and sea creatures being killed early on. Noting much happened, with no-one above hero dying to mobiles and no one being PKed. The lack of player killers surprisingly coincided with Turrican not playing. Oh yes…. Jungleboy, Comet, Krang, Taz and Gherkin were not on either.

But of course there is no link is there Comet? Apart from the badly appointed general, most of the other players performed well, the exception being September, who tried to ruin the bash, but despite all her efforts she could not seem to get enough points to get past swordswoman. She died late on to something like the mouse. I first thought she belonged to one of the big PKs, but when I saw how extremely bad she was, I came to the assumption that it was Blanket. The last few mobiles alive were the skeleton, phoenix and hedgehog, the latter of which Link seemed to find incredibly difficult to kill. The skeleton0 and phoenix were killed, leaving only the hedgehog, which was killed, giving everyone their deserved 3k. A mortal reset also happened after Benny finally decided to wait in the tearoom having got lost in the mine.

Rumour has it that this extremely bad and annoying player is scared of the dwarf mine. It is after all exactly a year since he lost his warlock to a boy named Joey.

Friday 15th January 1999

MOBILE BASH SUCCESS - MOJO DECLARED "KING OF EVERYTHING"

14th January Bash Report

This was a very well played bash, despite Mojo the insane warlock being declared Bash General at the beginning.

The bash started very well, and continued to go very well all the way through. It seems to me that Wireplay MUD2 are getting better and better at mobile bashes. A lot of what many would consider to be the more powerful mobiles were despatched fairly early on - even some sea creatures were killed before the last thirty minutes.

Throughout the bash, two player killers were working together, apparently, according to one of them, in an attempt to mess-up the competition. The two were Elise the necromancess and Krang the necromancer. They started some major fights and a few minor ones, causing a whole bunch of flees and stealing the kit from other players to fuel their attacks. Eventually, however, AOF successfully intervened and cited Elise and Krang as targets for a large anti-PK strike. Elise and Krang were both forced to flee, and Elise was shortly killed after wandering into a siege by AOF on Krang's hideout. Krang then attempt to FOD Mystical the warlock, leader of AOF, prompting numerous to spring up on why he would want to do such a thing...

Meanwhile, the final mobiles were being put to rest. The last list involved the narhwal (sea creature), the snowbird, a few others, and a mystery mobile. All but the mystery mobile were killed, starting yet another mad-muser WHERE spell session. Moe the superhero knew what the last mobile was, but wouldn't tell... With a little help from an invisible informant, some were eventually able to determine that it was a sea-dwelling dinosaur (one of the new mobiles from version 36), the incrediblyitchyitchsaurus. A whole bunch of players picked up seaboats, but it seemed that I was the only one to actually end up attacking it. Not that I'm trying to boast. :)

Well done everyone, including Mojo, for his triumphant leadership. :)

WIZLIST

Suspect the wizard has changed his name to Keyser the wizard. There are you then.

Thursday 14th January 1999

...

You came here tonight with 2,000 points. Then you went up to 4,000 points... Then you phoned Richard who got you up to 8,000 points...

... You're saying to me 'B', 'Hunchback'? That's your final answer? You still have two lifelines remaining - Wafer50/50 and Ask The Wizzes.

... Ok, 'B' is your final answer... ...

...

Hmm... If you'd have said 'A', 'Basilisk', you would have just lost 7,000 points. If you'd have said 'C', 'Thief'... you would just have lost 7,000 points...

If you would have said to me 'D', 'Ogre'... you... would... have... just lost 7,000 points!

You've just won 16,000 points!

...

Wednesday 13th January 1999

SUSPECT REACHES LEVEL 11

Suspect the mage today finally made wiz today by swamping the icons. He appeared pleased, yet calm. :)

Congratulations to him!

(Is a change of name imminent?)

Sunday 10th January 1999

Snypster has updated Prefix Watch. Find it on the Columns bar above.

Oh, I'm wondering - has anybody reading this experienced any of the new quests? If so, I'd be really delighted if you could write a short description of them to add to the 'Quest Collective, which hasn't been updated for a while now.

Friday 8th January 1999

7th December Bash Report

This bash went really well. Xena the leather-clad necromancess was the general (voted by the populous, beating Wdi and Mojo), and commanded a massive WHO of more than twenty players.

Finally, some people seem to have realised that doing the big stuff early is a good idea. Big stuff was done early, such as the keep and the basilisk. The icons (and golem) were attempted early, but took almost half the bash to actually get done. Though this problem was blamed on the large number of player shouting, I have evidence which shows that it was actually due to various players deliberately attempting to sabotage the attempt. Killing the Dragon was also a problem, as someone swamped the coal...

We soon started to do quite well, with Xena fully in control and commanding well. There was over twenty minutes of normal reset time remaining when we reached the ten-mobiles-left mark. At about this time, Blanket the legend appeared, and immediately touched the touchstone to regain her magic. However, this didn't last for long - a load of players started going after her, with the thought of killing her (she's a PK, you know). She didn't have any kit, having arrived late in the competition, so was assaulted more than once, and finally put to rest by Crumpet the warlock. She was not happy...

The ten last mobiles were the hardest to kill, as usual. The sharks were left, as was the pony. These were soon despatched, but the Dragon was still alive! The wizzes revealed that the coal was hidden someone in The Land, but it could not be located with WHERE spells. Some players attempted to search the areas of the land protected by magic, to no avail, until Mosha the hero bravely travelled to the Dragon's island to search there. He found the coal lying on the northen part of the island, and promptly fed the dragon!

Er, leaving another mobile to kill. And we didn't what the hell it was. Hundreds of magic points were expended by musers attempting to WHERE the last creature whilst the auto-reset ticked over.... Foddy gave a clue in the end, which sort of helped a few people realise that the last mobile was, in fact, the crocodile, which hides in the swamp. We killed it - we won!

Thursday 7th January 1999

A little late, but here it is anyway. Last week's bash report, courtesy of Rosie, continuing the celebrity bash report theme:

31st December Bash Report

The last day of the year, and the last bash of 1998.  Given the date, there were quite a few people on - between 10 and 15 - although the level of sobriety of some was fairly low.  After much shouting, Taz the warlock was elected Bash General, and things started to proceed.  The bash went slowly at first, with what seemed to be more players than mobiles dying - before the first half an hour was up, there were already 4 on the obit: Tarrian, Wishful and Rosie dying to the grizzly, whacking its points up quite a bit; and Rosie dying to the ram as well (ahem).  There were three wizzes on - I think, Cat, Azzuri and Karya, but don't fod me if I'm wrong - and one of them decided to help us all along by giving us bizarre oriental prefixes <G>.  Of slightly more practical use was Azzuri's offer to fod 5 mobiles of our choosing.  This led to much shouting, some of it less helpful (piglet! mouse!) than the rest.  I never found out exactly what got fodded, but I suspect something like the sea or keep mobiles were in there, perhaps with the giant snake or phoenix.

With half an hour to go, only 4 players had their original prefixes, perhaps suggesting quite a few f o.qq's had been typed.  At this point, there were still 44 to go, and some people began to doubt we would make it.  Taz ably shouted down all these dissenters, and.... he was right!  Down to 7 minutes, and there were 7 left.  As usual, nobody seemed quite sure what they were, and the usual cries were heard (anyone done the jf.... who's got a boat... mus, can you wh the snowbird for me?).  Down to 22 seconds of the extension left, and all of a sudden we all heard a wolf baying and were awarded 3000 points!  (Didn't have time before the reset to find out who got the wolf in the end, but thanks ever so much, and my heart is forever yours...).  As a final new year present, Azzuri had offered a prize to the player with the most kills, and this went to Bansai, who killed 45.  He won a bash trophy, worth 726 points, which he went on to lose when he died to the ts the next reset :)

A successful bash!  A good omen for 1999? Watch this space....

Rosie (the protector... sob)

Saturday 2nd January 1999

HAPPIER NEW YEAR

What a great thing!

Cat the wizard has just released a top one hundred of all the mortal players alive as of 1st January - and it was my idea :-). it's great to look at, I suggest you do (it can be found here in Charts). See if you can find yourself on it, and don't be surprised if you can't - amazingly, the lowest player on the chart has a score of almost 30k!

Friday 1st January 1999

HAPPY NEW YEAR...

For your viewing pleasure, a slighty late bash report for last thursday's bash, by Vulnax:

Christmas Eve Mobile Bash

The Bash got under way just after 9 pm, with a few players sitting in the tea room whilst the rest were madly running about the land in search of weapons and mobiles. About 12 players were in at the start, which included the odd visible Wiz or two. The numbers picked up during the bash with about 22 players visible at the peak, and we were honoured by the presence of a spell of Wizzes - Mathilda, Cat and Suzy earlier on, and joined by Karya, Droo and Turrican towards the end of the bash.

Possibly due to the small number of players initially the going was slow with 125 mobiles alive at the 75 minutes to go mark. Early player deaths included Hornet the protector to the ogre and Smokey the warrior to a goblin, while some brave souls died to the touchstone - a feature of the new version of MUD2 perhaps?

Mystical was appointed Bash General with Vella the deputy. At 52 minutes remaining the death toll of the mobiles left us with 56 remaining, but by now the number of players had swelled and good progress was being made. Vulnax stumbled into the giant snake in the pagoda area whilst looking for the carp, having to flee and boosting the snake's points value! By 32 minutes, there  were still 38 mobiles alive, with Topcat despatching the Dragon and Hmmm force feeding the wolf. By the last few minutes 5 mobiles were alive, and some support was felt to complete the bash, Wdi and Vulnax finishing of f the  Swan and finding a biscuit for a treat there!

The last remaining mobile (there is always one isn't there!) appeared to be the mouse, in the badger sett - guess where the pointers where too... As people attempted a summon mouse collective it was realised that it was the xmas sugar mouse that inhabited the sett, the real last mobile being one of the new game's new mobiles, the Snow Leopard way up in the blizzard.

Being a new mobile and the location being a little out of the way there was no concerted rush to finish the leopard and hence the bash for the juicy 3000 point bonus, so it was left to Topcat and Alice to do the job well.

Success!

Thursday 31st December 1998

1998 - A YEAR IN WIREPLAY MUD2

Well, quite a year. A lot seems to have changed in such a short time. There have been two version updates, with many additions and alterations to the game in both, including the Houses feature, which has caused a collection of groups of players to spring up, such as BOPS, AXIS, and AOF, replacing the two original guilds, the APGK and the PKA.

For most players, scores have gone up and down. Some have gone up and stayed up, such as with the score of the now legendary Azrael, who sat at the top of the Rogue's Gallery for more than half the year without actually playing. Some seem to have been permanently in the top ten, without actually getting anywhere. Some have got into the top ten, and have shot straight out of the top of it...

The wiz list has almost doubled in length this year. Following the wizzing of Lestat way, way back came Turrican, seemingly from no-where. Then followed the big three: Mathilda, Azzuri, and Bubble, in that order ("It's not a race!"). Then came Agrazag, followed a while later by Karya, and a month after that, Droo, who is the last wizard of 1998. The question is, of course: who will be the new wizzes of 1999 - the last wizzes of this century?...

Oh, and Muddled Times, the fairly new, official Wireplay MUD2 publication will no doubt continue to exist through the new year, along with (I hope) Muddy, which really as tried its best from time to time, though you might not have noticed it :-)...

Well, there you are then. Possibly the shortest review of the year to be found in any medium... If you haven't already, be sure to read the news articles from the previous news pages by clicking the links below, as they will most certainly give you a better picture.

Happy New Year, everyone. God Bless America!

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