Redemption Mud – Where I came From

I’ve mentioned a few times that I’m still pretty new to MMOs and gaming in general. I grew up with two brothers who always wanted to play the games, but myself I was involved in other things. It wasn’t until 2001 when I started playing games, and at the time I was playing muds. One specific mud that had a large population of people playing from here in Ottawa. We had mud meets, and I met a lot of really great people who eventually became close real life friends. The mud was called Redemption – and is still running fairly well today for such a local game. I decided to log in last night and wander around, after not playing for a good 7 years.

I used to code for the mud, back when I was an immortal, and designed a zone that revolved around Gulliver’s travels. I also designed a second zone that was themed around gnomes building a theme park that was falling apart, with a house of mirrors that had all the text written backwards. It was a lot of fun. It was also a long time ago.

I logged in and there were 13 others on at the time, which is pretty neat to see. The mud has been around for a very long time, and a lot of love went into building it. I spent hours playing this game at one point in time, eagerly leveling up my characters. The game has three levels of game play. You can be a NC – non-clanner which means no player killing (and also means you can’t be killed and looted), a PK’er (player killer) where you can participate in killing others and there is limited looting, or, ravager (which is new to me) which is full on PK complete with full looting. There are four clans, one was Seeker, which disliked PK (even though they could still be PK’d) and would not initiate fights with anyone, but could defend themselves if wanted. They tried to get along with all of the clans. Kindred were the ‘big bad scary’ clan, they would kill anything that moved. Then there was also Kenshi and Venari.

The whole reason I even mention this game is because as I was cleaning out my desk I came across a notebook filled with directions and it just brought back a flood of memories. I used to have a non-clanner named aimee, and she would write an article twice a week called the NCN – Non clanner news. All of my notes for these articles are stored in this tiny notebook I have, and some are quite amusing.

• Deck clan halls with lowbie corpses Fa La La La La, La La, La La
• T’is the season for full looting Fa La La La La, La La, La La
• Kindred’s coming, time to flee now
• Fa La La, La La La, La La La
• Joining Seeker, Can’t catch me now
• Fa La La La La, La La, La La.

It was little silly things like those articles that kept me entertained and still playing the game. I did interviews with IMs and Clanners, and generally just had a good time. I was pleased to see that the game still runs and not a whole lot has changed. The clans are all still there, commands are basically the same. I completely forgot how to set up my prompt to display things I actually wanted shown, in colours so I’d pay attention. I know everyone is always saying you can never go back, but honestly, I’ve been back to EQ and WoW and Redemption and have enjoyed every moment of it. The games have evolved but not changed from when I played. They’re still fun – I spent over an hour in Redemption last night, a welcomed break from my regular MMO gaming. Of course it also means I slacked on work, but hey that’s what Thursdays are for, right?

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself. If you happen to find yourself in an older game then by all means write about it and let me know!