Farside MUD Review
Copyright (c) 1995, Joe DeRouen
All rights reserved


Farside MUD                   
by Joe DeRouen


Have you ever wanted to adventure through strange and dangerous lands?
Slay huge dragons?  Do battle against an army of ogres?  Have you ever
yearned to use great magic, to save maidens fair, and to search out
ancient hidden treasures?

If you have, and you have Internet access, you've probably tried to
satisfy a few of those urges playing a MUD.  For the uninformed, MUD
stands for Multi-User Dungeon (or Multi-User Dimension, depending upon
whom you ask) and is more or less a computerized version of fantasy
role-playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons.  MUDs are found on the
Internet via the telnet command.  There are almost as many different
MUDs as there are home pages.  Much like a lot of other resources you'll
find through the Internet and World Wide Web, MUDs are completely free
of charge. 

There are several different kinds of MUDS; MUDS devoted to a science
fiction genre, MUDS set in an apocalyptic world, MUDS set in a modern
day city overrun with vampires, and more.  The most popular type of MUD
seems to be fantasy/sword and sorcery oriented.  One such MUD, located
on IFU.NET out of New Jersey, is The Farside. 

In Farside, you control a character - a dwarf warrior, for instance, or
an elven cleric - in a fantasy world.  Everything you see is text.
Beyond rudimentary ANSI color, there are no graphics.  Farside (and all
of the other MUDs) are more like one of the old Infocom text adventures
than it is DOOM or even MYST. 

You control your character by typing.  You read descriptions of where
you are in the game on the screen and respond accordingly.  If you want
your electronic avatar to walk north, you type north.  If you see
someone else in the game you want to talk to, you use a command called
SAY.  The commands for moving around, picking things up, and interacting
with other players and monsters are many and varied, and you can usually
find a way to do whatever it is you want to do. 

When you first telnet into Farside, you're asked to choose a name for
yourself.  You'll find all sorts of names on Farside.  Anything from the
more theme-sounding Draeger and Arundel to the not-quite-so-medieval
names of Slitha and MistyBlue.  Choose a name you're comfortable with; 
if you're like most players, you'll be stuck with it for quite a while. 

Next for your character is race (anything from a human or an elf to a
lizard man) and profession.  Professions range from the powerful warrior
(who's a tad bit short on brains) to the mage, who couldn't swing a mean
sword to save his life. 

While both race and profession are important to your success in Farside,
the latter is probably just a bit more so.  General consensus is that
the Warrior class is the easiest to gain levels with.  The higher the
level you are - up to level 51 - the stronger your character is.  Other
classes (such as the Mage), while harder to advance in, make up for that
with more spells and different abilities.   A good character to start
out with is a human Martial Artist.  The Martial Artist isn't quite as
tough as the Warrior, but he does have more opportunities to learn
spells and is thus a little more interesting to play. 

Once you've chosen your race and profession, you're ready to play.  New
players (or newbies, and they're wont to be called) start out in the
middle of a medieval city called Midgaard.  They then wander around,
mapping as they go, looking for low-level monsters to kill (to gain
experience for advancing in levels) and better weapons and armor to make
themselves more able to kill the aforementioned monsters. 

You start out at level 1 with the goal of advancing to level 51.  This
usually takes many months of real time work and exploration.  At level
51 the player becomes a Hero, and can choose spells, skills, and
abilities from any profession, regardless of what profession he started
out in.  There are 999 levels of Hero, which can potentially keep the
player busy for a very long time.  The next step after Hero is Immortal,
but few manage to attain that level.  Immortal status is only given by
invitation, and only then if a slot in the ranks of Godhood happens to
be open. 

Players traverse the imaginary countryside of the Farside world slaying
monsters and participating in quests run by the Immortals.  Quests can
involve anything from solving riddles to finding the most potions and
bringing them to an Immortal at an appointed room in the MUD.  Quests are
usually rewarded with gold (used to buy items in the stores in Farside)
or renames of weapons and armor. 
  
While killing ogres and questing for prizes, players also discover a
very fortunate side-effect; meeting other players just like them. 
Players can "group" to fight high-levels monsters and, while healing
from the battles, talk and get to know one another.  Several
long-lasting friendships have began on the MUD, between people in all
different parts of the world. 

There are several different areas full of monsters and treasure in
Farside, and the areas therein contained are one of the major
differences between Farside and other MUDs I've encountered.  There are
several "stock areas" floating around the Internet, and most fantasy
MUDs use these.  Farside uses some of these as well but also offers
custom-made areas found only on this MUD. 

Several of the immortals (the players who run the game) have taken it
upon themselves to improve the existing areas and make the game better
for all involved. 

Crom, a college student somewhere in the real world but an Immortal
here, just recently remapped the entire Farside "world".  AsaMaro and
Marat, Farside Immortals from Dallas, Texas, are constantly working to
edit the games for spelling and grammar and to make sure that the game
keeps it's fantasy oriented theme. 

Farside enjoys many resources outside the actual MUD as well.  Aegis and
Snikt (who, along with Rox, Dizzy, and DaWiz, runs the MUD) have worked
together to create a Farside Home Page on the World Wide Web.  AsaMaro
writes a bi-weekly newsletter about Farside entitled The Farside
Gazette.  TMeat, a relatively new player and Asst. Editor of Sunlight
Through the Shadows Electronic Magazine, recently created a page that
contains links to other Farside players home pages. 

Farside is one of the most innovative and exciting MUDs on the Internet.
Despite recent site problems (the MUD has changed sites twice in the
last year) and a little too much political strife among the Immortals it
looks to be around for a long time.  With recent command and spell
additions, as well as the editing and area remapping, Farside seems to
just keep getting better. 

Farside can be reached by telnetting to mud.atinc.com 3000.  The Farside
Home Page can be reached by pointing your WWW browser at
http://tick.atinc.com/mud.html, and the Farside Players Page can be
reached at http://www.crl.com/~lsaiken/far.html. 

