Aardwolf
| title: | Aardwolf |
| url: | link |
| download page: | No link! |
| license: | Donation |
| genre: | MUD |
| developer: | Aardwolf.com |
| platform: | Mud |
| release: | 1996, Ongoing |
| features: | text |
| last edit by: | Dark |
Description
Aardwolf is another long standing online fantasy mud, active since 1996. IN Aardwolf, players enter the vast world of Andolor (containing over thirty thousand unique rooms), a world of uncharted seas and vast continents from the civilised Mesolar to the mysterious Abend, and try to make their way as an itinerant adventurer.
Players can become one of 19 different races which include Lizardman, Centaur, Sprite, Shadow and Vampire, each with their own unique abilities and skills, and play through the game as one of 7 different classes, Mage, Psionic, Warrior, Paladin, Clerric, Ranger or thief. As you might expect, Players advance through combating enemies and through performing quests and goals. One particularly unique aspect of Aardwolf however is that players advance comparatively quickly as compared to some other role playing games. Once a player has advanced 200 levels with one class, she/he can work to first become a super hero of level 201, and then can choose either to stay a super hero and advance as a superhero, or can remort and take on a second class in addition to their previous one. Thus players eventually acquire the skills and spells of all 7 classes, after which they can "tier" and start the process again with a new race, advanced stats and yet more benefits.
Each class also contains three specialities, or subclasses, for example a Ranger can choose to be a hunter, specialising in long distance combat with a bow and tracking their prey, a shaman, specialising in earth and nature magic, or a crafter, adept in the skills necessary to skin the corpses of their fallen enemies to make a variety of items.
Of course, all this advancement wouldn't be worth much if there weren't some interesting ways to progress, and though Aardwolf is a heavily combat focused game, at the same time it has a number of interesting factors to make the combat unique. Firstly, there are the combinations of racial skills, spells and abilities to play with, indeed Aardwolf makes these easier to use than several muds, with commands such as the "spellup" command which will automatically cast all buffing spells (spells that give temporary advances), at once.
Second, Aardwolf has a very unique approach to areas, quests and goals. The game is divided into a large number of specific areas. Each area has an individual goal to complete, everything from ridding the farmer's fields of nasty pests to preventing the summoning of ancient evils. These goals are easy to find and follow progress in since there are specific commands for each and only one per area of the game. Of course, some might take figuring out puzzles or complex steps such as talking to the right npc or looking at the right object.
In addition to goals, Aardwolf also has a major system of randomly generated quests and campaigns as well, in which players are tasked to go and find one or more given monsters in an area and slay them, earning quest points that can be used for a variety of things from upgrading weapons to wishing for special powers. These quests are also a great way to quickly see a lot of the game, especially given Aardwolf's rather none standard approach to navigation.
Aardwolf is one of the easiest games to get around thanks to a very advanced system of portals and speedwalks. For example from the city of Ayler , the "runto" command can be used to quickly move to any area of the game, or to rooms within a specific area (use the find command to see what is around or get more standard map directions). This makes Aardwolf a very quick game to play since it's possible to get a quest, immediately be told what area the quest is in, and be there in seconds, plus you can use the "where" command to find which room your quest target monster is in. .
The areas themselves are always well described, and though they can range from the eclectic exploration of your own unconscious to a deadly serious tournament of arms, any fans of exploring unique places certainly won't be disappointed, particularly since flying, underwater breathing or sometimes looking around for exits in unusual places might be required from time to time as well.
Though combat definitely comes first in Aardwolf, there are some other activities available, from joining clans and engaging in raids or clan wars, to playing laser tag or entering the randomly generated combat maze for glory, not to mention a number of daily events from trivia challenges to poker tournaments.
With it's focus on being extremely easy to pick up and play without need for things like complex navigation, Aardwolf is a very friendly mud to Vi players, particularly since it has fewer aggressive monsters that attack without warning than in some muds, meaning there's far more opportunity for looking around and exploring (especially with the speed walk system). The game also has a Vi section on the wiki found here which details a few Vi friendly commands and customisations, plus complete instructions on how to navigate one particularly problematic area.
Even finding equipment is easy in the mud, given that the "eqsearch" command can be used to find the best gear available (other than quest gear), and various tools are found around the net to help finding items and locations such as The aardwolf Gaardian vi archive A VI friendly system of in game maps and Hador's item database A useful tool for finding any in game items and where to get them (a perfect accompaniment to the game's "eqsearch" command).
As a bonus, !Aardwolf is also free to play, though on occasions the mud will accept donations, and these donations can be exchanged for benefits such as quest points or extra training sessions for your character. Donating however, (especially since it is only available sporadically), is definitely not necessary to progress. .
With new areas and goals being added frequently, Aardwolf is always expanding, and with the shear amount of places to see and goals to complete, as well as infinite numbers of randomly generated quests you won't run out of activities too quickly.
The player base is extremely friendly so don't be afraid to ask on the various in game chat channels for assistance, or just drop in to say hello. As well as asking for assistance, the Aardwolf wiki is a great resource. Aardwolf also has probably one of the most fun, informative and best designed new player tutorials of any mud, so it's also worth going through the newbie academy to see what you find (aside from the fact you will get lots of nice rewards too).
Also note that as a mud, you'll need a working client such as Mushclient or Vipmud. To connect just point your client to aardmud.org port 23
You can read more about the game, vote for it and check out reviews Here on the Aardwolf page of the Mud connector site
With a friendly atmosphere and some of the most convenient controls and commands of any Mud, Aardwolf is a great game for newbies and experienced mudders alike, and proof that a game based around pure combat can still be a huge amount of fun. .
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Updates: entry 2 Feb 22 and description 2 Feb 22