A Look at Houses in MUD2

Introduction

• What are houses?
• The Good
• The Bad
• The Ugly
• And the downright strange.

A house in MUD is a grouping of players, providing them with a channel to discuss things over. Houses are created by mages, some houses exist publicly (type houses to see the public house list) and some exist privately - for private houses usually you have to be invited to join.

The Good: Chatty Houses

What I class as good, may not be what you class as good. At present, I would say MA, ERM and JFW are the good public houses to join. MA has recently celebrated its first birthday and has been highly active since its creation. MA stands for Mortal Alliance and although at times that seems to also equal MA patented bundles, it is still a good house with a good community spirit. MA seems to exist purely as a chat house more than anything. MA is run by Jincks; the members and captains tend to be the usual tearoom crowd.

ERM is a very recent house and is run by myself. When I say recent, it is this incarnation that is recent. Lexley originally created the house but it didn't last long and was soon disbanded over problems with wizards. I have recently acquired what could be called ERM #2. The house still stands to do the same job; help new players. ERM has a good active player list and has proved to be popular.

Finally, JFW. It was originally created by Joey. It stood for Joey For Wiz and upon the death of Joey's mage it was handed down to Warlord and Sonic who I believe still run it. JFW now stands for Justice For the World and at one point it seemed highly active. Then it disappeared for a while. I've never been quite sure as to what it does, having never been a member. They have returned now and seem to be back in business.

The Bad: APK / PK Houses

Now this is likely going to evoke a response from people, but then I expect that. I was never around for the old days of BOPS or AOF, so when I say APK house I am not referring to them. I am referring to recent APK houses. It started off as APK, and then it was KNIGHTS (created by Benny). All in all it proved to be one of the worst things MUD had ever seen. At first I was as charmed by the idea as I'm sure everyone else was; a way to deal with PK's! Such a noble idea and at first it seemed to work; PK's were taken down and dealt with. Then they got a bit over zealous. It didn't matter if you were PK or not, if you happened to be a muser and looked at someone, you were of course going to PK and should be rightfully attacked. It was round about this time that I queried the members of KNIGHTS. The members who I will term as the professional members, could also be referred to as Evil PK's numbers 1 to 9. Our PK's had not gone into hiding; they were back, in disguise, and still PKing. This continued for a while and they PKed as normal, then they seemed to realise a fact which had been blatantly obvious; a large majority of the 'good' players were now all in the same house, under truce to each other. They each held quite large personae, from necromancer right upto mage. Now came the body guarding. It was the natural progression of the house. Now they could behave normally (still under a semi-guise of APKing), stealing and attacking like before, but now, if they were attacked, they could induce a bundle (similar to the bundles they had used as their APK tactic). Bundles seemed to be the way KNIGHTS was always going to function; a bit disappointing from all these players who were supposedly among our best murderers.

To combat KNIGHTS, a house was formed called LOUTS. LOUTS was created by the slightly unpredictable Crazyfool. It existed as a true version of what KNIGHTS really was, a PK house. It seemed like all out war for a time, as both houses were collections of good players. Like a team Sorc war, bundles were a regular occurrence and so were tearoom brawls. Then something happened; the leader of KNIGHTS died, leaving the house leader to be Llysfaen. Llysfaen, due to other reasons, suicided all her personae to the Touch Stone, and KNIGHTS was dead. LOUTS continued for a while after that, but due to a MUD error, it got deleted and was never re-created. Its function had been served.

The Ugly: Corruption, Blackmail.

It started with a mage called Buford who seemed to like his own name so much that he created a house with the sole intention of basking in his own glory. BUFORDS was born. As a house, it seemed devoid of purpose, but as is the way with MUD, people suck and crawl, and the house soon became very full. The idea forming that if you were a member, Buford would not harass you - a strange reasoning for having to join a house, as protection from its leader. As a member of BUFORDS you were supposed to worship the creator like a god. I can only think of this like a strange sect. I am still in disbelief at the way in which people bought what he said. If you happened to join BUFORDS then resign, then you may as well just kill your persona because the wrath of the childish mage would get you! With the threat of having his 30 strong house after your soul, it was hard to play a reset successfully, especially if the master himself was playing. His abuse of mage spells was astonishing, he would force you to attack various mobiles, drop things, jump over cliffs, shout abuse about yourself - while telling you that if you re-joined his house, the harassment would cease. The word "blackmail" springs to mind.

This house seemed to stay active for an eternity, and it stayed at full capacity which was as amazing as what he got away with. Of course Buford wanted more; a power monger, he needed more. He wanted to merge BUFORDS with another house and at the time, anyone who owned a house deserved pity for they were harassed endlessly by him to merge their house with his. Of course, no-one was willing to lose their house to him. What he was offering was that the merger received senior captain in the best house in MUD and it was obvious that immediately after the merge he would more than likely expel you.

So BUFORDS continued, a house of blackmail and against everything I believed a house to be for. People joined out of fear, not out of want, and at around this time Firefarter reached mage and BMD was born. BMD was an inspired idea, standing for BUFORD MUST DIE; it stayed on the public house board promoting its message.

BUFORDS then went through another change. Originally it was a house which anyone could join so its namesake could make the biggest house ever. However, Buford now wanted an elite house, so after expelling all the members, he made it so only mages could join - this is a similar progression to that of KNIGHTS. He wanted a body guarding house. At this point, a number of mages appeared, about 90% of whom could fall into a category I will title 'scary wizmort'. Of course wizmorts don't exist, but if they did, then these were they. Of course, the inevitable happened; Buford dropped to Warlock (making a farce of his house) then he died. We mourned him with cheering and a few bottles of champagne at his wake. The house disappeared a few weeks later.

The Downright Strange: Obscure, Original... call it what you will.

There are some houses you look at and you think "what?" I happen to be the leader of one such house, although it's obscurity was not intentional. MSH was created as a new player house (inactive due to ERM). I thought the idea of MUD birth and the creation of your first persona would have been obvious, it wasn't.

There are a selection of houses whose existence seems to be to confuse. MAD is one, standing for Mud Addicts Anonymous. I always wonder if they have regular meetings to discuss their addiction and ways to handle phone bills. TAWC is a strange house. I'm not quite sure if it still exists. It was displayed as a Wizard's counselling house. I don't think they had many clients. They even branched out into Arch-Wizard counselling. TAWC then disappeared and returned with a description that was Spam-tastic. It scrolled your screen with "DIE!!" for about 30 or so lines; a sure fire way to increase your own personal lag. It then disappeared yet again and returned under a new player house. It has disappeared again and as yet has not been spotted.

WOTB was another truly strange house, created by Khaos. It was a house for badgers. Now don't get me wrong, badgers deserve houses like any other normal mud players but erm... well, it stood for Way of the Badger, and the only rule was you had to be nice to your fellow badgers. Inspired or created by a man clinically insane? I'll let you decide.

The most current and weird house is 'Y'. The house is owned by Eeeee the warrior, and was created originally by Firefarter the mage. At first Y seemed to exist so he could display his messages of death to Pokemon and Joey. Then it displayed only "KAAAAAHHH! KAAAAHHH!" (or something along those lines). After a discussion with WDI (Mr. Advertising himself), Eeeee has decided that Y shall be an advertising house; he is currently charging ten pence per letter. All the best to him on his quest for pocket money.

In closing, houses in MUD seem to go through phases. No doubt we shall see the return of KNIGHTS in another form, and rather unfortunately it is likely that a house similar to what BUFORDS once was shall rear its ugly head, just to prove that we never learn ;).