Reflections

It's one of those lazy summer days and I've been stuck inside for 3 days having to rest two injured ankles, I won't go into the stupidity behind why I've got one twisted ankle and one with torn ligaments but it has meant that I'm pretty much laid up for a few weeks. Boring as it is watching the names log on and off MSN, checking the same message boards for the umpteenth time, I think of what I used to do in my spare time, how I was never all that bored and my mind was always whirring on new plans to hatch in the wonderful world known as MUD2.

I find it strange that I look back on my MUD days with such sadness. Although MUD still exists, it can never be the same for me. I was always the social player, in real life, I never shut up, and in MUD I was the same. I'd rather talk than fight, and I'd rather help than achieve. I found MUD a glorious place to escape to, although real life did weave its way into conversations, MUD2 was a totally different world. There were politics at work, and it was nothing to do with Labour or the Conservatives, it was to do about why the dinghy wasn't spawning in the right place or why the dragon attacked.

For me, MUD2 proved to be a common bond between people who in normal life may never have spoke, it gave a connection to spark friendships (and hatreds) and built a foundation for long term communication, long after MUD was gone; you knew that you would still talk to these people. It allowed for amusing, madcap phone calls at 3am over a new PK who was terrorising the sneaks. It gave rise to in-jokes, but more than anything else it just gave that common ground.

I've read back over logs stored on my computer with fondness, and people may laugh at me for that, but MUD2 went beyond being 'just a game', it was a community of people who I would say cared for one another, despite their feelings in-game. It was a place you could come to and forget about life and just become involved in whatever was going on, be it random conversations, the hyped-up atmosphere of an event or just a bickering, there was always something going on.

It wasn't however always sunshine and roses, serious disputes often arose and caused major personal insults, people left (including myself) and returned, when asked why they returned, the answer was always it was the game and it was the game they were addicted to, in most cases though, it was the community they were addicted to, and no matter how many hits they took, nothing was so bad it wanted to make them give it up for good.

And after these (nearly) 500 words, you must wonder what this article is about… to be honest, I am just reminiscing on the days gone by that we cannot reclaim, and yes that may sound overly romantic, and perhaps it is, but I look back to those few years of MUD on Wireplay with sadness, and it is sadness because they can never return. But somewhere inside me, the addiction for this game still has a grip, the sight of the game brings a warm feeling back to me, it's like seeing an old friend after many years apart. And now that I've won a free month, I'll be able to return, even if it means I'll only sit in the tearoom and chatter