Top Ten Differences Between Wireplay Mud2 and Mud2.com

(By someone who plays ‘em both and loves ‘em both, for different reasons)

10. Player Killers

Oh, they have them on .com… one or two. Not to the love-to-hate-‘em constant topic of conversation degree that we do, though. Of course, it’s hard to be a PK when you’re the only one playing!

9. Is that a dragon in your pocket, or ...?

Wizards on .com seem to have far much more free time, maybe because they’re not running around morting and slashing? Wacky wiz capers like the dragon attacking morts in attic, hot tubs at the rapids for smelly players, and champagne and birthday cake parties in the Inn are standard.

8. Two-handed sword? Wuzzat?

All those goodies we find in the goblin/giant area, such as cabbage patch, ths, and point-laden coins, are virtually unheard of on .com. Sure, it has this realm, but it’s been open precisely twice in my recollection, because the number of players needed for it to open exceeds the number usually on by a factor of about four!

7. Music hath charms …

Haven’t figured this one out yet, but (gasp!) there is no piano on .com! I guess Billy Joel wasn’t available.

6. Hints and allegations

On .com, the rampant rumors tend to be along the lines of, "I don’t think draggy’s been fed," and "I heard there was an invis on yesterday." They never get to hear Vaevictis ranting about gnomes stealing his underwear, poor things, and they’re totally missing out on the whole "sneaking up to mage" debate. Sigh.

5. It takes two to tango ... or pester

Last I checked, new commands such as pester, suspect, correct, dare, and annoy were missing from the .com lexicon. Maybe because it’s not so much fun to offend yourself?

4. Multiple Personality Headquarters

I spend about half my time on WP trying to figure out if the person who just stole ls and killed me with it is the same one who helped me get it five minutes ago. Could do with a Who’s Who guide here… on .com, players have one account, three chars each, so not too many secrets once one has played a while.

3. Wizmorts and Revmorts and Testchars (Oh my!)

If there’s a good player on, you can bet there are five others in the tearoom whining about how he’s either a wizmort or being secretly helped by a wiz. Wizmorts on .com are, for the most part, unrecognized and un-talked about. But I guess to be talked about, there needs to be someone else around to do the talking (See #2, below.)

2. Tearoom politics (and other hobbies)

The poor .com tearoom is such an empty, barren, lonely place that they’re about to start a "Drink one cuppa, get two free" promotion. At any given time on Wireplay, on the other hand, the tearoom is a hotbed of gossip, flirting, and ever-so-sophisticated tactical debates (i.e., "You smell." "Well, you’re stupid. Shut up.") They don’t know what they’re missing.

1. The adrenaline factor

If the first nine items sounded a bit snarky toward our second home on Wireplay, here’s the redeemer: it’s a really exciting place to play. I’m glad I learned on .com, because I actually got a chance to figure out how things worked (sort of) without being hacked to death every two seconds. But it does add an extra thrill to know that the second I actually get my paws on the longsword, someone will be after me.