Mortal FODs - A Historical Overview

The spell of FOD, standing for Finger Of Death, is the most powerful spell available to any player in MUD. Its chances of working, though, are very slim - supposedly. Any magic user can cast the spell FOD. - if it succeeds, your target is killed instantly. If it fails, you die instantly - those who live by the FOD die by the FOD. Mortal FODs are only usually attempted out of desperation, spite or by low magic users. Recently though, it appears that the Mortal FOD's success rate has significantly increased. A chronicle of recent FODS are listed below, in order:

Reverence the mage violently disintegrated by Parttimepk the sorcerer

Elizabeth the mad warlock violently disintegrated by Vaevictis the protector

Dclxvi the warlock violently disintegrated by Crash the magician

Snypster the sorcerer violently disintegrated by Browncow the enchanter

Reverence the mage violently disintegrated by Usurper the sorcerer

However, it has been pointed out by immortals that the FOD success rate has been unchanged, that is just the luck of the Random Number Generator (RNG), but perhaps the easy ability to get magic users is also to blame?

The existence of the vegetable patches within the Giant Realm surely doesn't help matters, where spamming the touchstone repeatedly with low personae (warrior, swordsman, hero) is eventually going to end with obtaining a magic user. Now players who aren't too great can achieve magic user status where they couldn't before. Better players can also now reach sorcerer in a fairly quick and painfree time. The stock piling of these personae looks set to wreck havoc on current highlife personae.

This point has became devastatingly obvious with the double fodding of Reverence the mage. it seems some of the game point has been lost, although I can understand the point in wishing to FOD Reverence (in revenge for his past crimes as PK Extraordinaire) it also illustrates a problem. The problem being that against a FOD you cannot win, and as the game stands just now, there is no place you can go to escape a FOD. As was proved with the death of Elizabeth, FODs function just as well in the tearoom as they do outside it. So in conditions like these, why bother to play?

Whereas before, PKs seemed to be the main problem, FODs could be set to creep into that position. To anyone who has suffered at the hands of a Mortal FOD, they can understand the total and utter feeling of loss that occurs and of course the anger at something that seems terribly unfair, why should you spend your time working at a persona, only to have it destroyed by a TS spammer or low sorcerer? FODs seem to be an appallingly unfair aspect of the game, but they do exist for a reason. The reason as I see it, is such. That FOD is a final act when you can think of no other way of winning (i.e. during a fight, where faced with no prospect of survival, you try the last option, FOD - either way, your foe doesn't get your points) and if someone you utterly despise is close to wizard, you can try your hardest to stop them crossing over - but how fair is this when you never give the person a chance to wiz?

Whatever your views are on FODs, the recent success rate does seem to edge towards a crisis developing, whether or not things will be done is yet to be seen, the possibility of it all dying down and the RNG returning to its normal self is also likely.

This article was written over a year ago, and since this article the mortal fod situation did indeed change, but whether it reached a crisis situation depends on your point of view.