The Wonderful World of MUDs and MUSHs.

Role-playing is a very common thing. Millions of people over many years of history have found solace in pretending they're someone else for a little while. Boys playing soldiers is a common example, as is girls playing house. Eventually, many people "grow out" of this stage and while they may do creative things such as read and write, they still are not getting a full role-play experience. For some select few (or at least it seems) that thirst for an escape to be someone else and the lust of creativity to fill another role manifests itself in a technologically based form. A form that looks like cheesy ASCII art and rolling screens of text and colors.

MUDs hold a special place in my heart. At the end of my middle school days I grew tired of forum roleplaying. It just didn't immerse me enough and felt very stiff and bland. One day I stumbled across MUDs. The concept was very alien to me at first. A game with text only? Isn't that boring? Luckily I proved myself wrong. There are two very distinct types of MUDs in regards to role-playing. Roleplay Not Required MUD is exactly what it sounds like. People are free to attempt but they are generally silenced by shouts of "triggers" and "aliases" all over the chat. These types of MUDs still puzzle me. If someone wanted to play a game based purely on mechanics, why wouldn't they just play an actual video game? With graphics and sound? Then again, MUDs are one of the few games that can be played on a toaster with an internet connection. Roleplay enforced MUDs are the ones I wanted to play. Everyone speaks with words that fit the theme. Suddenly you are not "Victor from Vermont", a skinny college student playing some games to pass time in between classes; you have become "Ulric Banhammer", a bearded giant of a man with a penchant for smooth jazz who resembles some long forgotten Scandinavian warlord.

The first MUD I played was "New Worlds Ateraan". Alister was a young elf mage with a bit of a drinking problem. Eventually I was disgraced in my guild due to a botched robbery while Alister was stone drunk. That is the beauty of role-playing. You can attempt to play your character in the way you think he should be but you must adapt your playstyle to the situations other players put you in order to fit your character's personality. Unfortunately, I found MUDs to be a tad too restrictive in terms of combat. The beauty of forum role-play fights was the flexibility. If you wanted to attempt to poke out your opponents eye you could. In basic MUDs, the combat is entirely up to the engine it's built on. Every fight was "Alister attacks" and a quick change to the health or mana bar depending on how you took your turn. This was more than enough to deter me from continuing as I found it took me out of immersion. This is where MUSHs really shine.

MUSHs may seem like MUDs upon first glance. However, as soon as you enter character creation you may be in for a rude awakening. MUSHs are primarily story focused as opposed to being mechanics focused. Skills like "dodge" "steal" and even "attack" are all covered with a "roll", meant to simulate a pair of dice in Dungeons and Dragons. Let me back up a little bit. MUSHs, while they have large and descriptive worlds, often involve many people in the same room for an extended amount of time. Groups of players set up "scenes" where using keyboard commands they type out description like you'd find in a forum post. "Alister walked down the street, hands in his pockets, thinking about all of the problems his business was having. After coming to a stop at a streetlight, he noticed a peculiar looking silhouette in the window of the laundromat..." The descriptions would be longer or shorter than that description depending on what had happened prior and how involved the character was. Players take turns setting up situations and reacting to other player's descriptions in the developing scenes. Administrators or "Game Masters" assisting in writing prose for the environment and NPC characters. The skill factor is also something administrators are involved in. For example if Alister is being chased by a rabid dog and he wants to jump over a fence, I would write something such as, "The dog's mouth was foaming and it's growls pounded in Alister's ears. Even though he was quite athletic for his age he was no match for the wild animal as it began to close in. Spying a roughly 6 ft high chain link fence, Alister darted off in it's direction. Reaching for the top like some sort of caveman, he hoped to hoist himself over the top to safety." After posting this, an administrator running the scene would make a roll and base the results of the roll off of the difficulty of the jump and Alister's athletics ability. Depending on this result the roll would fail or succeed and Alister would have to adapt to the aftermath of either situation. While the flexibility of a MUSH is something I like, it does have it's downfalls. Depending on the structure of the MUSH there may be no official inventory or shop system due to every action being role-played to completion. Also, due to the flourishing detailed sentences, scenes may take hours to finish. This can be very deterring to players who don't have too much free time to devote to someone's essay long description of buying some milk.

In conclusion, MUDs and MUSHs are very similar. They also have many differences. I find the main difference to be freedom. If you enjoy more dialogue based roleplay or short choppier actions, MUDs may definitely be a thing for you. However, if writing long, descriptive sentences much like a forum is more your style, then by all means give a MUSH a try. The website MUDstats.com is an excellent source of populated MUDs and MUSHs to try with hundreds of different themes and rules. Remember to stay in character and have fun!

Next Generation Gaming

Nextgen video games, the phrase itself seems to excite some and horrify others. With next generation games comes next generation consoles such as the Wii U, the PS4, and the Xbox One. With new consoles will come new features and overall better games. Out of these three consoles, there are many things needed to consider if next generation gaming will be great or not.

Wii U:
I for one, feel that the Wii U does not get enough attention. Casual gamers love it but it doesn't quite have enough "oomph" for the more serious gamers to accept it. Much to the dismay of fanboys everywhere, the sales of the Wii U are a little underdeveloped but seem to be getting better. As others may disagree with me, I don't think Nintendo should be trying to appeal to other the more "hardcore" crowd. I think they should be appealing more to children. Think about it? When's the first time you picked up a Nintendo game? I'm sure it was when you were under 10 years of age. Nintendo appeals to children, hence the Zelda rehashes and the New Super Mario Bros. games that come out every time a new console/event happens. It's the same deal with gamers complaining that the Pokemon series has too many Pokemon now. It's not supposed to appeal to you! It's appealing to the current children hence new regions and starters and, obviously, more Pokemon! What the gaming crowd needs to realize is that audiences are changing and perhaps it's time to move on.

PS4: 
Ah, the PS4. Sony's biggest competitor in the console market. Ever since the early days of gaming, they've been releasing very similar consoles and top notch games at similar prices. Their new console looks awfully promising but specification-wise it is on par with the Xbox One. Their primary new focus is on games unlike Microsoft's approach which is trying to make the Xbox One one giant entertainment system. Their launch titles look like an incredible display of craftsmanship and it looks to be that they really want to hit the graphics hard. Promising titles include: Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, and Final Fantasy Project. The problem is, they will want some very hard to beat exclusives if they want to be a winner in the long run.

Xbox One:
I think the Xbox One is on the wrong course right from the start. The reason people are upset is because people don't want more TV and music partnerships, they want some frickin' games! They even had the audacity to say there would be a Halo TV series. Who cares? Gamers are going to want their games, cable companies exist for a reason. Specs-wise they're very close to PS4 almost so close that they are hard to distinguish to the untrained eye. Launch games include nothing spectacular, just your normal COD and Assassin's creed installments. You have your normal franchises like FIFA and Forza but they're going to need to step up their game to complete.

Overall, I think the real winner in next gen gaming in AMD, as their cores and processors power the PS4 and the Xbox One, the Wii U mustn't be forgotten as it could prove to be a fun casual console after some decent titles come into production.