I recently stumbled across this sci-fi themed game at the recommendation of a friend. We're both avid role players and have staffed on a number of RP enforced MUDs (and I own one) so it tends to take a lot to perk our interests in games outside of the ones we've already tailored to suite our personal tastes, but this MUD has definitely got my attention.
Before I get into a lengthy attempt to highlight the nature of the game and what you can expect, here's the link:
AtonementRPINow, first of all, let me make the most obvious comparison, and the one that I had to butt in on his initial description of this game to make, because it was just too funny:
Whoa, whoa... Hang on. Sorry to interrupt you Chris, but James, am I the only one who's having flashbacks of stepping off an arrival shuttle to find half the station's been blown to smithereens and there's some madman running around with a bloody toolbox??
We laughed. Apparently I wasn't the only one to make a connection to Space-Station 13 as we were being told of waking up from a cryotube to a message from the ship's AI informing us of an emergency protocol, being assigned with clearance to certain areas based on our profession, presumably; due to the emergency situation and the sudden way we've been woken from cryosleep, no one knows who they are or has any memories beyond a few glimpses into their past relating to some deeply familiar skills they have.
The message The ship's gone to hell, it's falling apart, there's blood all over, and food is about the most precious commodity in existence is hammered home using Mjǫllnir within about 10 minutes, or 4 rooms worth of travel from the starting area. Or the first person you meet who will almost certainly look starved and once they realise you've just woken up and thus will have been handed a cache of supplies by the AI, will likely beg you for some rations.
(( DO NOT GIVE THEM AWAY. DO NOT ADVERTISE THAT YOU HAVE THEM... at least, if that fits in with your character's personality anyway. ))Your character knows nothing about themselves, not even their name, just that the ship is heading 'home' (wherever that is) and you quickly learn that some pretty nasty shit has been happening since the AI started waking people up. Naming is pretty amusing, in a sort of sad Have we been reduced to this? kind of way... some people have adopted the number that was on their cryotube (this is just RPed, they just make up a number and run with it) I've met 13 and 43 so far, 13 has a habit (and is thus known for it) for naming people she meets and her names kinda stick... so as one person advised my character early on If you don't have a name, make one up. Or someone else will, and then you'll be stuck with it. Some of the other names floating around are Raven, Ugly, Meat, Moth, Club, Broccoli (lol), and Biscuit (also lol).
Setting up a character takes a bit of time as they require staff validation before you can enter the game, mine took a 8 hours, but another friend is on day 3 though that's because his initial draft was declined because of too many spelling errors in the descriptions. Still, be ready for a wait as the official statement is 48 to 72 hours for validation (but other than the friend I just mentioned, most seem to be done within the same day that I can tell). When setting up the character for the first time you have a fairly limited set of options, you can only be a survivor (human) and you can select from a setup for a Soldier, Engineer, or Scientist. This deals with initial stats and skills though you get asked a bunch of you see x, y, z: what do you do? A, b or c? type questions and can later customize skills yourself before submitting the application so it seems that this is more a template to help you work out what would work well with the role you select. Once you're in game the AI will ask you (semi-oocly) what profession you had, this doesn't override what you picked in chargen, but rather sets you up with ship access for the retina scanners and such.
The Staff seem pretty active, and award RPP for good role-play and event participation, though it doesn't jump out at you really. It sorta flies under the radar as it doesn't have any effect on your actual character. Rather, should/when that character dies your RPP will apparently open up new opportunities and benefits in the next character you make. In this way the effect of death is offset a bit. It's permanent by the way, no respawning and it can be brutaly fast. My character met some people for the first time in a recent RP, they were in good health and high spirits. 20 minutes later and a tsunami of shit over the intercoms as the soldiers tried to liberate more of deck 2 (read also, Hell on Ship) so they could bring more rations down - everyone's starving on deck 1 and the one I got on with best was dead. Along with 2 others. Just like that, pretty much. The game is pretty brutal and doesn't pull its punches and so tension is high among the crew. Apparently there is thievery and possibly murder going on (over rations, which are simultaneously what keeps you alive, and the only currency of any worth) among the survivors too, but I've not seen it, though I have seen shady types I wouldn't hang around alone in a dim corridor.
The post is already stupidly long and I don't even know if there'll be anyone interested in this sort of game (though I suspect there'll be a few, if they can get past the wait for character approval) so I'll tie it off here and we can chat more if people are interested. But seriously, this game is incredibly fun to play when you can log on during the higher player times. There don't seem to be many on at some times of the day, I've not worked out the highs and lows myself yet or I'd offer advice, but the boot-time high is 35, and I've rarely been on when there weren't at least 5 others running around and the small number of accessible areas (seriously, the non-sealed off parts of Deck 1 total maybe 20 or 30 rooms, tops) means even such small player numbers tend to be concentrated in a few key areas so RP is not hard to come by. I imagine if a bunch of us start playing regularly the awesome would only go up. Sharply.