TriadCity Message of the Day
2019-10-31

Surprise! There's a whole 'nother World out there ready for adventuring.

Midgaard is the core World featured by the now-ancient DikuMUD branch of the MUD family. It's a medieval-themed hack-and-slash fest with a lot of great ideas that became RPG traditions, implemented without a lot of sophistication on a code base which works but is far from subtle.

As an homage to our own past and the past of the medium, we've implemented an emulation of the Midgaard core World running on the TriadCity server platform. The entire "base" Midgaard World is there: Midgaard itself; the Great Chessboard; New Thalos; the Drow Kingdom; King Welmar's Castle; Rome: 30 Zones altogether with more than 1800 Rooms. Hack-and-slash heaven!

Veterans of the old MUD traditions will note that while our emulation is very close to the original, it's not exact. There are differences of philosophy and implementation between the TriadCity and DikuMUD code systems which we've chosen not to smooth over. In particular, the combat systems and associated computations are quite different. We've done our best to make combat inside our version of Midgaard fairly similar to the original. But if you remember the real thing you'll spot the differences immediately.

We have, though, widened the TriadCity server platform to include many concepts from the old game systems which we've avoided until now. For example, old-school MUD magic is operative inside Midgaard. Magicians can throw fireballs; Clerics can undo curses; anyone can quaff magical potions or recite magical scrolls. In these respects the Midgaard World might be more familiar to MUD veterans than TriadCity is.

Notably, death in the Midgaard World is not permanent. Unlike TriadCity, if your character "dies" in Midgaard it'll be reincarnated at the Midgaard Temple, minus 25% of its accumulated experience — and its associated level(s) — but very much ready to resume. You may lose your equipment — scavengers are everywhere. But you will be able to carry-on.

Crossing the boundary between Worlds subjects you to quite different laws of physics. Not merely the magic and combat systems, but also Skills, Roles, and character classes are different. None of your TriadCity Skills operate inside the Midgaard World; and vice-versa. Midgaard has the concept of character classes rather than TriadCity's more flexible Roles. Midgaard has just four character classes: Cleric, Mage, Thief, and Warrior — and all characters must be one of these. When you first enter Midgaard from TriadCity, your Midgaard character class will be assigned based on your TriadCity Roles. We map them as best we can, for example, TriadCity Healers will become Midgaard Clerics. If you don't yet have a Role, your Midgaard class will be Warrior.

And, there are new commands which operate only inside Midgaard. Quaff, Recite, Cast, and others reflect and operate on the laws of physics which are unique to that World. Reciprocally, very many TriadCity commands don't exist in Midgaard, most obviously, concepts such as Malopathy with their associated commands are completely absent. A dedicated command reference for Midgaard will be online real soon now.

This implies something central about the TriadCity game platform. From a World, TriadCity has evolved into a Universe capable of containing multiple sub-Worlds. Today there are two: in future there may be many more. Watch this space.

Like the Haunted Mansion, Midgaard is very much an early "alpha" experience — it's not fully baked. We've opened it now so that the adventurous can explore, become familiar with its very different laws of physics — and help us shake out the bugs.

When it's ready, Midgaard will become its own discrete new game available on the SmartMonsters web site. New players will be able to join the Midgaard World without ever interacting with TriadCity. The portals between the two Worlds will exist — but can be totally ignored if that's one's preference. We'll make a big announcement when that's ready.

For now: have at it! And have fun! Midgaard can be reached through a portal inside the Museum of Technology and Society in the Southern Third, alongside the bank of the Black River. Our friends the Crystal Cavern Corporation have implemented it as one of their extraordinary Sagas — games within the game, along with other favorites such as Angry Birds, Junk Food Jungle, Zaroff Park, and many others.

Meet you in The City!

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