Clandestine MUD

Infobox VG
title = Clandestine MUD


developer = Independent
engine = Diku, ROM
version = Updated Weekly
released = 1997
genre = MMORPG, MUD, Adventure
modes = Multiplayer
platforms = OS Independent
requirements = Internet with Port 9476 open, using [telnet://207.234.209.62:9476/ Telnet] or a MUD Client

Clandestine is a Multi-User Domain (MUD) that is based on ROM code, which is a DikuMUD derivative. It was envisioned and created by Jason Sebek in August 1997 and has been free to play ever since.

Theme

Clandestine's large world creates its unique fantasy-setting, blending the themes and elements of Medieval Fiction, Oriental Folklore, Anime, Science Fiction, Gothic Fiction, Dungeons and Dragons, Ultima Online, Fairy Tales and many others. The Central HUB for the game-world is Edge City, though dozens of other city-states and warring factions lie not far from Edge City's walls.

However, Clandestine MUD is most heavily focused on the theme of Religion and Religious Wars, giving the player the ability to join a religion or cult, rise in its ranks if they are able to, and then roleplay, combat, and otherwise interact with other religions.

Gameplay

After going through the creation start-up section of the Game, players will find themselves in a school meant to help ease new players into the World of Clandestine. This school is located within Edge City, the safest area of the player's gaming experience. From there, the player will adventure out to many different regions, undertake quests, hunt artificially intelligent NPC foes, and study the player's class skills.

Mastering multiple classes is optional on Clandestine, up to eight classes. However, only three classes can be used at any time, and the penalty for gaining experience points grows exponentially for the player, per class added. Primary classes are given specific class bonuses and elite skills.

Players on Clandestine are encouraged to join one of thirteen player-run religious organizations. Within each religion, players may opt to follow the path of the Priest (involving administration and roleplay-heavy work) or the Warrior(involving player versus player combat), and gain powers based on their Deity's bonuses and their rank within the religion.

There are 205 "levels of experience" that a player can access as a non-staff member. With the addition of multi-classing, though, the typical goal of most players is to raise three classes up to level 205. At this level, players may travel around the world easily with vortex, may restring items to look like whatever they wish, and several other "Master options".

Many "jobs" and craft-skills are centered around mini-games that are constantly being added to keep players busy with new toys.

The focus of the MUD, beyond the theme of religious war, is on the social interaction (both out-of-character and in-character) between players. Clandestine is an extremely social MUD, who has made its goal offering so many options for gameplay that players remain interested.

NEW IP August 2007 - 207.234.209.62 9476

Religious Factions

Players may join the following religious causes on Clandestine MUD. Each has its own history on the MUD and range from a pure player killing with no roleplay style to one that isentirely focused upon roleplay.

Religion	Ethos/Alignment	Chosen One
Mystara	Lawful Good	Valiant
Kir'Jolith	Neutral Good	Wryscher
Takhisis	Chaotic Good	Vello
Pantheos	Intrinsic Good	Topher
Nuitari	Lawful Neutral	Angie
Astinus	True Neutral	Iluvenis
Loviatar	Chaotic Neutral	Arraken
Merc'nry	Intrinsic Neutral	Duron
Asmodeus	Lawful Evil	Tanaria
Tyrgoth	Neutral Evil	Sett
Myr'Khul	Chaotic Evil	Vandraen
Morrigu	Intrinsic Evil	Pym

Classes

There are seventeen playable classes on Clandestine.
*Ninjas are strong in hand to hand combat, second only to Samurai, making use of heavy weaponry skills, tricky bombs, and incredible speed to strike quickly from the shadows.
*Samurai are extremely strong warriors with blades, also capable of quickly debilitating a foe using cripple. This combines with their crossbody lock-down skill to allow them to literally sweep opponent's off of their feet.
*Channelers are the masters of gateway magic, capable of moving efficiently and separating an area from the rest of the world. Channeler's mobility make them excellent at questing missions, also.
*Lichs are powerful Death Mages, who use their power over spirituality to domate opponents' souls, lock-down escaping and healing, and deliver some of the most powerful attack spells in the game.
*Nightblades are rogues that specialize in hunting down monsters and the undead, using a versatile mixture of skills and magic.
*Conquistadors are an extremely balanced melee class, based around speed and statistical strength. Their ability to deal fast, straight-forward melee damage is second to none.
*Crusaders are the tanks of Clandestine - using heavy armor and healing abilities to take on hard-hitting enemies, while using blunt weapons to dish out heavy damage to even the toughest of foes.
*Technomancers are the masters of harnessing magic into items and weapons, making them extremely versatile and useful. They can create magical pills, wands, staves, armor, swords, explosives, and legendary technocrafted equipment for use in player vs. player combat.
*Cardinals are the masters of White Magic, able to use support magic and heal far beyond the means of any other class, while still able to use damaging holy spells to pack the punch of other master spellcasters.
*The Hunter is a versatile combatant. He uses his ability to tune himself with nature to track foes, trap foes, evade foes, and master beasts. Meanwhile, his skill as an Archer and solid melee ability mean that he is not to be taken lightly.
*The Archwizard is the master of magic itself, rather than a specific specialization. This class' sheer power makes it customizable and desirable when paired any other spell-casting class.
*Alchemist is a very deadly class. Its ability to create, use, and combat with powerful and versatile potions are coupled with decent melee abilities and a nasty selection of potent anti-wizardry spells.
*Necromancers channel the powers of Death Magic to control the living dead and cast powerful lock-down hexes on their foes. Additionally, Scream and Suffering allow them a potent combination to deal heavy damage at a self-sacrificing cost.
*Mindbender is a class whose true potential is only seen in player vs. player combat. The Psionist's ability to confuse, mislead, lock-down, and destroy an enemy makes this foe a danger in group combat.
*Elementalists provide the second part of a one-two punch to many true spellcasters. With devastating attack spells, lock-down spells, a solid defense, and the ability to home in on an opponent's elemental weakness, these Druids are very potent.
*Thieves are the masters of their lifestyle, able to take several widely used rogue skills a step further. Their ability to remain unseen by any others beyond those in their own Guild allows them to use stealth to deal frightening damage in a single backstab.
*Soulwalkers are a unique class on Clandestine, and the most difficult to play. To utilize one requires a tremendous amount of "leveling up" various "soulgems", which allow the user to utilize many different appearances and class combinations. Soulwalker is truly the Master of all Trades, though not many have had the patience to master such a class.

History

Clandestine was first originated in August 1997, when two of the immortals on the text-mmorpg(MUD), Land of the Lost Unicorn (LUN), felt their creativity far exceeded the ability of LUN to implement the vision they had for a MUD. Their initial vision was to create a world where the players' fun was the highest priority, and with many hidden secrets within the game. The MUD was initially named "Reality's Edge" until it was discovered that the name had already been taken. Drawing from the "secret underworld" in the MUD's main area, the name was changed to "Clandestine Realms", or just "Clandestine." The initial IMPlementors were Fyre (Server Administrator/Coder), Sebek (Builder/Coder), Malkoth (Builder), Cotharyus (Coder), Nightfall (Coder), and Damia (Mortal Relations).

By September of that year, however, only Sebek and Damia were still actively involved. The initial coders found more work elsewhere, Fyre returned to LUN, and Sebek lacked the coding experience to make significant progress to implement his vision. Coincidentally, a friend and player named "Nebulous" had just heroed on LUN, had just started playing on Clandestine (as "Nebseni"), and was seeking to code to earn immortal levels.

Unsure of Neb's abilities, Sebek assigned him a spell to write that had stymied him for weeks. Without any previous MUD coding experience, Nebulous scanned the stock ROM code for the appropriate functions and put the spell together in about 10 minutes. Nebseni was quickly made Head Programmer of the MUD.

The "Seb & Neb" team then rapidly took the MUD to higher levels. Together they implemented the religion spell system, reincarnation, multiclassing, and several immortal utility functions. The MUD officially opened to the public on October 25, 1997 with a player base of 200 (averaging 10-15 online). What they didn't realize was how successful the choices they had made establishing the mud were in attracting and keeping good players. Much of their early code has gone on to be used as snippets for many other MUDs in the text-roleplaying community.

As mentioned previously, the first priority of the MUD is to make it fun for the players. One of the keys to this was allowing high-level mortals the ability to use skills and commands not normally available until immortality on most MUDs, such as possession of mobiles (similar to immortal "switch"), powerful spells and stats, and many unique choices of races and classes to allow for maximum roleplay.

Years passed, the playerbase swelled, and Clandestine won MUD-awards in both 1998 (The MUD Connector), and 2004 (Festival of MUD). New staff members contributed hundreds of new areas to the MUD, and dozens of new, innovative gameplay features. Most notable was the staff addition of the Programmer, Azuel, who took the strong foundation set by "Seb & Neb" to whole new levels of impressive gameplay with his unique code.

Thousands upon thousands of people have played Clandestine throughout the years, and with the re-application of aggressive online advertising in 2006, the average number of players logged on at the same time began to steadily increase. Clandestine is still lauded within the MUD community for its fun, social approach to gaming, incredibly indepth combat system, unique themes and storylines, beautiful aesthetic appeal to text-gamers, and its pure accessibility to new players. Most of Clandestine's success is due to its constant state of change, constant improvement, and implementation of player ideas.

Clandestine's current leading staff members are its owner Sebek, Sassy (an accomplished builder), and Lynk (who serves various community functions). Clandestine MUD has even been hosted on an Estonian server, showing respect to its overseas allies, though it continues to be an English-speaking text-based MMORPG.

Clandestine is currently affiliated with Edge Entertainment [cite web | title=Edge Entertainment | work= | url=http://www.edgee.org | accessdate=] and the "RhyDin" free-form roleplaying community, which originated in the Q-Link setting in 1985 before making its way to be a massively popular AOL community.

Clandestine programmers have also released two MUD Clients to be affiliated with Clandestine MUD. ClandestineMUD Client, or "cMud"(not to be mistaken with Zuggsoft's newer product) was released in 2002, to be specifically used with Clandestine MUD itself for the convenience of its players. Since then, Leio (Mart Raudsepp), Arkanes (Chris Mellon), and Azuel (Gabe Levin) released the BETA version of wxMUD [http://ucw.dustbite.net/wxMUD/] in 2006; a more powerful cross-platform, high-performance MUD Client. Mart Raudsepp's wxMUD is an attempt to offer a free alternative to other, more expensive high-performance clients such as zMUD and MUSH Client.

Critical reaction

Clandestine has won several awards for text-based MMORPGs since its creation in 1997, including the Festival of MUD Award of Excellence [2004] , and The MUD Connector's MUD of the Month [1998] [cite web | title=December '98 MUD of the Month | work=MUD Connector | url=http://www.mudconnect.com/motm/motm-1298.html | accessdate= ]

External links

* [http://cland.dustbite.net/ Official Clandestine Website]
* [telnet://207.234.209.62:9476 Telnet address as of Aug '07]

References