MudSpot (1) - GODS by Angelina the Dangerously Sane Gods is a world based on a North African seaport. There is a modern European city, an Arab kasbah, a Roman colosseum and a Palace with some very strange rooms. Behind the seaport lie miles of trackless jungles, swamps, forests, lost temples inhabited by dangerous beings, a mine guarded by a Statue and a huge mountain range. As with all Mugs, advancement through the ranks in Gods from Scum to God is by the accumulation of points. These are gained by offering any treasure you have found in the temple of the God or Goddess of your choice. This is called a Ritual and can be either very simple or extremely complicated depending on the ranks of the players present and I'll deal with it later on in the article. As well as the usual squalid struggle for treasure, Gods allows you to advance on the spiritual plane. When you become a Demi- God, the only way to increase your score and rise through the God Ranks is by acquiring followers who will worship you (by offering their Treasure) in your Temple. The ranks in Gods are split into three sections - Mortals, Holies and Gods - and further divided into fighters and non-fighters. You start off as a Mortal and, unless you have a death-wish, as a non-fighter. Gods is dangerous for a novice player as a fighter, it's much better to learn the game and its hazards as a non-fighter and bring on a fighter persona later. The danger is not so much from the other players, although it's wise to be careful around the fighters, but from Tygers, a very nasty Cobra and a lethal Mummy. Non-fighters face the same hazards, but they can flee from danger without any loss of points. Gods has a lot of puzzles to be solved, two of them needing co-operation from other players.The puzzles range from the fairly easy ... how to get past the Barman in the Inn, to the extremely difficult ... what on earth is this silver egg and how do I move it? However, one of the nice things about Gods is that the players will give novices lots of help. They won't tell you the whole answer, that would bring the wrath of the Gods on their heads, but most will point you in the right direction. Eventually you will pass through the Mortal ranks and approach the first level of the Holy ranks. You will become an Uninitiate and you must now solve what is called the 'Holy' puzzle before you become an Initiate and can take a fuller part in the Temple rituals. This, perhaps, is the place in this article to explain Temple rituals. As a mortal, all you have to do is to choose a Temple and discover if there are any players on Holy rank on the game. If there are, you all enter the temple and you pass your treasure to one of the Holy ranks. They will tell you which and they will continue the ritual. If you are alone on the game or playing with other mortals, it's even easier. Just choose a temple, enter it and offer your treasure. Doing it the first way gains extra points for you and a proportion of points for any Holy player and points for the God or Goddess of your choice. You enter any temple from the Grove by typing Guard followed by the name of a God or Goddess, e.g. Guard Angelina will get you into my temple. As you reach Initiate and become Holy, it gets a bit more complicated with rules about who can and who can't pass the treasure round before offering it, but as a new player you don't have to worry about it, it'll all come clear eventually. There is magic to be used in Gods. How much you can use depends on your rank - the higher the rank the more Spells there are available to you. Of course, using magic isn't all that simple. For a start, it can cost a lot of points and then too, the success or failure of your spell will depend on how high a defence has been set by the player you are trying to use magic on and how high you have set your spending of points level. In theory any lower level player can succeed with magic against a higher level player if he/she is prepared to spend enough of their hard-earned points. Using spells to find things, i.e. WHERE object can range from the very cheap to the very expensive depending how high a resistance the object has. To help you with manipulating magic and using spells, a Tome can be found in the library of the Palace. Moving around the game is done in the usual way by typing n(orth), e(ast), s(outh), w(est), nw(northwest) etc. Higher ranks can move a lot quicker by JOINing various objects and players. You can also use multiple commands strung together with commas or full stops, e.g. summon,g,use sword or w.s.s.sw.s.s the latter command can be shortened to w.s..sw.s. for speed of movement. Gods has commands which when typed by you produce a response on the screens of all players in the same location. For instance, if I type Scowl at Sweetpea, the other players will see on their screens, Angelina the Dangerously Sane scowls furiously at Sweetpea. You can also just type Scowl which gives the same result but isn't aimed at any particular person. You can also Kiss, Cuddle, Cry, Giggle, Laugh, Smile, Frown, Groan, Glare, Slap, Kick, Shrug, Nod Head. There is a command called EMOTE, shortened to em for ease of typing. This allows you to do things not in the list of Commands. It works like this - by typing em bounces up and down with glee - all the players in the same room will see on their screens, Angelina the Dangerously Sane bounces up and down with glee. You can type in whatever you want to, so long as it is preceded by em - the limit is your own imagination and inclination. Typing a message preceded by FAKE will show your message to every player in the game but will not put your name in front of it. Talking to other players is easy. If you want to say something that everyone in the same room will hear, you simply type: say Hello folks - and up on the screen will come: Horace the Simply Horrid says Hello folks (or whatever your name happens to be). You can SHOUT and everyone will hear you: shout Help a tyger's got me - will show everyone: Horace the Simply Horrid shouts Help a tyger's got me - and with a bit of luck someone will come and save you. To talk privately to another player, just type his or her name and then what you want to say. You can, of course, KILL people or mobiles. It is not usual for non-fighters to attack other players, but fighters do it all the time and everyone has a go at the mobiles, even although non- fighters don't collect points for killing them. As a non- fighter, the game will tell you that you can't kill an innocent bystander if you try to attack another player. This doesn't mean that you can't try to kill someone, there's a sneaky way to do it but I don't think I'll tell you how here. Killing players and mobiles and doing various other things on the game saps your strength and you will have to discover how to get it back up again. Time spent in less energetic pursuits will help to gradually restore it and some money spent in the bar could put it back up quickly, but then again it just might make things worse. Yet another puzzle to solve. Gods is accessed by telephoning 081 994 9119. You need a modem which can be set to either 300/300 or 1200/1200 baud. The modems used by Gods are auto-detect. They default to 300/300. They answer the phone after about 2 seconds and then put out a 300 carrier for 2 seconds. If they don't get an answer they go silent for 5 seconds and then put out the 1200 carrier. If you have an auto dial modem and want to play at 1200 (much better than 300), put ::::: after the number so that the modem will pause long enough to get the 1200 carrier. If you don't have auto-dial, wait for 7 seconds after getting the first tone and you'll hear the 1200 tone, flick the switch on your modem and press >return< or >enter<. Gods has a 15-minute GUEST account which lets you get the flavour of the game free. You simply log on and when asked for your account number, type GUEST and when asked for your password, type GUEST again. This will also give you free access to the Bulletin Board where you can leave messages and make enquires about becoming a registered (i.e. paying) player. There are two kinds of accounts. You can pay by the hour or by the month. How you do it depends on how many hours you think you will play. If you choose a monthly account (31 days), then you have unlimited playing time for that month. Hourly charging will give you 20 hours of play for œ11.50 (œ10.00 + VAT). The same amount of money will give you a month's play if you choose a monthly account. You can buy multiples of hours or months if you wish. Paying for your account can be by Access or Visa via the Gods Bulletin board. Go to the Account Enquiries Menu and select O(rder by credit card and answer the questions. You can also send a cheque or postal order to Lap of the Gods, Voysey House, Barley Mow Passage, London W4 4PT. In either case, use your 'real' name and address and remember to specify whether you want monthly or hourly charging. Any other questions about accounts can be addressed to Morticia and left as a Private message on the Accounts board.