Midnight/MU Review - 4th May 2004
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I’ve been playing Midnight/MU for the last month and wanted to update everyone
with my findings.

Firstly I must say the game is fantastic! As a midnight fan, it was a very
pleasing experience to be able to play multi-user. So without getting to the
bottom and looking for a score, I’m just going to give it 10/10.

I must spend a little time with the term Multi-User here. For those who don’t
really enjoy online gaming or multi-user games, I would suggest the Midnight/MU
may give you are rather more pleasing experience. The thing I got from it is
that it is really casual; ok you could get slight pressure to get your turns in
if you left it weeks on end, but on the whole you can play it at your leisure.
There is no need to be online at the same time as anyone else, so you can just
wait for an email notifying you of your turn, go to the website, move your
characters etc, which you can also do over time, and then end your turn when you
are ready to. I’m not really one for playing online games, the odd Quake 3
Arena and Unreal Tournament, but I got really hooked into Midnight/MU.

Right, I’ll take a step back.

Currently there are two websites for the experience, which hopefully will be
resolved over time; there is the game site and the forum site. The forum is
proboards, which gives you good forum capabilities, but the site can be slow in
the evening (uk time GMT+0 ). Having to have a forum user and a game user and
log into two sites is a little annoying, but not a major issue. You get the
chance to have your own shield in both the Forum and the Game which helps with
the visual experience and continuity.

The Forums role in the game experience should not be underestimated. There are
various categories covering things like bugs, suggestions, tips, opponents, and
ongoing games. The later two are the real key ones. The opponent’s category
allows for a thread per user, this is a place to find out information about your
opponent, if they are going to be a way for a while, general musings, and
various conversations between opponents. The ongoing games is used for a thread
per game, in here all members of a game can discuss the finer points of a
campaign, or just plain taunt each other. Just reading other people’s games
can be amusing and enlightening in its own right.

I won’t go into the finer points of the game website, but needless to say, you
can either invite one or more players into a campaign, or you can be invited.
Games have various victory conditions, the main being Regicide (kill your
opponent), or Citadel grab.

If you have turned on email notifications, which I suggest you would, then you
get an email when you have been invited into a game, and then an email every
time it is your turn. You can obviously just check the website for this
information, but I find being prompted helps with my busy lifestyle! 

Taking your turn is just like playing Lords of Midnight normal, only through a
browser, which is great because you can take your turn wherever you are. Most of
the original Lords are where you would expect them to be on the map, and there
are 32 new ones. The map has been changed a little to accommodate these new
lords and make a few helpful navigations through the landscape. But don’t
worry the map and location of the lords is available online and seasoned LOM
players will pretty much know their way around.

You start with just your king, which is you; you are placed randomly on the map
and your first task is to orientate yourself and then work out the quickest
route to start recruiting other lords. Lords have no recruiting restriction on
them except Dragons cannot recruit anyone.

Note the Journal option here and use it extensively. Make copious notes about
where you are, what you plan to do, and any information you ascertain while
playing. The main reason for this is, you may have many games on the go at once,
and the first thing you need to do when taking your turn is to read your journal
and remember what you were doing in this game. Otherwise you may end up making
some costly moves.

Because of the speed that the recruiting phase is played at, and I call it a
phase only because that’s what all your opponents will be doing, (recruiting
as many lords as quickly as possible to build their army and gain territorial
advantage), you really need to understand and consider the implications of your
characters condition, the terrain, and your army.

Warriors are slow, so in the early stage you will have to consider trading in
your warriors and having rider only armies. You will also find that years of
playing LOM without too much consideration for the terrain will go against you.
You really must think about who is moving over what terrain and the best way to
navigate the map. Moving through mountains as an example, really is time
consuming and tiring, so you will be best to try and avoid it at all cost.

The condition of your lords is massively important too. You have your energy
level and your courage. You must use shelter etc to top up your energy levels
otherwise you will be unable to do anything with your lord. Also, seeking for
things that will bump up your courage is major important too, as scared lords
are not very good in a fight or even recruiting.

Skulkrin, Dragons and Wise cannot have armies, but they serve really useful
roles. Because they cannot be spotted in the distance by a tell tale army
graphic, they are very useful for getting somewhere quickly, spying, and
seeking. All three of these are massively important.

Seeking is the art of sitting on a tower and seeking for guidance. This will
tell you the whereabouts of other lords. This information can prove massively
useful. Knowing that Lord Shimeril is at the Citadel of Shimeril possibly means
he has not been recruited and is therefore still a viable target. Likewise Lords
not at their starting place means you can abort the recruitment of them, but
also asses what your opponent is up to and your chances of recruiting in that
area of the map. It can also just plain tell you the movements of your opponents
or how to track someone down.
Spying, which is something your dragon is the best for, is moving round the map
and actually looking what is going on. Because a dragon can move so much, just
like in LOM, you can move to an area of the map, spy on your opponent, and then
move away without them knowing you were even there! Obviously you can use any
lords for these tasks, but that is just part of the decision making process.

There are also lots of tricks you can do to impede your opponent’s progress,
like sticking soldiers in a keep which means your opponent either has to battle
or go round it, either way delaying their progress, or even just sacrificing a
lord to perform the same task. Sometimes time gained here can make all the
difference. Another one that was played on me a few times is moving a dragon to
a neutral lord so that you cannot recruit them. The dragon itself cannot recruit
but because it is now an enemy at that location, the lord cannot be recruited
until the dragon has been dealt with. And one night may be all it takes before
your opponent arrives with full force!

At some stage you will meet your opponent’s lords head on, and battle will
probably ensue. At this stage you will rue the turn when you decided to drop all
your army or not recruit other soldiers to the cause, or the constant movement
without rest, deciding to travel alone, or just plain being too scared to put up
a reasonable fight. Should have searched those liths more extensively!

Just like LOM the battles occur at night at the end of the turn. However because
of the mult-user turn based mechanic, as soon as your end your turn the battle
is processed, meaning fighting will occur without your opponent running away!
This is great as it means the game really is even and fair.

All in all I have really enjoyed playing and have been hooked by both the game
and the forums. I must admit that I’ve spent more time this month just
checking my computer in order to take my turn in between doing other, often more
important, things! I wouldn’t be telling the truth if I didn’t say that it
had been a slight learning curve even for someone as well versed in LOM as me,
but that is no bad thing, and everyone in the Midnight/MU community have helped
my transition.

Everyone in the beta test have been friendly and helpful and I must thank them
all for beating me to within and inch of my life, time and time again! :)

The game is still in BETA but I think that is more out of Jean-Yves choice
rather than necessity. There are few if any problems that affect the game play,
and I have had a month of gaming without hitch.

I have only scratched on the surface here with this rambling review, but hope I
have covered enough to peak your interest. I suggest that if you are interested
you email Jean-Yves and get yourself on the waiting list for new beta testers or
even ready for a live server. I would also suggest that if you are a fan of LOM
then you would be mad not to give this online version a go.

Well done to Jean-Yves for a great Midnight game, and well done to all the
players who have tested and shaped the game.


Chris

--
Chris Wild chris@... http://www.icemark.com/
[Author Lords of Midnight & Doomdark's Revenge PC Conversions : v1.10 ]
WinLom99 - The Midnight Engine: www.icemark.com/winlom99
Written Without Prejudice: Poetry Collections www.icemark.com/poetry
Stories to go to bed with: Story Collections www.icemark.com/writing