Swords of Chaos
| User killing Mhzentul | |
| Developer(s) | GamePort |
|---|---|
| Initial release | 1990 |
| Stable release | 4.17 (around 1996) |
| Platform | PC (MS-DOS, Windows), Major BBS or Worldgroup |
| Type | Role-playing |
Swords of Chaos is a MUD-style door game by Mark Peterson for Major BBS and Worldgroup bulletin board systems.
Active BBS's To Play
Swords of Chaos FOREVER! BBS Play through the web or telnet directly to bbs.soc4ever.com
History
The precursor game, The Realm of Angmar, was written in Pascal by Mark Peterson in 1984 [1] as a clone of the MUD game Sceptre of Goth. It was then ported to the Apple II assembly language and renamed Angbar due to concern of legal action by Tolkien Enterprises over copyright infringement over the name and then ported to the C programming language. It was released to the public and had some popularity but it was a Unix game and so it wasn't compatible with common bulletin board systems which were run on DOS. By 1994, Peterson had again rewritten the game to be compatible with DOS and renamed it to Swords of Chaos, again out of concern of legal action by Tolkien Enterprises. The game was distributed to BBS around the world until the growing popularity of the Internet caused a die off among BBS systems. Rights to the game were sold to a Canadian company named Vircom, which later sold it to Metropolis Gameport which still sells the game today.[2]
Mark Peterson also developed a game called The Mage Connection, which was a Magic: The Gathering type of game played over BBS, and a game called Lords of Cyberspace.
Game play
Swords of Chaos is a game written in the medieval adventure cliché. The distinctive innovation of the game was a real-life timer used during combat. There is no overarching goal other than exploring, killing monsters and collecting gold in order to increase the player's level. You can also socialize with other people connected to the game and help each other out.
When starting the game, you need to choose a race out of the 5 available, then a class out of the 7, you can then explore the realms with 1582 differents rooms, 930 differents monsters and 954 differents items, the goal will then be to find the best fighting place to earn the most experience, thus to level up faster.
There is no ending boss to kill to finish the game, it goes on almost forever. The highest monster in the game is Mhzentul which is level 1000, so you could say that if you kill him, you will have finish the game or it could be to have 32767 body points which will make you immortal or even attain level 14234 with the maximum of 32767 stats in each basic physical attributes (strength, dexterity, constitution, intelligence and psychic ability).
Editing
Players with the Gameop status, can use the 'gameop' command to edit items, rooms, monsters or even create them. The maximum number of items, rooms, and monsters are configurable by the BBS System Operator at the console. The Gameop can also edit players, invasions, bounties, offices, permanent monsters and much more.
References
- ↑ The Strange Saga of The Realm of Angmar, Swords of Chaos, Lords of Cyberspace, Galactic Conquest & The Muinet Entertainment BBS [1]
- ↑ Swords of Chaos purchase from Metropolis Gameport
External links
- Swords of Chaos FOREVER! BBS - The most comprehensive Swords of Chaos source on the net. Learn the history, dynamics, find FAQs and famous players, and also play the game directly through your web browser!
- The history of Swords of Chaos