I interviewed Dreadlord on October 14, 2005. This was his character at the time:
Dreadlord Avenger is a level 60 mortal of the Catfolk race.
She was created Wed Sep 18 10:52:45 2002 and she is 121d, 14h, 18min and 29s old.
She was last on Fri Oct 14 21:35:29 2005 (4h, 13min and 7s ago) (sleep).
She has killed: Michelle is here, looking chic, 24500 exp
a human guard in full armament, 163180 exp (party of 5)
Web page: Now Playing : * Programming in progress (zMUD 4.62) *
Phone: Nokia 5510 / +358 44 5612915
Plan:
>What truly is important in life? The life itself of course, the people who
>care about you and vice versa. And, most important of all, to enjoy the life
>you live. How should one live life? Everyday is a gift since life is so full
>of unexpected things that might just come out from nowhere. Thus, we should
>rejoice from every single day and be able to say after day, it was a good day.
Tell me a bit about yourself, please.
I'm a university student, who found out almost an year ago that I had
a cancer. I'm 21; when I got sick, I was 20. It was so rare 1 per
5,000,000 per year that I did not realize its strange name at first.
I just thought, wtf is that for loooong time.
Anyway, it had this thing to cause brain infarcts. I had many, in
December 2004, I had been rendered into state of a child. I had to
learn how to move, speak, write again. Well stroke in brainsystem
might be the right term. Due to those strokes, I take daily medicine,
that keeps blood flow fluent in my system, preventing more infarcts
from appearing. Thanks to my youth, will and motivation, I regenerated
my 'skills' amazingly fast. Now I can walk, dance, jump, do most
things like healthy people. Docs were really amazed. The spring went
recovering, at summer I even swam in a nearby lake. It was really great.
How do you feel about having cancer?
How would i put it, if I could choose, whether I get sick or not,
I would get sick because the sickness opened my eyes to true values
of life. I'm in constant mood of happiness, free of most fears and
restraints. The only fears of mine are emotional, like, how my family
is standing this experience.
It is important that one realizes following things, we all are going
to die in life, sooner or later, it's just the question when. It's natural.
And after life? I assume there's no after life, but on the other hand,
I can't deny either that there would be, because everything is possible.
Where do you live?
In Finland, in the eastern part.. a town known as kajaani (www.kajaani.fi).
But your atlas location says Japan...?
I know. :) I'm kinda Japan fan. Anime, and the samurai ideology.
Like samurai, I won't quit. Til' the bitter end, but I'm not
confused by the honour-bullshit. Also, I went with my friend to
martial arts classed before this disease was discovered. Note:
do correct my mentions of 'disease' as something more objective,
since i really can't compare lifeform to something that would've
damaged me. To express my view to this lifeform, it's just an organism,
trying to live just like I do. Faulty, of course, yet still a lifeform.
When did you start playing BatMud? and how did you find it?
It was February 2001, I had started my studies in secondary school.
I had made a real good new friend. For a long time , I had observed
him playing strange text game. But it's strangeness reached a all
new level when one day he lost all his equipment in crash which were
very common in those days. Situation was this, my friend could not
log in to bat, the server was unreachable, but he had eqs on, really
expensive. And he ended up calling two his twinbrother to try to log
in Bat if it would work, my friend was in school with me, his brother
was at home. That was the reason why I really started playing Batmud.
Hell, if that insane game is really that deep why wouldn't I like it!
What was your experience like, as a new player?
Hard it was at first. I guess there wasn't a command that I would have
not typoed. We used telnet without echo, arrrrggghh. But I slowly started
to get the hang of it. I realized all the amazing possibilities of Bat.
I tried different things, killing players, being mean to players, being
an idiot, it was just fun. Anonymity really made it easy.
The downside soon appeared to me, got into troubles. I also loved to steal
kills and equipment dropped to ground to wait. I guess the point where my
playstyle started really form similar that is nowdays was in autumn 2001,
ah, i really remember that time, WTC you know. It was actually in Bat when
I first heard...or saw the news..bomb in WTC.. I was wtf again, and when I
had played enough for that day, and walked out from computer class and saw
telly's picture of burning scrapers I realized. At that time I had no
internet connection in my home. I played from school, and it really
screwed my studies.
Anyway, in that autumn, another friend who had also started playing BatMud in
spring told me about this mystical guild known as tigers. They were hitmen
and fought, UNARMED! For a newbie ranger who suffered from poorness and often
lost his only eqs it was like 'Oooooooo, is that even possible'-thing.
With his aid, i managed to reinc into a real newbie tiger with totals of 5m.
I still remember when my dim mak made a ridiculous 10 dam. But it improved
and soon it was good enough to be used for .. kill steals and annoying
idle players. Oh did I love to mak an idle player, especially tarmalens
and newbies.
Also, before exam weeks at school, we had a brilliant idea, my friend and I,
(he had reinced into tarmalen at some point), we needed to focus in order
to read to exams. We went to freezer and summoned someone, and I did the job.
Hah, wonder if you ever got me. Bet you did.
Actually I did kill you.. approximately two years ago.. For some reason,
I had some thing that you were American, and you were filthy rich and you
asked for prices that made me faint. Then some of your friends, 'calmed' me.
I decided to leave you alone - that summonkill became hobby. My friend
got away, but since I was the one who pulled the trigger, the most shit came
down on me.
Death became a lifestyle for me. The level of dying can be described with that
wizards had proof of unlimited playerkilling of me, that would've been enough
to stop the killing based on their rules of killing players. Yet they did nothing.
Anyway, the killing went so far that i saw no hope and ended up suiciding my first
true character at totals of 18m.
I know that what I did was really stupid, yet there are some players who get
kicks for having fun at expense of other people. I created new characters,
started multiplaying at one time, got remmed, real depressed..
Finally in autumn 2002, Dreadlord was born. The name was inspired by Blizzard's
Warcraft 3 that I had seen a friend playing in his home.
Why did you create a new character?
Simple, get killed enough times, I did not want fear of dying or being attacked
at the very moment I step out of nonsummon. With my first character and following
characters before Dreadlord, I was suffering from such and knowing that no one
really cared, it really sucked.
Of course, I've had some .. not good reputation with this one and that is still my
burden in some ways, yet now when I've realized a new way to life, I've been trying
to fix my relationships with other players. Knowing that my actions will affect at
least in some way into real people, in real life.
How do you like to spend your time now on BatMud?
I really spend a lot of time, too much actually but since I know I'm going to be here
(at school) for a looooooong time I really do not mind. At home, I do not spend
nearly as much. At the moment, I fix up my things. Im gathering the last pieces of
my debt to you (he has a loan out) and 2.5m to other players. It's actually real fun
since I take it as note to myself, I have to take responsibility of things. I remind
my self, I'm very sick fellow really, and I still have time for gathering some god
damn game loan. The point is, I have to start really take responsibility over thngs.
Not just in mud, but in real life too. Though some may interpret as a sneaky way to
satisfy certain type of mudaddiction.
What areas do you haunt?
I butcher BatCity area, Drawbridge, Ivory, Blorts.
What's your favorite area on Bat?
Hmm, at the moment, I think it is inn of four winds. It's just perfect for a solo
tiger. Locks and all, keeping most players off. Tigers can do so many things and
combined with priests, the efficiency is quite outstanding.
Have you ever earned any TPs on Bat? What for?
In autumn 2002, I took part in song contest 2002. In compherensive school, I was
specialized in music, I even played alto saxophone. I think the songs are still
available at www.bat.org. Anyway I made easily a few songs due to my experience
with music. But I know, I had to play dirty if I wanted to really win. Thus, I
started giving mithrils to newbies, like lvl 10-30 to vote my song. My way of
gaining votes went once even into channels. I had 3 songs in the contest, my
friends were voting for them, and their friends, plus bought votes.
I won, 20 tps, thank youuuuu wizards, I had really something worth playing.
At the moment, I've got 5 more tps, from different things. One was bought.
Yet I was trying to buy 2 but Mega the meanie bought because I fumbled with
carrying enough coins. I really felt grudge towards him because I now had
500k to pay to my friend who was the tpseller.
What changes would you most like to see happen in the mud?
I think it never will be possible but some restrictions to rights what
certain players gain from relationships with wizards. Indeed, sometimes
bigger, sometimes smaller cases. Atm, the most fascinating case is Sai.
He is a known thief and a meanie, or so his playstyle appears to be.
One must remember, you never know how fine and nice person there can be
behind the screen. He stole my 3m tigereqset which I was borrowing from
a friend. What I've heard, he's been saying that he will payback his
actions or something like that, I really can't confirm such as I've not
seen them myself. I believe that Sai might recode the thieves into game
and remort and do nasty stuff again. Paranoia? Definetely, yet
there's a good reason.
Would you ever wiz?
Would I? It's my dream. So many changes I could do, upgrades. I know I
do not know enough yet but in a year or two I should start reaching level
that should make Batmud programming possible.
What are some things you would do as a wiz?
Well, training system: I think it could be still even more deep. Subguilds,
e.g. when you join the some guild, you could specialize to certain area, or
specialize in all, that would demand enormous amounts of xp. Would fit to
people who have xp in their totals like hell, example that one fellow who
purchased his very own island.
Planes: There is hell and there is gameplay plane. I'm very much into tigers
and I'd really like to be co-op coder for them, thus I'd like to be part of
creating shadow realm. But also , there could so many other planes too.
Cheating, detecting 'hot' tells: Since I've cheated, done forbidden things,
I know how those things could be detected. 'Hot' tells being tells that one
can't afford to say in accident in some channel. Multiplaying, for example.
Any interesting stories you can share?
Sure. Soon after getting my first apartment, I started dreaming of having
my very own castle, built in my way, with my rules. The one place where I do
not have to fear anything; I think that is related to my high death amount.
So, one day I noticed, oooh, I got 500k, that is enough for starting block.
I had heard rumours of this fellow known as thematrix. I know he was a meanie,
and I was meanie, perhaps we might have something common. So I talked with him,
and the result was this, I'd transfer him 500k for purchasing the marker, and
he would purchase the block. I can't write this without laughing. :D We even
went to place where the city was supposed to be built on. See, it's in middle
of swamp, symbolizes the nature of the future project. He nodded. Time went,
nothing appeared. I asked , he said, 'oh, i'm working on it.'
I might be bit slow but at some point I realized, those 500k were gone for good.
Yet, I was tiger. I quickly realized what kind of mean mother** he really was.
He loved to idle and I loved to kill him. That was very satisfying combo.
Mak, mak, mak, mak, my mak did not do much dam at once but because he idled,
mak worked just fine when used many times. At one time, he started fight back
and even threatened to whine to wizards. I was actually bit afraid if wizards
would interfere. Only once Durand interfered, only by saying, stop. I think
he had same fate as my first PK character, even wizards didn't care. Anyway,
now days I do not care. It is his playstyle.
His fax to Bat's birthday was very funny. :) I have to give him credit for that.
The very ridicilous, attitude problem yankie sending message from another side
of the world to happy event. Or email, don't really know; he did send a message.
In the message there was something like this: I hope you all suffocate on the
food or something. Very funny nevertheless.
Thank you for the interview Dreadlord. Your experience is one I'm sure the
other players will enjoy sharing.
[100 Acre Forest]
[Aband-Valley]
[Akira]
