Active servers

• www.soc4ever.com (website)
• bbs.soc4ever.com:23 (telnet) – Replica of Seabreeze with the Polestar building
• mnfrost.com:23 (telnet)

Information

Here is the whole map of the game.

• Name : Swords of Chaos
• Developer : GamePort
• Latest release version : 4.17 (around 1996)
• Released : 1990
• Genre : Role-playing game
• Platform : Telnet with a server running MajorBBS or Worldgroup

Swords of Chaos is a computer game made by Mark Peterson. It is a MUD type game for the Major BBS and Worldgroup Bulletin board system (BBS) software, allowing it to be played over a dial-up connection with a modem. Since the advent of the internet, it is also possible to use a telnet connection or a terminal emulator program such as PuTTY to access a server.

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^[2]. 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^[3], 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^[4]. 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. It is in text only. A player sees the description of the rooms, the exits (i.e. north, east, south, door, hole, etc.), the items on the floors and the monsters in the room that can be attacked. Many short commands are available to interact with the game, for example typing ‘n’ will make the player go north, or typing ‘hit clerk’ will make the player attack the monster whose name is clerk. Spells, magical items, special monsters, item’s puzzles or a huge map in the game add more complexities. 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 finished 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.

Inactive servers

• seabreeze.servegame.com : lots of new rooms and new monsters, the complete list is here
• mudbox.servegame.com on port 6969

References

• [1] The Strange Saga of The Realm of Angmar, Swords of Chaos, Lords of Cyberspace, Galactic Conquest & The Muinet Entertainment BBS
• [2] The Video Game Explosion: A History from Pong to Playstation and Beyond by Mark J. P. Wolf (page 174)
• [3] The Evolution of Fantasy Role-playing Games by Michael J. Tresca (page 114)
• [4] Swords of Chaos purchase from Metropolis Gameport

External links

• The history of Swords of Chaos (can also be found here)
• FAQs from gamefaqs.com
• List of telnetabble BBS servers having the game (old list)
• Release information