Urban Dead: The MMO I love.
Despite all of my problems with them, I’ve found one. Oh Urban Dead, how I love thee!
The zombie apocalypse has come to the city of Malton, and right now ~40000 players are waging war against each other to end it, one way or the other. Here, let me give you the quick rundown of the free browser-based game.
Players accrue one action point(AP) every half hour, capping at 50. Survivors use these points to move across the city, search for items, attack zombies, and barricade buildings. Zombies attack barricades, smash buildings, and attack survivors. Seems simple enough, doesn’t it? It’s all done with a web interface an minimal graphics (though there is a Firefox graphical addon.) Different actions cost varying amounts of AP, and when you run out you collapse, so it’s important to make sure you always have enough to get back inside a building.
You level up every 100xp, and then turn around and use those points as currency to buy abilities, human or zombie.
Guilds, you ask? Well, groups are completely unnecessary for a casual player, but for me they play a large role in UD and that’s what I’m loving about it the most. I’m playing with a group of people who all jumped in at once and are starting to get pretty organized. Over a hundred members of a forum I frequent jumped in at once as Survivors, and some of the scarier zombie groups took notice and wished us luck, so that really makes the chest swell with pride. (Also, it worries us that we’ll be targeted and made an example of, while we’re still all at low levels.) We’ve made our forums password-protected to keep spies at bay, and closed admissions to ‘unknown persons’, but things are shaping up nicely.
Yes, there are spies out there, and that’s why the players are truly the highlight of this game. Aside from the gang at Evil Avatar that I’ve joined, there’s the Channel 4 News Team to consider. I mean, Ron Burgundy isn’t going to take a zombie apocalypse lying down. Hell, he wouldn’t even take the regular apocalypse lying down, unless he were on horse tranquilizers. Also, you’ve got the Drama Club showing us all what true professionals they are, keeping the classics alive in the face of undeath.
Urban Dead isn’t exactly passive gaming, as it requires about five minutes (tops) of interaction on the part of the player, but keeping coordinated with your group and planning that move can easily take half an hour if you’re serious about it. If you can spare the time, I highly recommend joining up with pals (or mine, or another group,) and help take back Malton!
