8 Things We Love About MU Online (MMORPG) - Original Content As Always

Hey guys, welcome back to another gaming article. This time it's on MU Online, a Korean MMORPG but it became popular globally as well. Private servers became popular later but we're only focused on the Global version.

We played the MU Online Global many years ago, at least 10 years ago and we loved it so much! There weren't that many online games back then, so MU Online stood out.

What is MU Online?

MU Online came into existence many years ago in 2001 by Webzen, a Korean gaming developer. It's basically a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) where we choose different characters to choose from. From what we remember, we could only choose between 3 characters, i.e. dark knight, wizard and elf. Dark knight is a melee character that uses close range attacks. Wizards are long-range attackers and elves as well (with their arrows).

The goal was to level up, get better armor and be the best in the realm. You can kill other players on dedicated channels as well, which made the game so much fun! Back then, 3D games weren't so prevalent and it was the first 3D online game that we've played.

Without further ado, here are some of the things that we love about MU Online!

1. The very fact that it's an online game

Back in those days, online games that were "functional" weren't as plenty. As soon as we found an awesome online game like this, we were sold. What's awesome is that you can make lots of friends online and you won't feel lonely at all.

If you're ever bored, chat with people. Go to towns and meet others. Trade with others. There are lots of stuff to do. You can find new friends when you "party" or group with others to grind and level up. The fact that it's an online game combined with the 3D element of it made it so appealing. Luckily they had a good chat system running in the game, which made contact much easier and convenient.

2. PK (people killing)

MU Online had two different servers. You can access both of course. One is the non-PK channel, meaning you can't kill each other. The other was the PK channel where you could test how strong you were in a battle against others.

What's different with MU Online is that you can actually attain a murderer status for killing! If you kill once, your name turns from pale blue to orange, which means you're a 1st stage outlaw. If you kill further, you'll turn into a 2nd stage outlaw and a darker orange on your red. The last stage is a murderer, where your name is red and your character turns dark.

The bad thing with killing others and attaining such statuses is that it affects your items and level. You'll drop items if you are killed by another player or by monsters. Others can then loot your items and you can say goodbye since most people won't return it to you. You will lose more exp points as well. Think twice before you murder people! Your status i.e. outlaw or murderer have different item drop rates. It increases as you turn into a 2nd stage outlaw and into a murderer.

If you're a commoner who kills murderers or outlaws, your name can actually turn blue. That means you're a hero! Not sure what benefit that brings though.

3. Hunt For Jewels

One of the most fun things about MU Online is to hunt for rare items especially jewels. There are different types, but the 3 common ones are Jewel of Chaos, Jewel of Soul and Jewel of Bless. It takes hours of grinding against monsters to perhaps find just one jewel.

Chaos is the most common form, followed by Soul and Bless is the most expensive one (at least at that time). We're sure there are new ones, but this is focused on the past MU Online.

Why are they so special?

Whenever a jewel drops, there is a high-pitched 1-second sound like "Ding". Everyone goes crazy when they hear that sound! That was the sound we're all waiting for at the time. It keeps us awake to be honest. It's like our hours of training are validated by it.

However, sometimes our party mate steals it by looting it first and they denied taking it! Come on, it was super obvious! Everyone saw that you took it! That was the most frustrating part...

Anyway, they have value because they can be used for upgrades.

4. Joining Parties

Parties actually mean "groups" and not like the standard definition of parties. You join parties where you kill monsters together, share experience points and share loots. The coins looted will be shared as well. However, individual items can't be shared of course.

The great thing about parties is that it kept you company and it's easier to kill monsters that way. Sure, the experience is shared but it's more fun since you can chat and stuff.

You can also help lower levels as you kill high level monsters that they can't. Since exp is shared, it helps the low levels (minnows). Isn't that the whole point of gaming together?

5. The monsters

We loved the diversity of monsters and each map has a different set of monsters. We vividly remember killing Yetis and Ice Queens at Devias and budge dragons at Lorencia. All of these brings back so much nostalgic memories!

There are so many new maps nowadays but we will always remember those like Lorencia, Devias, Moria and the Dungeon. Hours were spent there training, trading and making friends.

All of these monsters have different sound effects, which helps us to locate them. Like Ice Queen has the eerie voice of the witch in L4D2. Each monster is unique and we loved killing them!

6. Gold monsters

There are special monsters that are gold in color, i.e. gold goblin and gold budge dragon, among others.

What's so special about them?

They basically carry awesome boxes and drops them when they die. These boxes can be sold at a high price or you can open it yourself and get some rare item. It's a risk to take.

They are stronger than the usual monster but it's all worth it. Whenever there is a gold monster, everyone tells each other and a huge hunting party goes for it. Everyone wants to kill it first and get the box. Whoever dealt the most damage will be the only one who is able to loot it once the monster is dead.

7. Trading at towns

Every MMORPG has to have trading. What's the fun otherwise? Whenever you have valuable items like jewels, it's nice to trade with some awesome armors.

One thing nice about MU Online are the shiny armors. That's a good way to ascertain the level of the armor. A +7 armor would be shiny, a +9 is shinier and a +11 is the shiniest. This is of course before higher level armors came about, but a +11 armor set was super valuable and every pro had one.

They were goals. Our defense and attack would be much stronger with high level armors. Grinding would be so much easier.

Everyone in the town area would be shouting out some "Buy" or "Sell" offer. Some even tried to cheat by accepting the offer before even putting the item for trade. Only newbies would fall for that.

8. The skills

It wouldn't be complete if no mention of skills was made.

The skills were of course pretty awesome and as your level is higher, you will have more visually appealing skills with much bigger damage. A dark knight has his twisting slash skill that damages all monsters around it in a circle. A wizard would also have an AOE attack like hell spirit. Super cool effects as well.

The elves didn't have that much flashy skills but the damage was pretty awesome.

That's about it for today guys! Thanks so much for reading this.

We strive to write more often and post only original content here!

We appreciate all upvotes, resteems and follows!

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8

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