Every character belongs to the "nomad" guild from the outset, can choose a different one for free, and can pay to join additional ones after that. The player doesn't choose a class for his character but rather determines his attributes from a pool of points (with minimums and maximums based on race) and then later chooses which guilds to join out of 11 possibilities: warrior, ninja, thief, mage, sorcerer, healer, wizard, scavenger, seeker, paladin, and villain. It's also the first to have certain items of equipment aspected to particular alignments. The game is the first to allow an alignment choice of good, neutral, or evil ( Oubliette had alignments, but they were lawful, neutral, and chaotic) and the first to allow the player to choose a sex. I don't know the sources for any of the latter three except for the obvious connection between the last and H.G. Like Oubliette, Avatar uses the standard six D&D attributes and expands upon D&D with a greater selection of races and "classes." Among the races, the player can choose the standard humans, elves, dwarves, and gnomes monster classes like trolls, ogres, and giants and exotic selections such as Cirilians ("most versatile"), Osiri (make good thieves), and Morlochs (who have a natural magic ability).
You can see my stats in the lower left, my equipment in the lower right, a door in front of me, and two-excuse me, one-goblin in between. His experience is bounded only by old age (every race has a max age) and the occasional administrative reset of the dungeon.Ī typical Avatar exploration window. The player has no specific overall goal or quest except to develop in level and guild membership. The dungeon, like those of the game's predecessors, are filled with monsters and treasure. Unlike in Oubliette, the town in Avatar is a menu town exploration doesn't start until you actually head into the dungeon (I thought it had been Wizardry that first adopted this convention). The game takes place in a dungeon of 15 levels of 900 squares (30 x 30) each, with a town on top. I did most of my playing in the "2avatar" lesson, which Cyber1 says is the closest to the original. The latest copyright date on all of the versions' main screens is 1984. Even "Batkid" likes this game.Īs with the other PLATO games, Avatar was continually developed after its initial release in 1979, so I'm not sure how much I'm about to relate is from the original version. If the community isn't quite as populous or tech-savvy as that of, say, NetHack, it's still very active. There are fan pages, items lists, maps, and hint files all over the place on the Internet. They're not just playing for historical curiosity Cyber1 enforces strict cheating rules in the active versions of the game. And it's still quite alive: the November 15 reset of "Vavatar" (one of the three versions) was big news on Cyber1, and when I signed in on Sunday afternoon, there were 35 other players. It draws from the best elements of the PLATO games that preceded it (particularly Oubliette, but also Moria and Orthanc) and anticipates games to come, including roguelikes and MMORPGs. Avatar is impressive now and must have been mind-blowing in 1979. It was wildly successful-"the most successful PLATO game ever," accounting for "6% of all the hours spent on the system between September 1978 and May 1985." Wikipedia's entry quotes author Richard Bartle as saying that Avatar was written to "out-do Oubliette" ( I blogged about that game in October).
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