Character status

In M.U.G.E.N, Character Status refers to the availability of a character via online download through an official source, most often via the author's website.

Generally, it is divided into three different statuses: Online, Offline and Private.

Note that the status of a character may change through its lifetime, and some characters may be online for a very short period of time.

Online Characters
Characters whose status is Online are available through an official source, most often the author's website or an official forum release. They can be downloaded freely (or at least, with free registration) and used in M.U.G.E.N.

Most M.U.G.E.N characters listed on this database are online, as evidenced by the availability of an external link.

Offline Characters
Characters whose status is Offline were formerly available through an official source, but for one reason or another, the author has decided to cease offering the character through that official source.

Occassionally, this may also occur when a hosting service for an official channel goes down, preventing further downloads of a character.

These characters can be very difficult to get for M.U.G.E.N, though warehousing can allow someone to attain the character even after it has been taken offline.

Particularly rare offline characters can only be attained through email swaps from those lucky enough to have downloaded them while they were still online, and thus are usually good fodder for Trading.

Private Characters
As the name suggests, characters whose status is Private are not intended for public release.

These characters are usually edits of regular characters in one way or another, and may be kept private in pursuit of exclusivity (especially for those who upload Watch Mode battles) or due to the edit not being a significant change from the original character.

Do check with the associated individual if a character is private before asking for it - requests for private characters are almost always rejected, and frustrate both parties to no end.