Playing on City of Hope has been an excellent experience for me. It is the sort of game where staff allows PRPs in an sphere to exist.

Care to play a Wyrm character? Or take you hand at the Sabbat? I even played the Archbishop there and led the Sabbat characters in all sorts of mischief a few years back. It takes effort of course, patience and time, but anyone can dig out a niche on a game like City of Hope and tell their tales. I have lost characters over the years and made more to replace to them, staff has always been really awesome about handling character loss fairly. I don't staff here, I just play here and will continue to for years to come!

Fun enough game, very laid back in general, nothing is required of you. Your involvement with the local plottage is as shallow or as deep as you choose. Staff are quite friendly and aren't out to hurt you, which unfortunately has to be said given what so many MUSH staff are like. The playerbase are welcoming too, I don't think I've met anybody who I actively disliked there. It's largely a player run plot sort of place so if you want plots to happen then you have to be proactive rather than a consumer. Most of the players are pretty good roleplayers so the RP is decent. The game is very permissive so you can play just about anything from the World of Darkness - bygones, rorquals, demons, risen, mokole, nothing too obscure for them.

The downsides such as they are - the XP system is extremely generous meaning you have a lot of all-powerful dinosaurs which will almost certainly end up making you a fifth wheel in any sort of global scope plot. Some of the smaller spheres are full of idlers and the characters of those who have a lot of alts, especially in leadership positions, which really kills them off stone dead if you're looking for any sort of sphere-wide goings on if you have perma-idle leaders. There's a certain amount of enforced niceness, powerful characters have no problem whatsover with throwing their weight around and openly threatening people to be nice or else, even into other spheres.

Having read two of the old reviews of this game and seeing how salty players use this forum to gripe. I felt an up to date look at the game was deserved. If you are considering playing at City of Hope, the chances are you are actively seeking an oWoD game. This /is/ the game you were looking for. I'll do the general pro and con so I can assist in your decision on if this game is for you.

PROS: - Nearly every playable character concept from the oWoD setting is available and there are no restrictions on what you have access to play. - Staff does not control the story, the players create the plots and the conflict. - The risk system is in place so you aren't getting randomly pk'd for stepping outside. This doesn't mean there are no consequences for your actions. A lot of people think this is an impenetrable shield that protects players from being responsible for their own actions. But having been on both sides of it, I can easily attest that isn't true. - Great player base. Easily 70+ players and most are decent, intelligent people with interesting contributions to the game. - Attentive staff. First time players are given as much help as possible by staff and veteran players as well. Applications do not sit for long and if you have game questions, someone is always available to point you to which book, which help files or online resources out there that can point you in the right direction. - Vibrant game history and ongoing plots. - A focus on story. The White Wolf Storytelling System was designed to focus on the story and not bog you down with intricate rules. Rules are guidelines and are there to enhance the experience. - There are few places to play oWoD and you are nearly guaranteed to have others to play with at nearly any time of day or night.

CONS: - It is the nature of the beast that some players are salty no matter what you place before them. Those who have a hard time taking responsibility for their own story or bothering to look up information they feel is detrimental to their play aren't going to fare as well as players who aren't that lazy. - Disgruntled and paranoid ex players who felt intimidated by staff. Staff does play too, and this rankles some players but in a game that is run by player plots, the arguments they have are generally moot because staff is subject to the same rules everyone else is. They do not get any special treatment. This will be argued, but the fact is that in The Storytelling System, story conflict is resolved by the parties involved and how they mutually agree on how the scene is resolved. If they simply cannot come to any resolution, staff will come in (upon request) and become the final arbiter of said situation. No one has any extra toys that aren't available to anyone else. There are no heights that you cannot rise to, within reason. The story you want to tell, is available to you if you put the work in. - Veteran players with godlike powers. I won't argue that this isn't an issue when a player has been steadily aquiring experience for years and has a character sheet that spans pages. However what limits these players are the game rules themselves, and the fact they have competition among other veteran players with equally impressive stats. If you're a new player who runs afoul of a long lived player, the chances are good that you will suffer if you attempt to thoughtlessly attack a veteran. But that is the key to the real issue, the thoughtless player. There are always going to be rumors of white hats that will vaporize you if you do something remotely malevolent. Or Black hats that will massacre you for looking at them funny. This gets addressed with the risk system, and knowing most of the veteran players I have only witnessed players getting what they deserve to get. There are consequences for actions and if you do something morally questionable, someone might notice and decide they do not like it. That, my friends, is life.

This is not an exhaustive pro and con list but it does give a general idea of what might be expected. If you want to play a vampire, there is a strong Camarilla presence, and the Sabbat do have their work cut out for them but playing in either sect can be equally rewarding. There are very strong Changeling and Shifter spheres that you can join in on. The mages and Technocracy are out there battling over reality. Why should you play at City of Hope? It's a hell of a lot of fun and you can make some great friends while doing so. If you are prone to a lot of complaining, crying and whining because you can't manage sandbox play? Then this might not be your game. City of Hope is filled with storytellers, telling stories. If that captures your interest, drop on by.

Running the oWoD, (Classic Revised Edition World of Darkness). This Multi-Sphere game has a long history both IC and OOC. New players are quite often welcomed within the first few seconds of connecting and help is available. A detailed and ambianced IC grid boasts a +rent system for characters to rent homes while the help files explain policy and house rules with clarity and with an effort toward consistency.

Staff is attentive and active in day to day affairs on the game. An implemented +risk system works to serve as a system of consent for character action and consequence. Honestly it's not perfect, and is susceptible to players seeking to disrupt the game using the Risk system to avoid consequence. In cases like this, Staff has a process to investigate abuses of the system, and are willing to judge impartially (Protip: Log anything you think Staff may need to see). There have been times when Players have had to be disciplined and removed from the game, though that is in rare, extreme cases when players absolutely refuse to take responsibility for themselves and their actions. Mature, well balanced players will find a good place to play. Immature troublemakers will find their antics eventually landing them in hot water. So a word of warning, players are expected accept responsibility for themselves.

Recommend looking into the associated Wiki and have a look about before logging in.

A stale game where the top players in nearly every sphere are controlled by a staff member Honeybadger with a long history of being biased towards her personal friends and cliques. The Queen Bee mentality has functionally ruined the game. Any opposition to one of HB's characters will either earn you OOC ostracization, cessation of RP notices that cut you off from sphere events, or directly being killed by her or one of her lackeys.

The head Wizard claims to be impartial but pretty much always sides in favor of his staffs alts and rarely ever discloses truthful or full reasoning behind anything. He has a history of bad mouthing players to the 'favorites', and has even gone so far as to abuse code and his powers to listen in on players private pages and OOC.

The game has an attitude of hostility if you don't bow over and play along with the favorites, and good luck enjoying yourself if Gwydion ever gets bored and decides to come after you. Expect him to handle it all through jobs, run by his close friend Honeybadger, that gives him godlike powers to know anything and everything and kill you with no roleplay.

0/10. Game went to shit when Sponge left.

Don’t play here: the environment is dead, role play is made up largely of labored and contrived social scenes, and neither the Staff or elder community make any efforts to get you involved into a story. The Staff also over reaches and uses their powers on a whim to decide punishments.

Roleplay is bad as well, players post thoughts, unknowns, and personal history within their poses that your character should not know or could not know without a power that allows for such insincere or intrusive probing of a character’s thoughts, feelings, or history.

The World of Darkness environment is not respected as a living and breathing reflection of our world. People will casually hand wave threats of death off as nothing to make a social stink about, and act largely in a manner indicative of children with magnifying glasses burning ants, and ignoring the social repercussions of such actions. Players are also expected to play the part of Story Runners; which in turns leads to issues of interests. Flaws are enforced by the player and not from a Story Runner, further diluting role play, and making it narrow, shallow, and avoidable. There is a reason why players don’t role play their own Flaws, Shadow, Avatar, Beast, Rage, or other adversarial role and weaknesses solely themselves: it’s in clear conflict with the player and his/her character. Asking questions out of character will lead to over scrutinization, followed by highly subjective points, leading to your caste as pariah for not conceding or dropping the debate, and have the Staff largely tell you how much of an issue you personally are because you don’t fit the mold. Don’t expect healthy or mature debates. The Staff will bully you into submission. Be thankful they can’t break your knee caps too.

Character approval also took well over 36 hours to attend to. With over 70 players I have yet to see any real meaningful play or plot. The game fights you at every corner, silent as death, and makes no attempts get people involved.

.....FINALLY!! After years of hunting and even MORE years wasted on other games where staff see the players as obstacles to be overcome instead of an asset they cannot live without....I have found my home. :-D

City of Hope is set in a small city in California named Prospect, so there's plenty of room to move around and RP while not being overwhelming huge. Speaking of RP, there's a LOT of it. In all seriousness, I have /never/ encountered a player base that is this friendly and accommodating to new people, I've already made a few friends here and I've been on grid less than a week. They are willing to alter scenes to suit everyone's taste and players are quick to run scenes themselves for the enjoyment of others.

As for staff, they are helpful and polite without being overbearing and micromanaging psychos, which as many of you reading this review will realize, this is pretty much the opposite of how every other world of darkness mush operates. This is a good thing.

While character generation sticks to it's rules strictly, no extra points to start, we all have the same starting numbers, the staff is very lenient on concepts and character ideas.

On that note I also want to mention that this game also offers just about every sphere that OWoD offers. (Yes, OLD World of Darkness...no Reqiuem here! :-D)

Now for the biggest perk I've seen on this game so far... The one thing that turned off A LOT of people from playing these types of MUSHes is simple...the character creation process. The point assignments and powers have always been simple, but the requirement of a small novel for a biography has sent many a prospective player running in horror. Let's be honest, one can be an amazing roleplayer but simply not be that great at writing giant stories or, like myself, do not have the TIME to do this.

If this sounds like you, then you will be pleased to hear that this game does not require a giant biography. While I think you should write up a little something for your own notes and character development, all that is required here is for you to write a description for your character, fill out its character sheet and add a little note for each of your merits/flaws. That's it.

Not only does this make it easier to complete the character generation process, it also means that staff do not have to read 37 pages of history per character to get them approved. So, this means that the approval time is usually finished the same day you complete everything....a BIG change from most games that have you idling for over a week just to get put onto the grid.

So, in summary, this game is by far the most approachable and easy to get into, and once here, fantastically fun of all the World of Darkness games I have EVER encountered...and I've been at this for more years than I care to admit.

Come try it out, I don't think you'll be disappointed! Tell 'em Vincenzo sent ya! :-D