I've been off and on with KoD for many years. I've been loved and hated, as a player and as an Immortal. KoD will always hold a place in my heart as my home MUD, it's where I got to learn a lot about online games, but more than that, people.

It has always had the one thing I strive to look for in every MUD and game I play: Community. It will always have its ups and downs, as MUDs do, but there's just something special about KoD that keeps me coming back, year and year.

As it stands right now, KoD has an interesting (albeit uncomplete) force system, with friendly Immortals, and friendly players, and good roleplayers. If you're looking to experience a Star Wars MUD with a small but loyal community, KoD is the place to start.

I have been playing Knights of Darkness for over a decade now. For those of you who have never played a MUD, I strongly encourage you to try this newbie friendly SWR. I would also recommend KoD to those of you who are familiar with SWR. There have been many upgrades to purge the blandness of stock code. For the most part, the players and Immortals are helpful and newbie friendly. I would have never thought this game could keep my interest for so long. I still tell myself that if I do not enjoy MUDing I will call it quits, but the character development and game enhancements keep me logging in daily.

As far as gameplay, you really need to log in and check out the character creation for yourself. Ask questions and mosey around for a little while. There is far too much to explain here. I have over 30 characters because each one is different. There is a little something for everyone, whether you want a combat based character or stay away from confrontation with a medic or engineer.

The Force system is unbelievable, in my opinion. You can create a Forcer from the start, but to increase your level you have to roleplay. With the Force tier system not every Jedi or Sith will be the same. A level 20 Forcer might have a spell that a level 100 does not.

I don't really know what else to say, other than stop in and check it out for yourself.

I have been a player off and on from about the day the mud started up. Back when chosen forcer was a class, and before the Pwipe that happened a few years ago and for a little while after, I was a rather active (if not liked), Immortal. Since then i have been taking a break because of Real Life issues getting in the way. New comp, work, life that sort of stuff. But I have been keeping up-to-date on the changes they have been making and i must say i have been impressed as of late with what they are doing. They have changed a stale old mud and given it new life. I hope that it will be enough to keep up with the MMORPG's that are out there (that i am afraid i must say i have fallen victim to) and that the current staff continues to do a wonderful job of keeping things fresh, new, and exciting.

As the previous reviewer had stated, the MUD is in the process of being made better, so there is a lot of construction going on, but in that, we're in a place to experience the new content as it's put in and give our feedback on whether or not we like it, or what to change with it.

Personally, that kind of place sounds like a good place to play to me, doesn't it? Instead of a place where a bunch of half-done updates come out all at once and break things into a million pieces or even those that come out and don't break anything but no one sees any point for. Everything being done by our dedicated coders is being done to improve /our/ play, not their outlook (though those two things seem to coincide a lot).

The RP aspect is highly active as long as you put in the effort to look for it, making yourself available and making sure people know you're in the market to have RP. There is always someone, somewhere on the game looking to RP with you if let them know you're out there.

While there is no automated system of award the RP Points used to buy various upgrades for yourself, your ships, and your home, there is rarely a time when a log that you submit will not be read and replied to with its awarding within a day or so of submitting, which allows the Moderators to keep abuse of the RP system to a minimum.

Just today (as I wrote this review) we had a good ten changes go in within an hour, all to help the playerbase further advance their characters and to meet with the standards we're hoping to get across for our MUD.

In closing, while we do have our dust and our work cut out for us, we are striving to make this place better than ever, and our coders are working their butts off to see us reach the place we want to accomplish. I ask that you the players come see for yourselves, and spend some time with our helpful staff and players. :)

This mud has promise, but for a mud that has been around for as long as this one has it has some serious flaws. The code is out of date. Features other muds have had for years are lacking in painful ways on this mud.

While some work is being done, from the OOC conversations I heard and comments made to me directly, it would appear as if one of the coders are taking liberties with their position to build themselves more classes to force people to interact with her mortal.

The classes lack balance. The Space code is outdated. The players seem able to RP, but the mud itself seems to lack an RP system. This despite the fact that one of the currencies in the game is points earned via RP.

When looking at their forums, one of the reasons (And I heard this over the ooc channels as well) the coder didn't want to put something in, it seems to be because it would cause extra work. This does not inspire faith in the staff at all.

All in all, I would say KoD looks to have promise if you find just the right players, but overall corruption on the level of the staff and the lack of in depth roleplaying tools found elsewhere makes this mud lackluster and feeling more like a nearly decade old beta game. And after a decade, it really should have long stopped feeling beta.