I've been mudding on and off at The Land since its inception in 1999 and I played on its predecessor, KAOS, since 1994.
The Land is very much of the hack-n-slash genre and I would recommend it to anyone in search of such a venue. The are 200 levels of experience to attain and there's plenty to do and discover in an incredibly expansive world that has seen positive growth within the last six months. The range of challenges is immense and there's at least one or two zones to provide the right challenge for every player. The effort required to get to higher levels is hefty, but that effort is rewarded with challenging mobs that are both exhilirating to fight and gratifying/profitable to defeat.
A lot of muds have a slightly higher diversity of races, classes, clans, and guilds so if those feature sets are of *paramount* importance to you, then The Land might not be the right MUD for you. But while The Land's feature set isn't quite as impressive as the ones boasted by some other MUDs, everything included is solidly coded and works consistently and reliably. Barring any acts of nature, the MUD runs with good stability. Reboots usually happen every 40-50 days resulting in about 3 minutes of downtime. It should also be noted that new races are in development and hopefully will appear by the end of summer 2008.
The playerbase has sadly dwindled over the years as real life has intervened for many (in the form of marriages, kids, careers, and even death in a few sad cases). This is unfortunate as it was the community that really got me hooked on this MUD at first. Despite some chaos in the ranks before The Land was formed in 1999, everything has been stable since, and the player file hasn't been wiped/lost since 1995 (I believe). The worst thing you might experience here from a player is to be flat out ignored, but no one's going to bully or harass you without extreme provocation (no one will PKILL you either -- it's against the rules with a few zone-based exceptions). If you log in during the day (in the western hemisphere) you'll probably see players scripting. Scripting is allowed until 4pm EST. I've heard the term 'scripting mud' used before - I think The Land would probably fit that description during the daytime. If you're looking to interact with actual people, nighttime is your best bet.
The staff is comprised of one man (Eric/Dipthong). This is generally sufficient as most remaining players are seasoned veterans who seldom require immortal intervention. While I can't speak for Eric's availability, I can speak to his candor as an immortal insofar as to say that's he's generally very fair and polite. There are strict policies against certain kinds of cheating on this mud, but the player base is well-behaved and infractions worthy of penalty are seen very seldomly. The downside to having only one immortal is that there are extremely few quest opportunities and there may be substantial delay on requests for assistance. As for quests, given the amount of effort it would require to set up a quest along with the dearth of players who could commit to any such affair, their absence is unfortunately understandable.
Experienced and well-behaved players have opportunities to contribute by creating new zones (there's an application process if you become interested). A lot of The Land's zones were designed specifically for and are exclusive to The Land.
The bottom line: The Land is a solid and fun hack and slash mud. It needs more players, so come check us out today. Just about all of us are fun and laid back and we welcome newbies with open arms (or we'll leave you alone if that's what you want). This mud allows you to set your own pace. No matter what that pace is, however, the adventures are endless.
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