As a MUD, Xyllomer turns out as an excellent example of why not to play one.

You can still see the original brilliance behind the design of the game. The original designer/writer was clearly extremely good, putting their personality and their soul into a quirky and interesting creation that can still sometimes be glimpsed through the noise every now and then. Sadly, that creation has been buried and obscured under years of 'writing by committee' and hand-me-down admins which have really had no idea what they were doing, pulling the unique and quirky flavor steadily into generic and bland. What started out as roleplaying Cordon Bleu is nowadays a month-old freeze-dried TV dinner.

At the beginning, though it's nice. You walk around, you meet people, you make friends. And these friendships grow unusually strong: The lack of a transparent who-list, of any kind of world maps, of channels and the very restricted tells system seems annoying at first but actually sets up an ambiance where you take other people more seriously than on other Muds. And that's where it all really falls down.

There's two kind of players on Xyllomer; the Germans and the Not-Germans. The germans are hosts and the original players of the game, while the Not-germans are everybody else. You can already see where I'm going with this, can't you? Yes, there is a very strong, very profoundly rooted 'ruling class' on this Mud, and while at first this isn't a concern for the newbie player who's just exploring the world, once this newbie becomes an oldbie and tries to rise up and affect the other 'fun' areas of the game, all he will find is an unclimbable wall of hostility and derision sneering down at him.

What happens then, largely due to the aforementioned ambiance, where every player seems just a bit more important or larger than they really are, is constant never ending feuds and bickering, where one piece of the playerbase tirelessly and intensely pushes for change and for improvement, while the other piece, the piece that could MAKE those changes and improvements, laughingly dismisses their pleas calling them childish and misinformed. This circus is always to be seen in the game's forums and message boards, both in and out of character.

What's sad is that Xyllomer's law and guild leadership system is almost genius, letting important decisions about justice and leadership be up to the playerbase and cutting out the admin. Of course, the system has always been in the hands of these German 'ruling class' players, who all know each other outside of the game. Whenever an important vote comes around it's common to see dozens of characters who havent been online in years suddenly waking up again to cast their vote and go back to sleep. Guild leaders are for the most part players who are never online or active in any way except for when their buddies alert them that someone else is trying to become leader themselves. Then they come online with their friends just long enough to win the vote and disappear again. The judge system is exactly the same, as is the stagnant merchant system and the paralyzed alchemy guild. They live in a state of abandoned stasis.

Finally, the admin. I have been priviledged to listen in on some of the discussions between admin, and have come out of that experience both baffled and horrified. In summary, the default answer for 90% of player requests, questions, doubts or criticisms is 'No answer of any kind is necessary'. I'm not kidding with this; I've literally read post after post by the head admin calling on the rest of the staff to 'be mature' by not answering and not making any kind of reply to a player's concerns, regardless of whether it's positive or negative. Ignoring people with stony silence is held as the height of intelligence and sophisitcation, and wizards are actually encouraged and rewarded for letting problems lie without an answer until the questioner just gets tired and moves on.

You can see as an example the negative reviews this Mud has had on this site, below. This is but one single example of where I've seen the admin be directed to not make any kind of reply and be expressly ordered not to bother with posting any kind of communication or explanation for the issues being brought up; this kind of thing is 10x more pronounced in the actual game.

Well, I don't want to be completely negative here, so I'll admit that the game was great fun - for the amount of time that I remained a newbie. Once I 'graduated' from that, and became aware of the state of the game from a higher point of view, Xyllomer as a Mud quickly became what I describe above; an excellent example of why not to play one.

Xyllomer started off for me with a bang, I loved the world, explored the quests, got in a guild, built up my character.

I also made a bunch of friends that I am loathe to leave and that's why I keep logging on and playing every day.

Basically, my only gripe with Xyllomer is the BOREDOM! There's just nothing to do, ever.. All the additions and changes are always to things that already exist. Stuff that doesn't really change the game anyway, like the religions, the 'combat system' which really isn't, the ships, judges that go inactive as soon as they get elected, etc, etc. God changes and changes are announced and none of it really matters for the actual game in the end. It's still the same thing it was years ago, only less intense, less interesting, and more bland.

I can't count the times when a game session for me has been just sitting around in the Elohim tree room and just chatting and messing around with emotes with some friends. That's basically it for me really these days. It's weird because a lot of games get new stuff added constantly, while this one just gets the same things shifted around, over and over.

And the new players?! There are NONE. No new players ever come. All 'new' players are really just alts or people with an alt pretending to be new for fun. If you are really a new player who has never come to Xyllomer, PLEASE come and play, we need you!

What else...the guilds are really all the same, they all use the same combat system and apart from few really little things, there is no difference.

We also have a bunch of really old and bitter players who stick around just to remind us how much the game has declined over and over. These wouldn't be such a problem in another game but with the low population that we have, they really are visible and annoy the heck out of me and others.

But you know what, I still like this game because of the friends I have in it, and will continue to play it, and I hope you will give it a chance also! :)

I joined and tried out this mud on the recommendation of a friend. I usually play RPIs. I find the RPI ambiance excellent and was very skeptical that a reputed PK-mud could win me over. However, my friend assured me that this mud's roleplaying and immersion were something that I had to see and that would make me leave my other muds.

So, I gave it a chance, and here are my impressions on the whole experience:

- It was a pain to create a character. Now, I am a guy who IS USED to a grueling RPI-type character creation, and let me tell you, this mud went far aboye and beyond anything I've ever seen with steep requirements for detailed descriptions, extensive backstories, justifications for every possible thing, and the sad thing is that later on none of that was used in the game by anyone at all; the effort just went to collect dust.

- The email response from admin (which is required for your new character to be accepted) was very slow and unresponsive. I waited more than a couple days which is usually enough for me to scroll down to the next mud on the list out of boredom; I stuck with this one for the sake of my friend.

- Once in the game, first thing I noticed was people going OOC very often. And almost always for the same reason: To ask if I was really a 'newbie' or rather just some old player's alt-character trying to get a free ride. This annoyed me on two levels: First, this assumpion really lays bare how few new players this mud gets which does a lot to dispel its charm, and second, I wasn't even LOOKING to get anything handed to me, but everybody assumed that since I was new, I must be looking for a handout.

- On a corollary from the above point, I always look forward to building up a little starting wealth, yet in this mud I was freely given so much stuff (after the requisite suspicious are-you-an-alt questions) that nothing had any value.

- Gameplay with other people amounted to typing 'join name' and then being treated to a whirlwind of scrolling rooms and screens of text as I was dragged through various mob-areas and drilled on the intricacies of the fight-engine (which doesn't actually seem that intricate).

- One thing which is surprising is the quality of the emote engine. Here is something which pleased me to no end, as it is flexible, easy to use and powerful. At the same time, it was so very sad that nobody ever used it for anything, or at the most, used it in the most simplified, superficial way possible. Such a waste.

- Finally, the thing that tipped the issue for me is what I would call the strong OOC nature of the MUD. Make no mistake, this is and will continue to be an OOC MUD. Players know each other as players, not as characters. Everybody knows which character is an alt of which other character and how many other alts that player has and will be on the lookout for any metagaming between those chars (and let me point out, players that are constantly policing metagaming in other players is the worst form of metagaming there IS).

- Players go OOC constantly, and not only demand that you explain the reasons behind your roleplay in detail for them to decide whether it's acceptable or not, but also they will actually go OOC to explain THEIR OWN roleplay to justify it TO YOU with no provocation whatsoever, something which I found to be a gigantic turnoff.

To be fair, I should mention some positive aspects of the mud, which is basically a very good single-player game. It basically played out like a very good piece of interactive fiction at certain points, most notable being the dwarven mountains and underground, and an orc castle filled with secret passages and such. However, the considerable charm and atmostphere falls apart once you start interacting and trying to get into the world and the game's societies of silent PK and war.

In conclusion, I gave it a good go, I was assured I would be leaving my mud after trying this one, but all in all, after this I think I'll be going back home.

Warning: Since I am one of the people who work as admin for Xyllomer, my personal opinion is of course, biased by this. However, I would like to mention a few changes that the game went through in the last years, which we cannot currently note down on the profile, since the person who created the profile is currently inactive.

I have played Xyllomer for over thirteen years now, without interruption, and despite being one of the coders, I still continue to find new things, and usually I am never bored, when I play. Of course this also means I have to be active myself.

Xyllomer went through a low in the winter of 2005/2006, but by now it has recovered and regained some playerbase. The decline in the playerbase is probably notable on most MUDs nowadays.

Changes to the game include adding subraces as well as cleaning up and filling many of the empty rooms which were added to Xyllomer when it merged with Morisot. The amount of rooms we count is rather near 10000.

We have an active wizardstaff, who work continuously to improve the game and add new things. However, we try to keep interaction with the players during their playing time at a minimum. Discussions about changes are done separately, on boards, the Forum, or in meetings, to keep the in-game feeling intact.

What we do need is new players, this is what probably all MUDs need. We also need the old players, they are those who transport the history of the game-world to the new generations.

For me Xyllomer is unique in a way, since it combines aspects of PvP as well as intensive roleplay, quests, guild culture and exploration. We strive to make this possible while maintaining the fun for all parties.

If you tend to one of the extremes, Xyllomer might not be the best choice, but if you enjoy all the aspects to be had in a MUD, then I would definitely encourage you to come and play!

While the MUD may be a challenge, and not the easiest to start on, the players on the MUD definitely are very helpful. We maintain a line for new players, where you can ask general questions about the game.

The game is completely free to play, the only thing you need is telnet (however a mudclient or mushclient is helpful there).

For starting help you can also post at our external Forum at: http://xyllomer.ruhrpott-united.de/phpBB/index.php

Xyllomer was once a very promising MUD, with a dedicated, responsible staff and even more importantly, an extremely zealous playerbase. The code was fresh and engrossing, room descriptions lively - in essence a book you could immerse yourself (or more likely your character) into and effect real (more or less) change on that fictional world.

The MUD, though, took a turn for the worse. Other than the normal ebb and flow of playernumbers, severe administration and code changes in the MUD forced regular, long-time players to quit. Warrior combat for example, once one of the more entertaining features of a MUD whose combat system has never been too involved, became even more stale as a result of a drastic code upheaval. Now it is nothing but varying shades of gray, everyone possessing exactly the same abilities with differing text, and but one useful ability in the whole lot.

Current administration failures are another key factor in what has become the decay of a good MUD. Where you could complain about the rampant translation of In-Character problems to Real Life vendettas (and vice-versa), and general immaturity among some of the remaining players in Xyllomer, you definitely would not want to hear that when referring to the administration. But sadly that is the case, with the current administration regularly acting as if the playerbase were of no consequence at all, and quickly silencing any with a differing opinion to theirs. This leads to an even more monotonous MUD than already existed, with a rapidly diminishing playerbase (I last saw 20 people online counting the staff - and this during 'high player times').

I've been a faithful follower of this mud for 10 years on and off. In that time I played but two characters, the more recent one being Sivan. But due to these 'recent' changes and what could only be called current, childish administration, I believe my time here is up. It is frightening to check your total stat-numbers and figure you've wasted around 260 days on what is now a worthless venture. I simply did not have any hope left that the situation would finally change for the better. Shame, though, Xyllomer was once a good MUD.

Player of Sivan

Well, I gave this game a shot for five months. I must say that the first impressions were excellent and right in line with the positives of another review further down this list that I read. Nice room descs, nice quests, nice mob scripting etc.

Sadly, the review also lists many negative shortcomings of Xyllomer and although I decided to overlook them and give the game the benefit of the doubt, MOST of these shortcomings soon revealed themselves as all too real... a feeling of emptiness in the world, boring static roleplaying, a feeling that there was a lot of OOC stuff going on that I wasn't privy to. I could actually deal pretty well with all of this...

But the single thing that broke the game for me was the guild joining system (or complete lack thereof). It is sad and ridiculous that I have been playing FOR FIVE MONTHS straight and still my character HAS NO CLASS. Even more so that there are people in there who have been playing FOR YEARS ON END and are still waiting to get into a guild or who have just given up entirely and settle for playing just as the generic beginning adventurer class, forever.

I have no idea what goes on with the guilds, or what is the matter with the system, or who's supposed to be in charge and isn't doing their job, but there is definitely something seriously wrong going on somewhere.

Many people are willing to stick it out or discuss it in the forums but I have not and will do neither. A game should be enjoyable as is without needing to get into a big fight with the admin over changes that need to be made... so I gave the whole thing a chance and nothing happened, so I move on to another game.

Angela.

Xyllomer is, of course, the best mud around! If you search for a mud where your character can develop into many different directions and choose between a bunch of guilds, deities and varying ways of life, Xyllomer should be your first choice. Most everything in our world is governed by players, be that guilds, town-councils, courts or similar. You can play an independent Warrior as easily as a fanatic priest or magician. You can join battles and wars from the 'good' against the 'evil', or maybe just watch them from afar in order to write a newspaper article about it or simply because you don't care.

I have played Xyllomer for ten years and despite the usual little problems which every mud has now and then, it has always been my first choice. I appreciate how many choices my chars have and how easily one is drawn into a complex game with so many facets of life. It is fun to have my char be a part of all those who add to this and give the mud a neverending story and history by their presence.

Try it!