Review Submitted By: Kanin
Author Status: Player
Started on Ancient Mists: Few Months Ago
Submission Date: Jul 26, 2003
TMC Listing: Ancient Mists
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Kanin]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
This mud is one of the most developed, most intelligent, and most
boring muds out there. The staff have all been involved in the mud
since its earliest days, and can easily recite its beginnings as a
purely hack and slash thriller, its various retired staff, the
players they hated, and the players they miss. They can spin long
rpnotes about the clans they were once in, and how glorious they
were, the ideals they worship now, and how glorious they WERE, and I
can truly say many of the players have played there for over a year,
and will continue to loyally play there for a good long while.
The problem is, the mud is stagnant. Starting as a new player, you
will not be able to compete with the top players in any real arena
for a very long time. Hundreds of hours of playing. The remort
system is very rewarding for the player, but a non-remort simply is
no match for a remort, and the players that have been there for
forever have remorted many times, and have all of the skills and
spells of several classes. Basic leveling is time consuming. For
very good reasons, and with very good results, experience is toned
down to take the emphasis off of levels and place it on roleplay.
This means until you've got a remort with its extra stats and some
quest equipment, you won't be able to kill much higher than your own
level, and you won't be leveling very quickly at all. There are 200
mortal levels. Though there is a coded Newbie Helper battalion, I've
found it very hard to get more than answers to questions from there,
they rarely offer actual help getting equipment or spells, or pulling
you into the roleplay.
Roleplay, likewise, is in a constant state of decay, and appears to
exist only within notes. Rarely, vehement conversations will occur
on the in character channels, and sometimes actual interaction
between players will occur, but usually, people post poetry,
histories of characters everyone is tired of knowing the history of,
and lengthy notes that really only involve a few people but are
inflicted upon the whole world. The clans do not fulfill their
purpose, they are a means of getting better equipment for yourself.
There is a very close-knit group of friends that seems to control
most of the roleplay, regardless of what alignment, race, class, or
clan each is in, and from what I've heard, have been doing this for
some time.
On a bright note, this world has tons of interesting areas,
intelligent people, dedicated staff, and has always had bright
potential, but doesn't appear to be going anywhere or doing anything,
as most of the new players are alts of old players, old players who
left returning, and friends of old players. I think, if you're going
to try this mud, make it your main mud for a few months, and bring
every mudding friend you have, give this place some new blood. If
you're logging in solo, just want to try it out, its very unlikely
you'll ever get to see the coolest aspects of this ROM, as it fails
to be immersive.
