Review Submitted By: Ryan
Author Status: Player
Started on DarkWind: March 1995
Submission Date: May 8, 2004
TMC Listing: DarkWind
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Ryan]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I'm a long time player of Darkwind, almost eight years. The mud has
changed ownership and is now maintained by some hardcore players. The
mud is pretty well written and has features that you won't find on
all muds. Most of the players and staff are friendly and helpful. The
room and object descriptions show a lot of imagination.
That said, I don't recommend playing there if you plan on spending
any serious time building up a character. There are a few reasons for
this.
The first is the experience system. Levels from 30 up to the maximum
of 90, are insanely hard to get. The proof is that the highest level
player is level 71 after 75 playing days (that's about 1800 hours of
play). This is a player who knows the mud inside out. Nobody else that
I know of is within 20 levels of him.
The main complaint is the stability of one's character. Players have
no say at all in this. The mud was purged in 1996 with almost no
warning and taken offline for several months. It came back---with
players reset to level 1. Over the next three years, it went offline
again for days at a time without warning or explanation. In late 2000
it was taken offline supposedly permanently when it was attacked by
hackers. Some hardcore players got an old copy of it from the prev2ious
owner and put it back up in March of 2002. The mud's been up since
then on a very good server, but that doesn't mean that a serious
player can rest easily. In early 2003, the admin decided that they
wanted to restart (purge) the mud again. Everybody was reset to level
1 again. Players had little say in this. Now they're talking about
another purge when they install the nobility and kingdom system. It's
frustrating to build a character over many months or even years and
have it taken away because the admin decide one day that they want to
do something different.
If you do decide to play Darkwind, be very careful with Player
Killing (PK). PK is optional, and non-members can't be attacked by
members. If you plan on being PK, expect to be killed frequently by
players twice your level. There's no level difference restriction.
Level 45s can kill level 5s (and will if they feel like it, although
to be honest, only a handful of players will do that). If you don't
plan on being PK, be sure you never help any PK player in any way, or
you might be force-registered PK by the admin and given a penalty
ranging from a few levels to being sent to level 1.
There are a few other beefs, such as the lack of roleplaying and the
fact that the high-level players hog all the unique items every
reboot.
When the experience system and purges are fixed, I'll start playing
again (I have a mid 30's character). Until then, no way Jose.
