Review Submitted By: Alathorn
Author Status: Player
Started on Cleft of Dimension: Tonight
Submission Date: Jun 28, 2004
TMC Listing: Cleft of Dimension
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Alathorn]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I logged on tonight with an open mind toward a genre of MUD I haven't
experienced. I'm a fan of the Final Fantasy series, and I was
pleasantly surprised by many of the areas. There were about 15
players on, but I didn't notice much chat happening on the public
channels.
The areas I explored were a nice change of pace from the typical
stock areas that populate many MUDs, and there was some
interesting code.
Roleplay seems to be very encouraged there, which was pleasing.
I was rather bothered however, by another newbie chatting on the
OOC channel and asking for help. Upon recieving help, he responded
'k, thx' and was told not to use chatspeak, because it is annoying.
A 'someone' responded it could even get a person deleted. I found
that pretty harsh, and proceeded to read the rules. Some of the
rules are rather specific, while others are left wide open to
interpretation. For example, 'botting' is illegal, pretty
straightforward, but so is 'being stupid' and an immortal has the
right to evaluate the level of stupidity and deem an appropriate
punishment. Chatspeak was listed nowhere in the rules as an offense,
which leads one to assume it would be covered under the 'being stupid'
category, which leads one to wonder what else is considered offensive.
All in all, parts of the MUD seem worth sticking around for however,
it didn't leave me with a very good or friendly first impression.
I talked with some other players and played for a few more hours and
upon leaving to write this review, my first impression seemed to be
right. I think if someone is willing to swallow a lot of pride long
enough to get known there or to befriend the right people, it would
be a fun MUD to play on. Otherwise, it doesn't have a very
newbie-friendly atmosphere. Some of the tips that newbies are
presented with however, do seem to give some fair warning of what
is and isn't considered a good idea. For example, 'Never question
an immortal's authority' is one, along with 'Arguing with [head imm]
is a very bad idea.' My suggestion for anyone that is going to give
this MUD a try is to just keep quiet until you make some friends.
After which time, you should have a blast.
