Review Submitted By: Graze
Author Status: Player
Started on RetroMUD: august, 2003
Submission Date: Sep 9, 2004
TMC Listing: RetroMUD
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Graze]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Welcome to RetroMUD, A complex and expansive world of fantasy
adventuring. RetroMUD is challenging, exciting, and player friendly.
It is a PK restricted MUD, and very newbie friendly. The diversity of
races and classes makes 'Soloing' hard. Basically you will need to
team up with other players to take on tough monsters and complete
bigger quests. The great part about this is that non-serious, abusive,
or disruptive players tend to go away all on their own. Once they
figure out that they will have to work with others, they simply look
elsewhere. This makes for one of the best player-bases in the MUD
world. I have also noticed that the admins are quick to remove abusive
players and fix bugs.
Roleplaying is encouraged and rewarded on RetroMUD. To me, this is a
valuable and important part of Retro. I enjoy immersing myself in a
role and sticking to it. If you like roleplay give retro a try!
The combat system is well thought out and challenging. No matter what
your level you can always find a place to be challenged in combat.
Races are slot restricted in a logical way, and yes, they are actually
correct about wielding (EG you can't hold too many things at once).
This also makes for logical racial compatibility with Guilds. For
example, creatures without limbs make poor fighters since they can't
wield weapons. These limitations are conversely rewarded with other
benefits that make those creatures ideal for certain guilds. Put these
various races/guilds together into a party and you have a small army
working together to conquer big monsters.
The magic system is also excellently designed. There are literally
100s of spells in the game, ranging from very general use to VERY
specific. I also appreciate that spells can't be spammed. If you
start another spell, you stop your old one! This makes complete sense
to me, and is considerably more logical than MUDS I have played in
which you could step up and spam Magic Missile 50 times, then walk
away and have a snack while your spam did the work. This also applies
to skills as well.
The skill system seems to be great, I haven’t had much experience
with it, since I play a race and guild, which doesn't use many
skills, but rather relies on spells. From what I have seen and read
though, it is nicely done. There are also literally 100s of skills,
ranging from a simple headbutt in combat, to very complicated and
difficult skills like resizing high level EQ. Basically there is
something for everyone there. If you want to make items and assist
players with their EQ, there are guilds for that. If you want to just
Smash and kill, there are guilds for that too, and various
combinations of both.
Enough about the greatness of RetroMUD, lets talk about some
downsides. The biggest one for me is travel. There are several planets
in RetroMUD and once you pass a certain level (15) getting around can
be hard. Basically each planet has it's own Travel system and you have
to learn or be shown how to travel inbetween. Getting off some
planets can be near impossible without help from the right guild. I am
still learning how to travel between worlds, and to me, this is the
weakest point of the game. Getting lost and stuck is no fun (although
it is challenging)!
Clans... there are none! I would love to see a clan system created,
which might include clanhalls, clan chat, and maybe even clan wars. It
simply isn’t there. I don't know if it’s in the works, but it would
definitely add more to the game. Overall: I give RetroMUD a 9 out of
10. Give it a try, I guarantee you will keep Coming back!
