Review Submitted By: Bran Davies
Author Status: Player
Started on Cowboy Bebop: Space Cowboy: November, 2003
Submission Date: Oct 7, 2004
TMC Listing: Cowboy Bebop: Space Cowboy
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Bran Davies]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Well. CB:SC is quite an innovative MUD. But I'm sure everyone has
heaped enough praise about the MUD, some criticism is in order! The
MUD appears to be composed of half-finished thoughts. The system of
checks and balances is rather flimsy, and is only held up by
he 'Imms are always right rule'. Which basically means that when the
rules or balances aren't well defined (And they generally aren't) the
matter is settled with a sort of coin toss, and the loser is either
helled, silenced, or deleted/banned/other nasty stuff.
The Imms are generally disdainful of the playerbase, because the
players tend to whine about the rules even when they haven't been
broken. However, they neglect the fact that people tend to act that
way because of the way in which they enforce the rules. Which is to
say that the Imms tend not to actually watch what players do unless
they already suspect them of something. Instead they wait for a
complaint to be issued, and whether the rules are in favor of
the 'defendent', the Imms are always right, which overrides the other
rules. So if the complainant can convince an imm he/she's right,
hey, they're right. Basically what happens here is certain players
continually break the rules without punishment as long as no one
knows or tells, by hiding behind the same rules, calling down other
players for breaking them. I won't menAtion any names here or
anything, but it happened quite a bit. Actually, I did it myself
a few times. Mostly to see if it was favoritism or if the imms
really weren't watching. It was the latter. Anyway, that makes
for very annoying player-exchanges. Ship battle is...wow. There
are tons of ships, but only a handful worth using. Because the stats
of other ships weren't kept in mind when new ships were created, so
you have a bunch of 'uber ships', and a bunch of little putters that
get blown up every time they lift off, because 'Oops, I thought you
were someone else.' when the truth was, it was just an easy kill.
A good many things that made the game interesting in months past were
altered so they could be brought under control. There were a good
many unregulated, unsanctioned activities that didn't clearly go
against any rule or adversely affect the gameplay in anyway. Such as
bands of bounty hunters under an unofficial clan name. They could
have put in the clanpk rules that these bands were neither sanctioned
nor protected under the clan rules, and wouldn't be allowed to become
an actual clan. But instead, they made it illegal to have unofficial
bands simply because the Imms don't like the idea that something on
the game might not be fully under their influence. Some punishments
are dealt by the Imms, not because of any illegality but simply
because of a perceived attack on their ego, or a 'disrespect' as they
put it.
Ah, yes.. The skills. Everytime they change the weapons and armor,
or change the skills, they more or less nullify the uses of the
majority of the skills in favor of one or two. This is especially
true of weapons. Only one type of weapon at a time is generally
relevant within the game. Well, anyway.
I could continue ranting, but I'm running out of space! I love you
Gatzie. :X
