Review Submitted By: Farfu
Author Status: Player
Started on Mozart MUD: 11 Jan 2005
Submission Date: Jan 30, 2005
TMC Listing: Mozart MUD
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Farfu]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Overview: If you are looking for a very newbie friendly environment,
Mozart offers just that. It all starts with a very detailed
character creation system that was designed with making your life
easy to create. Once you have completed creating your character
and first log into the world, you are normally welcomed by many of
the current players from all level ranges. Also, many times the
immortals if on and able to will take time out of their work to
talk with you and welcome you to the world of Mozart. Feel free
to ask them questions if you have any, from my experience they
are very helpful when asked general questions and take
suggestions willingly.
Play Style: There are basically two different play styles within the
game. Normal, where you run around having your fun doing quests,
killing different monsters or just interacting with other players in
groups or however you like. And the second is an under dark world
where pk is allowed. I have yet to try the later of the two, but am
enjoying myself in the normal type of game.
Quests:
From what I have seen there are some in game quests, and from my
talks with one of the head admin, more will come over time.
They call most of them challenges. I have only found out about
one challenge for the lower level 25 to 35 range characters, and
sure hope they add more for all ranges as it seems most of the
challenges are Avatar focused at this time.
Imm run quests are possible and do happen. I have only seen one so
far but it was a lot of fun. This was a football type of quest called
mudbowl. You are placed on a team within the mudbowl field and
given a football to carry to the other teams goal line. If you
score a goal you get 1 point for scoring. If you place your
football right under the goal posts you get 3 points. The team
with the most points overall win. Player killing is allowed but
does not affect you in any such way during a mudbowl.
I have also seen and heard about player run quests, but have yet had
a chance to experience this type of quest. I do think it is
great that players run quests for other players on a mud, and
feel it really adds to the game play style.
Leveling: Total levels available to Mozart citizens without doing
the avatar challenge is 99. Once you decide to do the avatar
challenges and quests you can gain up to 10 more levels and even
more power with skills/spells and specializations. The leveling
system requires you to visit a guild to gain. Throughout your
leveling experience you will visit many guilds for your class or
classes. Most guilds will only level you up to a certain level
before sending you on a quest to find your new guild master.
This is one cool idea that I really love. It helps encourage
exploration and mostly only sends you once you are high enough
to travel to the place you need to. Leveling overall starts out
as most muds do with you gaining levels fairly quickly, then
slows a little in the mid range as expected. I haven't had a
chance to find out much about the upper ranks and speed of
leveling but figure it is like most muds, the more experience
you require, the longer it takes, and I agree with this as it
makes the quest to level last longer and gives you something to
push for.
World:
The overall world is very large and does require a great deal of
exploration and time to learn it all. Don't rush into getting out to
far out of the way places, instead take your time and learn things
from near to far. I, myself, have yet to cover even a fraction of the
world and have travelled some distance just to find my new guild.
For the most part, the room descriptions are well written but some
of them are oneliners and could use a good touch up. As for mob
descriptions, they lack overall and are often one liners with very
little detail about the mob. If I were going to suggest something
to really work on for Mozart, I would go with room and mob
descriptions while focusing harder on mob.
There is a sense of interaction within the world of the mobs. Some
of them interact with players, some with other mobs, and some with
the whole world all at once. This is something I love to see in a
world and feel there is never enough. It might be nice to add more
interaction with players vs mob throughout the world if you have some
imms with spare time.
Skills and Spells:
The skill and spell system is very detailed and unlike that of most
other muds. It is very uncommon to have to characters exactly alike
unless someone planed for it to work that way. each player is
given his or her skills and spells when they level, but only learn
it to a small percent. The rest you must learn threw using that
particular skill or spell. Also you are able to learn
specializations via teachers. The most common one who teaches
these specs would be the punisher in the main town, but also, some
specs must be learned from other teachers throughout the
world.
Conclusion:
After playing at Mozart for a few weeks, I have become addicted to
the game. As a admin on another very good mud, I have a keen
understanding of game balance and gameplay, but have learned a few
new things while at Mozart.
Overall, this mud is very enjoyable and the people are friendly.
Role playing don't seem to be a major issue here so if you are a
serious role playing type person, even though you are welcome to
do so, you might not like Mozart as much as some of the more
dedicated roleplaying muds. On a scale of 1 to 10 as far as good
muds, I would rank Mozart at an 8.5 with the most work needed
being mob descriptions and more in game quests for all levels.
Stop by and check them out if you are looking for a new home o
even a second home. I have found that it is a nice getaway from my
primary mud when I need a change of pace. And making new
friends is always a great thing.
Farfu
