Review Submitted By: Bengali the mage
Author Status: Player
Started on Darker Realms: 1998
Submission Date: Mar 13, 2005
TMC Listing: Darker Realms
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Bengali the mage]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I first stumbled upon the darker realms while doing semi-random
searches and trying out muds. It was the first mud that I was able to
'walk' into and try out without major time investment. I have since
invested more than a little, ok a great deal of time in my attempt to
unravel it's secrets.
There is no PK at DR. I like that. The gameplay is fairly simple at
first with the typical character creation cycle followed by the
seemingly dizzy stumbling about trying to get oriented with the three
main areas.
I have since discovered many other areas to explore, with
some being hidden only by a boat ride or opening a door and others
quite well hidden, with the entrances eluding me to this day.
There are
several guild choices and each has it's strengths and weaknesses.
Some are easy to join, requiring only that you find the main guild
hall to sign up, while others have entrance quests and are hidden.
The rewards for aligning yourself within a guild are well worth the
effort and add strength and individuality to your character.
Advancement is by solving quests and gaining experience through battle
with monsters ranging from the usualogres, elves, dragons and the
like to more exotic creatures such as the terminator and bugblatter
beast of rahl and even a smurf or two.
The quests vary in difficulty and thus in reward. Some quests are
dangerous and can cost you your life unexpectedly. The quest system is
well defined and a review system was recently updated to show the
difficulty and playability of each quest.
There are several special events put on by the Wonderful and friendly
staff at DR. These are usually placed around holidays and are often
on a weekend. During these events you might encounter some interesting
real time games going on like Wheel of terror(fortune) and sometimes
quest point trivia. Holloween brings out a demon that runs amok
terrorizing the entire world until somebody kills it(cheesy grin). You
can get nifty autoloading(saved) goodies that further define and
honor your character's accomplishments. The Realms attract an
international host of players with varying degrees of ability but
they're mostly a friendly lot willing to help anyone who asks.
I have little negative to say about the place. The only thing I would
wish for would be that some of the current guild leaders would pass
on the torch to someone who could continue to refine them. I have seen
promising activity in my guild only to have my hopes, and fears, fade
away after a while when the new leader gets busy in real life and
can't find the time to continue his work. That's not to say that they
need alot of work. Thanks to a commitee system and typo and bug lines,
the writing and all the guilds are pretty well balanced to one
another and very unique in gameplay. I have characters in several
different guilds and they all get played.
My wife says my mudding sometimes seems like a second job. At least
I'm not pumping 130$ a month into mindless drivel on the satellite
systems and cable.
Bengali Is
MAge (x)
