Review Submitted By: Ragnhild
Author Status: Player
Started on Return of the Shadow: regularly since 2003
Submission Date: Jul 25, 2005
TMC Listing: Return of the Shadow
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Ragnhild]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
'Return of the Shadow' is a Tolkien-based MUD featuring a very
large and very detailed world. This world is the primary reason I play
the game, but worth mentioning are also a number of other things: for
example, that this is a pkill MUD with three sides of the war and very
visible information on the state of the war, that mystics can engage
in mental combat which is quite unlike physical combat, that the game
has an active management that makes an effort to communicate with
players, and that the game is quite newbie-friendly.
The map stretches from the Halls of Thranduil in the north to Dol
Guldur in the south and from the caverns of the goblins of the Misty
Mountains in the west to Laketown in the east. If you think you might
enjoy visiting Laketown or Dol Guldur, buying a toy in Dale, or seeing
where the barrels with Bilbo and company went through the trapdoor,
down the portcullis, and along the forest river to Laketown, this may
be a MUD for you.
The level of detail is in places incredible. Weather messages are
different for different room types, so that one gets to see rain
forming puddles in the ruts of the roads, clouds covering the sky
above the mountain tops, storms brewing in the sky above the branches
of the trees in the forests. Clothes come in a variety of colours
including lavender, indigo, blood-red, and ithilien-green. Toy shops
sell many kinds of beautifully described toys. There are more food
items than I have seen on any other MUD, including many kinds of meat
(including wolf meat, grouse, venison, wild boar), seven kinds of
apples, and many interesting specialty items (such as, for example,
baskets of honey muffins).
If a large and very detailed part of Tolkien's Middle-earth is
something you may enjoy seeing in a text game, I highly recommend
checking out 'Return of the Shadow'.
