TMC Player Reviews: CyberSphere

Review Submitted By: Tarik
Author Status: Player
Started on CyberSphere: A few days ago.
Submission Date: Feb 1, 2006
TMC Listing: CyberSphere

The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Tarik] and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.

I heard alot about Cybersphere from several friends of mine on
another MOO. Some things were bad, some things were good. I decided to
see for myself what the game was like, so I popped on and did the
little Guest tour, which was certainly interesting, even though my
guest character wasn't strong enough to pick up the gun he was issued
during the tour.

I started the registration process dealie, which meant I had to
submit a character history for the staff to review, which personally I
think is a pretty good idea. The staff get to make sure you're a
quality roleplayer and not just some little kid who's going to break
all the rules. So, I spend several days scavenging through their
timeline and game history in order to make my character's history
intertwine with the game history, so I'll feel more a part of the
game. I submit it, it gets approved, I get my password and whatnot to
log in and start chargen.

Chargen was cool and though confusing at times, most things had
little explinations and descriptions, so I at least knew a little bit
about what I was doing. In the end I had a rather crappy, but not
terribly so, pistol-wielding combat character with some biking
knowledge. I did my @nudities and everything and was approved. Then
jumped in game.

Though many of the room descriptions were terribly bland (or
nonexistent), and the map helpfile was out of date, the players were
really helpful and fun to RP with. A nice bartender girl, Cordelia was
very friendly in helping me get used to the new MOO and several other
characters were just as inviting. Lazarus, another player, was kind
enough to hire my character on the spot, and within the first two days
I'd already had several memorable RP experiences with him. The
players seem real great there.

My problem, however, is not with the players. By the third day or so,
my character got a job with an NPC who ran a casino and offered rather
low-paying automated jobs for players, either courier runs or little
jobs where you would just have to stand around and wait for some shady
guy to come in and meet her. Anyway, I'd received the latter job when
another player walked in, who the NPC apparently didn't like. She
yelled at him to leave, then immediately attacked him. My character of
course jumps in thinking this is the fellow who he's supposed to help
her with if there are any problems. My character KO's, wakes up to
see the NPC dead, then KO's again. He wakes up being dragged to the
doctor by the player. Some neat RP ensues, and I think that's that.

When I return to the NPC's place to get another job, she immediately
attacks my character with a katana. He barely survives. Every time he
walks in, she attacks him, so he figures 'Since she's the only
person who hates me, should I die, I'll check back here to see
what's up.' (Because there is a clone-related life-insurance deal
with most cyberpunk games I've been on, including Cybersphere). Not
so much a good idea as I later discovered.

Of course, I didn't know that this would really last too long. I
figured it was a bug. I couldn't figure out how to contact the admin
though, short of email, so I ended up submitting the bug using the
@bug command. I also attempted to page several administrators,
including one named 'Master_Shake.' We'll get back to him later.

The next day, I sign on and decide to go see what's up with this NPC
chick anyway. My character walks in and she's like 'Leave, now!'
And immediately jumps him. He gets away, but then decides to go back
in and attempt to finish the job. He's angry. Of course, he ends up
dying. His clone pops out of the 'vats' and because of all of his
problems with her, he figures he'll go see if that's who dunnit. Of
course it was, and he found his corpse there. He grabbed it and
managed to get away before she attacked again. Got his stuff back.

Now, I understand that this probably would look fishy if you'd been
ignoring that player's pages about the issue previously. I suppose
this is what had been happening, as Master_Shake took my character out
of the game to reprimand me. I, of course, was a bit peeved, but
apologized for seeming rude when I mentioned that he must've been
ignoring my pages.

We continued to talk, though I was terribly confused at what he was
trying to say. Apparently it made sense to him that my character would
be attacked on-sight by this NPC when he had tried to save this NPC
woman's life. Though I disagreed with him, he was at least civil
towards me, though he did treat me as if I had the intelligence of a
child. Before we could get very far into the conversation however,
another administrator appeared who went by 'El Presidente.' I have
never been treated with such disrespect by a MOO/MUD administrator in
my entire 8 or so years experience with them. Because of this I
decided that I would not bother the fine staff over at Cybersphere
ever again with my presence. I salute them on their ability to ignore
and insult the intelligence of their playerbase.

I give Cybersphere a 3/10.