Review Submitted By: Nsaris
Author Status: Player and staff member
Started on Xaos: Either 1997 or 98, unsure
Submission Date: Aug 30, 2006
TMC Listing: Xaos
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Nsaris]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
The first thing that I did when I logged in to Xaos was get lost.
I'm not a good navigator in the best of times, and the place that I
had logged into was twisted and strange. It was a winding garden full
of giant bugs, vegetables, and centaurs (my chosen race). I wandered
for a while before finally saying 'I give up, how do I get out of the
centaur village?' on the out-of-character channel. I think that it
was an immortal named Albach that answered me, telling me the way out,
which it turns out didn't exist. In the end he had to get a way out
to the rest of the world built, because someone had forgotten it
attach one, and I was the first person to be in there.
Originally I had started out as a centaur warrior. Before the first
day was over, I had decided that actually wanted to be a mage, so
shortly after starting I made my second character, a gnomish mage and
then gnomish illusionist named Xz. I've been playing Xz ever since,
and still enjoy playing him, for the stories, roleplaying, enemies and
friends that I made and make with him (Ural, my centaur warrior, died
a well-scripted death years later).
The first person I met 'face to face' was the white dragon
enchanter, Kestra, (self-proclaimed keeper of love, hate, and the
phoenix gate) who as I remember came down from his mage's tower over
the human town and agreed to help me out instead of eating me, and
made me a fully enchanted set of armor. Later he would become a hermit
and a curmudgeon as a result of establishing himself as the person for
newbies to ask for powerful sets of enchanted armor. Then I met
Alexander, the human knight from a foreign land (who would eventually
become one of my character's enemies), who showed me around the then
relatively small world. And Aelioane, the timid healer, haplessly
prone to being attacked by everything under the sun, from gods to men
(Ael made it fun). And Genghis, the brazen leader of the trollish
horde, who would eventually kick my character from his clan in a round
of racial purification. And Shosuro, who ironically served as the
horseman 'Pestilence' (despite being female) for the nightmare king.
And Albach, the nightmare king, who my character would eventually
swear fealty to and spread the word of strife and treachery as the
horseman 'Famine'. Those were fun days.
Needless to say, in the 9 years since '97, Xaos has grown. There are
automatic maps to help navigation while outside of the cities, there
are probably 20 more racial starting locations, maybe 8 more classes,
more new areas than I could count. Oh, and in the meantime I've
become an imm myself, and built areas, run quests, and before too much
longer I'll have started out a new race. Off the top of my head, my
favorite parts of the code of Xaos would probably have to be:
shapechanging spells, creating illusions, combat attacks (like chain
lightning) that take skill to use right, mirror image (which makes a
duplicate of its caster), raising undead, the arachnia clockwork
race... and my favorite history/roleplaying of Xaos would be: the
playing out the role of a horseman of the nightmare king, the attacks
of crystalline beings (called Slaraecian) from another plane, dealing
with the politics of the leadership of the mages' tritower, the
skirmishes and attacks of the trollish horde, laying plans with allies
to advance the purpose of my clan... In time between starting out on
Xaos and now I have checked out a lot of other muds. None of them
stuck, with the exception of the another cpuple of muds (one with its
beautifully executed humor and tie in to one of my favorite author's
worlds) and one an extremely roleplaying-intense mud). Unfortunately,
one of those died, and as for the other, while I still play it from time
to time for the amusement at the concepts, I find the code of the
place is often excessively complicated. 8 directions, 555555 channels,
players yelling ooc things like '+7 stat ring for 15 crowns and 7
brass!', mobs that look like pcs, they're all things that I can do
without. Xaos' code is pretty straightforward and pure, straight from
the hand of the same coder for the past 9 years. That's not to say
that there isn't complexity in the game, there is, in its areas,
mobs, objects, classes, races, and players. Not in its communication,
or movement, or looking around, or getting objects. 'cause in the end
that's not what I'm looking for. For me, what's important is
interacting with other players, and getting good roleplaying of one
kind or another with them, and that's where Xaos really shines.
Isn't that what's important to you?
