Review Submitted By: Sivan
Author Status: Player
Started on Xyllomer: Around 10 years ago.
Submission Date: Feb 7, 2007
TMC Listing: Xyllomer
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Sivan]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Xyllomer was once a very promising MUD, with a dedicated, responsible
staff and even more importantly, an extremely zealous playerbase. The
code was fresh and engrossing, room descriptions lively - in essence a
book you could immerse yourself (or more likely your character) into
and effect real (more or less) change on that fictional world.
The MUD, though, took a turn for the worse. Other than the normal ebb
and flow of playernumbers, severe administration and code changes in
the MUD forced regular, long-time players to quit. Warrior combat for
example, once one of the more entertaining features of a MUD whose
combat system has never been too involved, became even more stale as a
result of a drastic code upheaval. Now it is nothing but varying
shades of gray, everyone possessing exactly the same abilities with
differing text, and but one useful ability in the whole lot.
Current administration failures are another key factor in what has
become the decay of a good MUD. Where you could complain about the
rampant translation of In-Character problems to Real Life vendettas
(and vice-versa), and general immaturity among some of the remaining
players in Xyllomer, you definitely would not want to hear that when
referring to the administration. But sadly that is the case, with the
current administration regularly acting as if the playerbase were of
no consequence at all, and quickly silencing any with a differing
opinion to theirs. This leads to an even more monotonous MUD than
already existed, with a rapidly diminishing playerbase (I last saw 20
people online counting the staff - and this during 'high player
times').
I've been a faithful follower of this mud for 10 years on and off. In
that time I played but two characters, the more recent one being
Sivan. But due to these 'recent' changes and what could only be called
current, childish administration, I believe my time here is up. It is
frightening to check your total stat-numbers and figure you've wasted
around 260 days on what is now a worthless venture. I simply did not
have any hope left that the situation would finally change for the
better. Shame, though, Xyllomer was once a good MUD.
Player of Sivan
