Review Submitted By: Sofia
Author Status: Player
Started on The Inquisition: Atonement: 1/08 return, initially 02
Submission Date: Jun 17, 2008
TMC Listing: The Inquisition: Atonement
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Sofia]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I am an old player of the Inquisition who has returned to it again in
the last few months to find that it is still the MUD I used to love in
all of the most important ways. This is the best MUD I have ever
played, and in my opinion, it is almost the ideal location for good
solid RP. I would strongly recommend it to anyone who is looking for a
place to RP. If RP is not your primary concern and you would rather
kill mobs or powerlevel, this is not the place for you.
The Roleplay:
Roleplay is the center of The Inquisition, and
everything about the design of the game works to encourage it. The
game world (Urth) is incredibly detailed with a well fleshed out
history and theme. The main theme of the game (the church versus
magic) is incredibly versatile and offers many facets to the game:
fear, power, trust, the objectivity of truth. Around this central
theme, the game world is equipped with tons of other ideas and
conflicts just waiting to be used to create great roleplay. The
Inquisition offers sooo much in the way of a dynamic, realistic world
into which to drop your characters.
Additionally, what you can roleplay is limited only to what you can
come up with. So long as it fits into game world, you can do
absolutely anything you want. There are the guilds to represent the
organized bodies and this is considered the standard way to go, but it
is only the beginning. There is also support to get money from normal
jobs throughout the city (like managing an inn or running one of the
mobshops), and you can also initiate a profession on your own (For
example, one of my characters is a fashion designer.) Furthermore,
there is no reason why you have to do anything of this sort. If you
don't think your character needs a job, you can RP it that way. There
are some character concepts which are not just open to everyone
(nobles for example), but these can be applied for and are played
characters just like everything else. On the whole, though, your
imagination is the limit.
One of my favorite things about the Inquisition is that players have
a very real affect on it. Guild officials, nobility, and others of
power are all played characters, and the direction the game world goes
is directed by anyone who wants to put the time into doing so. This
does not mean you can achieve any result you want to, as there will be
others who are working against you, but your actions can and do
influence the results. Players can get real power in this game, in
addition to being the common folk. (It's perfectly acceptable to
stick to being common folk too, if that's more your cup of tea.)
However, something to keep in mind is that roleplay has consequences.
If you want to play a mage, that's great! But mages are killed if
they are found out. This is something that you have to know going into
it. If you are going to roleplay, things happen, and sometimes things
will go as you want them to, and sometimes they won't, even to
'good' characters. In those cases where things don't go well and
your character ends up dead or shamed or whatever other unfavorable
result, you just have to accept it. That's part of playing here: you
do not have full control over what happens to your characters, you
only have control over what your character does. That said, things
will rarely happen for no reason, and if your character does get
killed, it is your right to get RP out of it! It won't happen without
RP to back it up. In general, the best way to go about things is to
enjoy the RP along the way and accept the results of what happens. If
you do not think you can handle this, the Inquisition may not be the
best place for you.
That said, your roleplay is dependent on you. Roleplay can sometimes
be lackluster comments about the weather, but if you provide actual
plot, people always seem to be glad to jump into it. It can sometimes
be hard to get into an established plot, but if you give other players
the way for it to make sense through your RP, they are generally glad
to welcome you into it. All in all, your RP is as good as you make it.
You cannot count on anyone else to take the initiative to dump good RP
into your lap (this is not the job of the imms here even), but if you
take the initiative to create RP, people will be glad to join you in
it.
The Players:
Part of why the Inquisition is great is its playerbase.
On the whole, everyone is great RPers and very mature and friendly. I
have rarely had problems with another player and all of the conflicts
that my character has are kept in character, and I can still chat
merrily OOC with the person who plays the given character. There is a
strong sense of the separation of IC and OOC, and everyone is very
welcoming OOCly even if their characters are not.
The main problem with the playerbase is that it is not large enough!
Some days there are twenty people on at peak hours, and other days
there are only two or three. This varies a lot from week to week and
does not seem to be predictable. More people to RP with will really
help the game as everything is entirely player driven and there is not
much to do when there is no one to play with. Having more active
players is really the thing that the game needs the most. The amount
of people that are around is usually enough to support the game world,
but sometimes it takes longer to get things done than would be
preferred due to a lack of the players in the positions you need.
The Code:
The code at the Inquisition is very high quality and it is
designed with one goal in mind: to support the roleplay. It is very
flexible, allowing you to personalize things as much as possible
wherever you want to. Your description is written by you. You can
write the strings for your own clothes and any other items you might
create. Combat is run through an emote-like system which parses for
attempted attacks and adds skill checks to see what damage is done.
The code requires roleplay through awarding experience for time spent
interacting with other characters, and provides other support for
roleplay as well: you can up skills using inspiration which you gain
in roleplay without having to tediously work at it (though this is
still an option) and commands such as whererp help you to find
roleplay.
The Inquisition contains many unique systems and new things are
constantly being worked at and added. Major bugs are infrequent and
are quickly fixed. The depth and the uniqueness to the code can be a
bit overwhelming to new players, but there are a lot of helpfiles
available documenting almost everything, and they are searchable to
find what you are looking for.
The Staff:
I love the staff at the Inquisition. They are friendly and
open and they genuinely care about the game and the players. I have
not always agreed with everything they have decided, but I have never
felt like they did not fairly consider everything I brought to them.
That said, the immortals are still human and expecting perfection is
unrealistic. People have had issues with them before, but I think this
will happen anywhere and is not a particularly bad problem here. As
always, the people who do have problems will always be the loudest,
and the more they care about the game the louder they will be.
However, I will also mention that the game has recently undergone a
change in management, and I believe we have another great head
immortal in Qharos, who has been with the Inquisition for a long time,
and that we should expect to see a lot of great things from the game
in the near future with the envigoration of new leadership.
New Players:
The reason I write this review is a desire to see more
new players. If you are a good roleplayer looking for a place for some
serious RP, we would love to have you! The code and lore can be a bit
daunting to start with: just start with the general premise of the
lore and fill in the gaps as you need to and you will get the hang of
it. If you need help, ask questions! Use the visnet channel which is
there specifically for this purpose or send a tell to anyone
(particularly those with immortal or citizen tags who are there to
help you!) and you should get whatever help you need with getting
things figured out. Start with something innocuous and you can always
create your great conflict- driven character later (player accounts
allow you to use the xp from the character you use to get a foothold
on your later characters too - the effort is not wasted!).
It can also be a little difficult to break into good RP. Come with a
good idea that provides something for people to talk with you about
besides the weather and they will be glad to do so. Given time, you
will find yourself in the thick of the RP (especially if you work to
make it that way!) but in the meantime, feel free to take a little
initiative. As I mentioned earlier, roleplay isn't going to be dumped
into your lap. And don't feel intimidated about going to locations
listed on whererp. If it's some place that it makes sense for your
character to go, go play with them. If you can't find anyone to RP
with, it's possibly just bad luck on the number of people on on the
day you show up. As I said, the number of people online varies a lot
from week to week (not just between prime hours and not), so try again
soon and perhaps it will be better.
I hope you choose to drop by and give the Inquisition a try. It is a
great MUD that could benefit from your playing it!
