Review Submitted By: Patrick
Author Status: Player
Started on The Land: 1999
Submission Date: Jun 18, 2008
TMC Listing: The Land
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Patrick]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I've been mudding on and off at The Land since its inception in 1999
and I played on its predecessor, KAOS, since 1994.
The Land is very much of the hack-n-slash genre and I would recommend
it to anyone in search of such a venue. The are 200 levels of
experience to attain and there's plenty to do and discover in an
incredibly expansive world that has seen positive growth within the
last six months. The range of challenges is immense and there's at
least one or two zones to provide the right challenge for every
player. The effort required to get to higher levels is hefty, but that
effort is rewarded with challenging mobs that are both exhilirating to
fight and gratifying/profitable to defeat.
A lot of muds have a slightly higher diversity of races, classes,
clans, and guilds so if those feature sets are of *paramount*
importance to you, then The Land might not be the right MUD for you.
But while The Land's feature set isn't quite as impressive as the
ones boasted by some other MUDs, everything included is solidly coded
and works consistently and reliably. Barring any acts of nature, the
MUD runs with good stability. Reboots usually happen every 40-50 days
resulting in about 3 minutes of downtime. It should also be noted that
new races are in development and hopefully will appear by the end of
summer 2008.
The playerbase has sadly dwindled over the years as real life has
intervened for many (in the form of marriages, kids, careers, and even
death in a few sad cases). This is unfortunate as it was the community
that really got me hooked on this MUD at first. Despite some chaos in
the ranks before The Land was formed in 1999, everything has been
stable since, and the player file hasn't been wiped/lost since 1995
(I believe). The worst thing you might experience here from a player
is to be flat out ignored, but no one's going to bully or harass you
without extreme provocation (no one will PKILL you either -- it's
against the rules with a few zone-based exceptions). If you log in
during the day (in the western hemisphere) you'll probably see
players scripting. Scripting is allowed until 4pm EST. I've heard the
term 'scripting mud' used before - I think The Land would probably
fit that description during the daytime. If you're looking to
interact with actual people, nighttime is your best bet.
The staff is comprised of one man (Eric/Dipthong). This is generally
sufficient as most remaining players are seasoned veterans who seldom
require immortal intervention. While I can't speak for Eric's
availability, I can speak to his candor as an immortal insofar as to
say that's he's generally very fair and polite. There are strict
policies against certain kinds of cheating on this mud, but the player
base is well-behaved and infractions worthy of penalty are seen very
seldomly. The downside to having only one immortal is that there are
extremely few quest opportunities and there may be substantial delay
on requests for assistance. As for quests, given the amount of effort
it would require to set up a quest along with the dearth of players
who could commit to any such affair, their absence is unfortunately
understandable.
Experienced and well-behaved players have opportunities to contribute
by creating new zones (there's an application process if you become
interested). A lot of The Land's zones were designed specifically for
and are exclusive to The Land.
The bottom line: The Land is a solid and fun hack and slash mud. It
needs more players, so come check us out today. Just about all of us
are fun and laid back and we welcome newbies with open arms (or we'll
leave you alone if that's what you want). This mud allows you to set
your own pace. No matter what that pace is, however, the adventures
are endless.
