Review Submitted By: Jodans
Author Status: Player
Started on Legends of the Jedi: Last year with a break
Submission Date: Jul 31, 2008
TMC Listing: Legends of the Jedi
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Jodans]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
With LOTJ I played sometime last year, got extremely disinterested
and left. Then a friend who continued to play, asked me to come back
and give it another shot, so I did. I am still quite disappointed with
the MUD. The game does have some decent features, plenty of races,
your good ole Star Wars type classes with some good, thought out and
sometimes downright impressive skills. The game is also quite newbie
friendly, as long as you understand that some things cannot be
answered on the newbie channel if the answer consists of In-Character
information.
It has a couple of quests beyond the 'give this box to (name)', but
not too many (that I have found.) So with all of these grand skills
and decent coding, what is the problem? The players, the RP and the
character limitations that can be encountered. The staff, I have found
to be helpful for the most part, every instance of where I
legitimately used a request for assistance, I was properly assisted.
My number one and primary issue is character development. When I
create a character, I expect to be able to play my character the way
he is meant to be played. If I make an engineer, I expect him to be
able to make and repair stuff. I expect a medic to be able to learn
first aid and cybernetic installations. All of the above works
perfectly well, but for their system for bounty hunters this does not
work so well.
The bounty hunter system works great on paper, but then seems to die
once put into action. You have hunter master, whom new hunters need to
learn their skills from. But first you have to find them, then you
have to hope they teach outside of their OOC groups. I've not
experienced the refusal to teach, I have heard of it, and based on my
experiences, I believe it; I have, however, experienced the inability
to find a teacher.
I play my character as a hunter, I expect him to be able to get the
skills of a hunter, not to have to spend over 4 IRL weeks roaming
around hoping to magically find some teacher and then pretend that he
has no experience whatsoever and needs a master to guide him in things
he has already been doing, but just doesn't have the hard coded
skills to back up.
Most of the RP I see, are arguments. At least once a day the IC
channels seem to flare up with insults, arguments and IC anger. (Mind
you this is in character, not players insulting players). The rest of
the RP seems to happen within clans and organizations behind closed
and locked doors.
There are however, once in a while, major RP events. Like the most
recent was this explosive mold infestation. While I admit, this is a
genius way of stirring things up, the problem was solved within
approximately 72 hours. Players that have been there a while were
instantly solving the problem, while some of us were still trying to
figure out what is going on and how to interact with the whole
situation. I still don't quite understand what RP went on to solve
the problem. Most of it seems to have been done in a personal ship
owned by one corporation, or in the base of another.
The RP on this game is not the type that sucks you in and carries you
away like most real good RP would do. It seems more like the kind you
have to find, force your way into and try not to get shot back out of
it, or killed. Dead is an easy thing to get here, although people do
seem to be a little less perm happy than the last time I was here. My
first character lasted less than 3 hours from creation, all of my
current chars have been alive at least a week.
At the time of this review, I am still playing, still trying to get
somewhere with my characters. However, between the sitting around
wondering where everyone is, and the running my head against the wall
hoping to break through with progress on my character, I wouldn't be
surprised to be finding myself leaving again, this time without coming
back.
In all honesty, it has been a rather negative experience for me, but
I have stuck it out because I do see the potential of this game. I see
that there are staff that want to see it succeed and want the players
to enjoy their time in the game, and deep down I am hoping for changes
of my situation so I can discover the fun and have a place to stay and
enjoy.
All in all, with the pros and cons of the game boiled down, I would
say at least give LOTJ a try. Obviously not everyone has the same
views as I do, otherwise there would not be a Pbase to speak of. There
are staff that truly want to see you enjoying the game and that listen
most of the time if you have something worthwhile to say. There is
still a lot of room for improvement, and realistically I see them at
least trying. Which is more than can be said for most MUDs.
