Review Submitted By: RG
Author Status: Player
Started on AVATAR Mud: Jan '09
Submission Date: Jan 3, 2009
TMC Listing: AVATAR Mud
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [RG]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Disclaimer: Account of a brief (~1hr) experience. Apologies ahead of
time if it seems like it's jumping around or otherwise disjointed,
but I'm writing with little sleep.
Perspective: PC gamer (since late 80s/early 90s), MUDder; also
console experience (Intellivision, NES, SNES, Sega Genesis, Gameboy,
DS, PSP, PS3). FPS, FPS-spinoff, RTS and RPG genres preferred.
Pros: Free, populated, playable, responsive (lag-free), bug-free (so
far) and with plenty of character variety. A player dropped by in
the first few seconds of my character's existence to say hi.
ANSI color is not always available in MUDs and can be horrendous to
behold in others, but is decently represented here.
Stats are visible, which can be good or bad depending on your
perspective. Disguised stats (in other MUDs) are prettier to look at,
but can be hard to decipher until you learn what numbers or
percentages they're roughly associated with.
Cons: Character creation was a bit odd. I had to look up race/class
descriptions on the website, since it wouldn't let me access them
while creating.
'Roleplaying encouraged,' but not supported. I'm sure this isn't the
case in other circumstances, but it was immediately apparent with a
'who-list' screenfull of titles just shy of leet-speak. The player
that dropped by to say 'hi' was caught in the awkward situation of
both of us automatically knowing each others' names, but trying to
introduce herself anyway.
Yes, names are immediately known to everyone in a room, which
precludes the use character adjectives (not that I could find the
command anyway). In some MUDs, there's a bit of tension involved if
a grim-faced male dwarf walks in the room. Not so if you've already
met and know him as Baldie the Pacifist Candydwarf. Knowing someone
else's name right away removes the point of introductions the moment
you type 'who' (if their titles are of any indication).
Because the site's helpfiles weren't all the way fleshed out, I
wasn't exactly sure of what racial characteristics my character had.
In-game chat was able to tell me that my race was 'cute' and 'crazy'
but that was it. When I went to their site to ask on the forums, I
found out that I had to level to 15 first (eh...). That would be a
waste of time if it turned out that the particular race looked like
everything I didn't visualize it as. This prevented me from writing
anything more than one generic line in the description box. So if
you're at all ignorant of the lore, you'd better hope there's a good
helpfile somewhere because everyone else knows it and so should
you.
Stats are incomprehensible. Is a 497 on something all that much
different than 503?
Final Thought: I suppose a MUDs either your type or it isn't. Given
some time, I could get into it, but I'd probably end up moving back
to one of the more RP oriented ones (PK-enabled, of course).
