TMC Player Reviews: Dark Isles

Review Submitted By: Kameo
Author Status: Player
Started on Dark Isles: November 08
Submission Date: Jan 31, 2009
TMC Listing: Dark Isles

The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Kameo] and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.

I have been playing on Dark Isles for about 3 months now. I have
to say, I find it the most intricately designed, well planned, highly
addictive roleplay mud I have ever had the pleasure of being a part.


There is a bit of a learning curve at first, as the code is loosely
based in circle, but has evolved highly to become something utterly
new. The staff are very friendly, helpful and very patient with new
players. The pbase itself is much the same, and eager to interact with
anyone willing to roleplay a good story. Characters here can be
anything they want, as it is a classless, level-less system. If you 
want to be a tailor, and own a shop, and be a peace loving citizen, 
then do it. If you prefer to be a hands on, weapon wielding bad guy, 
you can do that too. There is also an interesting, original variety 
of races to play and so the choices are almost endless here on Dark 
Isles.

As I said, there is a bit of a learning curve as your experience is
not based on killing mobs like in other games, but instead, based on
emotes, your location, adding thinks (a very interesting add-on) and
how many people are with you at the time. You can gain in power and
skill very quickly if you dedicate yourself to the roleplay or you
can take it slow and stretch your wings at your own pace, its entirely
up to you.

I highly recommend this MUD to anyone who considers themselves a true
rper, because you will not find another game like it anywhere on the
web.

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Comment Submitted By: Kameo
Author Status: Player
Started on Dark Isles: Oct 2008
Submission Date: Sep 20, 2010

(The following review comment is the opinion of the comment's author [Kameo] and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff).

Well, I played on DI for while...nearly two years actually. In that
time I had many wonderful rp adventures and made some good friends
(and met my husband!). However, the game has changed ALOT since my
last review, and I would like to add to it at this point.

The game world, now seems to resemble a militant state as opposed to
an enjoyable, addictive game. Everything, and I literally DO mean
everything, is now ICly taxed. You pay for permits to hunt, or gather,
or travel, permits to exist in game at all (if you were not born
human), permits for shops, permits for weapons, permit to import,
permits to carry certain types of materials, permits to well, you get
the idea. And each one is quarterly renewable and entirely too
expensive. While I congratulate staff on their efforts to make this a
'real' and dynamic world, I am left wondering when is 'just like
real life' too real? I spend all day working, worrying about making a
living, paying my taxes, paying my rent, fixing my truck, do I really
need to spend all my game time doing the same?

Forced RP is another reoccurring problem in Dark Isles. Staff will
decide they need a bad guy, a scapegoat, someone to stir things up and
bang. Your meek little character is suddenly a demon who cannot show
their face because they are hated, hunted and killed on sight and your
RP?? Well, its done. Bad guys are not likely to live on Dark Isles.
The game is designed to make being a bad guy extremely difficult and
short lived. I have seen characters tossed into jail cells for real
life MONTHS, for something they did not do, meaning, the player got
screwed just like the character did, and nothing was done. I have seen
countless bad guys brought down simply by staff having the upper hand,
and knowing where to find said bad guy at any time they pleased. I
gave up trying to be a bad guy after six months because you just end
up with the short end of the stick.

Next, about staff. There is one staffer, TL, you know who you are,
who works tirelessly to make the game a better place in a thankless
position of authority and I tip my hat to her. Its a shame she was not
recognized and promoted far sooner than she was because she might have
been able to turn the game in a different direction. But now she is
left to work with the mess she was given, and I wish her all the best
trying to make it work.

As for the rest of the staff...*sigh* there are power junkies and
egomaniacs as there is on most muds. I for one, am sad that they were
allowed to drive off good players in droves because of their
unfortunate behavior. A great deal of solid rper's have been lost
because of childish power mongering.

Another small, albeit frustrating trend is some of these staff
members handing out 'powered' characters to whomever they fancy this
week. As a player, you work your butt off, rping, and interacting and
building your skills over YEARS, just to watch as a newbie is given a
character twice as strong as yours, simply because they happened to be
buddies with a staffer. *sigh* I simply have nothing nice to say about
this, so I will stop there.

Anyway, I had fun in the beginning, I truly did, but as time wore on
most of the staff slowly picked away the fun and left nothing but
frustration and disappointment in their wake.

I wish TL all the best in trying to restore DI to the entertaining
place it used to be.

(Marduk aside..Marduk rulz)....