Review Submitted By: Drew
Author Status: Player
Started on The Sea of Storms: 2007
Submission Date: Dec 5, 2009
TMC Listing: The Sea of Storms
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Drew]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I would say that this mud has the most potential out of many of the
'Wheel of Time' theme MUDs/MUSHes currently in existence. The main
problem with this MUD is overall lack of accessibility and lack of
freedom with character creation.
A common critique of most Wheel of Time-themed MUDs has to do with
trying to stay true to the limitations and mechanics presented in the
series while maintaining some element of playability. Some MUDs, do
this brilliantly. It is for this reason that particular MUD routinely
boasts 40-80 players a night, while more worthy, attractive and
detailed MUDs, such as Sea of Storms, struggle in obscurity.
There are a great group of players on this MUD, many of whom have
been here for years. The RP is good, the location descriptions are
very well done, and the presentation is extremely polished.
My main critique has to do with the character creation system as it
applies to magic using characters (hereinafter referred to as
'channelers'). Four of the six main characters are channelers and it
is arguably the magic system that sets this series apart from a
multitude of fantasy series that quite frankly use the same concepts,
storylines, plot progression and themes much more ably. Thus a large
portion of the fans play these games to create channelers.
The Sea of Storms character creation system and the implementation of
the progression of channelers seems designed to thwart the desires of
the player and even worse, punish new players for their lack of
familiarity with the MUD - much of the information about which
channeling abilities are available to a character can only be gleaned
after a character has been created since the helpfiles and spell
information system is not accessible during creation, and it is quite
possible to play a character for upwards of hundreds of hours only to
find out that the spells you made many decisions and sacrifices for
are inaccessible due to an invisible gameplay mechanic that can make
your character sub-standard and even worse, not what you wanted at
all.
This has gotten worse recently, in the form of hard-coded changes to
the creation system that extends the range of channeling capabilities
from the very weak to the very strong. While this seems a good thing,
the problem is that the changes now make it impossible to reach the
minimum requirements for the strongest spells, which once again,
required a trade-off in overall capability in the first place, and
worse, directs characters down an avenue with lessened control over
the streets they may want to take. You can literally have an idea
that, like some characters in the series, it is exceptionally hard for
your alter ego to access spells involving fire or earth to the point
of uselessness, and be told by the system that this is impossible.
It is puzzling why a skill-based, level-less MUD would put so much
weight on numbers chosen before you started RPing your character, and
I can only guess that it has to do with the desire to maintain the
theme itself. My only suggestion is that they modify the system so
that, for these characters, capability can be raised within specific
elemental affinities via in-game experience points. It's ironic to
give up eight spells in order to get one that you really want, only to
be told that the help files misrepresented the information and
truthfully to learn this spell let alone cast or be exceptionally good
with it, you need to go back to character creation, readjust an
allocation of points and then go through the process only to be stuck
in a loop where character creation refuses to allow you to meet the
minimum necessary requirements for the spell.
So, it's a great MUD, responsive immortals, likable players and
well-polished execution, but it is not always the most enjoyable,
mostly due to the character creation system for a character archetype.
They need to strike a better balance between staying faithful to the
series and playability, and I think the code base is part of the
problem rather than part of the solution. It's a good niche MUD, but
they may have issues retaining new players due to the fact that the
character creation system weeds out hardcore roleplayers and players
who like having more control of their characters. Perhaps if they made
the system more intuitive and easier to understand they will start
growing and flourish.
