Review Submitted By: Masamune
Author Status: Player
Started on Dark-Legacy MUD (Dark Legacy MUD): 5-7 years ago
Submission Date: Jul 2, 2010
TMC Listing: Dark-Legacy MUD (Dark Legacy MUD)
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Masamune]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
I imagine that it is fairly common for reviewers to say that their
mud stands out of the crowd, and I don't plan on deviating from that.
In my opinion, Dark Legacy has always stood out as a truly unique mud
among the many that I have played over the years because of creative
features such as star signs, ancestries, its crafting system, and
spell system. The player base gradually dropped over the years, but
the people that remain are quite friendly and the mud is still
actively changing due to the hard work of its coder.
When I first began playing Dark Legacy I was given the choice to play
as one of several races with humans being given the adding option of
choosing one of several star signs that would add various benefits to
the character. Since then several patches have been implemented that
have introduced other options such as ancestries and opened up star
signs to every race. This gives the player a vast number of
combinations to choose from when they first create their character. An
example of one combination could be a desert troll with the void star
sign (immune to magic) and lycanthrope ancestry (added resistances) to
create a strong melee character. The ancestry's name also changes as
the character levels (a gold dragon pixie would first be called a
draconic pixie and later a half-dragon pixie).
The player starts off as one class (warrior, rogue, cleric, mage,
bard, paladin, psionicist, or ranger), but once they reach level 50
they are allowed to start over with another class as well as their
original. After reaching level 50 with three classes they become an
epic character with their own unique class name that is assigned based
on the combination of classes they chose. A level 50/50/50 character
whose classes are a combination of warrior, mage, and cleric would
become an Arcane Templar. Epic characters are then allowed to level to
their hearts content; gaining bonuses such as regeneration or
additional stats as they reach higher levels. Upon reaching epic
status the player is also given their own plane of existence (though
this is currently disabled as the mud is undergoing changes).
The spell system is also unique to Dark Legacy. Rather than requiring
the player to obtain a certain level before learning a spell, the
player gains a certain number of complexity points in different spell
categories such as body for healing spells or physical for attack
spells. The amount of complexity you have is based off of factors such
as the amount of intelligence you have and the race, star sign, and
ancestry you chose. Each spell casting class has a primary and two
secondary complexity categories such as physical, basic, and
enchanting for mages and body, defensive, and sensory for clerics.
Runes can also be added to spells to make them more efficient or to
change their properties (adding elemental damage).
Crafting has greatly changed over the years. It has evolved from
simply gathering materials, processing them, attempting to make the
item, and then enchanting the finished product to learning specific
processing skills, buying the craft skill, gathering the materials,
and gaining crafting levels as you perfect your skill. As you gain
levels you learn new recipes for crafting your item. The quality of
your crafted item is mostly affected by your luck and obtaining a true
masterpiece can take quite a long time. Besides quality, the materials
that you use to make the item also heavily affects how useful it will
be. You can now also add upgrades such as decorative plating to change
appearance of your item.
Enchanting (adding affects such as sanctuary, mobility, or hp to your
item) involves finding baboos. Baboos are special items that you find
in randomly spawned chests from mobs you kill. They vary in level
depending on the level of the player with the best baboos logically
being found by higher levelled players. Once a baboo is found and the
player wishes to use it they must charge it by paying gold and glory.
Glory can be obtained by levelling up and through completing a wide
variety of achievements (anything from killed 100 humanoids to
travelling 50 miles to fishing). Once charged the baboos can then be
enchanted onto the item. Weapons can also be further enhanced if they
have sockets through rune words. Rune words are created by combining
specific runes in a certain order in a weapon that has sockets. They
can do such things as causing the weapon to return to you after you
throw it, to draining mana from an opponent, and a myriad of other
things.
The social aspects of the game include grouping, player run guilds,
families, auctioning, the mailing system, and games. Grouping in Dark
Legacy is a unique experience because of roles. Roles vary between
classes and affect your chances of being hit by a mob. Fighting
classes such as the warrior have the role frontline defender which
will cause them to automatically try to shield any physical blows that
are directed at a player in the party. Spell casting classes such as
the cleric will have the support role which causes them to be least
likely to be hit. A guild can be formed by any player that is rich
enough to afford the price of one (though gather gold has been easy
with the introduction of treasure that can be found in randomly
spawned chests). These organizations have various goals and members
are organized into a hierarchy that is created by the guild leader. A
family can be created between any three players (marriage is
optional). The two parents and child sign a form and the child
inherits their last name. A new auctioning system has been introduced
in which players are allowed to place an item at the auction for a
certain amount of time with a minimal bid and buy out price. Players
are able to send letters to one another through the use of the post
office by writing a letter, buying an envelope, seal, and postage, and
then mailing it. Players are also given the chance to interact in
games such as freeze tag and hazard hamster as well. These games are
automatically created every so often.
Fighting is in Dark Legacy involves the use of spells,the jab,
thrust, and lunge command, skills, and balance. Jabs are the fastest
and weakest of the three and they also consume the least amount of
balance. Thrusts are balanced in damage, speed, and balance
consumption. Lunges are the most powerful normal physical attack but
they are also the slowest and use the most balance. Fighting classes
also learn skills such as spin (enables the player to attack more than
one enemy at once) or multi-strike (allows up to four hits at once)
that add to the fighting experience. Dual wielding and weapon
specialties (differs between classes) will also affect the speed at
which you attack.
Pets are a very important asset to your leveling experience. They
are obtained in egg form from random chests (tattered objects) after
killing a mob or from treasures in epic leveling areas. The type of
egg determines the type of pet you will get while the value determines
the specific pet that will hatch from it. For example a splotched
yellow egg will result in some kind of primate and one that has a 1600
value will result in a chimpanzee. These pets have a random pedigree
that can be enhanced by hatching them with an incubator. The pedigree
of the pet determines how good its starting values are. Pets can also
wear collars and barding that will increase a variety of things
depending on what was enchanted on them. What makes pets so useful are
their attacks and tricks. Each grouping of pets (egg type) has their
own set of tricks (with the higher valued pets generally having better
unique ones) such as stone throwing for primates or canines being able
to bite. Tricks are learned through the use of pet toys. These tricks
can add an extra attack to your pet or magical effects that allow them
to heal the player, restore their mana, speak or teleport to them.
Tricks are divided into two categories, normal and magical. Each pet
has a different certain amount of tricks they can learn, though they
can learn more once they reach specific epic levels.
I realize that this is a crappy abrupt way to end a not so well
written review, but in all honesty I'm becoming weary of sitting here
trying to think of all of the many things that makes Dark Legacy an
outstanding mud when compared with a large portion of those that are
out there. There are sure to be friendly players online that would be
glad to answer any questions you may have so if you're up to playing
one of the most original muds out there (feature wise in any case; a
lot of the areas are stock) come and give Dark Legacy a shot. I'm
sure you won't regret it.
