Review Submitted By: Alexander Wooflesnout
Author Status: Player
Started on Harshlands:
Submission Date: Aug 19, 2010
TMC Listing: Harshlands
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Alexander Wooflesnout]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Oh, Harshlands. I believe this is the only MUD I've ever played
where a cleric can go to battle in full plate mail armor, retain the
ability to cast his spells/'rituals' while wearing the plate mail &
sneak (literally, sneak) through the forest. You can also, if you play
your cards right 1) be a sergeant in the Crimson Leopards (protectors
of the lands around the city of Tashal) 2) be a Sergeant in the Iron
Lions (a mercenary run caravanning company) 3) be a priest of your
religion 4) be a full time farmer and 5) use your Crimson Leopard
'patrol' time to hunt for and skin animals which you then give to
your PC wife to create her leather goods with. You can do all of that
friends, while being a Guilded Master Bard!
That brings me to the part where you can also be a Guilded Master and
never craft anything at all once making it to that point. You will not
get punished by the Mangai (the ruling party of the Guilds).
The game has potential. The world that this MUD is based on his rich
with details and would be really lovely and fun to play, where
executed properly, but the amount of favoritism and lack of ethics on
the part of the Immortal staff makes it slightly less desirable.
Pros: The basic world is nice. The concept is very neat. The crafting
system is fun when you're bored and want to 'create' things. The
Immortal/Admin staff rarely gets involved in any sort of lengthy or
detailed RP scenarios, and routinely let them fade off in the middle.
It's RPI.
Cons: It's an RPI where hardly anyone really Roleplays. Or, at
least, I don't consider a bunch of 'says' as roleplay. A great many
of the immortal staff are not able to speak in proper English, (which
would not be a problem if the majority of the players were not English
speakers). You can literally tell which Immortal is helping you by the
number of 'your/you're' 'there/their' errors there are.
Also, the amount of mud...snuggling? is excessive. If you're not
willing to pair off and do the horizontal mudsnuggling with someone,
you're often alone in a tavern for a long time waiting for what is
considered, there, RP. Granted, the lack of decent RP might be due to
the high restrictive emote system, which is another con.
There's also only about three areas to play in - two of which have a
very, very, very limited playerbase. Even the 'active' area, Tashal,
only has around 10 people on at any given time.
The game is perma-death, so if you dare to explore outside of the
city and are not prepared (or able) to fight, you could easily lose
your character. There's no leniency for newbies, either.
Something I consider a huge con is the hypocrisy prevalent in the
administration. There is a strict no-OOC policy and the staff gets
very antsy if they discover you've done things in any way OOCly.
That, I think, is fair - considering. However, they will quite happily
punish players ICly for things that the player has supposedly done
OOCly, including refusing to award RPP to sets of players who actually
do Roleplay, participate in the world, and try very hard to enrich the
game.
Obviously, this all should be taken with a grain of salt. My opinion
of the quality of RP is obviously just that, an opinion, and you
should check it out to determine whether you like the type and style
and amount yourself. The world could be wonderful. The cons, for me,
make it not worth the hassle of playing.
