Review Submitted By: John
Author Status: Player
Started on The Last Outpost: 1992
Submission Date: Dec 1, 2010
TMC Listing: The Last Outpost
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [John]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
The Last Outpost used to have three immortals, though there seems to
have been only one for the last decade or so. That one tends to be
active for short periods and then disappear for months at a time.
When he does show up, he seems to spend more time harassing players
than making the game more enjoyable. His lack of dependability has
worsened to the point where he completely took the game down for
a year. At this time he also wiped the player file, which he seems
to do from time to time for no real benefit to the game.
The game world is not very large and, unlike stated in the
description here, is not completely original. I've seen at least two
of the zones also installed on other muds.
There are several other false statements in the description here:
Player killing is not restricted. There is no player killing, period.
I would hardly describe it as having an extended race or class
selection. There are 6 races and 4 classes.
It is definitely not newbie friendly. Groups are extremely rare, and
even more rarely include newbies. This is largely due to there
generally being 0-4 players connected at any given time.
There is no level based equipment system. There are only
restrictions based on alignment and class.
The lack of a player base can obviously be attributed somewhat to the
dated code and small world, but the main problem is the
administration. He encourages people to write new zones, and then
after they spend large amounts of time writing and submitting them he
doesn't even respond. I don't mean they just don't get used. He
goes for years ignoring inquiries from the authors about the status.
Eventually these people give up and go somewhere else. He is also
very biased and inconsistent in his enforcement of rule violations.
We've had a player completely abusing the no-botting rule and getting
exp while afk for months on end. Nothing was done to that player.
The game was changed instead. Meanwhile, a different player that
didn't even have any triggers has been stripped of all his equipment
for botting. We've had a player ignore the 'no foul language on
public channels' rule, to the point of gossiping obscenities and
racial slurs (the 'N' word, etc) at others, yet nothing was done to
that player. Yet we've had a character completely purged because a
higher level character was helping him level. Not only
is 'pleveling' not against any rule, but this activity was a regular
part of the game for years before and continues to be a regular part
of the game to this day. The only difference was that the immortal
that did the purging didn't like the player.
There is a subjective tone to this, which I find unavoidable in
describing the game from a player's perspective. However, everything
I've written here is factual.
