TMC Player Reviews: Awakened Worlds

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

To begin, i'm quite apt to agree with the opinion of AW's codebase
being highly developed and holding a fairly high level of
sophistication, as the MUD itself and its source code has been
constantly added to and actively improved over the years. But, of
course i'm going to agree with this, that much is obvious.

As far as the immortal ranks being full of 'Oldbies' as the term
has been applied, three of the five current immortals (The owner, Che,
Dunkelzahn, and Maestra) have quite literally been around since to the
beginnings of the game itself. And as far as hiring on staff members
from characters who -haven't- played the game for any extended period
of time seems, frankly, counter-intuitive. Common sense can easily be
applied that you would want to draw from a pool that consists of those
who have quite a lot of experience and familiarity with the codebase
they plan to work with.

That of course, would leave the two others, who are indeed some of
the oldest active players in the game. Though what I find laughable is
the fact that one of these immortal's characters has absolutely none
of the 'preferential treatments' listed in this farce of a review.
His mortal does not have any skills above the current coded global
skill maximums, nor does he have a bank account of any comparable size
(hordes of newer players have him beat, hands down). Whatever he has
gained, he has gained through countless months and months of playtime,
and there are plenty more players who have done just the same.

That, of course, would leave one of the immortal's characters left,
and that would be my mortal in specific, who is blatantly being
targeted by the aforementioned party's review. Since I have been a
part of several reviews, I feel it somewhat necessary to explain the
situation, especially since facts have been skewed. Some of my mortals
do indeed have skill ratings above the current coded maximum (key
word, current, the cap was lowered several years ago.) So as far as
that is concerned, my only crime is having played the same characters
for 7+ years, and perhaps being a bit of a nerd, but I somewhat doubt
either of these are the holy grail of 'ZOMG, cheater!' painted all
over them.

Some of my mortals also have obtained quite a bit of wealth over the
years, but as I just pointed out, that would be because I have been
constantly advancing and obtaining said wealth over a period of 7+
years. Having said that, it also follows reason that they would gather
a bit of influence IC'ly in all of those years, but I fail to see how
that is either a bad thing, nor 'rule-breaking' by any means. Even
if players don't know me, most know my name, it's due to the fact I
have been around for so long. As far as my OOC influence goes, I have
practically none, and frankly, most people probably think i'm a bit
of a (insert your favorite slur). I don't deny that of course,
because chances are it's true.

One person amongst the five staff members is an 'oldbie', as the
term has been coined. But, last I checked, 1 out of 5 doesn't make a
majority, in fact, i'm pretty sure that would be considered the exact
opposite. As long as you actually make your basis and assumptions in a
little something I like to call reality.

Regarding rulebreaking among olbies being common, etc...
This is an outright falsehood. So much so that it would be laughable
if it weren't for the fact that spreading these types of rumors is
detrimental to the MUD as a whole, and could possibly drive away new
players from trying their hand at the game. Currying favor OOCly and
allowing 'friends' to cheat...? Utterly ridiculous.

So in closing, I would like to state to all players who are looking
for a Shadowrun MUD or just a nice MUD in general to play: Feel free
to try our game out for yourselves, and draw your own conclusions.
Even if you don't wind up calling the MUD home, you'll quickly see
for yourselves that the person who wrote this review has a chip on
their shoulder, and has obviously shown a venomous bias due to it.

Sincerely, Yo-Yo-Yoji.

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

The review actually hits things pretty well on the mark, despite the
counter-allegations made by the staff member below.  Where he refers
to active staff members, he mentions Che, who takes a hands-off
approach, only making code adjustments every few years, and mostly not
getting involved in the MUD, and thus hardly counts as active.  He
refers to Maestra, a woman he's held an IC and OOC relationship with
for the past decade (which is how he got his job), who is mostly
inactive, and more or less put him in charge... and for the record,
she hasn't been there since the beginning.  She's part of his IC
clique of oldbies, the first one of them to become an imm, and for all
intents and purposes in charge, except when she's not active (90% of
the time) which is when Yoji runs things.  There's Yojimbo, the guy
below who tried to argue against this review.  He possesses skills in
excess of caps, an enormous bank account, and a few extremely broken
characters.  In his role as immortal he's done a great deal to make it
more difficult to obtain money, thus attempting to prevent other
players from reaching the level of his own.  He's notorious for
cheating, abusing other players and exploiting everything possible. 
For years the owner swore that this was the one person who would never
be an immortal.  Then he made him one.  And half of the staff was so
outraged they quit.  One of the first things he did after taking
charge was scamming the records on Playergroup HQs so that the owner
was his friend, instead of one of the ACTUAL two owners, so that while
they were inactive, he could buy it and destroy it with his own
character.  There's Dunkelzahn who... doesn't count.  He hasn't been
active for nearly a decade, save for logging on once every few years. 
There's Xeriphius, a horrifyingly aggressive bully.  His character
doesn't possess skills higher than the caps, sure, but is still one of
the most broken characters in the game.  He's caused over a dozen
players to quit with his bullying, both OOCly and ICly (he doesn't
separate the two).  He basically acts as Yojimbo's enforcer.  The
newest imm to the club is a longtime member of Maestra and Yojimbo's
clique.  He possesses a great deal of money, and several skills higher
than the cap.  He's actually an okay guy, if his friends weren't such
malicious bullies.  That, and he's mostly been idling for more or less the past eight years straight.