Review Submitted By: Uwaktho
Author Status: Player
Started on New Worlds: 2009
Submission Date: Dec 27, 2011
TMC Listing: New Worlds
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Uwaktho]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
New Worlds Ateraan is a mixed bag. There really are some parts that
are exceptional, but there are other areas where the mud falls a bit
short. As such it really is a love or hate kind of mud. I know that
sounds cliche.
A quick side note is that NW is especially friendly to Blind players,
more so than any other mud I've ever played.
You'll love the mud for it's expansive player base, even off peak
hours are well populated. Don't be fooled by the game listing of
players online (Which usually reads 120-170 in my experience)
though, because there are several systems in NW that encourage
idling. This is one of the systems that you'll either love or hate.
If you're a lap top user especially, you'll be frustrated by the
fact that certain things can only be done after X number of hours
online. These factors aren't minor either, how much you can hunt for
experience and the majority of moneymaking devices are directly
linked to how much time you spend online. Players with a broadband
connection and a desktop probably won't be bothered at all though. I
may have made this sound worse than it is, but the system has some
definite upsides. Idle players can still be up to date on RP and
events by just scrolling up, and it's convenient to be able to jump
into a conversation fully up to date with the situation when you've
only got five minutes to spare. So even if you expect many of the
players to be idle and/or second characters, there are still a LOT of
people to RP with.
NW does force people to stay in character, and you can customize your
character a LOT. Fully customizable descriptions, clothes and
history are all great aspects of NW. If all this overwhelms you, you
can hire a merchant or trader to do your descriptions for you (many
will do it no charge for first time players). The Admin has given
general outlines of each playable race, background, and guild, but
your character is more or less a blank slate. This is for the most
part great, but it has contributed to the RP being a little out of
control at times. The descriptions for races and guilds you'll find
both on the site and in the game's library tend to be different from
what you'll actually experience. Yet another thing you can love or
hate. Some players enjoy that the guilds are fluid and changing,
others hate that Mages are debating over where magic comes from and
that the 'unscrupulous' traders guild is actually very strict on
ethical business practices.
Another love/hate aspect is NW's simplicity. Personally I love it.
There are some intricate bits in the code, but mostly you can learn
all you need to know to play the mud in a matter of hours, and
thanks to the very newbie friendly environment, you won't have to do
so by reading page after page of help files. You won't find much
complexity in the crafting or spell mechanics or really any of the
day to day stuff. The complexity comes from player to player
interaction. You can master the game mechanics in a matter of days,
but the politics of the game is a matter of years. Don't let that
intimidate you, you don't have to be involved with the various
player run political and religious systems if you don't want to.
With the massive world, plentiful quests, and hundreds of players,
there's ALWAYS something else to do.
As a final note I should mention the game is for players 18 and older
so generally the roleplay is mature (I said generally!)
