TMC Player Reviews: Raze the Dead

Review Submitted By: Jodah
Author Status: Player
Started on Raze the Dead: 2011
Submission Date: Jul 8, 2012
TMC Listing: Raze the Dead

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

Stay away. Stay far away. There are muds worthy of your time, and
then there's Raze the Dead. Let me begin my review by saying that I 
love the zombie genre. I love playing zombie games and I read the 
zombie books. I thought a mud would be a perfect way to simulate a
zombie world, so I logged in to Raze the Dead with the greatest of 
hopes. And it started out pretty well. 

A new player enters the game in a saferoom with an ascii map giving 
you the shape of the area. That's pretty much the entire game, an 
overhead ascii map, no room descs. Well that's pretty neat and all, 
but don't I get any other indication or description of the area? 
Nope. Even the room titles are short and to the point 'On a path' 
'In a barn' 'On a beach', no adjectives here. Nothing to give my 
mind an image of the area I'm in. Ok, well I can deal with that if 
the gameplay is fun. Usually if a mud skimps in one area, they will
excel in another because that is where they focused their work. I 
proceed to get my newbie equipment from the crate, you get a small 
weapon, a shirt, and maybe a jacket if I remember correctly. 
Alright, so where are the zombies to bash, I'm ready to go. I have 
my equipment, my skills trained, and attributes maxed out as much as 
I can. I've read all of the forums and website info, which is very 
very little. Nevertheless, I'm about as prepared as a newbie can 
be. So I venture out into the world, starting in the recommended 
'newbie' area, area alpha. 

So I enter the transport and proceed to enter the area overrun with 
zombies. SPPLLAAAT. Sorry, you are dead, back to the saferoom. 
Well geez, that was fast and incredibly hard for a newbie area. So I
wander back to the area with newbie equipment in hand, this time 
prepared to type combat commands faster as to get the upperhand. I
survey the area and notice a zombie north of me. Ready for the kill,
I create some aliases and attack as I never attacked before. Wow, 
he's getting a lot of headshots on me. In fact, he's only hitting my
head. Do I have any other body parts? SPLAAAAAAT, dead, back to the
saferoom. So I go back a few more times, only to have neighboring 
zombies help out the zombie I'm attacking, as if he's calling the 
hoard in his behalf. This would have been a pretty neat mechanic, 
if I had even a small chance of beating one zombie, which I don't. 

At this point I'm thinking maybe I'm not in the 'newbie' zone, so I 
try area beta, gamma, zeta, epsilon, and pretty much the rest of 
them. They are all pretty much the same and result in my death in a 
super fast manner. I pretty much have zero chance of killing any mob 
in the entire game. I think to myself, what in the world am I doing 
wrong? Maybe I'm not meant to fight zombies at this level, maybe I'm 
meant to just to scavenge for equipment. But then why was I given a 
newbie weapon? I test this theory, looking for suitcases to loot and 
more. I find a couple of things and try to fight the zombies, 
usually they find me first. SPLAAAAT. No luck, more near instant 
deaths. 

Again, at this point there is really no incentive to leave the 
saferoom. There is no in-game backstory (only a weak out-of-game 
backstory, aka zombies have taken over) to compel me to leave the 
saferoom, and the thought of instant death gets old pretty fast. So 
having a feel for the game, I go back to the forums looking for info,
only to find no newbie guides, no combat hints, no help. I go back 
to the game asking on the boards pretty simple questions like, 'how 
do I kill a zombie?', only to be responded with 'your an idiot.' Ok, 
so not only does this game have no newbie documentation (only 
unhelpful 'newbie' hints spamming in-game), but it has unhelpful and 
unfriendly players too. Why am I wasting my time again? So I ask 
the owner, Ben, the question of how to engage in successful combat,
only to be replied 'You asking dumb questions does not make people 
want to help you.' Really? That's it? At least give me a clue! 

Now I understand why there are never any players logged in. 
Unfriendly staff, unfriendly players, non-existant documentation, and 
gameplay that is very unfun. Not a good combo for a game claiming to
be live and out-of-beta. Stay away. Stay faaaaar away.