TMC Player Reviews: Alter Aeon

Review Submitted By: Umbra ~ was my player name in this mud
Author Status: Player
Started on Alter Aeon: A little over a month ago
Submission Date: Aug 9, 2012
TMC Listing: Alter Aeon

The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Umbra ~ was my player name in this mud] and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.

Alter Aeon is a very well coded mud. The character development offers
a great deal of balance while still affording for some uniqueness of
character. The quests even have some great story lines to them and
blend into new areas very well.

I was greatly impressed with the number of blind players you find in
this mud. Myself being sighted I can't say myself how well coded it
is for the blind to be able to enjoy the mud but all the feedback from
blind players I received while playing was quite high.

Problem: It's really sad that an incredibly well coded and map
developed mud tends to have over inflated ego's in it's staff. A
problem I know I'm by far not the first to encounter in the realm of
mudders. Generally I find that it is possible to address abuses of
staff power with the muds owner. However, it was made quite clear to
me by Dentin that not only was he not even going to discuss what had
taken place but that he was only going to further the insult by
immediately saying that I must have done something stupid. In short I
disagreed with Lokar and for doing so he said I must either be stupid
or a liar in regards to some mechanics of the mud. I suppose it could
be considered stupid of me to think that if staff can speak that way
to me that I could speak a little more freely with them. I asked 'Do
you still need your mommy to hold your hand when you go to the
bathroom?' and for that I was punished by Lokar and told by Dentin
via mudmail later, without having even discussed it with me or even
knowing the facts of the situation (He frankly stated 'I have no idea
what you are talking about') immediately said I must have done
something stupid.

So the long and the short is simply mechanically it's a great mud,
but don't disagree with any of the staff if you don't want to get
insulted repeatedly and certainly don't try to use humor with them to
defuse the situation.

PLAY AT YOUR OWN RISK

Submit Comments About this Review

Comment Submitted By: Dentin
Author Status: Staff member
Started on Alter Aeon: 17 years ago
Submission Date: Aug 17, 2012

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

The power abuse described above is based entirely on one incident:
Umbra's character was banned from the gossip channel, one of the
general purpose player created channels, of which there are currently
112 in active use.  The moderation policy for this channel is in the
disclaimer, and is as follows:

-----
- don't spam
- don't troll
- don't flame
- don't use color overrides or channel color aliases
- limit profanity
- limit blatantly sexual content
- don't piss off avatars
- don't be mean

Note that this channel is not a public channel.  It is a private
channel owned personally by Dentin and is moderated by his
avatars.  You have no right to use this channel and can be
banned for any of the above, as well as a host of other reasons.

If you feel you have been banned in error, please send a note to
Dentin explaining the situation.
-----

The note I received was far from explanatory, and from what little I
could figure out he had been banned with the comment 'trolling,
forever'.  I sent Lokar an offline query, then I responded to Umbra with:

-----
I have no idea what you're talking about, but you must have done
something pretty stupid to get banned from gossip the way you did.
I'm not undoing it
-----

When I got a response back from Lokar, he said he'd undo the ban and
take care of it.

As much as I can appreciate abuse of power complaints, a single ban
on one private channel with a clear and obvious disclaimer about lack
of rights does not power abuse make.  If anything, this is simply a
complaint about Lokar.  Umbra's characters remain available and
unencumbered should he decide to log them in again.

-dentin