Below is a review from a players prospective of Sindome, my name is Nicole and I'll be reviewing the game in 'chunks'. This is as close to an unbiased opinion and review I can make please take your time to pass judgement after you've finished reading the entirety of what I've written, thank you.
Sindome began in 1997, almost fifteen years ago by what I assume is a passionate staff working everyday to update, and maintain their game. It's RPi (Roleplay Intensive) which means roleplay is enforced. Randomly killing players for no reason is frowned upon. Fast forward to June 16th 2014, this is when I joined the playerbase as a floundering newbie experiencing her first MUD/MOO. My first hour was wandering around the streets of a terrifyingly large city, until I finally buckled and used an OOC Channel designed for new players to ask questions. The help I received was beneficial. Not just to answering my question, but to growing as a player - mostly with telling me how to figure things out on my own.
Before we go farther down the rabbit hole, let' touch on a few more of the Out of Charater experiences. Starting with the staff: Leading a small army of Game Masters is Johnny, I assume he's responsible for the majority of Sindome, with help of course. These gamemasters, coders, and whatever else they do are clearly ambitious. The game they've made is massive. Not to mention they work around the clock to accommodate all timezones to help enrich player experience, and make interesting plot points. The group keeps a close eye on their world to make everything runs smoothly. I'd like to shoutout to them for their consistent good work. It was uplifting to see.
Now for the MOO itself. Despite being 15 years old, it's still consistently updated, tweaked, and given new content. A lot of their tweaking is based from player feedback (That's me and you.) The world is larger than I anticipated. After my near 3 months of playing, I've barely scratched the surface of this game. The flavor is rich, the game is set in a Dystopian Cyberpunk future, and it's fun. It's dangerous, it's fast, but above all it's exciting. Just wondering around is surprisingly fun. It's rarely the same trip twice. Of course there's much more exciting places to explore, but you'll have to find those yourself.
My favorite system they've made is @nakeds. What this is, simply, is what your character looks like with no clothes on. What this does however, is add custom flavor and depth to your character. Picture someone wearing their Du-Wear Flak Jacket. This would cover their chest, but you'd get to see what their arms are like, hands, neck. It's not easy to explain, but this is one of my *favorite* pieces of the game. It allows the players so much flexibility that despite wearing the same outfit as someone, you're capable of standing out.
Next course is combat, and this is a big dish to go over. Combat in Sindome is simple, fast, visceral, and very deep. It's simple in the way that you initiate combat by simply typing 'attack target' and then bam! You'll hit them with what's in your hand, your fists, your preferred martial art, weapon, and likewise they'll defend themselves with their weapon of choice and then the automated combat system will handle the rest. See, simple! But whilst it's simple there's a depth to it. I'm not the most experienced, but I'll offer what knowledge I've found on the surface. Combat is automated, and things are mostly determined by your stats. Strength, Perception, Endurance, Charisma, Intelligence, Agility, Luck. (Think S.P.E.C.I.A.L. from Fallout)These along with your skill with the weapon, your fatigue, posture(I'll go into this soon.), carry-load, and even the people fighting have an effect. Think of it like real life, if some addict swung a cricket bat to your thigh, leaving a nasty bruise, means you aren't going to be at 100% It's a very meaty system and I can't even begin to go ever everything I know.
In relation to combat, is postures. There's five postures to go from: Guarded, Defensive, Neutral, Offensive, and Kamikaze. All of these add a bonus to your offense / defense, and each end of the spectrum representing the commitment to each. Guarded is well, you're turtling up. You don't want to attack because this might be a two on one. So you want to try and hold out for back up. When you're guarded you make them come to you, and try to line up counter attacks. On the other end of the bridge is Kamikaze. This is you putting hurting them before protecting yourself. You attack with a reckless abandon and just want to turn whoever is in your way to a fine powder. The posture system adds a very nice 'dance' style combat.
Finally the weapons, Sindome's staff has lovingly crafted over 80 weapons of wide variety for the players to reeve destruction with. (mostly on each other.) It has a massive variety and I'm sure there's a weapon for everyone out there. Ranging from home-made Molotov Cocktails, to various firearms. From Katana's to machetes. Cybernetic claws capable of rending flesh, to Ol' Reliable, the steel bat. If you aren't a fan of weapons then you're even capable of using your hands like a brawling street fighting thug, to a refined martial art There's five to choose from Ninjitsu, Maui Thai, Krav Maga, and more. This to me was such a hard choice. I wanted to try everything first before I finally sunk in my time to learn one. You have a lot of choice for one that suits you, and your character.
Next up, and what I feel is incredibly important to any game is the community. The community is full of friendly faces who are willing to help. Of course like any community there *are* bad apples, but they're few and far between. The playerbase works together outside of the community to help new players, so that they may compete better in game. There's a strict no meta-gaming rule in effect at all times. Which states that discussing IC events, knowledge, and actions in an OOC channel is bad, and using any OOC information IC is also BAD! Don't do this. The players are very helpful, surprisingly so. But not only helpful you'll find a good handful of friendly faces around.
In summary, or a TL;DR for the lazy I would rate Sindome a solid 9/10 experience. It's been captivating, and ultimately there's something to do for everyone. It offers an IC Internet to hack. If you can think of it you'll enjoy it. I know I have. The reason it escapes the 10/10 because it's not perfect. Then again, nothing is, it's constantly getting updated with new content and balance changes. It's a massive Cyberpunk world filled with great characters, and a playerbase who will help any questions you can come up with. Then a small army of Game Masters making the universe tough but fair, fun, and exciting. It also has it's own web client, which is outstanding.
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