Hello and welcome to my review. I've been looking for a good mud to
call home for quite a while. But in essence, I left a paid mud to play
this free one. This is an honest review for mudders who are seeking a
non biased mud-review.
To begin with, this mud is not for the casual player, simply because
it has a HIGH learning curve. Moreover, the game is not easy- far from
easy. The only reason i insisted in learning it was because of the
fantastic game maps, which i will talk about in a moment. I definitely
did not regret it, because every few minutes the detail in this game
would captivate me.
The game is based on tolkien world with three sides- The good side,
being the humans, hobbits, elves, half-elfs, the bad side- orcs and
trolls, and one more side of rogue orcs, on nobody`s side. All the
players on one side can only talk to the players on that side, and
have no contact with the other side if not in the same room. When you
log on to one side and type WHO, you will see a total number of
players. At times you may see only 30 people online, but that is the
total number of people online at your side. You cannot know how many
people are on the other side, although usually its fairly balanced,
with about 30 people on light side, and around 20-30 on the dark side.
I haven`t an idea of how many play the third side.
It is open PK between the three sides, meaning you kill on sight.
However, PKing on the same side can have in game consequences.
The mud has extensive help files, but it's no walkthrough. There is
no newbie training area, and after character creation you are
literally thrown into the game. The help files explain every useful
command, but doesn't tell you exactly what else to do. What it does
encourage you to do however is to ask ask ask. Players are very
helpful in this game, and about three times people came to me asking
if I were new. After responding yes, they would have me follow them to
various places, some equipping me with better armor, some giving me
gold, and some offering to hunt with me. Players overall were (are)
helpful, and not once were any rude on the channels, either to me or
to each other. You will see curse words once in a while.
Expanding on the game`s difficulty, when you die, you lose all your
items, left on your corpse. If you died to an enemy, they are free to
loot your corpse. They are actually free to do anything with your
corpse, really. But, the same way, you can have fun with your enemies,
like stealing those hard to find equipment after a careful backstab.
This may please some people, might scare others, but its good to know
that everyone can have a chance at the stronger items (this pleases
me). At higher levels however, I`ve heard that the stronger items
aren`t hard to get.
Obviously, PK is a heavy part of the game. You can form groups of
wizards, warriors and scouts (all PCs of course) and raid the opposing
areas, or go solo hunting for an orc (or vice versa, forming teams of
orcs and trolls to terrorize unsuspecting players!) Pk happens
anytime- I was fishing at one time and suddenly an *orc* comes running
into area and leaving just as fast. A moment later, an elf scout and a
dwarve darted past the room, following the orc tracks. The whole time
my character was there, obliviously fishing.
Remembering the idea that you lose everything on death, there is no
banking in this game, meaning you cant store your equipments or
treasures anywhere- you cant even work around it, for example storing
all your equipment on your horse and leaving your horse at the
stables. This, again, adds tothe difficulty of the game.
Moving on, lets talk about the game details. The room descriptions
are excellent, and for a world so big, i was surprised to see so many
different descriptions. I mean, this world is BIG. It is so big that I
mumble on the idea of having to meet a player at another city. All
players have movement points, meaning you need to rest up after
traveling. So when I travel to other towns, this means having to set
up camp quite a few times. Every player also has the need to eat and
drink, though there is no death for not eating/drinking. The penalties
are simply on your movement points, which take a LONG time to regen
when you are dying of hunger. When you are out in the wilderness
without food, you will quickly see how much this is a problem.
Continuing on with details, you can carry a hunting knife or use your
dagger to butcher creatures of the wild, get their skin for selling
and their meat for cooking. When in the wilderness, you can cook your
meat by setting up camp with the CAMP command, and cooking meat in the
fire. To cook the meat however, you also need to have a pan from a
shop, oh which you use to place the meat over the fire. You can eat
the meat raw, but eating the meat cooked means filling you a lot more.
Also, setting up a fire is important for sleeping in the wild, or else
you actually start getting sick. You`re character starts sneezing and
such, of which in the end affects your combat skills until you
recover.
You can buy oil flasks at shops to fill your lanterns in case they
burn out when you need them the most (you don’t see a thing without
them at night). Basically, you definitely need to prepare yourself
before leaving town- You need to have a knife, a cooking pan, and a
fishing rod in case you want to fish for food, a lantern, oil flasks
etc. Most of the above things can be attached your belt so you can
free your hands, and including the lanterns.
More on details, I was surprised when my character was arrested for
wandering into a town, of which I was not a citizen, with my weapon
drawn. Guards came to me saying I was under arrest, and waited,
actually giving me the option if i wanted to follow them to jail, run,
or fight. I chose to follow, so I actually followed them through town
and was thrown into jail. I was delighted with this feature, although
I had to wait a few minutes in real life (in-game day) before being
set free. One can be charged for many crimes, of which all adds up to
your total sentence.
So after leaving jail, I found a shop of which i was interested in
buying some supplies. The shops in the game close at sundown and open
early in the morning, and you can actually see the shop owners
preparing to open their shops (and close it).
The game has no potions, but bandages, meaning, if you get wounds,
they can be bounded up with bandages depending on your skill. Or you
can have other PC clerics heal you up. The game has an excellent
weather system that affects you in many ways. There is also an aging
system that modifies your stats according to how young or old you are.
Moving on, leveling in this game takes quite a while if you are new,
although one achieves hero status upon reaching level 20. You can
continue leveling up however, achieving legend status at level 27.
From then on, it gets VERY slow to level up, although the max limit is
100 I think. The mud is 20 years old now in 2011, and only one or two
characters have ever reached that level.
The world is big with many options for exploring. You can find wild
horses in the wilderness and immediately ride it. you can also keep
them in stables for later use.
Now, the best part of everything- The maps. The game is very big, and
dedicated players have created what I find to be the best map for any
Mud that I have ever come across. It is a real time mapper that you
actually download, and connect through localhost to play mume. I use
mushclient to play, and have the mapper open above the client so I see
my realtime movements. Players won`t experience a single lag (at least
I never did) from the mapper, and the map updates immediately upon
movement. The map is exceptionally detailed, with little room icons to
display what one might encounter there. You can find it through
google, its called Mmapper. Google MUME MMAPPER. It is constantly
updated, last time being in April of 2011?
Unfortunately this is not a roleplaying mud, since most player`s goal
is to kill the opposing side. If you are looking for a roleplaying
mud, this mud may not appeal to you. The game lacks a roleplaying
channel and you`ll constantly see conversation of pkers (on the same
side) through the NARRATE channel. There are also no clans (if I am
not mistaken) for if there were the option, I would definitely be the
first to create a roleplaying clan. I happen to like roleplay, and I
and a few others insist in that aspect. If you want to roleplay with a
small community, then feel free to join me.
Again, if after reading this review you decide to try the game,
remember that it is very difficult to learn it. As a newbie, you may
die by orcs or trolls ( if you adventure too far, or a group of
enemies just happened to show up wherever you are), especially for the
reason that they have no idea of knowing that you are a newbie. When
we encounter players of the other side we simply see things like *ORC*
or *TROLL*, and if you were on the bad side, *HOBBIT*, *HALF-ELF* and
*HUMAN*. So, dying constantly and starting from zero may scare many
players. The best thing I can recommend, and with good results, is to
constantly ask for help via the NARRATE channel. People are friendly
and from experience, they are quick to help those that died. Don`t
forget to read the abundance of help files that are available too.
Good luck on finding your home mud. I`ve found mine!
Post a comment
Comment posted on Fri Nov 2 10:47:53 2012 by Nirlin:
Very good review on this awesome game :)