Well, my continuing crusade to try out every text rpg that isn't likely to flood my comp with viruses has finally lead me to
I have a few thoughts and observations regarding the game.
In a rare display of organization, I'm going to devide up my thoughts into pro and con.
Pro:
1: Lots of exploration, with a huge map and many different locations.
2: A plot that isn't just slammed in a text file for you to read before playing, you seem to need to actually discover things, which is good.
3: there's also an exploration factor particularly in the matter of finding out what things do. Also a
dynamic item system with fairly extensive creation, item recipes, some generated via quests.
4: the noob tutorial quest is also relatively un-boring, ---- in fact, sometimes i have to go and check the text tutorial to know what to do next and how to do it.
5: Huge number of quests, with new stuff added litterally each day it seems.
6: Pvp and player interaction seem thus far to be optional (though I could be wrong about this), and the large number of quests seem to indicate that you can play the game single player. However, there is also the option to talk to other characters, which might be a good thing.
7: new stuff for high level characters being released, so none of the going stale that happens with the Logd varients.
8: The price is quite low, only five dollars a month (two pounds or so for me), and sinse paying gets you extra areas to explore I might considder it at some point.
Con:
1: Large amount of stats and collectables, possibly indicating a repetitive action trend once i've finished the noob area.
2: Not exactly the world's most enspiring writing or quests thus far, though this might change (as I said, background info seems to be beeing slowly revealed).
3: Very few options in changing screen layout, it's really annoying to have lots of stuff knocking around that I don't need!
4: Separation of descriptions into "logue" "Description" and "Action" sections. While it's not hard to read, it does seem to knock out the flow of the plot a litle for me.
5: A turn base system that's truly! annoying! you start with 40 turns, get a new one every 30 minutes. While you can improve both of these factors, at the moment it's a real pest.
6: game seems unforgiving and wasteful of certain stats. In combining items, I typed a number in the wrong box, was told "You don't have that many" but the item stil vanished. then, the 50 turn restore potions only restore 40 turns and the other 10 are lost, not carried over. both of these are bound to change when I become less of a newby, but stil thought I'd mention it.
7: Lots of screen reading required. it'd be great if instead of just being labled "move here" the links had the grid coordinates in them, that would make navigation a lot faster. I might well contact the game admins about this (it strikes me it would be an easy change to make). Though thinking about it, given the turn regeneration rate, I suppose slow navigation might actually be a bonus.
8: You have to pay at all!
Any more thoughts would be welcome, paticularly if someone who's played more of the game than I have ccan confirm that any of the "con's" are just there because I've made a bodge somewhere.
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)