I logged on tonight with an open mind toward a genre of MUD I haven't experienced. I'm a fan of the Final Fantasy series, and I was pleasantly surprised by many of the areas. There were about 15 players on, but I didn't notice much chat happening on the public channels.

The areas I explored were a nice change of pace from the typical stock areas that populate many MUDs, and there was some interesting code.

Roleplay seems to be very encouraged there, which was pleasing. I was rather bothered however, by another newbie chatting on the OOC channel and asking for help. Upon recieving help, he responded 'k, thx' and was told not to use chatspeak, because it is annoying. A 'someone' responded it could even get a person deleted. I found that pretty harsh, and proceeded to read the rules. Some of the rules are rather specific, while others are left wide open to interpretation. For example, 'botting' is illegal, pretty straightforward, but so is 'being stupid' and an immortal has the right to evaluate the level of stupidity and deem an appropriate punishment. Chatspeak was listed nowhere in the rules as an offense, which leads one to assume it would be covered under the 'being stupid' category, which leads one to wonder what else is considered offensive.

All in all, parts of the MUD seem worth sticking around for however, it didn't leave me with a very good or friendly first impression. I talked with some other players and played for a few more hours and upon leaving to write this review, my first impression seemed to be right. I think if someone is willing to swallow a lot of pride long enough to get known there or to befriend the right people, it would be a fun MUD to play on. Otherwise, it doesn't have a very newbie-friendly atmosphere. Some of the tips that newbies are presented with however, do seem to give some fair warning of what is and isn't considered a good idea. For example, 'Never question an immortal's authority' is one, along with 'Arguing with [head imm] is a very bad idea.' My suggestion for anyone that is going to give this MUD a try is to just keep quiet until you make some friends. After which time, you should have a blast.