This review is my opinion based on observations of players and imms while playing on KoTL over the past six months or so. It is not meant as a destructive review, but one that might get people who love a good roleplay to get involved and to help put the family back into the MUD.

As far as Mud play, read Magus's review of Oct 8, 2004, it describes the world in vivid detail. The Mud also in many respects tries to keep a family friendly atmosphere.

Since the Mud wipe and redesign, many things have changed in the realm of players and imms. The number of players has dropped considerably and the imms have appeared to lose something.

First the play. There seems to be an emphasis on realism like food and drink. And there are a few players who agitate for more restrictions based on reality. This is fantasy, not my daily job! There are ways around some of it, but it makes the game more work and less fun.

Second the players. The lack of players I see stems from two issues. The first is the lack of a PK system. While I do not like PK, too many people who mud seem to. I would like to see the Mud continue without PK since it seems that PK causes a lot of problems with the spoiled brats who just want to destroy people's hard work. Secondly, many of the people who remain seem to have formed little groups, apparently geographically related, but not always. There are a few people who still go out of their way to help you with spells (and some even do it for free) and to invite you to group, but not like before.

And third, the imms. I do not know any of them personaly, but overall, if you have a real problem with the programming or a bug you can usually get help. What I have seen is the imms acting like sex starved high school freshmen over the imm global broadcast channel (not blockable). And that gets some of the players doing the same thing over the out of character channel. Pinning people on a wall with passionate kisses, fondling thighs, sucking ear lobes, and more detract from the aforementioned family rating. Also, there seems to be a bit of edginess toward people complaining about the way things are implemented. Granted a few doth complain excessively, but it makes it not a good environment for making a complaint/suggestion (depends on the suggestion too).

Overall I like the Mud, the depth of play and the options make for a lot of fun. But there are problems in the system and maybe all it would take is a new wave of fresh people who do not care about PK and just want to have fun exploring, leveling, and sharing life OOC.

Well, back to KoTL, I have some skills to GM!