I first stumbled upon the darker realms while doing semi-random searches and trying out muds. It was the first mud that I was able to 'walk' into and try out without major time investment. I have since invested more than a little, ok a great deal of time in my attempt to unravel it's secrets.

There is no PK at DR. I like that. The gameplay is fairly simple at first with the typical character creation cycle followed by the seemingly dizzy stumbling about trying to get oriented with the three main areas.

I have since discovered many other areas to explore, with some being hidden only by a boat ride or opening a door and others quite well hidden, with the entrances eluding me to this day.

There are several guild choices and each has it's strengths and weaknesses. Some are easy to join, requiring only that you find the main guild hall to sign up, while others have entrance quests and are hidden. The rewards for aligning yourself within a guild are well worth the effort and add strength and individuality to your character. Advancement is by solving quests and gaining experience through battle with monsters ranging from the usualogres, elves, dragons and the like to more exotic creatures such as the terminator and bugblatter beast of rahl and even a smurf or two.

The quests vary in difficulty and thus in reward. Some quests are dangerous and can cost you your life unexpectedly. The quest system is well defined and a review system was recently updated to show the difficulty and playability of each quest.

There are several special events put on by the Wonderful and friendly staff at DR. These are usually placed around holidays and are often on a weekend. During these events you might encounter some interesting real time games going on like Wheel of terror(fortune) and sometimes quest point trivia. Holloween brings out a demon that runs amok terrorizing the entire world until somebody kills it(cheesy grin). You can get nifty autoloading(saved) goodies that further define and honor your character's accomplishments. The Realms attract an international host of players with varying degrees of ability but they're mostly a friendly lot willing to help anyone who asks.

I have little negative to say about the place. The only thing I would wish for would be that some of the current guild leaders would pass on the torch to someone who could continue to refine them. I have seen promising activity in my guild only to have my hopes, and fears, fade away after a while when the new leader gets busy in real life and can't find the time to continue his work. That's not to say that they need alot of work. Thanks to a commitee system and typo and bug lines, the writing and all the guilds are pretty well balanced to one another and very unique in gameplay. I have characters in several different guilds and they all get played.

My wife says my mudding sometimes seems like a second job. At least I'm not pumping 130$ a month into mindless drivel on the satellite systems and cable.

Bengali Is MAge (x)