Eternal Fantasy takes a bit of time to learn, I'll give it that right off. As far as it goes as a game, there's a lot of customization possible, with seven possible races: elves, half-elves, half-lunars (like Cecil from Final Fantasy 4), kelbans (from Final Fantasies 5 and 6), moogles, dwarves, and of course humans. Each race has its own feel and playing style, which leads me to the next thing: over 40 classes all based on Final Fantasy to some degree, but original enough that you don't get the same experience as just playing the games they're based on. These classes range from your standard Black Mages, Dragoons, Thieves, and Paladins, but also to classes you don't usually see, like the Beast Man, Mystic Knight, and Inventor. With all the possible races and class combinations, you can create virtually any character you like: a moogle Knight and a kelban Knight are never going to feel the same.

Advancement along these classes isn't cut and dried, either. There are three 'tiers' to each class, with increasing statistical requirements, such as Thief advancing to Rogue, and then to Treasure Hunter. You can also combine your skills as a Rogue with those of a Monk to become a Ninja, or your skills as a Black Wizard and Squire to become a Dark Knight. All of the tiers have their own skills, as well, so a Treasure Hunter will play pleasantly differently than a Ninja, even though they have similar class requirements in them.

You can even combine classes freely, switching between a primary and secondary class, in a system that resembles Final Fantasy 5 and Final Fantasy Tactics, to whatever suits you, or whatever seems fun, or even just whatever'll beat that hard boss you need to kill.

The system itself is a bit different from what the MUD standard is, but it's not going to stump anyone, and can be adapted to really easily. I'll admit that it's a rather small mud in terms of player base, but the world is vast, there are quests abound if you take the time to look for them, the immortals are friendly, and you can even do fun stuff like raise a pet chocobo. An aspect I've found Eternal Fantasy excels in is that death is neither a permanent thing, whether inflicted by mobile or by player, and corpse runs are unnecessary in all but a very small list of areas; the only penalties are lost time and lost experience, plus a penalty imposed on your class growth. It's not overly generous if you keep dying over and over, however.

The game does more than just set things in a world that feels like a game knock-off, too. Each world has its own, original plot in which a player can feel like they're really seeing a story, instead of there just being weak pretense to slay mobiles over and over. As far as roleplay goes, it's supported, not enforced, so if you want to be a min/max'er and not engage in RP, you can, and if you want to play a character, you can, and not get into any fights because of it (although I admit some people might give cry of 'that's stupid!' but that's frowned upon).

As far as social aspects go, Eternal Fantasy has a variety of channels, such as ooc, newbie, rp, elite (for high-levels to talk in), and whine. You aren't forced to go through any character approval process, and although copyrighted names are frowned upon, it's not as vehemently enforced as 'your name comes from Obscure RPG X, you're going to be deleted' (although you can't make such characters as Sephiroth or Squall). Clans are offered, and application is as simple as talking to a clan member. You can even set up your own fairly easily. Colour is varied without being an eyesore, and you can set colours for communications.

In short, I'd say that Eternal Fantasy is worth a shot for people who like the older games in the Final Fantasy series, or just fantasy in general, and want to have fun without being in a roleplay-enforced environment or in a game where you have to worry about rampant player killers.