I've been playing on the Dawn of Demise long enough that my original review has long since dropped off Mud Connector. I came to DoD after the previous MUD I was playing degenerated into an unpleasant, name- calling mess. I wasn't a party to that drama, but found it imposs- ible to concentrate nonetheless. I liked the SMAUG codebase, so I took a look around the SMAUG web ring until I found DoD.

The Dawn of Demise is quite enjoyable. Unlike the previous MUD I had played, it wasn't tough on newbies. (No more dying and losing levels because my character is too weak to fight a squirrel!) At the same time, not everything is handed to you on a silver platter. DoD has a variety of classes, races, areas, clans, and quests - a good enough mix to make it interesting. After creating numerous characters and exploring much of the MUD (still haven't covered it all), I was invited to be an Immortal.

Since becoming an Imm, I have greater knowledge of the inner work- ings of SMAUG, and thus I better appreciate the hard work of our coders. The staff of DoD have made a great many modifications to SMAUG, many of which are publicly available. And we try to be as helpful as possible to our players. To that end, we are currently working on a Wiki walkthough of the MUD [tdod.org/wiki] which explains everything from getting started to commands to quests, even revealing spoilers.

Unfortunately, our playerbase is very low at the moment. Which, of course, is why I'm writing a review. I can't claim that the MUD is perfect, but what is? We just bought a new server, so we're not going away any time soon. I know we face stiff competition from MMORPGs and that text-based MUDs probably seem ancient by comparison. I, however, appreciate the greater versatility and literary quality of the text-based MUD. Obviously, you do as well, or you wouldn't be here. So, if you are at all inclined, check us out.