New Worlds Ateraan is a mixed bag. There really are some parts that are exceptional, but there are other areas where the mud falls a bit short. As such it really is a love or hate kind of mud. I know that sounds cliche.

A quick side note is that NW is especially friendly to Blind players, more so than any other mud I've ever played. You'll love the mud for it's expansive player base, even off peak hours are well populated. Don't be fooled by the game listing of players online (Which usually reads 120-170 in my experience) though, because there are several systems in NW that encourage idling. This is one of the systems that you'll either love or hate. If you're a lap top user especially, you'll be frustrated by the fact that certain things can only be done after X number of hours online. These factors aren't minor either, how much you can hunt for experience and the majority of moneymaking devices are directly linked to how much time you spend online. Players with a broadband connection and a desktop probably won't be bothered at all though. I may have made this sound worse than it is, but the system has some definite upsides. Idle players can still be up to date on RP and events by just scrolling up, and it's convenient to be able to jump into a conversation fully up to date with the situation when you've only got five minutes to spare. So even if you expect many of the players to be idle and/or second characters, there are still a LOT of people to RP with.

NW does force people to stay in character, and you can customize your character a LOT. Fully customizable descriptions, clothes and history are all great aspects of NW. If all this overwhelms you, you can hire a merchant or trader to do your descriptions for you (many will do it no charge for first time players). The Admin has given general outlines of each playable race, background, and guild, but your character is more or less a blank slate. This is for the most part great, but it has contributed to the RP being a little out of control at times. The descriptions for races and guilds you'll find both on the site and in the game's library tend to be different from what you'll actually experience. Yet another thing you can love or hate. Some players enjoy that the guilds are fluid and changing, others hate that Mages are debating over where magic comes from and that the 'unscrupulous' traders guild is actually very strict on ethical business practices.

Another love/hate aspect is NW's simplicity. Personally I love it. There are some intricate bits in the code, but mostly you can learn all you need to know to play the mud in a matter of hours, and thanks to the very newbie friendly environment, you won't have to do so by reading page after page of help files. You won't find much complexity in the crafting or spell mechanics or really any of the day to day stuff. The complexity comes from player to player interaction. You can master the game mechanics in a matter of days, but the politics of the game is a matter of years. Don't let that intimidate you, you don't have to be involved with the various player run political and religious systems if you don't want to. With the massive world, plentiful quests, and hundreds of players, there's ALWAYS something else to do.

As a final note I should mention the game is for players 18 and older so generally the roleplay is mature (I said generally!)