Legacy of the Sith (LotS) is not a MUD that I would recommend to anyone. I have played it on and off for approximately five years at various points. I have been in and out of most clans and have experienced everything that this MUD has to offer, short of being an immortal (on this MUD anyway). I will focus my review on a few key points. SWR is a fantastic codebase, and in the right hands this MUD has potential to be good, but rampant favoritism and poor (or a lack of) decisions by the administrators have made it a most unenjoyable experience for many. If not for the handful of great players who work very hard to have fun in such a limited and negative environment, I would have left years ago and never returned.

First, LotS is heavily encumbered by favoritism on behalf of the immortals. Some players continually receive preferred treatment through the gifting of Force-sensitive characters, clan leadership, and not having to adhere to certain principle rules. Some of the preferred players are at least discreet about this. However, others make no hesitation to gloat about this toward other players. This has gone so far as allowing these players in the clique to outright abuse newbies to the MUD. These newbies did not return. Further, the only “development” that any class has received in the years that I have played here has been to benefit the immortals’ mortals or to hinder players that they feel threatened by. Case in point, all of the immortals have high level Sith. What is the only class to receive any attention in an otherwise unchanging and undeveloping MUD? Sith. They have had their powerful spells lowered in required level and their damage output increased to unbalanced levels. These characters get used to strong-arm other players and they have no reservation about PK’ing regularly with them. The only other class change was in raising the level of “spy” because players that threatened their power structure used it regularly.

Second, the immortals want to dictate every aspect of the RP. Minor recommendations would certainly be acceptable within the framework of the broader RP direction of the MUD, but such is not the case because there is not one. The form that this actually ends up taking is micro-management down to the level of minor character details such as who you RP with, interpersonal relationships amongst characters, clan leadership positions, etc., even in the face of what would otherwise overwhelmingly be considered good and proper RP that maintains a safe and comfortable environment for all. The immortals have mortals in every clan and generally have lead half of them themselves at various points in time over the last several years. In an effort to maintain control, the clans themselves, when not under the control of the immortals, are lead by placeholders who toe the immortal line but are themselves completely absent. The Jedi Order and Blacksun leadership positions, for example, have been filled by players who verifiably logged in less than once a year, all the while letting the clans themselves stagnate. These decisions were made purely in the interests of maintaining hegemonic control and not furthering RP.

Third, there are an incredible amount of hidden and unwritten rules here. One might almost think that the immortals are making it up as they go. At various points in time their ruling will conflict with what is written very explicitly in the written rules. They are also quite unevenly applied and enforced. A student of psychology’s head would spin at the alarming rate of inconsistency. When questioned about the application of a rule or its logical foundation, the response is always the same – “because I said so.” This would be a fine response in a preschool, but this is a MUD, an unfortunately aging genre where we can now safely say that most of the playerbase is at least swiftly approaching 30, if not older.

Fourth, while essentially all problems on a MUD point to poor administration in some fashion, I feel that the staff itself really deserves its own point here. The administration of LotS is abysmally poor. I wish I could say that this is a new thing because they are under new management or having a bad day or the planets are poorly aligned, but unfortunately it has progressively gotten worse. When I first began playing this MUD, a gentleman by the name of Deim was in charge. He was an immature sort that resorted to name-calling and shutting the MUD down for days at a time in fits of rage. Eventually he turned LotS over to Maia, a lady who had been a generally pleasant player. However, this quickly changed. Over the course of several years, any immortals that did not support her “vision” were cast aside, and the MUD has quickly devolved into a personal playground for her and her boyfriend, another player-turned immortal who rules with a swift hand of “justice” and an astounding lack of logic or “people skills.” I have watched the immortals in recent month berate players publicly, resort to name-calling on the level of actual pre-schoolers, throw tantrums, warn players repeatedly not to piss them off because they’re “in a bad mood,” and do illegal things with their mortals that they had just scolded other players for less than a week prior. I have watched them allow newbies and veteran players alike to be abused and attacked by players within the preferred clique and ran away from the MUD. I have essentially watched them run a MUD with the care, efficiency, and grace of an emotionally stunted teenager.

Lastly, of all of the MUDs that I have played, this one has received the least amount of development that I have ever personally witnessed. Change is, at best, reactive here. As I said, the only changes to classes to occur in five years have been to boost the power of the immortals’ mortals or to limit the power of those that do not kowtow to their wishes. No broken skills, and there are several, have been attended to. Many of the same bugs that existed and allowed for even new players to unknowingly become quite unfairly powerful have not been fixed. These same bugs were fixed within the rest of the SWR community by 2000. One new area was implemented, but the player that built it put in a backdoor cheat to give their mortal a sizable portion of the currency that flowed through the zone. Further, the rest of the immortal staff has roundly criticized this area on public channels, making it known that its addition was unwelcome. There is a project ideas board that is filled to capacity with ideas from the players, but the ideas themselves never come to fruition. The head immortal, Maia, always drags her feet and/or outright says no in the name of maintaining the status quo. I always jokingly said that one of the things I enjoyed the most about this MUD is that it was like logging into 1998 all over again – nothing changed and I didn’t have to learn a new system.

In conclusion, I can comfortably say that it would be in anyone’s best interest to avoid LotS and try a different MUD. While MUDs certainly are a dying genre, there are several Star Wars MUDs that are doing just fine, and some are even thriving and growing daily. This is not one of them. The immortal staff is unfriendly, provides preferential treatment to players within their clique, and appears quite content to keep a small but controllable playerbase through micromanagement and a system of inconsistently written and enforced rules. The MUD is not undergoing active development with an active coding and building staff, therefore it is also safe to say that there is no plan for the future here. As it stands, the LotS exists solely to serve the wishes of two people, not the players who are irrefutably the lifeblood of any game and who have been rooted out and shown the door here. If anything that I have written seems like an appealing environment to you, then by all means, LotS is the place for you. Otherwise, I would stay away.