This MUD has a great deal of potential but there are significant issues, particularly balance. There is a message during character creation that states, 'newbies are advised to avoid mage classes.' This immediately put a bad taste in my mouth. Why are players who love casters to be punished? The more I played the MUD, the more I realized, the main coder/IMP must surely be a melee/fighting fan and somehow burned in the past by some overpowered caster. Casters are incredibly nerfed in Abandoned Realms to the point that there's really no reason to have them. They have advantages at higher levels, however, for some reason the owner wants people to go through mostly frustration instead of fun while leveling this class. Even their advantages at higher levels are not enough to make the nerfs even close to being fair or reasonable. Clearly it's bias, any player will see this, though original/veterans may be blind to it. Again, Why punish casters?

There is no original storyline. Everything is stock, 'Thera' stuff. Roleplaying is enforced, however, even during peak hours with 15 or so players on, there is no roleplaying at any time. The only roleplaying is when someone asks for help and says 'Ye' or 'thou' in the sentence.

Immortals are frequently on but there are no global quests, major wars, invasions, etc. there's no special events of any kind that I can tell.

There is an XP penalty for playing hybrids, who already have the penalty of being the 'jack of all trades master of none.' This, in addition to the intentional nerfing of all caster classes, makes me think another possibility, that the owner believes magic of any kind is something only hardcore, veteran players should be allowed to use and enjoy, not for newer players. Basically, don't play this MUD unless you REALLY, REALLY like to play a human warrior or a human. Plenty of other fun, pretty, exotic options in the menus and helpfiles, but again, they're there only if you want to go through hours of torment and dying/corpse retrieval (if it's still there) rather than actually having fun and enjoying your class's unique abilities while you develop your character.

On the positive, the classes as far as flavor and concept are pretty cool. The spells, skills, combat style system etc. all are very interesting and fun, however, you can only really enjoy them again if you are a long-time veteran, getting immortal assistance or otherwise cheating, or if you're not lucky enough to be in one of those categories you are playing a human warrior or human thief. Another positive, the equipment seems to be coded/written well. I like the 'old school' medieval theme and the area quests are quite cool as well.

So much potential but too many balance issues to ever be a long-term success. I've heard the owner has much of an ego, so most likely the changes will not be made. It will fade into oblivion as most MUDs do.