Avoid Haven: Mist and Shadows! The game has many incredible features that players will yearn for in other MUDS: extensive character creation, the ability to detail character descriptions, extensive histories and commands to fully flesh out a character, and the ability to customize items on the fly, along with interesting minigames (that still require work).

Yet all the good cannot wash away the glaring faults and bads found within: favoritism shown by the Staff to certain individuals they consider friends or friends of friends, the lack of impartial and fair punishments, the constant over reaching in enforcing the rules, and blatant manipulation or breaking of their own rules to benefit themselves or players in the Staff’s social circle. The abduct system too is horrible: the mechanic allows for players to codedly interfere with players while offline or afk.

The demands of some of the player base can also be off putting as well: elitism, traditionalists, snobs, know-it-alls, insufferables, and whiners run rampant in the game. Players and Staff alike will make demands of individuals they have no right to make in the first place: Staff will demand essays for rule breakers (of which the rules are ambiguous and highly subjective or completely absent) and Players will demand you meet a subjective line or standard that isn’t a part of the game or an etiquette of role play to begin with (a do as I say not as I do mentality). Or individuals will simply act petty and childish the moment they deem their sensibilities to be offended. The game also has clear issues of imbalance that are condoned by the creator which naturally creates power struggles within the game and an abuse of mechanics that Tyr himself does nothing to change until the code is obviously hoodwinked. Subsequently Tyr punishes anyone found abusing the code he failed to properly test even if the individual had not intentions of maliciously using the code to benefit them self.

The Staff also constantly runs a meta-plot that benefits their characters or revolves around their friends. Much of the antagonism in game is created for the sole benefit of Daed’s need to swing the dicks of his NCPS or PCS and nothing even remotely envisioning a tale. Daed is the overall story runner of Haven, yet seems more interested in killing, raping, and ruining others fun to push his meta-plot. He will and has abused code to free his friends OOCLY from IC actions taken against them: untieing individuals that were ICLY beat and left to be dealt with ICLY by others, killing individual’s offline ICLY for an OOC dispute, and destroying players who outwitted or out foxed his antagonists.

Discordance is considered the judicator of Haven and performs poorly in such a role: she uses irrational thinking to justify her punishments, backs up arguments with rampant fallacies, and will throw out terms like coercion to suit her needs without understanding the implication of such allegations. She is in the end vindictive and spiteful; and nothing resembling fair and impartial. Her brand of “justice” is retribution.

Punishments leveled against individual also over reach: often a rule breaker will have their privileges revoked indefinitely for the slightest of infractions, have their experience zeroed out, and permanent removals for actions they instigated due to ignoring issues, handing out unfair or extreme punishments, or making demands of a player's personal time. They are the individuals who instigate a fight and whine to a judge later when that offender assaults them.

Haven would be a great MUD if it wasn't for the Staff and the favoritism shown to friends.