Lost Souls is a LPC coded mud with various mechanical systems that put virtually every other mud to shame. I will go into detail about a few of these systems and why they're important later in the review. To start off however, the player base can vary. Some players are extremely helpful to the new player just starting out, others choose to ignore newbies (which is fine, there is no obligation to aid new players on our MUD). Lost Souls does not intend to hold your hand while you become familiar with the game and its atmosphere, but there's a wiki with plenty of resources and information for the new player to effectively explore most of the content available alone.

While I can not divest specific information on how these systems are generated code sense, I can give basic information about why they make Lost Souls a special place.

Now on to the topic of a few of the systems. When I mention systems I do not mean like how LS (lost souls), handles it's classes or races; which there are a abundance of. LS has 29 different and unique guilds or 'classes along with 45 associations which are like sub-guilds in a sense, following up with over 40 different playable races, some of which have affiliations tied to the race. But I digress, so onto the topic of a notable system I've yet to see in other text-based games; the way esoteric damage types are handled. Most muds do have a sense of special damage types, like fire or water damage. But LS handles it's damage differently in a sense that all combinations are generated as needed with special messaging and colors. Paring this with 26 different base damage elements, the combination possibilities can span into the thousands, if not hundred of thousands, unique different damage combos.

Another notable system is the way in which LS handles it's map and sub-areas. The overland map is a 3D grid system, meaning that you can move into the air, or down into the solid earth and everywhere in between. This allows us to link sub-areas onto the overland, often which you move 'in' to. Now while a massive overland map with up/down directions isn't really special, it's how this map is created that is beautiful. The regions are mapped out completely in ASCII and then files are created for this map, then other systems reads the map and links the files which contain the room descriptions. Meaning very very few rooms are actually hard coded. This allows us to easily expand or add new areas or content to the overland.

Lost Souls pushes the envelope in many other ways that other muds could only dream of achieving, this paired along with 20+ years of created content to explore makes LS one of the prime examples of what it means to be different and better. I've been a developer there for just under a year and have been playing for almost 6 and I wouldn't have it any other way. If you can handle sharp learning curves with minimal assistance, this mud might just be for you.