I've been playing Necromium on and off for a couple of years, and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoy this game. With over five continents to explore, four classes and at least 16 different multiclass options, this realm will have you running around trying to level again and again. If you are new to MUDding, I highly recommend playing this to get a feel for what playing games such as this is like. The help files are so numerous, you'll hopefully never need to ask for help. The admin and players are all friendly and will give you a helping hand.

Only one miff: The experience is so ridiculous, it may scare new players away, just a warning.

Total Score: 4/5

The first thing I want to say is that Necromium, as a mud, has gone through a lot of change. It's always been a very enjoyable way to while away the hours, with a generally helpful imm staff, a good playerbase, and a lot of friendly rivalry amongst players. I can't tell you how many happy nights I've spent obsessively plotting our domination of entire continents with my fellow mudders.

And yet, one flaw in this otherwise wonderful mud is the reluctance of certain immortals to cooperate with the playerbase when deciding what changes to implement. Although they're more than willing to listen to the players' opinions and offer their own views, I have never once heard an imm say 'actually, that's a good point. Perhaps I should change that.' In fact, I haven't even heard an imm say 'good idea, I'll keep it in mind.' The traditional response has always been 'if you don't like it, leave.'

It should not be a surprise then, that a rather large percentage of Necromium's most diehard players - including myself, a five-year veteran, even if I did spend most of that time playing Dragoncards or dying a lot - has finally become fed up and decided to look to other muds. The immortals are always trying to balance the Necro - a VERY good thing, as constant imm involvement is a definite plus - but, unfortunately, their definition of 'balancing' a class or skill seems to be a little closer to 'castration' than most players would like.

The super-Avs (highly powerful Avatars, or fifth-class characters) have always been a beloved staple of Necromium's playerbase. It's not uncommon for Warrior or Thief Avatars (Wavs or Tavs) to train the daylights out of Dexterity in order to reap the benefit of all that extra Attack and Defense. Now, let me tell you something. After you multiclass at least once in Necro, you know that it's almost incomprehensibly hard to gain character points at level 33. It takes a LOT of time and patience to gain a stat point through pure 'CP'ing', and in my humble opinion, anyone who goes through hours of mindless mob-killing for an extra 1 or 2 percent of att and def is welcome to it, because he's earned it.

The imms however, apparently decided that Dexterity is poorly balanced. They didn't do this because Dex-specialists were having an easy time of it - a lot of equipment zones require around nine Avatars to run safely - but because all the most powerful players were patiently working away to become Titans in melee combat. This was apparently unfair to the less powerful characters who didn't put the effort into gaining all that power.

Let me simplify this for anyone who doesn't understand yet. The immortals weakened an important stat that people have literally spent years training simply because they thought it was unfair that people who spent no more than three days training it should have a chance to win in a fight against someone who took about three hundred times as long. This logic doesn't seem to make a lot of sense, but when the playerbase in general posted up a collective 'wtf', they were greeted with the standard 'if you don't like it, leave.'

And so, after five years of loyal play, I have decided to take their advice. Necromium had, and still has, the potential to be one of the greatest muds out there... but the immortals will have to do some serious thinking about their methods first. Let me be the first to caution any prospective new players: if you decide to try Necromium out, ask the admins what they think about working together with the players first. We're tired of trying to win them over, but maybe you can make some progress where we couldn't.

I started mudding about 7 years ago, and despite my attempts to try other muds in the community, I have never strayed long from Necromium. I had no idea what mudding even meant when I first started playing off their java telnet client. What got me from the start was the newbie tour and the well organized and easy to read overhead map. If it wasn't for those two features and the overall newbie friendliness, I'm sure I would have never returned to the mudding community.

Seven years later I'm still here watching the mud evolve and get better with time. The ocean system complete with ocean combat, the complete reworking of the training system, the multiple tiered clan/house/regency system, and other major coding endeavors make Necromium stand out from any other mud I've seen. And more things are to come, like a new and innovative fight code.

However, one of the greatest features in my eyes is the simplest to implement. Necromium's output is very neatly organized both in spatial and color terms. Whenever I try out a new mud, I am usually struck by how messy and sometimes downright spammy it is, even some of the top ranked muds in the community. Never have I had any problems distinguishing what was going on while playing Necromium.

Anyways, this is just my opinion; nothing can beat checking it out for yourself. =)

-Favonius