[Velleity]

So on with the shameless promotionalizing:

~ * ~ Things that I love about Unwritten Legends ~ * ~

-- The roleplay: it's definitely at the top of the list. This game has consistently had some of the best RPers (players and staff alike) that I've ever had the pleasure of interacting with. Many of these characters feel absolutely real, with personal quirks and ways of reacting to the world and the people around them that are just an absolute delight. I've never had so much fun RPing in any MUD as I've had in UL.

-- The level of detail, and high quality of the writing. Not only are there thousands of rooms in UL, but they're all described in an amazing amount of detail. Some of them are squalid, some of them are beautiful, but the writing is amazing in nearly all of them. And when you enter a room, you're not even stuck with just that surface layer of description, you can actually look at and even interact with most of the objects described in the room. None of that "you see nothing unusual" nonsense. Yeah, you know what I'm talking about.

-- The Stuff that you can buy (or find). First of all, there's so much of it -- weaponry, furniture, jewelry, books, food and drink, cutlery, knick-knacks, painting supplies, toys, games that you can actually play with other people, more types of clothing than I can name.. and that's just off the top of my head. There's custom ordering for clothing and furniture that lets you choose the style, color, and/or type of material your item is made out of. Even the things that come straight off the shop rack are amazing, since they also have different styles, colors, and materials associated with them. And your character doesn't have to own twenty full bank accounts in order to buy one interesting dress or coat.

-- There's weather, and you can see time passing. The sun and moons rise and set, the moons wax and wane, clouds drift across the sky, ponds freeze over, thunderstorms rage, etc etc. Also, many of the room descriptions change based on whether it's day or night. Maybe it's just me, but I think that's way cool.

-- Speaking of time: game time follows real time. I love this, personally. I can't even begin to describe how much I hate it when RL takes me out of the game for a few days, and suddenly I'm stuck having to account for why my character's been absent for WEEKS. Heck, I don't like having to log off at night and then come back the next day and have to answer for the three to six days that have suddenly slipped away from my character's life since I last saw them.

-- The lore. I'm not sure why it took me this long to get to this part, but wow, the lore is pretty amazing. To illustrate, take humans. Humans are always the boring, generic, throw-away race in RPGs, with cultures about as unique and distinctive as mud. Right? But in UL, this is not so! The human cultures of Thrael actually have diversity that reflects the richness of real-life cultures, from Timbuktu-style African trade empires to your standard Middle Age Western Europeans. And all the other races, and their respective countries, have equally well developed lore. There are even three different religious pantheons for the three dominant cultural styles of the game (European, Asian, and Middle Eastern/African). So even though the game is based in a more or less standard fantasy setting, there is a distinct historical flavor to much of the world that makes it feel more interesting and real.

-- Character customization. I've perennially been frustrated by character generators that allow you the end result of "You are a blue-eyed brunette elf," or "You are a halfling with mismatched green and brown eyes and black hair." And that's the end of it. Your character is a mostly featureless blob accented by a pair of eyes and sprouting hair. UL's chargen gives you those old standbys of eye and hair color, but it also allows you to set a large number of other traits (e.g., eye expression, nose shape, body type, hairstyle) by choosing from an extensive list of possible descriptors. Players can even set a general height (very short, average, etc.) for their character, so you know whether you can look down your nose at someone or have to crane your neck back just to view their chin.

-- The fact that you can make a difference. Characters have quite a lot of opportunity to stage events for themselves and others, from theatrical performances to banquets to scientific experiments to scavenger hunts, and usually it's possible to get staff support for any props that might be needed. Staff-run plots are generally significantly affected by the actions of the players rather than having a set script, and players themselves often develop and run their own storylines. There are also opportunities to contribute to lore and to design new objects for the game. Also, the advantage of being in testing phase means that players continually possess the ability to help determine where the game actually goes!

-- Random Things: Racial languages you can learn by listening and practice. Canvases you can paint and books you can write in. A delivery system to move objects and money between players who are in the game at different times and in different places. An emote system that doesn't mark off those emotes as something separate or somehow less legitimate than coded verbs. A pose command that lets players set a status emote seen whenever someone looks at the room. Rentable inn rooms to put items and furniture in, or entertain guests. Cool class abilities like teleportation or demon summoning. Monster loot tables with wonderfully random objects. Zillions of forageable plants all over the landscape. Lots of other stuff that I forget.


~ * ~ The Downside (because it can't be all sunshine and roses) ~ * ~

-- Fairly simple mechanics. Combat is relatively simplistic compared to some other games and there's not a lot of strategy involved, though there are more spells and abilities currently in development. The system as it stands is satisfying enough, but nothing extraordinary. A crafting system is also in progress, but a lot of it isn't implemented yet.

-- Combat-based levelling. I like combat/hunting all right, but it's not really my favorite thing to do for extended periods of time. There are other ways to gain experience by which to level -- fishing is actually a fairly viable system for this if you sink the time into it -- but they're much, much slower than hunting. Getting rewarded for RP can net you some reasonably good XP, but of course someone actually has to notice this or actively bring it to staff attention.

-- Small player base. Personally, I like a fairly small player base, but during off hours the number of players can nosedive. Also, inexplicably, a bunch of people always decide over the summer that they have actual lives outside the internet and temporarily abandon the game for the Real World. Really, the nerve of those people. During my time playing the game, probably between 15-30 people on at once has been usual during prime hours, with maybe 40 or a bit more possible during special events. Sometimes, though, the numbers can drop to 5 or fewer, especially during off-peak hours and in the summer.