[Fishy]

Hello I hope this goes here otherwise I apologize but I couldn't find a more appropriate part of the forum. Anyway I wanted to express my delight over the splendid reviews that we have been getting lately. Now I don't know if everyone reads them but I sure do.

First we have Realms of Despair: I think mud is cool, you meet cool ppl and thats basically what makes you stay, tho I have no friends on the mud except myself so anyway cool...COOL
----[5/5 Long indepth detailed description, a very good review.]

Secondly we have Harshlands: I've played Harshlands for some time now and its really great. Its exciting and there is always something happening. Everyone's really helpfull and its very realistic. Anyone who likes reall RP should try this mud out
Hope to see you there
----[5/5 I really understood what makes this mud stand out from the rest after reading this review]


The third review which is of Avalon is a bit better but:
<snip>"I will be returning the game soon ( I think a lifetime membership is 300+ USD but downside to that is if you get punished by a good it's a huge waste of money )
Try it if it's your fancy.. but it's not for everyone."</snip>
----[Eeeh 5 pay 300 USD and then don't get to play the months for a few months if I get punished by a god for a reason I don't understan...?](ps didn't quote everything in there would be too much)

Anyway my point is do people still bother with writing reviews cause I am working on one of my own. Though looking through other peoples review I'm a bit put off... I do know Synozer believes in the open review system and I even believe there was a discussion about this (here or on TMC) but I wanted to ask do you people (that is more "serious" mudders) still bother with reading reviews?

Thank you for bothering with this ramble.
/Fishy

[Ilkidarios]

I don't bother with reading reviews. I find that with something free (mostly) like MUDs, I can find out for myself. However, if the MUD costs money to pay, I will read the reviews.

[cron0s]

Most of the reviews on this site tend to be a waste of time. They are often extremely short and uninformative, and seem to serve little purpose other than to get the name of the mud on the front page.

It makes little difference whether the mud is free or not as I don't know of any pay to play muds that require you to pay up front. There is usually a free trial period which will tell you far more about the mud in question than most of the reviews on here can.

[Valg]

They're information. Some are worth reading, others aren't, and an intelligent reader can usually tell the difference between the two fairly quickly.

Of course you can get a better feel for any game by playing it, but there are hundreds of games on this site, and reading a few reviews might help you cut them down into a group you'd like to try.

[Fishy]

Cronos and Valg I agree. However what I mean was do _you_ bother with reading them?

I wish there was a way of making a poll.

[Valg]

I do, but I admit I'm reading as an administrator. I'll flip through samplings from various games and look at what people like and dislike about each. Certain things will pop up as themes in the well-written subset of reviews, and those themes might or might not be things we can emphasize in our own content and advertising.

[GuruPlayer]

I'm a player who reads all the reviews, good or bad, because I'm looking for interesting MUDs to play.  Sometimes a good review is sent in that sparks my interest, so I will go to the MUD to try it out.  You always need to try the MUD yourself.  Occasionally an intelligent bad review is posted that defines what they didn't like about the MUD, & that can be good feedback for the MUD admins.  However, because this website doesn't control or moderate the review section, you will frequently get the idiot troll reviews, that are worthless, & are posted usually by banned or punished players who have a grudge, & will do anything to harass the MUD.  The website staff should delete these worthless reviews, but unless they are obscene, they are left alone.

The opposite side of the coin, is when a call goes out to a MUD's playerbase to write reviews for their MUD, & all of a sudden 5 or 6 reviews come in on the same day, & the reviews aren't reviews, they're just one or two sentences, about how it's the best MUD they have ever played.  These types of reviews do NOT inspire me to try their MUD, if fact it has the opposite result.

[Fishy]

I recently posted the review about "The Looking Glass". First I have a plead to Synozer: Even though Robert (head imm) both shutoff reviews and put it back on again, the submit review link simply doesn't show up in the entry in the database. Now I figured a way around this but could you please fix it?

Second of all if anyone cares to post a "review of the review" I'd be much obliged. I realize there are some language faults I was thinking more context wise. Thanks /Ikashi