My review

[Ichike]

First off - this should be posted on MUD Connector, but Gatz doesn't want Naruto MUD to be able to reviewed (they should IMO). Anyway I will do it here, even though this is less than neutral.

First impression - trying to log on:
I love Naruto, I got Austar (cable TV) so that I could watch it (its not shown on normal TV here), watched all 26 episodes, then looked everywhere to find more on the internet, and found episodes 27-126 of the American version on the internet, then episodes 127-220 (end) of the Japanese version with English subtitles, and 1-41 of the Shippuuden Japanese version with English subtitles, and all 3 of the movies (a 4th has been released, but it hasn't been dubbed and put on to the internet yet), and then I found the manga and read from Shippuuden 41 equivalent right through to the end - an extra 90 episodes. And then I started reading it again from the start, and watched the episodes from the start in Japanese. I did all of this. And, like many of you out of there, I really wanted to have as much to do with Naruto as possible. That's why I came to this MUD. Because its Naruto MUD. Because its the only Naruto MUD. And after all of that, I wasn't allowed to be me! I had to create a new character name, and went through all 12 of my regular MUD names - 2 of which are based after anime names - and none were allowed. Do you have any idea how annoying that is? I didn't even have a clue what kind of name to create. What a bad impression. And then I was left waiting for ages for an authorisation. Finally, after several months of trying, I was allowed in, but then forced to change my name as now it was too close to an existing character name (they didn't tell me which one - I didn't think it was close to any character names - like many things I was meant to just magically guess).

Second impression - finally in the game, trying to figure out what to do:
Once in the game, I opted to do the newbie area first, thinking it was most likely an easy exp area like newbie areas are on most MUDs. Wrong! You couldn't get exp anywhere in the newbie area, and after a few hours I figured out that there was nothing useful in there other than some tips for how to play. And then to get out I had to do one of the most complicated quests in the game! Granted it was a bit easier to figure out than other quests, but it had 6 parts! And you had to write it all down on a piece of paper just to have a hope of getting out. Then, once I finally got out, I had no idea what to do, and mistakingly thought that I was meant to go to the Academy (not realising that the newbie area was the Academy), and then had to do the quest again!

Third impression - meeting people finally and getting help:
I had to wait 5 annoying hours before I could use OOC. In theory there was a newbie command, but in my first 5 hours of playing I didn't once meet anyone with the newbie helper tag. Finally when I had OOC the first people that I met wouldn't even respond (perhaps they were busy?) Then the few that did were annoyed at my questions. I got to level 4 (dying about 10 times) through killing rabbits but had no idea how to train or practise anything or where to go to shops or what to do. One guy took me to a trainer then laughed at what an idiot I was and told me I was a loser for not figuring it out by myself. Shiro was nice enough to take me to the city and get me a lantern, but he got me lost more than anything too.

Fourth impression - finally, after perserverence finding this forum, and a newbie guide:
It isn't obvious from logging on to the MUD that this forum even exists. On Mud Connector there is a web page, with a link to the forum, but it doesn't take you to the forum itself, and is really unhelpful. But once I found it, I soon found a newbie guide, a map (!) and was set. From there things were pretty easy. But I kept thinking - why couldn't I have been told all of that to begin with? Why couldn't people have been more helpful?

Fifth impression - deciding that I personally will be more helpful to others than they were to me:
I took it upon myself to start being helpful to new players, so I went around helping anyone who was new, offering to group with them, talk to them, and so forth. I did it with lots of people, met many people, and we discovered things together. After doing this for a while, I thought that I would write a few things in my own newbie guide on here. As I am sure many other people have thought to do. I had originally planned it to just be one post, but of course I ended up replying to myself and it got too long. But I felt good about doing that, I backed it up by putting it in my profile, I OOCed to newbies that they could look at my newbie guide by typing finger ichike, and I went around and followed them and helped them out.

Sixth impression - getting replies and responses to my guide
Most people loved that I had a guide. Of course, some of the information that I picked up wasn't 100% right. Most people offered to help me to perfect the tiny little things with it. Some people, however, a tiny minority, decided to send me nasty messages about it. People like Hitoshi. They decided to tell me that I was WRONG. Now that's all fine over such things as my putting in that the Sound Village had bunshins when as I discovered they don't. But some of the things I was told were wrong weren't wrong at all. And whilst most of the messages were very positive, Hitoshi kept being nasty about it. It left a sour taste in my mouth, and made me feel like the guide wasn't appreciated, at least not by Hitoshi. Sadly, Hitoshi is one of the immortals (seemingly one of only 2) so his way goes, hence meaning that I might be forced to delete my guide.

Seventh impression - forced by Hitoshi to delete the guide
Now about 5 hours ago Hitoshi sent me a nasty message (in a tell) on the MUD to say that I had to stop being so nasty to people who told me how awful my guide was or else. And that I was wrong. And that my guide was completely and utterly useless and needed to be wiped. As you can imagine, this really upset me a lot. I had spent over 100 hours working on that guide. 100 hours of my time that I spent on trying to make this MUD better, on helping new people to enjoy it, so that the MUD would grow, and help everyone. And Hitoshi, and only Hitoshi, was destroying this. So I said to him "Okay you win, I will delete it" and so I did.

Eighth impression - Hitoshi sends me to hell - although apparently this is merely a coincidence
Officially I was sent to hell for botting. Botting? Oh, right, because I had written the guide, and spent 100 hours on it, while I was playing, and they define botting as when you are doing 2 things at once. Not actually a rule, but a good excuse for Hitoshi to use to ban me, so that he can look like a big man. Of course, I'm not actually banned. He just did it when my Wisdom was gained to 99.9%, 0.1% away from getting my first extra practise, what I had been aiming for for the past 3 days, just to hurt me. And now, he says, it is clearly obvious that I am to be banned. Not because I wrote a newbie guide, of course not. Although, in saying that, he did lock the guide post, and also he locked a Genin mission description post, which I didn't write, after changing it so that it looked like I had written it. I did write a reply with the 11th description. But that post had existed FOR OVER A YEAR. Hitoshi lied by pretending that I had written it to give away quest hints. Its not actually quest hints, its mission descriptions, which anyone could get by saying "mission one" once they get to Genin level (and before you get to Genin level, its useless to you). In other words, all that post did was so that people didn't have to write down the mission descriptions every time. But hey, Hitoshi is looking for dirt, trying to justify what he knows is his horrendous behaviour. Trying to hope that Gatz doesn't ban him...

Final impression - Naruto MUD hates to help people - thanks to Hitoshi
As with a lot of things, you can have a million fantastic things about the MUD, only to have it ruined by one person. In this case that one person is Hitoshi. Sadly Gatz is short on immortals (probably because of a lack of numbers) and Hitoshi is his only immortal (or at least seems to be), so he has to put up with it. Yet of course if they worked on being friendly to people, nice to newbies, and having guides and help and so forth, then they would get more people, more immortals, and they wouldn't need to have people behaving as badly as Hitoshi does.

It is a great MUD, but Hitoshi is an awful person. Sadly, while Hitoshi remains here, this MUD will never be what it could be, and will always be dominated by jerks and poor behaviour.

[Gatz]

Officially I was sent to hell for botting. Botting? Oh, right, because I had written the guide, and spent 100 hours on it, while I was playing, and they define botting as when you are doing 2 things at once. Not actually a rule, but a good excuse for Hitoshi to use to ban me, so that he can look like a big man. Of course, I'm not actually banned.

This is an exerupt from help botting:

Note: Letting commands run (Like LSC commands such as Pushup or Situp) are
ranked the same as botting if you are not actively watching the MUD screen
during that time!

After looking over the logs of things, I can't help but side with Hitoshi. Also, if this was truly an issue, why didn't you come to me directly? Yet, you go to the forums, ranting and raving, and expect that to fix things? If anything, it shows a lack of maturity. This could have been resolved quietly and quickly. I've never turned down a player from talking to me, even if it includes flat out insulting me or NarutoMUD. I've not once ever turned down criticism, I welcome it. I wish everyone had a fun time on NM and if someone isn't, I'd like to know why.

All this being said, I'm very disappointed in you. It is my policy to always leave up reviews, no matter how misguided they are, and this one takes the cake. You make a lot of great points, but they all get ruined by your rant. If you truly wanted to help, how come you didn't offer more suggestions and things? In all honesty, your guide felt insulting to me and had a lot of rude undertones. A lot of your comments were very harsh on things that you deemed 'worthless' and a lot of time devolved into just rants. I felt you could be a great asset to newbies and NM with these guides, but I feel like you this is more of an issue of "I got yelled at by your Mom, so I'm not going to play in your sandbox anymore."

I believe some people will read this review and honestly believe it all, which will hurt us, but by hiding these sort of incidents, we almost acknowledge their validity. I'm sorry this bad experience happened to you, but I ask you to look back on it all and -truly- ask yourself if you feel this way or if you were just lashing out in anger. I'm locking this thread and removing your other posts that seem to be flame bait at this point. We welcome you back to NM, but only if you can be reasonable about it and not try to start some sort of mutiny or riot. However, if you look back on this and feel you were so strongly in the right that everything you've done has been justified, then please leave and don't be 'emotionally beaten' by the MUD's design or staff any longer.