Dream: Broken Dagger Tavern and Inn
by the skullkitty (8th June, 2007 @ 8:43 pm)
It seems that no matter where a furre goes, she just can’t escape the bar. In FurN these tend to be elaborate, nonsensical, sprawling affairs filled with chapels and indoor waterfalls. In Imag, however, the bar takes on a completely different but just as clichéd face; the Ye Olde Taverne and Inne. Now, the skullkitty has been in plenty of Ye Olde Taverne and Innes in her day — from the Moonstone Mask to Traitor’s Gate — and she’s pretty down with that. She’s also been through Ye Olde Towns and Villagese from Vivec to Port Foozle, and if there’s one thing that the skullkitty is pretty sure about, it’s that the two are generally not one and the same.
Enter the Broken Dagger Tavern and Inn. This mouthful of a dream seems to be suffering from something of an identity crisis, because the actual ‘tavern and inn’ part of the dream is a very tiny component indeed; the vast majority of the rest of the space seems to be occupied by numerous generic fantasy town buildings — general stores and barracks and so forth, but oddly no things like peasant huts or farms — thrown haphazardly amongst what has got to be one of the most unconvincing forests in the whole of Furcadia.
It’s an unfortunate truth that very little of the scenery in the Broken Dagger particularly lends itself to praise. The patching is largely generic and uninspired, it’s true, but there’s still enough base material here that a talented dreamweaver would be able to throw it together in a way that was at the very least interesting. It’s hard to say exactly what feels missing from the interiors especially but there’s definitely something; a lack of attention to detail that leaves the place feeling far too hollow, far too sterile. The overall placement of the buildings within the exterior scenery doesn’t help much, either. Again, it’s hard to place a finger on exactly what’s going on here, but unlike the last medieval village we reviewed there’s nothing about the Broken Dagger that feels alive. This is especially true of the exterior ‘forest’, and an effort has been made to throw in features like a stream and a cave. However, once again, uninspired ‘weaving renders the effects fairly disappointing; the bodies of water, especially, have the most unconvincing and ramrod straight edges the skullkitty has ever had the misfortune of seeing.
This feeling is not at all helped by some highly shonky dreamweaving; the place is absolutely crawling with the kind of clipping and layout errors that drive us up the wall here at F!W. It’s no coincidence or feat of careful editing that almost every single screenshot collected for this review contains at least one glaring error in it, and at no time is the visitor every allowed the illusion that they’re looking at anything other than player-created content. The DS here too is almost non-existent. Transition effects are handled adequately but other than that the place is fairly devoid of interactivity; the entry text entices a player to type !commands (kudos at least for activating the silent speech prefix) only to reward them with a painfully short list. I couldn’t get the door lock commands working at all, and considering that’s two out of the dream’s three we’re not exactly looking at a very good hit-rate. The external area is littered with signposts, however almost all of these are deathly silent and no amount of bumping could entice them to give up their secrets.
The news is not all bad, however, and the Broken Dagger wins back some points for its community which, if the forums are anything to go by, is smallish but nevertheless active. When the skullkitty was sneaking around getting screenshots there was at least one active RP session going on (and quite a number of idlers), which considering the highly off-peak times your favourite reviewer usually gets online was impressive.
Overall, the Broken Dagger is probably worth a shot for anyone looking for long-term, continuity RP in a medieval-town style setting, though it has less to offer for casual dreamhoppers and sightseers.
Overall Assessment
- Pros: A small but seemingly active community.
- Cons: Uninspired patching, lazy dreamweaving and an identity-confused layout.
More Images
Popularity: 90% [?]
I must admit, I’ve checked out the dream qutie a few times but it all seemed so.. Generic I think would be the right word here.
I’ve never really spent much time looking around the dream. Ive rp’d some in the Tavern itself, but yes, it looks somewhat contrived methinks.
It amazes me how every singly Tavern and Inn in Imag is exactly, without exception, exactly following the same principles in its creation…
Should check out some other ones…
James - The Australian
What an interesting thing to say; I wonder which tavern dream in Imag you own, then?
For the kids at home who missed it, James Harding was the one who originally requested the review of this dream. He obviously didn’t own it, which lead us at the time to believe he was attempting to use F!W as some kind of ‘weapon’ either directly against the Broken Dagger or indirectly against taverns in Imag in general. His comments here haven’t exactly disabused us of these views.
So he got what he wanted, and now you all know. Isn’t wank fun?
I am curious to know what caused you to request a review for this dream in particular, as opposed to all of the other Tavern and Inn dreams, since you’ve never spent much time in it.
Wanker :P
Hahahaha,
*claps skullkitty* Fantastic! You are very skilled at creating conflict.
No, I was not aiming to use it as a weapon or any such thing. A person asked me to join the dream, well at least said I was welcome there. I won’t say her name, as I’m not sure if thats her Alts name in Broken Dagger or not, but I believe her to be the owner, or one of the owners. I wanted to know what the review said about it.
I quite enjoy Tavern RP, despite it being pretty much mostly the same in every Tavern dream.
No I don’t have anything against Broken Dagger Inn and Dagger at all. Just that it looks so similar to every other Tavern and Inn I spent time in. I’m just curious, was Broken Dagger Tavern and Inn that same dream that popped up at around the time of Wayfarers by two people? A couple, man and wife if i remember carefully owned it? Or am I think of something different.
And now that I have explained myself to some random people over the internet, I hope some things have cleared up. :D
Cheers.
Yes, well. You sure showed me.
I love how you “won’t say her name” but then tell us you think she’s the owner. You’re the king of discretion, you are.
And this might be self-evident, but, again; why ask us to review it? Do you really have such little faith in your own opinions that you couldn’t just have checked it out for yourself? You need some random stranger on the internet to tell you what to think?
So I figure you’re either deliberately stirring trouble for fun, in which case I’d advise the owners of the Broken Dagger to ban you on sight; or you’ve got so little confidence that you need someone you perceive as being somehow more ‘popular’ or ‘better qualified’ than you to tell you what to think and publicly validate your opinions. Which is it?
Anyway, the skullkitty hopes she has satisfied your need for pointless drama for at least one day. Better here than in someone’s dream, we always say.
Uninspired patching? Lazy dreamweaving? It’s still better than the lackluster job done on The Leaky Mug which proudly displays the colors Brown, Green and… that’s about it, really. Or Gryffehold’s jumbled dreamwork, or the vast majority of the generic Imaginarium guilds. These dreams don’t aspire to be pure visual masturbation like many Furrabian dreams, they’re often dreams set up by teenagers for their friends who lack several hundred dollars to hire someone to make a patch for them or the ability to create their own dream’s patch, and are as such reduced to working with what the Furc patch archives gives them.
It gets the job done, an at the very least decent dream that allows people to come together and RP while not being too hard on the eyes or too distracting with the surroundings. Refering to Draygans Hollow in the review, a dream whose Rah is an experienced dreamweaver and makes a decent living as a patchmaker, shows high expectations up front for a dream that really wasn’t asking for a professional review.
Which, incidentally, is exactly what the review says.
Saying that it’s unfair to compare dreams to a place like Draygans Hollow because the Rah is an “experienced dreamweaver” and patcher is a bit of a straw man argument. We’ve given positive reviews to several dreams in the past who were either mostly or wholly using patches obtained freely as downloads. You’ll note that in the main body of the review I even stated that there was “enough base material [in the Broken Dagger] that a talented dreamweaver would be able to throw it together in a way that was at the very least interesting“.
Yes, Draygans is a brilliant dream (though you have to ask yourself how it got that way). Yes, other dreams in Imag show lacklustre dreamweaving. Does that negate the fact that the Broken Dagger doesn’t particularly distinguish itself from its peers in this regard? Not really, and I suspect that the regulars there don’t much care; that’s fine, I’m not saying they should.
I did say, however, that the Dagger seems to have a solid core of RP and believe me, that’s worth its weight in gold, that is. Patches and ‘weaving errors can be fixed pretty easily. A broken or dead community, on the other hand, is much, much harder to get rid of…
Okay man, I apologise for saying that I feel that all Tavern and Inn’s in Imag follow the same principles. I didn’t really think it was that much of an offense, especially on a site so cynical as this. Whatever, I’m not trying to stir anything.
Id rather not have a needless argument, so I’m quite happy to stop bickering childishly.
Well done, nice review.
You’re great.
James?
Where to start…First off, I’m not the original owner of the dream. It belonged to a friend of mine. Before that it belonged to a friend of hers. I saw this dream and I saw its potential. I asked if I could have it since my friend never used it. She gladly gave it to me to run. I’ve had it up an running for about a year, but due to a full schedule, I didn’t get to work on it much, though I managed to fix major glitches. I’m not good at patches and I’m not the best at DS. However, I would like to say in my defense that I actually started to remodel the dream this summer. The current patches will still be used, but I intend to add things, such as a village for folk to live in or a place for people to upload their own homes…even though this dream isn’t really made for housing. Originally, it was just meant to accommodate the needs of someone passing through, but a friend requested housing and such so I considered it. While this dream is not the best and the patching and DS isn’t that great, I wish that people would simply appreciate what I have done so far. In time, those little problems pointed out in the review will be fixed. All I ask for is time.
I think I can speak for both skullkitty and myself when I say that dreams which contain open, active roleplay are far more enjoyable than those with just pretty patching. That alone is so very hard to come by. (Don’t quote me on what skullkitty says though!)
I, myself, don’t care so much what the dream looks like– to me it’s more important the kinda of rp environment it is and The Broken Dagger has great rp’ers that frequent it.
I’ve seen many dreams where the layout and patches are awesome but the only posts you get are things like:
CoOl CHiCK: “do u have a mate?”
Idiot187 walks up to the bar and steals a bottle from the other side with his mad skillz!
BD is one of the few places around with worth while rp.
I am a frequent at the BD, and I do have to say, with about five to six years of Furcadia behind me, that it is one of the most active, the most welcoming, the most interesting dreams I have been in. I absolutely love the people there. No, it may not be the most elaborate piece of pixel work, but it does have a flowing layout and it friendly on the eyes.. compared to, yes, some of the dreams out there that try to use colours to lure you in. But who would want to rp in some place that you can’t even finish a three-liner within ten minutes because your eyes are distracted by neons and pastels? I happen to think the dull colours bring the realism of the medieval rp out, there weren’t too many bright colours unless worn by royalty.. but we’re talking about a freakin’ tavern here, not a castle!
Wishing the best,
I’ve visited the dream since this review was published. Some things have certainly been improved upon. I’ve got to say that, as a patcher and a dreamweaver, I wasn’t particularly impressed by the scenery in the least. There was a surprisingly large group of people in it for an Imag dream, though. That definitely makes it worth poking around for a bit.
I have been to other dreams in Imag. I still remember back when Weyfares (I believe this was the name) was still around. Bail’s used to be a hot spot as well, but it died several times and lost it’s reliability. I’ve been to the Leaky Mug, but I find the community to be a bit… unwelcoming. I’m biased, though, as I’ve been RPing at the Broken Dagger for a while now. Almost half a year now. However, I was around before it became active and I actually -loved- the way it looked. I was always struck by how nice and realistic it was. Granted, there aren’t that many custom patches, but that hardly matters. Doing what they have with just basic furcadia patches, to me, is quite an amazing thing. We’re a welcoming community and growing each month. At night we generally have at least 20 active people in the tavern and scattered along the dream.
We’re fun, what more could you ask for? :)
I’d love to say something about the shame page, you spend a lot of time on it and it almost seems like you stalk these people, you should have put signatures on your art before if you are older than 12+ in years of life. I do see how you got thieved upon the port. Now as for some of the other people you call “thieves” did you ever bother to stop and ask, “WHY they upload any art at all on their sites?” because you may just get different answers from them all. In response for you listing Pabo, a character I owned and gave away because the artist inspired so much and I can’t draw anything but a stick figure. Frankly, from what I see in this site from you is that you purposely go out find anyone with art on their page and charge them with stealing it or if there’s no art on it you just like to have a fight, by the way, I’ve also been to your Tavern and it’s not my cup of tea. I would question your relations to our president, the apple doesn’t fall far.
If you prove me you do none of these things I will gladly set them aside and say I was wrong but if not then I will stain you with them.
Uh… right. It’s a list of names. That’s it. If that screams “a lot of time” to you… well, yeah.
You know, I’m just not even going to bother rebutting this. Only to say that you, my friend, are obviously not an artist yourself.
It wasn’t me who got… oh, hell; why am I even bothering?
Ah! I get it now.
Uh, sure. Uh-huh. You keep making those terrific deductions there, Batman.
I can only give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume you mean either the Drif or the Grotto, in which case; that’s cool because you’re not their “cup of tea” either.
If you’re talking about the Broken Dagger, my only advice to you, kid, is get off fucking Furc and learn to goddamn read. Because seriously. What are you, 13?
Is this… supposed to be some kind of insult? Because — just as a little hint — they work better when they’re actually comprehensible.
Shit, me and the neonbat are shaking in our little paw-booties. No, seriously, we are.
I think I’m beginning to get it…
Wait. Since when has there been a president in Australia?
Ahh, guilt rears its ugly head. Is this another one of those last-ditch “it’s the artist’s fault if someone else rips their work off” excuses, complimented by a twist of “anyone who cares clearly doesn’t live a life as cool as mine” ad hominem?
You can thank me, the neonbat, by the way, for getting your character’s name up there. Apparently the website you had for Pabo is long gone (what a shock), but I recall seeing a lot of “lol this is of my charries” and many pieces of artwork I’d seen on different artists’ archives before. And here’s the greatest part — most had signatures on them! I’m glad you pointed out to me that I’m stalking you, though. Now I know for sure that walking by a furre on Furcadia and writing their name down if they’ve got stolen character art is wrong wrong wrong.
I’m not bothering with the rest of your comment. It looks like a bunch of “by the way you’re wrong about everything else too” so your defensiveness over stealing art somehow looks more credible. But I’m left still not understanding how signing one’s work magically makes kids like you incapable of pretending they created it. Would you please explain that to me?
Please don’t say you’re wrong. Fights on the interwebs are so much more fun when everyone thinks they are right.