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.
Popularity: 90% [?]
