Well, I have been playing this mud for 15 years. It is very friendly. There are also many players from countries around the world. A fantastic clan system, with raiding, and re-raiding. Clan powers, and individual style types for many classes. You can customize your player and enjoy the satisfaction of exploring a world designed and balanced by hundreds of players for over a decade. It is stable and aged like a fine wine and should be savored on each log in. Log on and enjoy, try to relax! :)

For many years I have enjoyed Helliconia. Throughout its life it has changed many times. New area's, new classes, styles, etc. Every time I go somewhere else I end up coming back, because for all the changes it has gone through, it maintains a strong balance and a good pk system. RP is encouraged, and the clan system works exceptionally well in my opinion.

I play this game for several years now, and still have fun. During the last two years there appeared to be some kind of stagnation, but recently it became more exciting again - new spells, classes, areas, quests ... and more people joining, more action, more pk. Still a great MUD!

Helliconia has all this. 7 Clans, fighting for their beliefs.and for their clan items which give the members their poweres, each unique to the clan or brotherhood within the clan. Restricted pk, ranging from 5lvls from lvl 11 to 7lvls. so no highup can pk a little lvl 11. Pk stars at lvl 11 so you have time to build your skills, and equip. Religion, each of the many Gods has his/her own temple which gives bonuses depending on your faith. Well based race/classes. Each well thought out and balanced with the other, be it one of the 3 Necromancer classes, 3 classes of Barbarian, or any of the others. Lvl based autoquests, and (i could be out here) about 50 area quests giving various rewards. (also lvl based, align based) Societies from the Helping Hand, ready to help Newbies with questions, advise, and if you ask nicely possibly equip. to San Tulan the clan haters, waging war on all clanned chars. Even with the emphasis on PK there is still a feeling of community here. some players to tend to be loyal to extremes sometimes but generally they treat Newbies well The name Helliconia could be a let down for fans, the mud is LOOSLY based on helliconia. You will find some cities/areas here, Phagors, Nondads, but the mud is no purely based on the Brian Aldiss books. At the first glance you will see quite a bit of stock here. Please go a bit deeper and discover that the stock has been improved on and changed, there are many new and original areas here that just need to be wondered at. The playerbase comes from all around the world. Russia, Skandinavia, America, Germany, UK. so language is not a problem, even with a limited knowledge(not too limited though :) ) you would be ok. I could go on and on, describing what is good or bad, the main thing is we need new players. Slowly the playerbase has dropped. Not because the mud is bad, but people move on due to various reasons. family, jobs etc. Helliconia could be among the big names, it just doesnt start with an A. Please come and give us a shot, get into a clan and then judge, before this you are missing what the mud is about. If you got this far, then thanks for reading.

Let's see... many races, classes, town... oh... fully help for newb in mud... many clanes... all with very power skill... i like it and recomended JOIN! :)

If you know the story of Goldielocks, you can start to understand why I have remained at Helliconia over all the other muds I have played. Unlike many players I have probably put at least 3 months into over 15 different muds ranging from Rot/Rom, to custom RP only, etc, etc. If you are reading this and are not from Helliconia I have probably been to your Mud, and left...the reason it wasn't the "just right" that i was looking for. What is it that Helliconia has, the secret touch that keeps certain players here? I would say the first is a player base that is consistant, not too high as to be just one in the school of fish, and not to low that you sit for hours alone staring at the who list wondering when someone else will log on. For me somewhere between 30-50 players is ideal. You have enough of a base to make a name for yourself and enough competition to make doing so enjoyable. Muds with hugh numbers just make you a face in the crowd unless you are willing to suffer for about 5 years, and by then you ask yourself was it worth it? To me at 50 players you can concentrate this effort and get the same fun of being the top-dog. Now to the Mud specifics: This Mud has other things which i shall call critical: pk-balance: A Level 50 of anything can defeat a level 50 of anything else, if not in a one on one fight straight out duel than be using the mud environment itself to tip the scales in your favor. This means you cannot go wrong at the selection screen, there is no wrong choice, no weak choice, no two weeks later deleteing because you have become the newbie who chose to play the "gimp". nice equipment: equipment is another factor besides the world itself that gives a stalemate in battle over to the guy with the better equipment. why is this important? it makes the player more dependant on interacting with the world and other players in securing this equipment, it is a measure of interaction that even the best pkiller must deal with, this is the starting point to a powergamers roleplay and it turns the worlds clans based on good and evil, order and chaos, and magic and non-magic to practical as well as ideal interactions. dilema/roleplay: In helliconia it is always a compromise between your roleplay and your human nature for power; and the game itself forces this morality choice on you by its rewards, both in clan power and in quests and equipment. clans have certain requirements of players which to gain them you will have to adapt to their code of conduct, reading the help files sets you in the right direction but the players themselves usually find a clan that matches their real life selves in some form or another because the roleplay-burdens this mud on... Read More

This is a great mud, well balanced, with a good team of imms. Over the last few months classes have been split, e.g. theves now can be robber or pickpocket. Paladins split into 3, necros too. This has all been done slowly, helping to keep the mud pretty well balanced. There are 6 Clans to choose from, each with its own powers and objectives. New areas are added on a pretty regular basis. There are still stock ones, but modified. PK can and is great fun, just a pity that there are not a few more people about to fill out the mud a bit. Most players and imms are friendly and will help out new players who have problems getting started. Please come and try Helliconia out, you wont regret it.

Highly coded and balanced. Fun atmosphere but lacks the player support to bring it to it's full capacity. Try it and see for yourself. Cant beat free :) Helliconia junky

Connected to remote host Your site has been banned from this mud. :)

Well, things have been taken care of, and miresean left on his own wishes. Helliconia is back to normal, and people are having fun once again. I would also like to appoligize for writing my first review about this MUD. I really do love it, and i dont' want to hurt it. I was just very angry with how i was treated by miresean when I had done nothing wrong. I overreacted. TO Those who might try to play helli: I hope you come to give it a shot, it is a really fun MUD and i'll never leave it. And if ever have questions or need help, you can ask me (Revan) if you see me on :) *TIP* Hope to see ya there.

So the fighting system is a crap, world is small and unstructured, roleplay inexistent, playerbase a private club, practice system is total crap, clanwars are boring and senseless, and you suggest people searching a mud to find another, great ... Game is a complete shit, no doubt ... BUT you've been playing since 1997!, what are you? a complete idiot or a liar? or wait, you're probably BOTH! If you want to flame at least use some imagination, huh? Helliconia is a GREAT mud, and it's very easy to prove, even this stupid have not been able to stop logging for the last 6 years, come to Helli and have some fun ;)

Greetings. I had been playing Helliconia since 1997, so here are my two coins. Helliconia was born with innate defect of absolute holding skills. It didn't bode well for mages, as you can understand. However, this problem was never fixed, and to preserve balance there were patches, dopes, and so on. No one cared about it while the world was young - players just enjoyed themselves. Right now, however, this illness has almost killed Helliconia. Every tactic, every battle is based on three foundations - summon, blind and hold. There are no warriors - they are bashers; there are no mages - they are monster summoners. Another major problem is that immortals play with their mortal characters, making no secret of this. World. The world of Helliconia is relatively small, compiled of hodge-podge of fantasy-like areas connected to each other with little logic. Roleplay. If you have a lot of patience, you may try to roleplay. However, do expect a dialog like this: "Align?" "What do you mean?" "Ur align?" "Erm.. I'm good" "Group?".. and so on. Playerbase. Helliconia resembles a private club - with all the consequences. Skills. Skills can increase far above 100%, de facto forcing you to practice, practice and practice - otherwise you won't survive hardcore playerkilling. Clanwars. Since most of the players know each other for a long time, they decided not to loot enemy corpses. It hastened the endless circle of raids and reraids and made clanwars absolutely boring and senseless. Clan skills are cool, though. Autoquests and arena. Since clanwars are boring, most of the players waste their time fighting gladiator fights on a special coded arena and making autoquests. Sometimes they got one practice for a won arena fight and one or two practices for a quest. Ten practices can be converted to a train, and a train can be converted to 10 hit points. Got the idea? Good. Quests and arena are major pastime in Helliconia. So, if you want to play a role in a fantasy world.. find another world :) Thank you for reading. -Eitch.

At first I would like to say that Helliconia is beside some few other attempts earlier the best mud I have played. I will most probably never switch the mud as I like the PK, the clans, the way of limited, the roleplay, the current imm staff, the balance, no loss of anything beside experience with death, the downtimes of ZERO, the varity and the huge size of the mud. All in all the mud is great, the only thing as someone said earlier, is the lack of players. If we had more players the multi-ppl-battles, which are the most exciting and funny things existing, would be more often. I can just advice you :) Try it out, it is worth it, all gods and players will most likely answer any question you got and try to help you. Good Luck adventuring, fighting and roleplaying :)

It was a wonderful place to be. But now some mad immortals completely destroyed the fun it was before. I played it for 7+ years, but now i left. Till people like Miresean exist, its defenitely not a place to have fun :(

Since I know a lot of these reviews will be removed, I wanted to leave a comment. By the looks of this mass of childish posts from the players of Helliconia, no matter the issues with the immortal in question, I have to say I doubt I'd ever have any interest in roleplaying with such ignorant people. Especially people who out of spite are willing to drag out a load of dirty laundry in reviews like this, that have NOTHING to do with reviewing a MUD. The immortal in question may very well need to be let go, I'm not arguing that. But if you have a problem this should have been kept on your own MUD forum and not degraded on here. I find it especially amusing how some of the reviews talk about how great the MUD is except for this ONE PERSON. Do you realize how bad you just made your MUD look? It has nothing to do with the code or the roleplay or even the staff. It has to do with YOU. And you all just made yourselves look like asses. Give me a break. If I was an immortal and you all acted like this, I'd slay you too.

I will not post a review, i will let you read a report from one of the imps of the mud: "This is addressed to the ones (site and friends) who are currently having problems with the assessment of their playingstyle by the immortals. Well, it is easy for me to say this, because I don't have a site team and I don't use ICQ, AIM, MSN etc., but I realize that it can't be avoided. There have been Russian, German, and American teams before, and there will be in the future. This is not great, but ok, as long as this doesn't tip the balance and doesn't lead to a large, unfair advantage over those players who play alone. In this case, it must be dealt with by the immortals. And it is. One can argue that certain immortals are too hot-tempered when they see questionable behaviour, and for sure, Miresean has overreacted in some cases, but I am not sure about how I would have reacted in this case. You should definitely try and think about how your behaviour and general appearance in the mud must be perceived by any uninvolved person outside your 'group'. And then adjust your behaviour. Is uggest you play different clans and do not interact with each other more than with total outstanders. This would resolve many of these problems. Some more suggestions: - If you are in trouble already, avoid reawakening 'graveyard chars' of yours, it doesn't improve the situation. - If you want your complaints to be taken seriously and to be dealt with in a fair way, act fair yourself, and do not e.g. try to destroy the reputation of our MUD in public. As long as I can see these 'reviews' on 'Top Mud Sites' you will have a REALLY hard time here. This was your decision, now swallow the consequences. - Don't even think you can succeed in getting Miresean or any other Imm booted by applying 'pressure' in any form. If council/IMPs think an imm is doing a good or bad job, they decide appropriately. Your actions, demanding deletion, tip the balance of the scale into exactly the opposite direction. Nevertheless .... have fun (after you calmed down and organized the removal of the offending TMS reviews) Hormidac" This mud totally ignores any whishes of player, demands from their players good reviews here, as you can read, else they will have "hard times" in their mud, and for a strange reason, some players are still left there..somehow.. vote: do not visit it at the moment, wait for updates from the players

i've been playing this mud for almost a year, learning the different inns and outs and how to survive in this cruel world of helliconia. the problem arises when the immortals with power have nothing better to do than slay/purge/slay anyone he doesn't like(namely miresean) or make blatant changes to further their other characters. as far as gameplay, this mud is top notch. the problem falls with the administration. i would suggest staying clear of this mud unless you like having to deal with mindless bullshit form those with absolute power in this game. it seems that in helliconia's case that old cliche holds true "absolute power corrupts absolutely"

Well, i must say this is a great MUD. I also have been playing it for a few years and have learned a lot. Still a lot for me to learn, but it has been useer friendly for the most part. But just recently i suffered the false accusations of punishments of an immortal named Miresean. Forsure i hope that he will be released from duties soon and all will be well in helliconia again. But until then, enter at your own risk, and if i might suggest, just wait till you hear otherwise about the MUD. Because it is a GREAT MUD when there aren't imms that screw with people like miresean does.

I have to agree.Been playing this mud, well since the begining almost and it seems to be going downhill; Not up. The most recent problem(last year or so) has been an immortal named Miresean. Unfortunately he takes advantage of his powers from what I have seen. I personally have not dealt with him but Im sure the day is coming as he seems to be Banning everyone and killing everyone. I love this game but it seems the time has come to move on. This game is not player friendly; (Not because of the game or it's coding, But because him and the games direction) Do yourself a favor, Try a different mud. John, Player of helliconia(perhaps former as well)

I liked this mud alot... i had tried others and none were as good as this one. However i tell you this DO NOT COME TO IT...This immortal Miresean is being extremly lame and will only make your time very boring so i warn you now do not come..

Hello All, Helliconia is a great place to enter. It has been my home for almost 3 years now, and I wouldn't join another other mud out there. I will however say If I were you I wouldn't step foot into Helliconia Until this Miresean gets booted out. Otherwise you will be destroyed by her hand and you will leave forever. Miresean likes to catch you when you are being yourself and transfer you to a place so she can Slay you and then Delete you, then nicely to Site ban you so you can't get on anymore. I would suggest not entering this mud till this situation clears up. These posts will look much better when our world is clear of these Monsters. For now take care and I will keep intouch about this Miresean character. Jaime/Acitore

This mud has lots of potential but there is one serious issue there.A very unintelligent immortal by the name of Miresean. He has a strong tendency to slay(kill your character) and ban your site. Its explained much better at the official forum for helliconia.(www.helliconia.de).Just click on forum then last day and note all the comments on this a$$. Unfortunately he is single handedly destroying this game. I would recomend you dont come to this mud at least till he is removed. player of helliconia for 6 years.(Eric)

Been playing this mud for about 5 years now.Played in 5 of the clans and enjoy the extensive nature of the mud.The major problem with this mud is it's playerbase... It's fun now(Play between 3-5 hours a day) and would be much better with a larger playerbase. The game is VERY large and expanding everyday.Imp's are very active in making the world larger. Eric

Well, been playing this mud for 7 or 8 years and I still enjoy it, thou really Yilan is true, there's a great lack of newcomers, probably because the world is frustrating at the begining, but it's pretty addictive at the end when you learn how to survive ... Some little corrections to the world description, world is mostly original, and many stock areas have been reworked to make it fit with the Helliconia Trilogy looks, also roleplaying is not mandatory but encouraged, like player killing, that is also encouraged (but always with a reason behind). Well there're really many more features that this short description does not mention, several races some of them just from Helliconia coming directly from the books of Aldiss, like Phagor (sort of a minotaur) and Nondad (some semi intelligent ape-like being), more to come like Madies also from the book, some combos of race + class have some slightly higher adventages but in general all have their chances and the game is good balanced. Clans are one of the more interesting features, clans are made by pairs, opposite clans are always in war, clan members recieve powers from items they keep in their hideout, opposite clan must retrieve this items and put them in their own hideout to reduce or even vanish opposite clanpowers, when this happends clanmembers must recover their items (what uses to be risky :-), in general the living of the clanmembers uses to be more "exciting" than the one of the rest (thou of course there're exceptions) Another nice feature is the existance of artefacts, artefacts (usualy known as limiteds) are powerful items much better than normal ones, there's only a limited number of each of this items (generally the better the item is the lower the number of them in the world) so usualy the only way to get one of this items is through PlayerKilling There're also societies, that are a certain number of people clanned or unclanned that decides to join for a certain goal, like exploring the lands, helping others or spreading their idea of honour ... and others more secret and with less decent goals *grin* And more, much more ... autoquests, arena, immortals dedicated to do special/personal quests, deeds (special quests), many many places to explore, come and see it :-)

I tried several MUDs, but this one is my favourite. I play it for 5 years, from time to time. This world is steadily growing, new areas added, many things get improved. Almost always at least one immortal is online (remember, this MUD is free, so they are not get paid for sitting there and watching how the world lives). Once I stumbled into a strange place, where directions were strangely reversed. I could not find an exit myself, and recall did not work, so I prayed to the gods. Immediately an Immortal appeared before me. He gave me some hints on finding a right direction in this place. I was impressed by his roleplaying. The world is very large, I have not explored it all yet! A good choice of areas to explore at each level. I haven't read the book on which the MUD is based. Nevertheless, I enjoy Helliconia. You can learn all things specific to this world in the MUD school. Helliconia features randomly generated quests, special quests that a character can take only once in his/her life, arena duels (player vs player, player vs monster). I've never been in a clan, because being in a clan is a great responsibility (but they get special clan benefits, too!). There is plenty of FUN even outside the clans. Helliconia is positioned as a PK-restricted MUD. That means: if you kill a player within a protected area (usually towns are considered protected areas), you become an outlaw, cityguards attack you, etc. You can kill others in the wilderness without risk of being punished. But actually PKillers are rare, my last character was attacked only once (I have 116 hours of playing). Almost all mudders enjoy cooperative playing. Buy the way, if somebody is annoying you, and you don't want to kill him yourself, you can put a bounty for his head. Oh, almost forgot, they have a "Helping Hand" clan. Their purpose is to help newbies (and all others who is in the need for help).

Very nice MUD, some years ago friend of mine showed this mud to me, i still playing it and he is playing as well... but there is a problem with this mud - very few newcomers. Try to play it, it is great fun!