Shayz'renth and Beyond [7.0/10]

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http://www.acornrack.com/shayzrenth/

For today's review we'll be going back into the days of kings, castles and knights courtesy of a Fantasy/Medieval RP called Shayz'renth and Beyond.

The AD as a whole is very well written, giving each of the countries a backstory of sorts and explaining the hardships and troubles of each. There is however a few things I'd like to point out, under the "Land of Magic" section, the second sentence seems grammatically odd to me. "another murder, and the royals and nobles ignore." perhaps can replaced with "another murder, and another royal or noble feigning ignorance." In the section below that, it talks about the "dessert", it should be "desert." As always the AD plays no impact on the actual score, so grab yourself some dessert and lets move onwards to the review!

First Impression:
Where's the drawbridge? The layout on the site is rather basic, but I have no problems with it. Links are at the top with images and the whole page is used for space effciency as opposed to other layouts who try to squeeze everything in the middle.

The Public Area:
The Front page has the same story as in the AD and also contains the rules, this is linked to at the top as well. The Rules themselves are separated into 4 categories: The Main Rule, Extras, Activity, and Consequences. First nitpick, "The Main Rule" is 3 rules so the title should be changed. Other then that little thing, I have no problems with the rules.

The FAQ page is overall fine however there is something that I do want to nitpick at, in the first OOC question it tells you to look inside the site for certain information. Species, Occupation, etc. I would have liked these pages to be in the public area because it is my opinion that anything you need just to apply should be in the public area.

The Application:
Generally a normal application. As I said before, I would have liked pages that are required the application to be in the Public Area.

The Private Area:
Same layout as the public section which is nice, and towards the bottom of the page there is a rather extensive Credits list. Always nice to see people giving credit where its due.

All the Countries page have their own sections divided into at least 4 parts with hotlinks to each section, and other pertinent information. They also have their own map which is also nice and the background changes as you go into each different area to reflect the country itself, which I thought was simple but very neat. All the countries seem to have the same position that men are dominant in society, and homosexuality is frowned upon. This could be in the rules so it is implied unless stated otherwise. It would also lessen the amount of text to read. Any problems in the specific country pages will be located below:

Shayz'renth - first sentence "countryy" has an extra "y", I would also like a pronunciation help for the rulers name, in Civil Rights section for non humans there is a lack of space after a quotation before the 2nd to last word.

Calendar Page, Special dates for countries and holidays like we have, noting however that "calendar" is spelled wrong in the January section.

Races Page, There is A LARGE AMOUNT of information, all hotlinked which is nice and mostly hidden until you check the box for that specific race.

Occupations Page, describes the occupations well, overall no problems.

Currency Page, I generally have no problems except for one thing. It says a Gold Slip = 2.5 Goldens. From the conversion chart it looks like to be 2.5 Golden Coins, but it says "Goldens".

Magic Page, is overall fine it defines who can do what and what spell are in which element area and difficulty. I have a small problem with the Summoning plant-growing, the Earth Sage magic is Advanced to grow yet it's child's play comparatively to Summoners. I did see some spelling errors, in the description for Spellcaster, "wide variety of magics" the plural for magic is magic. In Necromancy, Re-Soul, "mentally" is misspelled.

Forums:
Good amount of forums divided into sections with decent descriptions for each. There's hotlinks to each section AS WELL as hotlinks in each section to every other area. I really like this, it's quick navigation all the way.

Other:
Members list is divided into 3 parts, OOC info (basically), Characters and Absent list. Each of these parts is filled out with a good bit of information however I would have liked in IC information first as opposed to the OOC.

Members Profiles are generally filled out well, however the people with many characters all that information is sometimes hard to navigate through even with the hotlinks. I'd like to see maybe at least a little more separation, even if it's just an "HR" code or something.

Roleplaying:
From what I read on the forums, I categorize the roleplaying on this site to be Intermediate.

Rating: 7.0 out of 10 Points

The site overall was very well written and with all the detail and effort put into the site it's clearly something to look at. Aside from minor inconsistencies that I thought should be fixed, all the systems seemed fine and if anything the biggest problem with the site is just simple information organization because of how much is actually there.

1 comments:

Magnum Opus said...

As a previous member of the site, I can honestly say they deserve a lower score then what they received. A large part of a Role-Playing site is not just the content, but the people running it and the general atmosphere of the forum. The owner and staff of this site are unhelpful, rude, arrogant and cold. This site is NOT worth joining, regardless of what appeal it may bear. The admin could care less about marketing the site, member count and content because he or she is too busy selectively and exclusively milking a fantasy dry with the lackey moderators. The admin and moderators are so enveloped in what seems to be their sole purpose for the site that they make what few members they do have feel extremely unwelcome and unwanted. The sheer obviousness of the ‘clique’ nature weighs this site down and is enough to drive any sane member away in a matter of months, if not days or weeks. There is a general distaste amongst the staff for logic-even within the realms of a fantasy site-and their refusal to change for the better of the site and themselves is depressing to be around. The best answer they can give for the heinous mistakes in their actual content is that what they have now ‘…makes it easier’. Shayz’renth and Beyond is merely a personal site for the staff to play on without any public mention that nobody else is *really* welcome to join in on their fun. The reality of it all soon becomes apparent.

A fair warning to anybody looking for a decent site to join; those running Shayz’renth and Beyond have difficulty choosing between what’s right and what’s easy and will quickly choose in honor of their own benefit and ease instead of that of their members.

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