Hi all,

If this kind of post isn't allowed, feel free to delete or whatnot. But, I've become curious about the different Iron Realms MUDS. What is the difference in theme between all of them? Why do you play the ones you do?

Achaea: Achaea was the first IRE game, and is a pretty traditional MUD... good vs. evil, as far as I know. I've never played it for long myself, but it's a very very very big game, very popular.. kind of like the grandfather of all the coming IRE games.

Imperian: Imperian is magick vs. anti-magick.

Aetolia: Uh... I can't really say.. vampires gone wild!

Lusternia: the best of them all! Taint vs. Anti-Taint, civilization vs. Anti-Civilization... etc.

I'm moving this to the general section since it does relate to Lusternia. You'll get more responses there.

Actually, Achaea was intended to have much deeper and more complex conflicts than this. That was why Chaos, Darkness, Order, Light, Good and Evil were all introduced as separate concepts, and one of the original "baddy" guilds (the Occultists) weren't evil per se, but actually more sociopathic. They didn't recognise any normal morals or social codes, and instead did anything they needed to in order to learn more about and promote Chaos.

Didn't work.

Pretty soon it all degenerated into Good vs. Evil, though Twilight did manage to keep some Darkness things separate, and for a while harassed the forestal community to try to make sure Darkness was viewed as an entirely different thing from Evil (which most players had now decided Chaos fit into as well as they refused to accept the complex conflict idea).

Order and Light sort of merged into Good as well, and really the only way you can find the difference these days is if you go back and look at the old Church and Shallamese guild tenets.

oh, so is that like those serpents that were in shallam? dark but good and orderly?

i like that idea of darkness separate from evil, what exactly was the point of darkness alone though?

Ignoring theme, concepts, ideas, et cetera and focusing on how the realm feels to those who play it, Achaea is now a very large game with very little out-of-arena PvP, no real points of conflict, and nearly no active large-scale plots. The interest of the game is for those who want to just have families, talk to people in that sort of setting, etc. From what I have heard from those who were around from near the beginning of Achaea, all of the fun and interesting bits of the world's plot (like the Sartai War) already happened, and the game is sorta in the 'happily ever after' phase now.

Lusternia, if you haven't been around much yet, is a game designed around conflict and patriotism. There are many, many ways to help your city/commune prosper, and there are many ways to harm other cities and communes. This alone has given birth to fierce loyalty among many players, for each other, and for the city/commune they live in. The game is young, and thus rather small (in world size and playerbase), but growing fast.


Edited because Estarra is right :umbrella:

In my opinion, each Iron Realms game develops and evolves in different directions, whether it be the theme, mechanics or player populations.

Aetolia has a gothic, dark theme, with a focus on vampires and other supernatural twists.

Imperian plays upon the unique conflict between magic and faith, with a focus on combat.

Achaea is the grandfather of us all, with a vast player base and a depth of history and development stemming from its longevity.

Lusternia is the youngest of the games of Iron Realms, and you should know what it's like already!

In this discussion, I'd prefer to see constructive comments about the differences between the games, and not bash any of our sibling realms.

Aetolia - Darkness rules the land (in theory) Light is trying to overcome the darkness.

Imperian - Anti-Magick vs Nature Magick vs Demon Magick vs Pure Magick vs Neutral Magick vs Non Magick


Achaea - Freedom?

Lusternia - (Taint vs Light vs Pure Nature vs Dark Nature vs three unknowns)vs the Soulless

This is probably the closest thing you will get a description of Aetolia. Although, Aetolia is getting so much more darker now, most certainly because they have their major Dark God.

I was there during a good bit of that "dark forest saga": for those Lusternia's that don't know, imagine finding a forest born tainted (unlike the "Glom killed Gloriana" feeling we have here) and realizing that not only will the forest florish in it's current form but removing the 'taint' will kill the life within it.

Ok, BAD analogy, but best I can do.

It played a very good spin on the whole 'darkness =! evil' ideal. It was also great on my character, who ended up buying her mother there.

Oh, good times.

edit for tsaephai: Darkness, in RL terms, would be those Scientists that go 'a little too far'. The folks who know that their experiments with cancer may kill off a few villages, or save a few villages, but don't care so long as they learn more about Cancer. It's the Smoking companies that still sell cigarettes even after they learn it's effects. It's the crew from Seinfield (as shown best in the last episode: they don't WANT to hurt people, they are just callous).

That's Darkness as I best know about it. They had a forest that looked even more disease ridden than Glomdoring and yet it was as full of 'life' as any other and suffered when it's 'disease' was being taken away from it.

Darkness was the utter lack of morals and restraint in a person
Evil was the desire of the self over the desire of others in a person.

You can see a person with one and not the other, but the true Villans have both.

Ok, semi-on topic. Achaea and Aetolia are sort of like two identical twins that grew up in different planets. One turned out all happy and carefree (the 'happily ever after' matter) while the other is going more and more dark (eventualy, it'll probably get the ending where all the heros die ). I sware it took me a while to spend a RL year getting used to 'ho hum but rather active Hashan' then coming in and finding out the whole place was destroyed.

Sidenote: I hope the vampires in Aetolia are still working to grow strong: they actualy made a nice twist to the place, though they were annoying as :censored: to kill.

Imperium and Lusternia have a semi-paralell as well: the concenpt of a strange, powerful, and unknown force comming in and the physical and moral issues it brings about. Imperium's the place for those who's morals always want to be questioned, since you have people going "Magik is WRONG", "Magik is ok if you use it right", "Magik is WRONG but it's RIGHT for me" and all in between. By how it sounds they STILL aren't sure whether Magik is an overall 'bad thing' or what.

Lusternia just as confusing in truth, but the people don't act that way. We all 'know' just what the Taint realy is and we all 'know' that our way is the Right Way and that everyone else is either Dead Wrong, Dead, or Wrong and Should Be Dead. You question this, you get kicked out, enemied, and hunted, and that's only if you're lucky. What that comes to is actualy much too early to tell, remember we're still new, but I'm tempte to say that a major Climax for our story is comming up soon.

So, to make this post even LONGER:

Achaea: peaceful with a long history. Great for those that like Peace.
Aetolia: 'fallen angel'. Good for those that love Vampires, Dark Ages, and general 'Evil wins because Good is dumb' places.
Imperium: The perfect place for people who hate pure 'white and black' worlds
Lusternia: Fanaticism at it's crewlest and everything is a Cult. I'll actualy be the first to say that this is the place where you can best play the non-combative aggressor, along with those folks who want to live in a world TRULY gripped and suffering to war.

My experience of other IRE games has been limited, but I've tried them all to one extent or another. And, to me, they all have their good and bad attributes.

I love the intended darkness of Aetolia, I just don't feel it achieves enough of it. You need a certain kind of person to be able to sit in the mindset of that romantic gothic theme, and there aren't enough around to establish it as a set environment.

Imperian was a game I could never get into. The storylines all seem fantastic, there is a lot of apparent roleplay going on, but it never felt very open from my point of view (something Lusternia has always felt to me; open and welcoming to new players).

Achaea is just so old and established and vast that I think it requires a bit of luck and a bit of dedication to get moving in that world. The joys there lie in the small interactions; in eating up the history that so many people have helped to establish and trying to write a tiny bit of your own story into the legend.

I'm finding it really hard to get the words together to describe what I mean when defining Lusternia. I suppose the best way for me to look at it is to focus on the artwork that has been produced. In my opinion, it captures the nature of the world almost perfectly. The fantasy, the mystery, the quirks of the races and the uniqueness of our world. I don't know another place quite the same, which is a very good thing from my own perspective.

In my experience, conflict is the basis for all engaging RP, even romance. Lusternia seems to have been built to encourage factions and conflict. Besides the good writing and attention to detail, that is what drew me in.

On a side note, the credit system is excellent; it allows people who don’t have 8+ hours of leisure time a day to have competent characters. I’ve played a host of RP-enforced MUDs over the years, from free to pay-to-play, and find this system the best so far.

Achaea- It's HUGE... think an entire country all in one place. Very intricate pk rules make sure that you're well protected if you don't want to engage in fighting at all. You can find pretty much anyone that has similar interests. It's like the livejournal or myspace of IRE. (Also, Good vs Evil good description)

Aetolia- Great concept that should be receiving true love, care, and attention now that they're transitioning into new management of sorts. Definitely overtones of a gothic nature and some interesting future ideas such as werewolves.

Imperian- Oftentimes considers itself the elite in terms of roleplaying and thus tends to form intense social circles that once you find your place, provides a stable core group. Definite emphasis on the magick versus anti-magick versus Divinely granted powers while trying to stay away from the Good versus Evil association.

Lusternia- Live it, love it, enjoy it!

Speaking from at least 5-6 years of playing Achaea, I've had a lot of fun. My first MUD ever, I started playing because of some friends and stayed with it until Lusternia came around. It was great when Achaea had a smaller playerbase since it is easier to cater to. But since it's so huge now a lot has changed to benefit the majority but leaves us older players a bit disheartened.

I've tried Aetolia a bit and heard a lot of good things about it as well as bad. Same with Imperian really, though both do have incredible differences that make them unique.

As for Lusternia, I'm still here, damn addiction.

Achaea- It really is the grand-daddy of the games, but as pointed out by Raezon earlier (and i still cant stop chuckling 'bout the myspace comment) its more social then anything, which while entertaing just doesnt cut it other then as a glorified chat room attached to a leveling treadmill *heh*, still doesnt stop me from showing up there now and again.

Aetolia- Dark, vampires, potential for werewolves, its on an upswing and hard to describe further then that since upper management just recently underwent a -large- change

Imperian- Faith vs Magick, with them both generally ganging up on your evil magickers/demoners (poor stavenn *smirk*) Alot of the RP is justification for pk, but really not much wrong with that it gives a sense of paranoia taht there is a chance fer yah to get killed if you do or say the wrong thing.

Lust - should know that bein here

edit: fixed up a name related typo (the rest i generally dont care bout *heh*)

Achaea's the world's largest and most popular MUD. The denizen AI, systems, text- and artwork, admin support, events and combat workings are of a dazzlingly high quality, which resulted in an enormous playerbase.

Aetolia was pretty much a disaster untill Matt (Sarapis) and Ayvasu (Old Sartan) replaced its management, so Aetolia's quality will probably vastly improve now. Rather small playerbase, especially compared to Achaea, its world and classes are a carbon-copy of Achaea.

Imperian has a large emphasis on roleplay, and you can pretty much kill anyone as much as you want so long as you have a roleplayed reason. Also a very small playerbase, while most classes are copies from Achaea.

Lusternia, is the only game that is completely unique in IRE, the classes and guilds are entirely different, the world is entirely different and it's the only game where politics actually matter, and they matter a lot. Also the only game where out of arena combat has a point other than the fun to fight: village influencing, city/commune quests, powerquests, events and commodity quests.

Also as the forums will show, Lusternia is probably by far the most emotional MUD in existance, going from extreme hate, jealousy and schadenfreude amoungst its players, to adoration and addiction.

After having played Achaea, Imperian and Lusternia for quite a while, and reading you comments I feel obliged to make a disclaimer:
In Imperian even if killing is unregulated (and allowed for RP reasons) there's enough common sense and people who actually RP that the system self regulates itself. Wich means, in rougly 40 IG years my char hasn't been attacked or robbed or anything, despite being active and carefree.

Lusternia has more conflict, so it's easier to get killed just because. People seems to be working to stablish RP as the only valid reason for killing, but there're so many good RP reasons that it's a bit more of a dangerous world (opponent cities and communes, quests that help your city/commune but hurt the other...)

Achaea has so many rules that unless you or your opponent is an expert lawyer you won't be killed nor will you kill. Half the conflicts end up with people argueing about rules. But it's a great place to go, chat, play with your skills and level. Leveling to the highest levels is much more difficult than in Lusternia, though, due to the lack of Astral bashing grounds.

I was very happy for a rather long time in Achaea, played it Way too much, too, heh. It really did have the opposing forces playing one against the other quite well.Other commitments dragged me away just about the time that my greatest problem with it started becoming big - It became a great big kindergarden.
Now, you have to be a lawyer to understand if and when you're allowed to attack anyone, and when anyone, no matter how remotely related to you sees you -snugglelickpouncehop- is what you'll most likely get.

Tried moving to Imperian for a brief time after that, and it was better, but never managed to catch my attention, for some reason.

Lusternia I came upon later on, and found it to have good RP standards (Especially around Magnagora/Glomdoring) And PK system where killing is finally allowed for solely RP reasons.
Never finding a PK scroll bought me the moment I decided there wasn't one (If there is one, don't tell me )

So, in short, and in my experience:
Achaea - For people who like snuggling eternally and bashing in rabbit strewn fields.
Imerpain - I thought it was great, but a little... Laconic.
Lusternia -

I'm not going to give a general, non-biased outlook on these, though I've only played Lusty and Achaea for the most part. For Imperian, didn't get into it, for Aetolia I liked the dark atmosphere but I never bothered cos when I started my character I didn't have enough money for credits.

On Achaea, I love it. Combat is rampant there for those who wish to be in it, and those who wish otherwise get just that. It's not very big in RP, I'd imagine, especially not compared to Lusternia.

I've had the most RP fun in Lusternia, probably because I enjoy conflict, but I can get overwhelmed just as easily as the next. But, eh, I'm ready to quit because I don't see many options for what I am there when I do not think Celest does what I'd like to see in a City -anymore-. If your character is static, I'm not sure how much someone will enjoy Lusternia versus Achaea because things can change so easily. In Achaea, well, you run your own World then, you're not dependant on others.

That's sad to hear. Considered the old 'meditate for x time then use story to change gears' ideal? It's a little cheesy, but effective in breaking up an 'roleplayblock'; unless the person you'd like to play just doesn't fit anywhere.

It's a good way to refer to Lusternia, though. The viewpoints of the world have stayed put (Light is good, Taint is good, Fae is all, Glom is all) but everything else changes dramaticly (I sware it wasn't too long ago when Celest and Seren owned almost everything, and just yesterday when Mag was losing all their villages). Even the old Landmarks weren't as fickle.