Hello! I'm new to Lusternia. I played Achaea for a good two years, but stopped when I moved to the States from Germany. I never really got back into it, and picked up WoW last June. A level 60 Warrior and level 60 Mage later, I'm ready to get back to my roots: I miss roleplaying and the best physical character creation system evAr.

I started up a new character in Achaea, but a friend from Germany (A guy I introduced to MUDs) told me to try Lusternia because it's better. Having played Aetolia before, I expected a clone and I was wrong.

My questions:

1) How the hell does Lusternia's skill system work?

2) The website stated guilds were optional; is it possible to get a class without a Guild?

3) Other than those two things, what are the cardinal differences between Lusternia and Achaea?

You...
-Get a smattering of common skills automatically
-Get three guild skills that you select from joining a guild. Sometimes you'll get a choice between three - for example, if you're a mage, you get Elementalism, Illusions, and either Runes, Dreamweaving, or Psionics.
-Choose one tradeskill (for free, rather than for credits like in Achaea; however, it is not a miniskill and does take 300 credits to trans)
-Get highmagic or lowmagic depending on your guild (unless you're a warrior in which case you get to choose)

With some skills, you can also specialize in them. For example, all mages take Elementalism, but at the Master skillrank (6th rank... equivalent to Skilled in other IREs) Aquamancers specialize in Aquamancy and Geomancers specialize in Geomancy. In that instance, you don't get a choice which specialization to take because it's determined by your guild, but sometimes you will; for example, if you take Psionics, you can choose to specialize in either Telekinesis or Telepathy.



You have to join a guild, but you get class as soon as you finish novicehood. If you really don't like your guild, you can quit after that. However, what is really NOT optional is a city or commune, because some of your guild skills will require special power that you can only get access to if you're a member of a specific city/commune (ie. much of Aquamancy requires Pool of Stars power which only Celestians can get).



-Different conflict (taint vs. non-taint, cities vs. communes)
-Power system (you get a special resource, called power, which is used to perform different skills and you can only have up to 10 of it at a time)
-Aetherships
-Lots of extraplanar travel
and many more, I'm sure others will list some more stuff.

Guilds and even city/communes are optional in theory, but really, if you want to be involved in the fun bits of the game, you really need to be in one. Lusternia is based around conflict and PvP, and quite a lot of it happens here.... if you are a part of something. Glomdoring and Serenwilde fighting over Faethorn, Magnagora raiding Celestia, village revolts, etc. I don't see how people can enjoy the game without something to care about and defend and fight for.

The main difference in the skill system, as Shamarah has said, is that you get choices no matter what class you are. The Specialization thing also allows, say, Druids and Wiccans to both have the same basic 'newbie' skills (the Nature and Totems skillsets), but completely different guild skills (The Druidry/Wiccan and Moon/Stag specializations) which share nothing in common. The skill choices mean that I, as a Wiccan, could choose to be defensive (by chosing Healing as my third guildskill), supportive (by choosing Astrology), or offensive (by choosing Hexes). Just because people are omnitrans in the same guild does not mean they have the same skills, or are good at the same things.

In this game, we don't have classes so much as archetypes. There are three archetypes - Warrior, Wiccan/Guardian, and Druid/Mage. Warriors are designed to be very good at dealing damage and 1v1 combat, especially against non-warriors. Wiccan/Guardians (the pet classes) are designed to be very good at giving afflictions, especially with their passive afflicting skills, and using half-mana instaskills - in theory very good against warriors. Druids/Magi are designed to be very good at group combat with their 'Demesnes' (effectively hundred room temporary groves). Each guild has it's own things that are different about it from the other guilds of the same archetype, but the core skills are the same.

I'm not sure about Achaea anymore, as I haven't played in over a year now, but in Lusternia, we seem to have much more PvP, a relaxed anti-PvP system which encourages conflict, viable ways to gain experience without bashing (questing/influencing), and, erm, other things.


Oh, and rather than having tradeskills be only available to those with absurd numbers of credits and specific guilds like in Achaea, everyone can choose a tradeskill. There are no miniskills or extra-expensive skills either - all skills follow the same progression. Also, magical transportation is much more common, as the 'Teleport' skill is in a common skillset (Planar), and cities use magical paintings (link two indoor, urban rooms) to get to important places fast, and communes use ethereal rifts (link two places in adjacent planes - transverse up to Ethereal, move a bit, transverse back down to somewhere else on Prime).

Thanks for the info!

So taint is what now?

(And Happy Birthday, apparently!)

There's five archetypes - druids, magi, wiccans, and guardians are different ones. Druids and magi are extremely similar though.

As for the taint... it's the touch of Kethuru, the Soulless god... I'd advise asking around in-game or reading the (very well-written) histories on the website if you want more info.

And thanks!

Annnnd just because nobodies meantioned, some miscellaneous facts:

1) Rather than dragons, here we have two seperate high-level add-ons: Titan at level 99 (which increases all of your stats by +2 and gives you access to the "thunderclap" attack, which does massive damage to everyone on your enemies list, usable once an RL hour), and Demigod at level 100 (which increases all stats by +1 again, gives you limited access to Divinefire, which acts as a temporary prismatic barrier, allows Thunderclap to be used from a distance, and gives you the custom race "Demigod").

2) Warriors are the most customizable archtype around. All warriors originally recieve Knighthood, Athletics, Totems for commune-warriors and Rituals for city-warriors (or they can forgo Totems or Rituals and choose Hunting, which gives them a pet similar to falcons from Achaea). However upon reaching "Master" in Knighthood they can choose between the skills Axelord (two-handed axes), Pureblade (two-handed swords), Blademaster (two one-handed swords) and Bonecrusher (two one-handed bludgeoning weapons). Reaching "Master" in Hunting gives them Tracking, and reaching "Master" in Totems/Rituals gives them a specialized skill based on their commune/city (Necromancy for ur'Guard, Sacraments for Paladins, Moon or Hart for Serenguard and Night or Crow for Ebonguard).

3) Stay the hell away from Serenwilde. Everyone there has some kind of bizarre fetish.

Plus, Lusternia is MUCH more indepth than Achaea. There's more honours quest, there's a branching skill system, which is way cool. And there's not so much diversity between everything. I personaly like that, alot.

EDIT: Shamarah, is your Avatar of a Petpet in Neopets?

So not true - Magnagora's worse. How do you explain Joli after all?

Technicaly... The Druids who choose Hunting as a third guildskill and Trans it do have a fetish. We can create Bone Fetishes to do cool stuff.

Psh, Glomdoring druids are just as fetishy.

In regards to differences, Lusternia has a more serious tone than Achaea. When I left Achaea everything was all "Whoo! Snuggle time!" You don't see that much of that here, granted there is a bit here and there. I'd say we take roleplay a lot more seriously.

Yes. And no, before you ask, I don't play neopets anymore