Hello,

I've been thinking of switching from another I.R.E. game to Lusternia, as many of my friends have done. One thing that is hard for them to explain is why Lusternia sticks out amongst the other I.R.E. games. I've noticed the artefacts here don't seem to give you that notciable hands down advantage that they do in some of the other games. And a lot of the things I'm 'learning' slowly are very overwhelming and I have a ton of questions. Lusternia seems to be the most indepth of all the games, but again is very different.

How do YOU think this compare to the other I.R.E. games. I've played Aetolia and Imperian, but Achaea the longest. I'm completely open to learning Lusternia however. I just think I'm going to need a Annie Sullivan because I'm coming into this deaf, blind, and dumb. And could use a mentor, and some of your very open thoughts. Is this the 'best' game? Why?

I'm unable to login to the game for a few days. So any thing (advice) you could offer me here would be great.

I want combat and roleplay. I'm a P.K. nut, but I really would enjoy to roleplay it out. And 'grow' in the world.

This is not true when one is talking about weapon runes.

Other than that, carry on.

Personally I like it because it's the first truly unique design since Achaea. Aetolia was a literal copy of Achaea and the develop slowly (read: macro evolution slowly) in a different direction. Imperian had a different history and design, but most of their guilds were direct rips from Achaean ones and the larger, distinguishing features came later.

Lusternia has a great history, although I think the feel of the histories are a lot different when experienced in-game if you notice them at all. We also have some of the largest deviations from the standard IRE model based on Achaea, which is where a lot of the confusion comes from.

I remember when I first started playing I BUGged Nature Talisman because the AB file said I would get a sickle if I was a druid or an athame if I was a wiccan. Even the specialization part confused me.

Once you become familiar with the difference, Lusternia really is a lot of fun. It's also come a long way towards helping you along the learning curve.

And do the quests in Newton. Those are the best quests I've ever done (although I haven't tried the Presario or the more obscure locations.)

I played Achaea for a few years before I was directed to Lusternia. I never touched Aetolia because it was a straight rip from Achaea, and Imperian never interested me because, again, I felt it was almost exactly like Achaea.

I generally didn't want to play Achaea because of Houses, Autoclass, and because a large quantity of the population is just... stupid beyond belief. Not to mention the drama that comes with such low IQs.

With that said, Lusternia has certainly turned out to be the best IRE game that I've experienced. There's people here that are hard to stand, but they are easily avoidable without needing the snub command; it is a lot more geared towards roleplay (and indeed, non-combatants can be a force to be reckoned with and admired, if they play their cards right), and there's not much tolerance for the idiots (they don't tend to play very long into the game).

Lusternia is very confusing at first; even after being very well acquainted with IRE games, Lusternia was an entirely different story. However, these are the reasons why I keep playing:

- Combat is a lot more fun here than it was in Achaea; you don't need a ridiculous amount of arties to be sub-par. It's quite doable to be a good fighter with no combatant arties if you know what you're doing.
- The Divine are a lot more 'involved' because of the small community (which is more of an advantage than a disadvantage).
- Roleplay is richer.
- Rogues aren't running rampant (due to Power needs).
- A better atmosphere overall.

There are a few things I'd like to see fixed, such as more cities/communes to choose from. Although I like what we have now because if you join a city or commune, then you have a purpose. You don't get to just sit idle and lax (like Cyrene in Achaea, for example), and take a 'neutral' stance on things. You have to be driven. Also, prime bashing isn't the best. Astral and off-plane bashing is better, but you tend to need a lot of Planar in order to really have fun (conglut!).

And a few other things, but I can't get into them now. Long story short: Lusternia is definitely a fantastic game to get involved in.

I'm a recent transfer from Imperian, where I played for 4 years without straying, so I can tell you how it felt for me.

Compared to other IRE games, you actually need to put an above average amount of lessons into your character to be effective. For example, in Imperian you could be like.. trans 3.5 skills (depending on guild) and have everything you needed to be effective as a character.

The Lusternia skill pools are probably the most unique of the four IRE muds. Beyond your three trans guild skills, it's almost absolutely essential to have high Combat and Discipline as things like FocusMind and all of the Stances (in Combat) are necessary to compete seriously. You'll want to put lessons into Influence or Dramatics if you want to participate in doing any of that, and Trans Planar is almost completely needed as well.

Tradeskills in Lusternia are also not useless like they are in other IRE games - and actually mean something. Food grants stat bonuses, tailoring greatrobes are actually better armor for some classes, etc. You can only take one tradeskill.. well, one and a half. Arts is accessible to everyone and makes general things like pipes, vials, paintings, statues. Additionally, Riding (almost exactly the same as Achaea if I recall) and Aethercraft are thrown in there if either of those float your boat.

Another odd thing is that the 'Vision/Perception' and 'Survival' type skillsets are divided up into three skillsets - Discernment, Environment, and Discipline, with more skills added in to flesh them out. You're still basically transing three skillsets to gain the same amount you did with two in the other games. Tumbling is in Environment, the Focuses (there are 3 - mind, body, spirit) are in Discipline, and Contemplate (Trueassess) is in Discernment.

Anyways.. it seems like a lot, but in return for putting an inordinate amount of lessons into your character, you don't exactly have to have an armful of artifacts to be able to compete (like Imperian is turning into, basically). Lusternia balances more of the overpowered things like stat stacking and resistance stacking that were getting out of hand in Imperian.

There are Weapon Runes, Regen/Hp Runes, "Wings", and the rest of the artifacts are minor conveniences, at best.

Finally, I've always had more to do in Lusternia than I did in Imperian. The guild system here is much nicer with more defined positions, the city has more to do overall with the whole power thing.

The only thing that bothers me about Lusternia that I can't quite get over yet is the lack of bashing areas compared to Imperian. I'm stuck waiting on repops far more often here than I did in Imperian, which had at least 6-8 areas for each tier (41+, 51+, 61+ etc). Some may argue it adds to the 'challenge' of reaching level 100, but in all honesty I don't find sitting around camping things challenging - just obnoxious.

Anyway, that's a minor rant at best. I think Lusternia has the most unique experience out of the four MUDs, so it can get hard to get used to at first.

So is this why maybe Lusternia has such a low player base? I've always wondered why Lusternia never had more people around. Like Achaea in it's peak times will hit 200/300+ people. Which sort of adds to the playing, you can always find something to do with someone, no matter your city, house, you are you can bash, PK, or what have you.

But at the same time a lot of things have turned into more generic things. For example almost all the people I associate with in Achaea, we're all omni-transed, actively PK, and arti wielding. Which makes it something like a cult, which makes it hard to RP out 'just another warrior.'

I guess I'm looking for a place where I can start over, completely, and dumbly. Avoiding the other two cookie cutter games. Without really spending the money spent on Achaea. But getting the interaction, and activity I get in Achaea. There is always something to do, I just choose not to a lot of times. And i'm loosing more and more of my 'friends' to Lusternia, so it's got to be doing something right to be drawing in combatant types.

Achaea has been open and growing for 10 years. Lusternia is going on three. When Achaea was this age, its population was about Lusternia's. Still, Lusternia has a smaller population but you can generally find people to do things with depending on what organization you join. Really only the Glomdoring commune has been having noticeable population problems and that's being addressed.

I've played sence open beta played imperian/all others. i like lusternia because you can be surprisingly combat affective vary early in the game. also theres way more use for being in a city ie: village wars. and such really adds alot to do although i find my self waiting on the krokani rather often thats more because of an rp choice not to kill aslarans. i think lusternia has a low playerbase because the other three games act like fine filters people not wanting to start over dont convert to spend another 500 bucks? or such also added i like lusternia most because credits are actually obtainable icly. i right now have 800 lessons that i've gotten straight from bashing krokani. the history is deep pk griefing is kept to a tolerable minimum, via avenger and the fact that you can pk off plane in one of the vary often events to let your frustration out. i also find that this game has the most divine intervention as its often watched and people can -actually- talk to the gods instead of getting the to busy every time you try like in imperian.

I agree with every single word Denust Aison wrote above. Couldn't have said it better myself!

Edit: duplicate avatar images FTL.

That's Aison, not Denust.

I'm glad someone was able to clarify...I was like, "Wait, what did Denust write? Where is he? Aaaargh!!"

I'm assuming it was the avatar?

This isn't entirely true. My bard alt does quite well with just trans music spec, myth glamours, and trans planar. Admittedly, to be top-tier you'll need tri-trans, shieldparry, tumble, trans planar, trans discipline, and preferably trans resilience but it's not totally necessary to fight.

I thought about editing my post to add that it's only applicable if you want to be top tier, but after the OP mentioned being from a crowd of "omnitrans, actively PK, and arti wielding" I figured it was assumed.

Just read my essay when it wins first place. That'll tell you all the reasons I love Lusternia.

um actually You don't need any planar what so ever to fight. Not one of those abilities has any impact whatsoever on your ability to fight. Conglut only saves in experience loss off prime. Big deal, experience loss. Praying has been nerfed repeatedly, two orgs have no exp loss deaths, so you have a second chance to live and escape any fight and the other two have resurrection and soul rezz techniques. But even if you pray, your loss isn't that big. So you should actually switch out trans planar with trans resilience and make trans magic the extra add on. I'd so mostly if you're up against shadowdancers since succumb is absurd without trans magic.

You say praying loss has been nerfed repeatedly, but one person praying recently at level 95~ or thereabouts in non-enemied territory lost 14%, which is a good day's work or more. You need conglutinate.

That honestly sounds like they were wrong about enemy territory. They should lose about half that if at all. And yes, in that case, it would be 1 hour. But again, it's not required to have that high a level to fight. I would say 80 is probably a good marker. If you die and pray you're not required to make up the experience. Sure the extra health is nice, but 10 extra levels doesn't help as much as getting a life blessing, unless you're a human and get con points, or those 10 level differences take you to titan or demi.

They weren't in enemy territory. The mob they died to doesn't c ome in enemy territory, I assure you. And that's not an hour, I mean an RL day. 14% at level 95~. I could manage 25 in a whole day without much work to do, less if I had work.

Lusternia doesn't have such a stronger player base because it's still a new game. Still a lot in development. And a lot of it is pretty strange in relation to the other IRE games. Lusternia's not only less vicious regarding forums, but griefing in-game is basically not doable. That, unsurprisingly, is a huge turn off to a lot of people.

I started Lusternia expecting that I would need to buy a bundle of 2000 credits to get caught up to where my Achaean character was (omni-trans, nice arties, big house, etc). That wasn't the case. Looking at HELP ARTIFACTS DEFENSIVE made me drop my jaw in HUGE surprise. I couldn't believe how few artis there were for simple combat; the runes are kind of an exception, and a few of the misc ones (pipes, cubix, etc), but otherwise I was pleasantly surprised to find that most of them were for convenience and easy to roleplay with.

Also, my character is currently trans 2 guild skills, myth tarot (no need to be trans tarot, in my opinion), planar, discipline, artisan, resileince, and nearing trans discernment. I also have a few arties (non-combatant ones, except for 3 pipes). I earned the majority of all this in-game and in less than a RL year. I did cave in and buy about 500 credits over the last few months, though. But earning credits IC is almost too ridiculously easy, especially for someone who goes from a game where her character is omni trans and bulked up with arties to nothing.



There's definitely always something to do in Lusternia, even if other people aren't around. Questing, earning gold, reading up on stuff, LOTS of exploring to do, getting into mischief... it's just all about using your imagination to stretch further than hard coded stuff. It's easy enough to roleplay your character going for a midnight stroll and then a swim in the dark -- all by yourself. And quite fun. Usually a Divine takes notice on such things and will make themselves known to you -- most times not.

Anyway, I'll be changing my avatar soon... I'm just lazy. But I hope you do get into Lusternia. It's a fun game!

I may very well be sold on the idea now.

You all have been amazing and I thank you greatly for the effort put into your posts.

What would you consider some of the best race/class combos? I see a lot of the races have a pretty big swing depending on what the direction they go guild wise. Which is cool.

Who are the helper guilds? The pure evil/pure good guilds? Do things work like that? I want to be combat savvy, of course, and I'm goign to need some sort of mentor. Should I just seek out the champions on the guild? I'm just going to need someone to hold my hand on things I can't find in help files now. .

Again, Thank you.