the problem there is the "all". Did you hear "all" pacifists saying that? Then don't lock them all away.

Violence and strength is one tool to solve one problem; however, other problem require other tools. And if a Governor has people with other skills in his city, he should find a way to make them help.

If you want more specific ideas, just contact me IC.


PS: Who wants to contribute to a clan to pressure prince Rhysus to lock all Zealots away so that we can be safely slaughtered? This way we could die more peacefully, with no one screaming on "come to our aid, even if you don't know how to fight" on CT

Yes.

Pacifist: That Thorgal needs some mental help!!:

Zealot: Yeah, lets go bash his head in, that will help!!


muhahahah!

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Depends what you're looking for in a MMO habit(!), textual or otherwise.

Something new and different?

One of the arguments one hears about text gaming (and this'll be of course with the most -deepest- of respects to mud developers) is that modern text games do one genre to death (Medieval Fantasy, vanilla Fantasy) and avoid others like they would epidemic botulism. All well and good for those who enjoy such things (and there are many, many) but if you're interested in something a little less er...derivative/unique/special (choose your noun), you have the Star Wars and Dragon-balls muds (no, thank you) and the occasional Vampire offering with a player-base of 5 at best.

Roleplay?

On the other hand, all singing, all dancing graphical MMOs are damnably naff in the RP department (I've tried most of them, and can safely argue this point) in the widest, richest sense of the term, little pockets of hardcore RPers notwithstanding. But since when was a graphical MMO ever designed for the roleplayer? Prove me wrong if you can, please.


Er...research!

In between, there are 'muds' that are interesting in their awareness of social implications and issues. These are impressively educational in their own appraisals of social mores...example: Threshold RPG's fascinating social 'contract' (helpfiles extended to, arguably, a meaningful Code of Conduct) that you're forced to read in depth before you're allowed to play. Fantastic, imo.

Value for money?

Credits and subscriptions. Bandwidth. You're likely to only choose one or two MMOs at a time, because let's face it, these games cost. Are you actually going to utilise that Radeon TripleX card that broke the bank. Or not?

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--Aam

I think it's going to grow bigger than Aetolia and Imperian, but probably not Achaea. Achaea was the first and it's so complex, but Lusternia is a winner that takes a step away from the Achaea/Aetolia/Imperian storylines. They're both going to be big.

I think the most important part of if this will continue to be a good game, is obviously the players. But the Divine hold a bigger key to this. Right now the Divine here are doing a great job, much like Aetolia did at it's opening, as long as people like Roark, whom we all know is hard working continue the world will keep getting bigger. I don't mean to put down any of the other gods, but one of Aetolia's biggest problems right now is they don't see anything happening, Roark is very open about whats being worked on, so people can look and go yeah that changed, where as in Aetolia a month after a change happens someone says, "Hey I think I do more damage then I did before." Coders are the biggest part, but new area's and other things of that nature need to come. And half designed events just don't work, *coughaetoliacough* So far things are roling well, as long as Estarra isn't overly paranoid about whom she chooses to join them, things will keep growing well.

To bring my rambling to an end, having been on both sides of the fence, I think a good active Divine is what it takes to keep things rolling. I've heard that some of the Imperian ones are paid, I'm not sure if that is true I know Aetolia's aren't. If Lusternia took that route, I'm sure things will grow quickly. But don't underestimate the power of volenteers. Niuri and Slyphe are too that do alot of work in Aetolia, if they had a couple more like that they wouldn't be well...dieing like they are. Kudos to the divine here, which seem to all be of that breed.

This is a huge thing for me. As long as I know a problem is acknowledged and a fix being considered and worked on, I am cool. I can deal with changes I don't like much better when there is explanation of why the changed were made. I know when they added the Forums to Achaea, the amount of feedback and interaction about the world increased a ton, and I appreciate the Divine, both there and here, making sure we are aware of what is being worked on. Nothing like feeling there is a problem, not knowing if it is acknowledged as a problem, not knowing the reason things are as they are, or whether it is being fixed. Cheers to all of you for making us feel involved, like our voices are heard. If we sound like we're complaining, its usually because we want the game to be as fun and interesting as possible! Great job, so far!

Actually balancing a knight class like they did it now, is something no other IRE game has managed before. Roark's definately worth the faith. If they can do that, I don't think anything's impossible.

Roark is what is known in Divine circles as "teh win".

That is all.

A goddess saying "teh" scares me...

Lisaera is such a geek.

She got beaten by mass huntress rush too much. The angry-warcraft-3 symptoms are seeping in, you can tell. *hide*

Don't make Me zap you both.

Along these lines *and not to jack post* any of you all played War of the Ring? You can reply in the "Favorite Games" part if you want, I am just curious. I bought it for $5 and I like it pretty well, pretty similar to Warcraft.

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It was an earlier Severn incarnation and P. of Arion instead who, arguably, made a real difference, imo. It was all jolly good fun back then -the only MU* to ever get me hooked, in no small part because of these people's pleasingly left-field approach to accomplishing things and their ability to flesh out their 'Divine' rôles in a satisfying way for the average player.

--Shazzaammala

You can thank Achaea for the current playerbase though, as I'm pretty sure nearly 3/4 of the people here are Achaean transfers or such. So comparisons of this startup to a startup from nothing is a little hard to make.

I think there's a whole load from Imperian and Aetolia as well, Achaea had the niftiest skills and systems, but Aetolia had more violence, while Imperian had the best roleplay, Lusternia kinda rocks in all 3 departments more than each of the games, so I imagine lotsa people are gonna change from all 3 games to Lusternia sooner or later, certainly not just Achaea.

In the end, inevitably, you will see them run back to Achaea. Unfortunately, while this is a great product, it is also attracting all the biggest (to put bit nicely) buttholes that were run out of the other realms. As such, I'm already getting soured on the experience and it is slowly losing that Shiny and New syndrome. Great product yes, but we are also getting some of the worst people in it. Hopefully the good Rp'ers, there are some in each city, can overcome this.

Personally it is very annoying in my own commune when I see people using the Achaea names, not mentioning any, who were some of the most terrible characters there. As recent as yesterday when I was "ordered" to stand with a group of people and kill anyone who came into the room. They killed a novice for goodness sake, and that group was led by one of the people who took off from Achaea saying it wasn't "warlike" enough.

You are right though Thorgal, they are coming from all the realms and hopefully the good ones will stay interested.

in my opinion I think Lusternia will eclipse Achaea because it impliments many new ideas and a completely different world that has not been seen in the previous 3 worlds created (Achaea, Aetolia, Imperian: All the same basicly).

I think if more of the racial "upgrades" such as "Imperial Merian" were implimented into other races... and a lot of the other creative implimentations were sprouted fruitfully, it wouldn't be that hard to at least rival achaea... if not eclipse it entirely.

I dont think MU*'s are MMO's in my opinion. Saying something is an MMO doesnt mean, to me, that its massively multiplayer... it says it's annoying and griefing is ramptant and costs way more money then it's actually worth. The 4 created worlds fall into none of these categories. I dont play MMOs because they annoy me and eat up my wallet. Achaea and Lusternia don't eat up my wallet and I actually enjoy conversing with other people.. unlike in MMOs.