This poll is only for people who have played other MUDs before, but who have at some point decided, Lusternia is your main MUD, or even your only MUD.

There's lots of ways to ask "why do you play Lusternia?" For instance you might answer how you heard about it, or what made you first consider it. But the purpose of this poll is not the moment you went to Lusternia to evaluate it. It's the moment you decided, "this is the one, this is where I'll be spending most of my time." And specifically the focus is not on why did you want to start on a new MUD -- it's why you did it on this one instead of the hundreds of others that you might have chosen.

Please choose the one reason that is strongest, though I expect most of us will have several answers to choose, but one more than the others. If your answer is "Other", please post what it was.

Um. It was shiny new?

This was the first MUD I ever got into. Achaea I was just like *yawn* stfu oversensitive sentinel. I was one of those annoying newbies, but only because I knew no better. So yeah, basically because it was new and I wouldn't be as far behind as I would have been on another MUD.

When I was reading over the history and the like on the website, looking to see if this was going to be another clone-game....it was great to see such rich history and all the wonderful things that were already there for us to try to build a great roleplay on.

But you could have gotten a fresh start on any MUD. Even on an IRE MUD, even on the same MUD you were already playing. Why did you pick this one and why did you stay with it?

Picked this one because I didn't know any other new MUDS. I knew -absolutely- nothing about them. Some friend went 'best MUD company, new MUD, come play', and I just went 'meh ok'.

I stuck with it because I learnt how to do this one, and I know how it works and the people in it and the history and stuff.

Got utterly bored of Achaea. Did something stupid to go out with a bang, and got shrubbed.

Gave up mudding... three months later, a friend who always used to get on my nerves about the amazingness of the upcoming Lusternia... convinced me to make a character. I liked the combat, coming from a fighter in Achaea to this. Then I met Malicia here, not knowing I'd known her in Achaea.. and the rest is history, to me anyway.

It was new, heh. One of my friends was a beta tester, and was constantly raving. So I gave it a shot. Fell in love with it.

I suppose it's only fair for me to answer too. Many of those reasons applied, and the rich history is perhaps the most important, but the thing that actually made me say "this is the one" is Avechna and how PK was handled.

Right, but the "fell in love with it" isn't an answer, it's the question. Which point more than the others (even if only a little more) was where you fell in love? Not asking how you arrived, but why you stayed.

Ahh I forgot that. Before karma and the more advanced rules, the PK system was just.... suspect, vengeance. You could kill anyone. After Achaea's stupid lawyer system that was heaven for me.

Came over to try it out and loved the way the skills and overall system of the game worked. That and the feel of the guilds was very enticing. In Aetolia although I enjoyed the roleplay there, NONE of the guilds were exciting at all, nothing I wanted to join. In this... I want to have a character in EVERY guild, they all draw me to them from the aspects of both a (power)gamer and a roleplayer. The combat is fun, but that stems from the skills feel and design and they interest me. Also with the events we've had, it keeps the world fairly exciting.

The downpoints, which every game has, is that the constant fighting and opposition in this leads to more conflict than the players feel comfortable with as a whole. Slowing that fighting down could be a good idea.

I just followed someone over here. Combat system here beats achaea so I decided to start learning to fight.

Not true for some. I would never have stayed here if the fighting or conflict had been any less or less frequent. The villages are a superb adaptation of the best parts of landmarking from Achaea.

My second MUD after Achaea. Never got past novice there, and then I discovered Lusternia and thought: 'Hrm, looks nice, pretty website, pretty different to Achaea, let's try it out'. Made some Tae'dae druid, stopped playing for three months and then came back. Wasn't able to get away from it since then. It's a combination of all of the above, plus it's rather new, so it's not like in Achaea where they talk about things that happened three years ago and abouth whom I knew nothing about. Now I get to do that myself.

The influencing is just about right, but the potential for endless (and sometimes pointless) warfare over Faethorn, Celestia, Angkrag... gets boring at times. Don't get me wrong, when a village comes into play, or when I was raiding Angkrag/defending dwarves before, I enjoyed it... but it's when that combat stretches out into hours without cease where it gets tiresome. Fighting is fun, but leads to very quick burn out for myself and for many others (although I understand not all).

Wanted to try something new and was quite disenchanted with Achaea. With some nudging from Alyssandra and Marsu, I completely made the switch and I'm hooked, heh.

I was bored senseless with achaea. I heard about lusternia opening, had never heard of it before, and decided to give it a shot, because I'd have a chance of becoming more in a new realm. Being a lazy occultist in achaea didnt leave much opportunity for advancement. So I came over, because a lazy Aquamancer, got me two nice positions in my guild, and have maintained a spot in the top 40 in experience nearly the whole time.

I heard about this MUD from Isune and Nucoras (players/builders of my dormant MUD used mainly for RP now). They, and about 3 or 4 other acquaintences were all going to play/build on Lusternia.

They're the only reason I was going to play here, really. Then they disappeared (from both MUDs) ... so I'm pretty much out of the MUD scene now.

This place still holds out the most promise out of the MUDs I've seen, though, so, if a city like Styrta (see my profile webpage) were to exist... with a focus more on friendly players together, fighting to protect the city from encroaching monsters - their skillsets entirely devoted to NPC killing, and absotively posolutely zero skills aimed at PK... then I might consider actually playing here.

(On a side note, the only reason I chose Serenwilde, is because Isune said it was most likely to get a class like those I might like to play. I personally can't stand Serenwilde's, Celest's, Magnagora's, or Glomdoring's RP basis. My character would probably fit best on Imperian, but the non-mage people of Imperian turn my stomache, and I don't know anyone who plays there.)

Eh, I'll keep watching and waiting, logging in to read news, and these boards.

Wow, I hope Estarra doesn't consider the suggestions in this thread.

My god... think of the massacre...