well my reason was, i had just gotten shrubbed on aetolia, so went took a nap and decided hell might as well try lusternia out, so me and the wife made characters and here we are

I chose other, my characters were going nowhere in the other MUDs and it was especially true in the other IRE games since all my family and friends were dying (ICly) or leaving permanently :/ In Lusternia I actually have a guild position! And credits! I feel like I'm somewhat... needed... so I come back. So the main reason would be... I can make a difference here

Was getting bored of Aetolia, one of my friends was a closed beta tester over here who was convincing me to join. Somehow I managed to get into the last 2 days of closed beta testing and fell in love with the place. Unfortunately my friend decided she didn't like Lusternia after it went into open beta.

Well, my vote is tallied in the 'trade skills and player driven economy' although that doesn't really capture what I like exactly. It partially does: I hated the way comms worked in Achaea, where the players had no control over what was going on and any one person with money could just camp a shop and monopolize a particular good. Jarik with leather, or snakes with obsidian, and someone was buying out ice for a while too. What really gets me here is not just that this doesn't happen, but the whole setup to make it not happen: villages. I love love love love this idea. Having things we can control, fight over, that produce more power/comms than we can but that we have a say in...brilliant! Much better than Achaea, where no one had to care about anything because the worst that happens was that someone kills some guards or NPCs that repop or maybe find their way into a shop. Boring!

Came here because I was getting bored of Achaea and Dumihru told me it's a much better MUD. Also because the admins there weren't giving a damn about balancing classes, still pissed they haven't done anything 4 months after classlead reports, meh.

Was following someone else over

I tried Lusternia the day after open beta's opening, tried to play as a Moondancer because i liked the idea. Went through novicehood but got bored quickly (Lusternia was also way too chaotic at that time), went inactive and *gasp* returned to Achaea.

Then, about 2-3 months later, i felt like my character in Achaea was kinda stuck with no particular future and a friend convinced me to give another try to Lusternia. So i did and i made an Ur'guard character. From that day, Lusternia stole my soul and won't give it back . Damn you, Veo.

I have tried both Aetolia and Imperian before, but it was the way the natural forces of lusternia were set up that drew me in. I loved the Faery creatures being set up as the spirits of Nature and integrated so beautifully into the mythos of the world.

The histories and background is exquisitely thought out, and I loved the concept of corruption and change instead of plain old 'evil'. It seemed a much more mature mythology than that of the other IRE games.

I came here because I had quit Aetolia a while ago and was waiting for something new to come out... I found out about this and since it sounded cool from what I'd read about it figured I'd give it a try when it finally did. I eventually loved its village influence, the various classes, the way world-changing quests work, etc... so I voted for the power struggles option.

*cackle* I turned you to the dark side .

In Achaea, basically, my character was a big joke. She was so outrageous that the chances of her actually doing anything of importance were slim to none. When Imperian came out I first heard about Lusternia and decided I would join that one when it came out. So the summer before Lusternia I never played Achaea and so when I came back to Achaea I felt out of the loop, and Lusternia opened soon after and I tried it. Then I ended up being made a Sec and then Guild Admin so I decided to stick around .

in my case I started out in Achaea, got lost, tried Imperian, got lost again, tried Lusternia, wandered around for days (still lost), then found out about Newton Caverns and wasn't lost anymore

edit-i liked not being lost so i stayed? that and i liked the trade system and race options

One last time I want to remind you, I'm not asking for the sequence of events that got you here, I'm asking for what aspect of Lusternia more than any other made you decide to stay. We've had the poll a lot of you are answering already, this is a different question.

The roleplay and story is vastly superior, though the fighting system still needs work

I never came for Beta (was too busy with Imperian) but listened to Gwynn raving about it. Seemed a bit funny, still, but when it (finally) opened (while I was at work, of all the times), I logged on and didn't leave till I had to go to work the next morning. By this point, I was in the top 20 (top 10?) explorers, and I was the first or second secretary to be appointed in the Moondancers. (though we were undersecs first). Lisaera yanked me and said my brother and I would like you to be Trade Minister, and after many years of Faith on Imperian (any Imperian'ers will know what I mean) all this was kind of a relief. I became TM, and even with the change of guilds after several years, everything just kinda kept me there.

Lusternia =

I originally stayed, though, for the exploration of a new realm. As a result, I knew the place pretty well by the second day.

Nowhere else to go, really. I basically followed people over from Achaea to join, then stayed because...I just did. I guess the rich history had a good part in it too. I wasn't into fighting when I decided to stay so the classes had nothing to do with it really.

I was an extreme nobody on Aetolia, despite the fact that I played constantly (when I was in college, I had a good bit of time to play). I like to feel that I'm important in a game (coming from lots of one player games where I -am- the most important person ), so I wanted to have a first generation character, while at the same time, being able to join in events/politics without someone saying, hey, you're just a newbie!

Plus I hated the fact that there were people that were really really old and I'd never be an "Aetolian veteran".

So, I took a look at the Lusternia msn group, and started to get to know some of the people. I met the other sarcastic and witty person there, who ended up being a god, and we started chatting. Though I could never drag too much out, I always got exciting insinuations, that made me really want to play. I ended up in closed beta, and loved the place, even though for me, a new MUD world is intimidating.

So... desire to be important, first gen, a goddess telling me the game would rock, and then after that I feel in love with the entire game. The history of the celestine empire had been finished for a bit, and we were starting to see the overall picture of modern-day Lusternia.

Achaea was way too crowded and one of my friends said that Lusternia was coming out the end of summer, so I checked it out. And I'm happy I did.

Estarra wouldn't let me leave.

I've played MU*'s for about, 8 years now, (I'm only 19), and IRE was most definately the most complex, took me about a dozen characters before I got the hang of it, combat was an entirely different thing. Gave up on it after a bit, too much work, discovered the LCP, and started to Code. Saw Lusternia banner ad on TMC, and checked it out, read the Histories, found out Estarra was Eris, and since then.

Was thinking about it back in 2004, was browsing through Mudconnector early this year then fell out of my chair when I saw it. Went to the site, saw the history and dived right in.

I had just had my main character screwed over in Imperian and didn't really feel like starting over.

I really like the novice time instead of having to take a god aweful test to get out of novicehood. Especially since there aren't always people around.
I also like that Lusternia is smaller than Achaea and doesn't have nearly as many crackheaded players. There aren't boxers with hearts littering the ground or 500 pikes sitting at a crossroads.