I don't know about any of you, but personally I thrive on interaction with other players. However...



...and I've only had one real conversation, two if you count a couple of messages one of what I assume to be the Guild official sent to me. Despite the fact that Lusternia seems to have quite a few amazing things in place that I'd love to get into, give a try, and generally play around with... it's a little discouraging. Is everyone busy? As a Novice, is it my job to seek out someone to help me get acclimated to the realm? There was somebody who did help me, but... that kind of consisted of telling me to go bash Finks and Gnomes. I've spent about three solid hours now in Newton, bashing Finks and Gnomes, though I kill most everything with one Nature Curse the progress I'm making seems glacieral due to a generally slow experience gain. Is there a better place I could be bashing? Is it just my Guild? Do I need a different one if I'd like some interaction?

Could use a little help please.

Edited to add: Having to meditate sixty-percent of the time doesn't really speed things along either. I tried newb kicks on the off chance that they would do just as much damage and take less mana, it maybe took me six or seven to kill a Fink. Is there a quicker way? I don't want to spend my whole life down in the Newton Caverns.

It takes awhile for people to know who you are. Here are some suggestions on how to speed up the process. The main thread of advice is to take the initiative to get involved and let others know you're interested in getting involved.

Some suggestions:

* Hang out at your nexus and speak up in conversations.
* Work on your guild tests -- many of these require interactions with guild members and can lead to good friendships.
* Participate in city/commune quizzes/arena games.
* Apply to take a more active role in your home: as an aide, or join a clan with a specific purpose (like defending)
* Approach people around your level to hunt/quest together.
* Look for a family.
* Seek out a god. That may put you in contact with those in His/Her order with whom you can interact.
* When your city/commune needs something, volunteer to help.
* Take initiative on what you think would help your city/commune/guild and let them know what you found/accomplished.
* Read the works in the libraries and seek out the author or librarians about them. Or contribute your own piece.
* There are other ways to gain experience besides bashing at Newton. Try some quests. See if your city/commune have any specific quests you can complete (such as commodities quests)
* Speak up on your novice guild aether with your questions and share your triumphs too.
* Get involved in politics. If there is a debate going on in the newsboards, write a thoughtful, reasoned response addressing the issues.
* If you have a trade skill that has a cartel, get involved with the cartel.

It never hurts to be assertive about finding people to talk with.

I guess there's been a lot of fighting happening lately which isn't great for relaxed conversations. I doubt its a problem with your guild so I'd say stick with it. Its much too soon to write them all off.

As far as Newton goes, try to make your way up to the top of Smoke Mountain. The newbie area gets progressively better as you get in deeper.

Here we go:

1. Social interactions in Lusternia.
I found that most people are willing to talk, if they aren't busy with very important stuff, for example defending the Ethereal/Cosmic plane against raids, but then you won't see them around. Just approach someone, in a respectful and IC way, and try to engage in a conversation. Ask for some advice related to your guild/city, for example. Well, I think you know what to say - the thing about RP in Lusternia is that, as I said above, it won't come to you. You have to initiate it by yourself.
Also, try to talk with people from your city or commune. They are bound to be more respectful to you, while people from other places might be not so kind, or even very hostile. It's only IC hostility though, OOCly we're decent people in 99% of cases.
Well, some guilds might be more strict about socialising too, like the Ur'Guard. But even in that example you can thrive on conversation with others, just remember your role (in that guild's case, a lowly private).

2. Gold! XP! Gief! But where?
Newton is a decent place. But it gets boring after a while, as you already know. But, did you know that you can open a portal inside Newton and reach a new land to explore? It's related to a simple quest (hint: you have to do something with chains/widgets you get from dead gnomes and finks). Lolliprin is much more fun as a place to get XP and gold, especially if you focus on the mini-quest part.
But, if you ask me, the real gold's outside Newton. Pilgrims, scholars - these guys roam the highways and mountains, respectively. Interact with them (greet a couple of times) and you'll know what they want. They give you gold if you help them (lead somewhere), and lots of experience too. Well, lots for low-leveled people.
Try village quests too. I'm not talking about the big ones, like Stewartsville's murder case - they take a longer while to solve, and can be dangerous in some cases. I'm talking about the small trade quests - pick up chickens, give them to someone at the chicken farm, get gold and XP. Get hay, give to cows, lead cows to diary, gold, XP. Easy money, easy XP.
There's also a basic quest to get power for your commune (I think you're from a commune since you use Nature Curse). Ask ICly about it, or try to find the CHELP file that'll explain it. (CHELP INDEX, then CHELP . If it's Serenwilde, it should be something along the lines of CHELP PIXIES or CHELP POWER).

Mana and Meditation:
There's plenty of ways to restore mana, aside from meditating. You use Nature Curse, so you should have Totems too. Just SPRITBOND MOON during night and you'll get a passive mana regeneration. Only works at night-time (ICly) though.
Mana potions. These are good. Cost about 250 for the vial + 200-250 for the potion. One potion lasts for 50-60 sips - you can drink from it that many times. And 500 gold really isn't much, since one pilgrim gives 100 gold and one chicken 80. Where to find them? Shops in your commune. Walk around them, try "WARES MANA". If you find a mana potion in a vial, it's served and good to go. If it's in a keg, you have to buy an empty vial (WARES VIAL, make sure to buy an empty one!) and REFILL EMPTY WITH MANA. Just don't get ripped off - you shouldn't have to pay more than 500-600 gold for the potion, including the vial.
Perfection enchantment - more costly, but gives you a passive regeneration. Find a shop which sells enchanted jewellery, PROBE items for sale to see if any one of them has a perfection enchantment. If it does and the price is good enough (I wouldn't pay more than 1000 gold, 700-800 is a very, VERY reasonable price), buy it. How enchantments work? Wear the ring (or bracelet, or whatever), RUB it, and you'll get a defense that passively regenerates your mana. It consumes one charge from the ring - when all charges are gone, so is the enchantment, and we won't want that. When the ring gets low on charges (3 for example), find a shop with an energy cube inside (WARES CUBE) and RECHARGE RING/SOMETHING FROM CUBE. It costs about 25-30 gold per charge, so it's rather cheap.
Healing scrolls: Just letting you know they exist, but they're a bit too costly for a novice. Same for sparkleberry.
Passive regeneration: race-specific, probably in forests if you're a Faeling/Elfen. Not many forests in Lolliprin/Newton though.


That's all. Good luck with your adventures in Lusternia. Just remember - if you have a question about the game, ask in an as ICly manner as possible on your GNT or NEWBIE channel. Well, Newbie can be more OOC.

Just realised that you might be from Glomdoring. That place's the least populated one, but don't feel discouraged by the lack of interaction. It's also considered the most RP-heavy of all of 'em.

Wow, you were all so helpful, I'm completely blown away.



Is there a list of Gods somewhere that I can consult?


Other than that, thanks so much!

"HELP GODS 2" will show you the list of god help files and other god-related help files. Then you can find out information about specific gods by HELP (for example HELP ELOSTIAN). Some (but not all) god files will list mortals' names who are especially close to the god. You could contact them for more information about the order. Or announce your interest over the aether of learning about God X and see if they know how you can find more information. (Also check the libraries).

Good luck, and I hope you find what you're looking for!

Probably been mentioned, but if you also always greet your city/commune (CT) and guild (GNT, eventually GT once you graduate out novicehood) whenever you log in, your name will get recognized a tad more and people will get the impression you're someone who wants to stick around and talk.

Also, Zynna is right - searching for a family is a good way to start off, but put some RP into it just so people don't think you're an annoying person's alt. If you're in Glom, ask Sintor, Serenwilde, Narses, Cairam, Orti, Dylara, Kharaen, Magnagora, Reiha, Ildaudid, Serena, or just do FAMILY TREE KALAS and see if any of them are around. And yes, you want to join Kalas. /end advertisment

Why do I want to join Kalas?

There's HELP GODS. But remember that some Gods are either inactive or don't have orders altogether, and moreso that some of them are aligned to places that oppose yours.

So just do HELP and see who's in the commune's Divine Council, or whatever was it called. You'll know when you see it.

Also remember that joining an order might be planning a bit far into the future. As far as I know, orders don't accept less experienced players, and joining an order also gives you certain responsibilities, it might make you an easier target against enemies of the God too (but only the stupid ones who give "I hate everyone who follows Lisaera/Terentia/Fain/McDonalds" as an RP reason to kill people around).

EDIT: Ignore Reiha's shameless advertising plug. You don't want to join Kalas.

Nature Curse, eh? Did you by chance join Blacktalon?

The reason I ask is that, when I joined Blacktalon, I was discouraged by the lack of interaction, same as you. It's a small guild even in its best days, and it was a period of political unrest that made even seeing another guild member few and far between, much less having a meaningful conversation. There are also a number of guild members that enjoy doing their own thing, which is fine in its way, but it can also be discouraging when someone is looking for interaction.

Everyone has already left many great suggestions for you. The only thing I'd chime in is that interaction is also a function of time. I realize four hours may seem like a lot of time (especially if you've come from another IRE MUD), but it really does go in cycles. Today, you may not see anyone. Tomorrow, you might see plenty of people. My encouragement to you is not to change guilds right off, but to hang in there and implement some of the things people have suggested, and see if the situation improves with time.

Once things get rolling, I think you'll feel differently. It just takes some effort and patience to get it started.

You absolutely don't. It's predominantly Magnagoran and Serenwildian. Search for a nice Glomdoring family.

I'm sorry that I've not been around more to be helping! Sometimes life keeps me busy. Stick with it. Shadowdancers rock. I promise.

I'm beginning to groan when I see such advertisements from Reiha (I don't want that many kids! Sorry!). The Kalas are really wonderful people from just about every Org, mostly Seren and Magnagoran but there is one person (Sintor) from Glomdoring and one person in the clan (No idea, wont even try) from Celest. If you'd want to join a family, that is, yes, a good way to interact with people but in my experience your guild is your best bet. You'll recieve the most help from them skill-wise and just on a whole from your Guild.

You'll want to seek out vials of mana with the gold you earn from finks and gnomes, that'll cut down on meditating -a lot-.

Good luck with the game, I hope you enjoy it it's personally one of the best games I've played (albiet a bit stressful sometimes). Once you find your first interaction with people, things'll go a lot better.

Ah, Shadowdancer?

Definitely stick with it. You won't be sorry.

Everyone has been so welcoming and helpful, it's completely amazing. Thanks!

Mel is the only Celestian one, who also happens to be the founder of the Kalas with Ixion

I'm still relatively new myself, so I can definitely empathize. I think you'll find (as I have!) that most of the people who play here are both courteous and eager to meet and assist others, though these traits may not always carry over to the characters themselves for RP reasons. Keep in mind, too, that what's considered "polite" and "helpful" way differ widely between the various organizations.

The best thing you can do for yourself, though, is take the initiative to make contact with people IC, and if necessary try to establish a basis for interaction via an OOC medium, like these forums. (I, for example, am working with another player through PMs to organize a story arc for our characters.) Whatever your affiliation, you won't regret the time spent in this way and it will certainly make your time here a much more rewarding and interesting one.

Good luck!

From the little that I've talked to you, you've been very promising. And as for being a Guild official, ironically, I'm not a guild official officially. I just happen to like helping novices a lot, but lack the time to do it now.

With regards to your lack of conversations, its not suprising. Going by the time you send me those messages, you log in at a time where Shadowdancers average at 2-3 members, and Glomdoring with 4-6. I know, because I usually log in around that time. But, stick with Shadowdancers. If you're looking for quality interaction, I can proudly say that Glomdoring and the Shadowdancers have what you're loking for. And if I'm not wrong, the Glomdoring population seems to be picking up, so don't worry about it.

If you do want to look for interaction with the guild, one simple way is to start by asking a simple question on GNT, and then build on that question to interact. The thing is that some people might be off-plane, and when you do GWHO, you only see people on the same plane as you. I know I've made that mistake of assuming no one was on, only to find that they were off-plane.

If you find just killing finks/gnomes is boring, you can make it more interesting by influencing them. Begging from them yields you experience, as well as a change from just nature cursing. HELP INFLUENCE will erm, help a lot.

And very simply, just ask questions if you have any. Any of us will be glad to help.

Following gods is something that is mostly done a little later in life, when the player has had time to settle on a course and decide which god is best suited to him or her. Alternatively though, some gods have very loose standards when it comes to their outer circle and any may seek entry into these to find out if this order suits them or not (and the other way around of course.)