Erm....hello. I'm, well, in Achaea...I was "Lazu". I really got sick of the amosphere there. Minimal RP, general WOW style apathy. I heard you guys are a bit nicer than they are, did a little lurking. I read the histories and this seems like a cool place, so I gess I'll stick around a bit. However, I have a few teeny tiny questions. If you answer 'em, that would be spiffy.

A. How much conflict is there at the moment? The histories suggested there might be a lot.

B. Does Lusternia have a thriving roleplay community?
- Could you maybe summerize the general RP of the various organizations?

C. What is the general credit investment needed to have decent character here?

D. Any major mechanics that we didn't have in Achaea I ought to know about?

Thanks a bunch!

Don't worry, mitbulls should be along any minute to answer each of your questions with unwavering tenacity. Expect each answer to be at least a paragraph or two.

Compared to Achaea, this place is an RP Mecca. Is it a super-immersive world where everyone has a rich, vibrant character that you'll be envious of? No. Still, there's enough of it to satisfy generic RP cravings.

Celest: Ideology based around the five Supernals, some tension between crusader types and diplomatic types, with the crusader types having a stronger influence most days. Bitterly opposed to Magnagora because of their embrace of the Taint.

Serenwilde: Nature commune patroned by White Hart and Mother Moon. Teaches self-reliance and appreciation for the natural cycles. Bitterly opposed to Glomdoring because they view the Wyrd a different form of the Taint and as still warping nature.

Glomdoring: Formerly tainted nature commune patroned by Brother Crow and Mother Night. Most noted for the Wyrd, the byproduct of removing the Taint from Glomdoring. Teaches patience and expansionism (and, in theory, mercilessness, but that doesn't always pan out in practice). Very unique RP (not necessarily the best, but definitely novel). Bitterly opposed to Serenwilde because of their bigotry, close-mindedness, and their generic desire to burn Glomdoring to the ground.

Magnagora: Industrial-militaristic city tainted by Project Cosmic Hope. Ideology loosely based around the five Demon Lords who teach pursuit of power, rage, and self-indulgence.




Power: Powerful skills consume a resource called power, limiting how often it can be used in combat.
Influence: "Diplomatic" bashing system--gain xp as if the denizen was killed without having to kill the denizen. More at HELP INFLUENCE.
Village revolts: Dynamic points of conflict where villages change loyalties to different organizations and provide commodities and power to the ruling state.
Skill specialization: Not everyone in a guild has the same skillsets. Not every novice who has the same skillsets will still have the same skillsets when they progress further. Choices are limited by guilds, but there are more skill choices than the number of archetypes would seem to indicate
Trade cartels: Everyone gets a tradeskill, partially limited by archetype and other skill choices. Unlike Achaea, not everyone gets to submit patterns. Pattern submission is done through an elected trademaster or a private cartel, purchased with gold.

Learning curve can be fairly steep. Depends on class mostly. depends on what you want. 1v1 or usefulness. Conflict is pretty absent right now so you're stuck to getting raided by grieferfish which means you'll want group usefulness and to be in a city. or You're stuck with arena cues which are mainly freeforalls and 1v1 fights where you'll need even more skills. Trans tends to mean 286 credits without the 2.5 lesson bonus. So 286 credits at 6 lesson a piece will trans. To survive on your own, you want fabled discipline. Guardian/Wiccans require 3 trans guild skills, Psionic Mages require 1 bare min. probably two to include the demesne. Bards need master Music and trans glamours. Trans Music helps too since it's passive effects. Monks need their trans specialty and I don't know? Warriors need their trans spec. Druids tend to need two trans guilds skills. After this, you'll want parries in combat which I think are adept and master? Unsure on that. People will say you want Trans planar, but that actually doesn't help you in combat. It serves to reduce exp loss when dying off prime. Most orgs have ways to rezz or cheat death anyways though so it's really not necessary once you get the hang of running away after you die if your one of those orgs or getting people to ress you if you're in the other orgs. Trans tradeskill helps a bunch depending on what trade. But they definately are useful. Trans resilience is a popular fourth or 5th to get after most trans guildskills. I say 5th because lots take planar as the fourth trans goal. Trans magic will necessary if you have low health and fight the magic types or get hit by succumb...evil evil succumb.

Please seperate it into paragraphs... I zoned out after "steep"

Welcome, Lazu, if you're looking for really immersive RP, go to Glomdoring, If a (forest) commune isn't your style, the cities Celest & Magnagora are about the same. I've been told Serenwilde's RP is better than Mag's & Celest's, but I didn't notice much of a difference, other than people were uber friendly there. (Unlike us hardarses in Mag )

And that's why I didn't answer the credit question

A lot of people are going to tell you that you "need" x trans skills and a smattering in everything else. It just ain't true. What they're talking about are the skills necessary to make full use of all the typical strategies used.

Practically none, unfortunately.



You'll want trans planar, and trans guild skills depending on your guild. And then some basic fairly low-level things in common skills, like tumble and shieldparry.

Considering the 2500 free lessons, I'd say about 700-900 credits gets you a really solid character, skill-wise.

A:

Conflict? What conflict? I see very little real conflict in Lusternia - this is both of the fault of the Administration and the player base. In my opinion, it won't be changing until the Administration learns to stop putting so much faith in the 'bindings' they tighten up on the community and more in the actual feedback of the people it effects. I'm not going to sugarcoat the issue, that's just my opinion. There aren't many planar raids, I don't see or hear of many out of arena fights .. theoretically, there should be lots of conflict. In practice? I don't see much.

B:

People answered this, but I'll put my generalized spin on it: the roleplay is both better and worse. There are some people who you'll relate to people in Achaea (or Imperian or Aetolia, hell).. but most people are very in depth roleplayers.

C:

I am transcendant Kata/Tahtetso, Combat, Acrobatics, Gifted Harmony, Fabled Discipline, and a handful of Planar skills to back it up. I am still learning to fight here and writing my system (copying bits over from the memory of my old Imperian system, really). It depends heavily on class.

D:

Power and planeswalking/travel is a big new mechanic. I happen to love it. Also, every class here is drastically different than in any IRE; especially knights and monks.

And people have pretty much shown why I didn't answer A either!

Conflict is nothing like it used to be. Conflict between the organizations has been reduced to the occasional raid. It's a bit disappointing for the longtime residents of Lusternia, and it's painful to say "No, there's still conflict."

But! We have HELP AVENGER, which is infinitely better than HELP PKCAUSE. While you'll probably get shunned for it, you can kill people barely out of novicehood if it amuses you.

(Also, thieves here are the scum of the earth. Don't look at your domination skills and go "Oh, thief skills!" That's baaaad mojo.)

EDIT: Don't type forum posts when you just wake up or you'll make some really stupid typos.

Depends on where you're from. OOCly it should be noted though that some claim the taint was indeed removed (Celest and Glomdoring) and the others claim it was merely the appearance that changed but that the commune itself is still tained (Magnagora and Serenwilde). Feel free to take your pick.

There are some that would argue that the Avenger is not remotely better than HELP PKCAUSE due to the Avenger well..not being an actual person and being a system that can be and is abused by those who know it's tricks. It's effective for the most part in limiting rampant griefing but then again, so is PKCAUSE.

Thieves are tolerated more and more here. There was a time when being a thief would make you scum of the earth but these days, not so much. In terms of which organizations that tolerate it the most ICly, check out Magnagora.

bugger that, celest tolerate theives more

Some also claim it never existed, and still doesn't.

I like this last option.

Not only does Avenger limit rampant griefing.. it hamstrings the PK system to a pretty heavy degree. Sure, I can smack some joe shmoe down - but I will pay such a heavy consequence for it simply because I can't say to Avechna 'it was perfectly justified due to X, but X didn't give me a real in game triggered reason to be able to attack back'. It's just a ball and chain, not a 'new age system to herald in less griefing'.


EDIT: Also not sure who would support thieves, I know I would be pretty loud-mouthed if we kept one in a city I belong to.

Exactly, that's kind of my point. It's intent was to limit griefing and it does that but also limits a lot of justified PK and it can be worked around and abused. I prefer PKCAUSE myself heh.

And just ask around IC for who the known thieves are and who supports them if you're really curious. They exist.

The PK system is really done best in Imperian.

There isn't one. Basically you can PK if you have a reason to.

Yes.

Ah yes, worthy reasons including 'You're just standing in Caanae after having rezzed a buddy, die!'

You're the biggest griefer here. Just ask the Serenguard.