This game is incredibly addictive, for reasons I can't fathom. Even though it's often frustrating, especially the quests, which are positively infuriating. I'd like to think I'm a patient person, but it gets ridiculous.

Like the other night, when I was on the Toronada Tidal Flats. I was there for at least 4 hours straight, quite possibly 5, and 90% of that time was spent trying to figure out how to lure the kids out when they hide. The quest restarted a couple times, while I was trying to work out exactly how to work it, when I finally figured it out. I was super excited, because I've had problems with every single quest I've tried, and I was about to finally solve my first one!

I brought back two of the kids, with just one more to find, and grabbed extra cookies to make sure I had enough. I was laying down the last cookie trail, 4 cookies long, and I had already laid down 3. Just as I was about to lay down the very last one, and totally solve the quest:

You hold no "cookie"

The quest reset! I have never known such fury.

And yet here I am, still wasting most of my free time on this game. It's worse than crack!


And to those of you who sent me tells about insanity, Riluna was temporarily driven mad by frustration. Perfectly IC, so there!
Even here, in the real world, every single one of us is only one (very) bad day away from insanity.

Welcome to IRE!

Kindly check your soul in at the entrance, and please, don't forget to wipe your feet on the carpet.

Try waiting two hours for a God-character to come login. All you do is stand at their fulcrux and wait. That's cracked-out "OMGLUSTYLUV" insanity.

Anyway, welcome to Lusty, hope you're having fun, and beware the large amounts of RP.

What is this "real world" you speak of?

Don't worry, what you're experiencing is an entirely normal reaction. For health reasons, we require you to contact your local medical practice and arrange for a nurse to come and check you three times a day, ensuring you eat and perform proper ablutions. Please contact IRE support once this has been arranged, so they can ensure no important events involving you occur during these periods. Thank you.

Please note that a list of times for global or organizational events will be published approximately two weeks in advance. Should this not coincide with your current nursing timetable, this should provide you with sufficient time to make the necessary alterations. Otherwise, forgo the nursing for a day.

Escape while you can!

Don't worry, in return to the time sink, Lusternia gives much in return.

Just don't forget to eat or drink for longer amounts of time. Several asian players payed that with their life. God may look after their brave souls!

Poor Kaervas, god rest his soul.

This is why we have computers near the refrigerator.

Welcome to IRE! I understand how totally addicting it is at first, and good on you for keeping at it until you figure it out (god knows I haven't figured 95% of these quests out, myself), but if it starts getting that frustrating, take a break! Quests will always be there for you to try again at a faster pace.

Yeah, I have to stop trying to quest for a certain amount of time after I've been at it for a while because my frustration levels get so high that I'm just not having any fun anymore. In fact, I'm still on my quest break from the last time I tried the tidal flats quest.

But welcome to Lusternia!

We almost lost Visaeris right before the last Ascension event. Poor guy was online almost 60 hours in those last three days, and I don't think he was AFK for one second of it. He must have scheduled all of his bio breaks in his lich reformation time. We all made (make?) fun of him, and we nerfed the hell out of monk bashing in his honor, but that right there is hardcore.

What is it doing to you? The same as it did to all of us...

One of us... One of us...

Yep, welcome to Lusternia. I found out it had me when I spent 9 hours working on bringing a few beings back to life. (demon lords)

You know how, in cool games where you visit an asylum, there's always this creepy nutcase who tells you to run while you still can?

Run while you still can, or soon you'll be writing all over your "real-world" notebook, "There is no real world. Only Lusty."

On another note, when quests get too frustrating, just stop. You know damn well pausing is always a good tactic in real life, and it is so in Lusty as well. Try again when you're refreshed and just craving to solve it, with no trace of frustration left. That always works.

EDIT: Also, Toronada is by far the single most frustrating quest of the "easy" group. IMHO.

Oh, I do know, that rationally, taking a break is a very, very good idea, especially when you get real mad. I don't like giving up or losing, but I actually did try very hard to take several breaks. And this is exactly what I'm talking about with this thread.

My problem is, when I'm sitting there, watching tv or whatever, my computer practically starts speaking to me. I can't help but think that if I just go on one more time, just try the quest one more time, I will just magically suddenly understand whatever it is I've been missing, and the quest will be solved!

Until another hour later, when the frustration level starts to rise again....

It has always been my philosophy that even though a quest is open to low level players (i.e., no need to bash high level creatures, etc.), that does not mean it should be easy! Indeed, that is the whole reason why there's two complex honours quests in Newton--so newbies can be challenged quest-wise even though the actual bashing there is pretty simplistic.

That said, I do a walkthrough of almost every quest in-game and, if memory serves, the merian children quest (as opposed to the turtle quest) was pretty hard insofar as some of it wasn't very intuitive to figure out. If there's a part that you are absolutely stuck on and think it's because it's too vague on what to do next, you can discretely message me in-game the details of where you are and why you're stuck and I'll determine if we need to address the issue.

There's lots of quests in-game for all levels so enjoy! If you are looking for another challenging quest for a low level character, I'll suggest you may also may want to take a look at the Nature Reserve.

Good luck questing!

I think "challenging" is much, much to light a word. Something is definately missing from that quest, for those of us just learning how to play the game, aand the word you're looking for is "impossible." "Frustrating," maybe. "Ridiculous?" It seems like the only way anybody can even solve it is to learn how to do quests later, and then come back with a new character.


It was well after I was kicked out of Newton that another player had the good grace to explain to me that you can interact with the white descriptive text of the room, and not just things that show up as objects in blue on the bottom. If we were taught this, somewhere in Newton, it's incredibly easy to miss.


I must have ran up and down the mountain 8 times with the bucket and shovel, trying to figure out where clean, silky mud is. I remember seeing mud where the pigs were, but it was the smelly kind and I didn't think you could get it in the bucket anyway. I very nearly quit this game altogether, for frustration at the Newton quests, except my addiction was already taking hold. I just didn't realize it yet.

Yeah, it took me a while to figure that out too. I'm pretty sure someone told me after 2 years of playing achaea.