Hello,

I played Achaea for a good 4 to 5 years and have grown bored with the game. Now, I'm looking for another that is completely different, offers a complex pk system, great social ties, organizations with good leadership that kicks snugglies, and fairly newbie-friendly.

Which factions are more active in conflict? I'm basically looking to join one that stays both on the offensive and defensive 90% of the time. Are raids very common here? I certainly hope so. The last couple games I've tried don't seem to be at all centered around RP conflict. I enjoy one-one conflict, but that tends to get boring when raiding brings together groups and seems to make things more interesting.

Is the bashing here good? Or, is almost every decent area always bashed out? How are game currency drops here? Does a person have to be very high ranked in skills to have the ability to bash for decent currency drops?

Are the PKers here "lolzers" or do they tend to be good RP/PKers?

In short, is the game worth playing or will I waste time building up a character only to regret it like I have the past couple games I've tried?

Thanks much

Magnagora and Celest are both pretty active in conflict - more so than Glomdoring, with Serenwilde somewhere inbetween.

Bashing is supposed to be pretty good (much better than I'm finding Imperian, anyway.) You can bash up lots of money, depending on class you need different levels of skills transed.

Don't rely on PKers being good RPers...it's not like we don't have plenty of people with both abilities, but if you expect everyone to be good you'll be sorely disappointed.

The thing I find odd about Lusternia, is that the whole good/evil thing isn't really cut and dried. It's not like "Shallam is good, Mhaldor is bad" like in Achaea. Both side have good and evil, laid back and carefree or tightlaced and narrow minded. It's all in how you play.

In Celest, I remember a raid once a day, almost every day.

We have arguably the two best high-level bashing spots in IRE, namely, Astral and the Undervault. They can never really be completely empty, basically.

If any game is worth playing (and well suited to the things you're looking for in a game), it's Lusternia.

The leadership is good. The skills are fun. The many ways in which one can get involved are far too numerous to list: influencing, aetherships, planar travel, writing/directing/acting, etc.

New Celest and Magnagora are somewhat more involved in conflict, being more diametrically opposed to one another, but we all get into our fair share of scuffles. Raids are pretty common, depending on what times you play most.

Some of the PKers are the "lolzers," but they keep it mostly to their OOC clans where you don't need to hear it if you don't really want to know.

Thanks.

I'm looking at the Aquamancers, Celestines, and Paladins. The Paladins look interesting, but I'm afraid they'll be like the ones in Achaea. The general cost of being one in Achaea is huge. This includes having to trans class skills, other skills needed for pk, buying top of the line weapons, venoms, etc. It breaks the credit bank! Are these basically the same?

Yeah, top quality warrior weapons can be expensive. Aquamancers are the cheapest of those 3.

Warriors are rather expensive to play, easily the most expensive class. Out of the three you list, Aquamancers will require the least investment to be involved in combat, in my opinion.

Knights are one of the more expensive archtypes but the combat for them isn't just like other IRE games. Hitting specific body parts of your target builds up wounds on them, letting you do more afflictions and damage.
Also, no two guilds really have the exact same skills, so you might want to look at that some too.
Celestines are in the guardian archtype and they are also on the high end side. If you want to get into combat you will need to trans several skills.

I don't know much about the aquamancers though.

I wouldn't say that Celestines are more expensive than Aquamancers. They're roughly equal in terms of lesson cost (low-tier combat probably cheaper for Celestines, mid-tier maybe a bit cheaper for Aquamancers), but high-end Aquamancers are likely to come equipped with a damage-increasing artifact.

A better deciding factor between those two would be how you most expect to participate in conflict. Being an Aquamancer or other demesne holder cuts down on your options for spontaneous one-on-one scuffles, but greatly increases your power in a group.

Celestines require high discernment for absolve, and trans discipline for inquisition. Celestialism and tarot both have to be really high to have any hope of killing someone that has a basic system. I've been in both guilds, Celestines had much higher skill requirements.

Your signature is scary, stalker scary even.

Thanks everyone for the input. It's been very helpful.

You do need discipline for inquisition that you don't need as an Aquamancer, but not trans, not by any stretch of the imagination. I didn't get discern until I left the Celestines and didn't have any issues. Because amissio scales so highly, you get a pretty good sense of half mana if you do it long enough. Besides, you don't lose power for a failed attempt.

Competent PvP starts awfully near three trans guild skills in both. Honestly, if you want cheap, a bard or monk guild will probably serve you better, but nothing is cheap if you don't enjoy what you're doing.

If you have mythical discipline, you can get power back fast enough sometimes. Still a lot. I remember quickening and amissioing people, hitting every time, and having them stay well above half mana. And failures do use the power.

I'm not really looking for dirt cheap. I just don't want to send an arm and a leg on a text game...again, like I did in Achaea. I don't mind spending a reasonable amount though.

I knew that. I was thinking Nihilists. Sorry. Ignore!

(Inqui is still totally possible with virt discipline.)

Aqua would probably be the cheapest, yes.

As for 'bashing out', I usually find that whenever I go to hunt an area, I'm able to find at least one of four spots that hasn't been touched at all lately. Sometimes all four, if I'm lucky.

We (the Celestines) have (in my opinion) a very competent leadership that takes good care of novices. You'll be useful in group combat pretty quickly thanks to Web that you get from Cosmic, and we have a system that awards dedicated members with credits, which ought to help you along.

You need trans discipline for a soulless kill.

The 'glow' from heretic/infidel doesn't always happen twice (when I had mythical discipline, I would cycle through the heretic/infidel process 4 or 5 times with no second glow), so you do need the trans discipline in order to get power back fast enough to do it.

Aquamancer looks relatively cheap, and fun to play.

Hi. Paladins are nothing like other IRE. Take it from me, I've always played melees (with short stints as noctu/bloodborn/malignist/apostate/occy/etc) and it is nothing like the other muds. One of the main reasons I stayed with Lusternia. Parrying and stancing are both "fluid" systems, wounds on arms/legs are an actual numerical value, and warrior "afflictions" are based off of that. It is healed by applying health rather than sipping it.

Toxin locks aren't like other places, they are typically based on wounds and there is no "true lock" here unless it's an oversight or a bug, there's a power-based skill to cure anything.

Our combat balancing occurs once a month, rather than once a year.

Celest/Mag is where you want to be for conflict if you want to fight all the time, but cost of entry is high for any guild, don't let this odd debate lead you in the wrong direction. Don't be an Aquamancer if you want to fight, that's pretty simple. It requires a good sized power budget, you're useless if another one is there during a raid, and they can be seriously not fun to play if you're not a veteran people won't scream at because they think they know how to be a melder.

I would honestly recommend paladin, even though the gear cost is higher, it is also the best basher out of the three and survival rate is higher once you have some skills/curing. Second to that would be tarot Celestine, but it's not the world of aeon fling/slash toxin as you really can't combo toxins as a caster here.