The first Teradrim requirement required a guildmate. There were none for five days, then I found an AFK one on the sixth. I quit that day.

*hopes the afk one wasn't him*

Achaea, I think, gets a bad rap which is on the whole undeserved. It really is very well-designed for the most part, though the fact that it's as old as it is means that it has problems from way back when. The playerbase certainly is full of griefers, idiots, etc. that don't show up to the same degree here in Lusternia due to the smaller size and greater ease of discipline (outguild, ostricize, they're left powerless, haha, haha). However, my characters there have always met with those who are serious roleplayers and manage their roles quite well. It does take the right attitude and a little work to find them and integrate yourself, though, or else you're left floating in the sea of idiocy that results when the people I mentioned try the same tack that works here in Lusternia. (outhouse, outcitizen, oh wait... now they don't have anyone to tell them what to do, but nothing else has changed).

One of the reasons I also love Lusternia is that maturity. Also the activity of the Divine. You can find Divine in Achaea if you know what to look for and who to talk to, especially if you join an Order, but it's just so much more prevalent here.

I don't think it's really undeserved. Achaea deserves most of the criticism it gets - playerbase aside, there are a whole bunch of mechanical (and setting! Achaea's setting is so much more boring than ours) things Lusternia does so much better it's very easy to go back there and wonder how they could have gotten it so wrong.

What it -is-, though, is taken out of perspective. Achaea is still better than most MU*s. It's just worse than here.

Of course, it's not like Achaea never improves. I don't know how houses are working out, but I do remember how hilariously awful the old guild reqs were. I watched people take 3 months trying to get a 3hour interview to get out of novicehood.

Oh, that's quite true. It is, after all, more than ten years old and started on the old Avalon codebase, then translated to a completely new one. They're still fixing holes in it from that. (Also, that depends on your perspective. I quite enjoy both of them, m'self.)



The old guild reqs were bad, yes, but they went too far in the other direction with Houses- they have no power at all anymore. None. You'll get kicked out? O noes, I'll lose a channel or two!

I should probably clarify that by setting I really mean the..."flavour" rules governing the whole thing. It's generic, which is okay to some extent, but the histories in particular have next to no personality at all and when I was playing I didn't find that it was particularly integrated with what actually went on either. In Lusternia, not only are the histories well-written and interesting, but almost everything that goes on pertains to it in some way and makes it feel more like a coherent world.

Maybe the actual "mostly generic high fantasy" setting thing is a matter of taste, and it does have a couple of distinguishing touches, so I won't argue with that.

I have to agree that Achaea deserves all the criticism it gets. The thing about the player base is, the admins allow them to flourish and grow. Not only are they almost as bad as WoW, but the admins promote it. I'm not really advocating their issue system. However, when griefers do grief and are issued, they've gotten to where the griefers and "lulzers" are coddled and protected. I've seen issue after issue be brought into the forum medium in order to mock the person who issued and I've seen how they were ruled.

That fact along with autoclass is what attracts the horrid player base. They did go from one extreme to another though. While trying to avoid power-hungry guild leaders and absolutely ridiculous guild requirements, they forced the game into a lulz-fest atmosphere. They simply have no control over their player base and it does nothing but get worse each day. I played for around 5 years. Game mechanics as a whole are changed on a weekly basis because of the fact that the player base abuses every single thing they can get their hands on.

Things that happen ICly are brought about by OOC conversations on clan channels. House and city leaders make decisions based on ooc clan laughs. I remember a whole city being run by the conversations from a particular ooc clan until most of the older players went dormant. It's crazy.

Another thing that shines about this game is the fact that theft isn't tolerated by the player base. This alone helps encourage players to buy credits without fear of having the items they purchase with them stolen. Achaea is overrun with thieves. It was getting ridiculous before I left, actually.

In all honesty, I believe the only reason Achaea does as good, credit sale wise, is the fact that it caters to the group it does; the lulz crowd. That type of player knows that houses can't control them. The only thing they have to worry about is if they join one of four classes that have certain skills controlled by players who are leaders in certain organizations such as the church.

Your typical Achaea PKer:
1) Create an alt.
2) Artie out and cause as much trouble as you can.
3) Post every antic you get away with on an ooc clan or the forums.
4) Rinse and repeat.

Your typical basher:
1) Trans your skills.
2) Buy arties that help with tanking and health regen.
3) Bash/bash/bash.
4) Realize that you just lost a ton of time hitting one button in a text game over and over again for nothing because the end result, dragonhood, is only good for a few utility skills such as tracking and your personal mail delivery system. Do note that this came about as yet another extreme while the admins were trying to fix dragon. They made it useless.

Your typical politician:
1) Does not require trans skills, but it does make you look "cooler", which is the whole point!
2) Gain popularity. This is not done by ic means. This -is- done via ooc clans, forums, msn, yahoo, etc. Do remember to be as lulzy as possible because this will win you extra votes. Bonus points if you have the ooc support of your ic organization's rivals. If not, they will cry in the forums until you step down from your ic position and run as fast away from the game as possible. I literally saw this one happen with one of the city's viceroys. The poor dear was elected and one of the other people who was running for the same position came to the forums and berated her. The thing was that she wasn't even a forum user. So, she didn't have the chance to defend herself. Because of this person starting this thread on the forums, everyone started giving her a hard time. Next thing I knew, she ended up out of her position.
3) If elected, in everything you do, do it for laughs. Always. If you can give your ic opposition immature laughs, you get even more bonus points.

On a good note, there seems to be so much more to do here. The politics doesn't seem near as harsh. Of course, I've not been around long enough to see much of it. The bashing is probably about the same aside from the planes issue. You have influencing, which I find very interesting. Village revolts, off plane conflict such as wildnodes (if I got that right), raids, etc.

Since I first played Lusternia in open beta i have no been able to enjoy another mud since. I keep ending up back here even if it is playing new characters, despite the few mistakes Lusternia is definitely the best run and best constrcuted mud in existence. The other IRE muds are definitely better then the average but they still have nothing on Lusternia.

(Also played Achaea first, no idea how or why i managed to stay there after playing here)

I have to agree with Julie's post. I've had a number of characters within Achaea through a span of ten years or so. I saw when they had great roleplay events like Death's Heart and when the Iron Citadel fell. And now I have to witness Achaea become the attrocity it is today. There is no RP, there isn't even an IC playerbase now. Things are said OOCly in says, Gods don't enforce any kind of roleplay. This is a perfect example of how credits/artifacts/lax administration destroy a game.

I've been playing Lusternia for about a good 2-3 years now, and while the playerbase MAY have degraded a little bit, it is nowhere near the epic fail that is Achaea. I hope that it never becomes that way either.

Those reasons would be why I sometimes wish all Guides where name nazi's, RP was more or less demanded by admin and playerbase, and those who do not comply get booted.
Shame I can't pay IRE's bills and paychecks from my wallet

The Houses in Achaea are slightly enforcing a few bits of RP again: back then, almost all the Houses accepted any class. Now, those classes which can relate to the House's theme are allowed (usually). For example, you wouldn't find a Jester-class in the Wardens (Knights) House.

Also, yes, there's still a bit of Achaea which can RP properly

I just found this thread! (*coughsthanksfortheemailstaccoughs*)

I've been playing in the IRE range of games for quite a while now (during the time I get my associates in Nursing which was a really long time ago). I've played Achaea for about three months, and I hated it. Played Aetolia for about seven months, but I enjoyed the Bards and the Arboreals. I found Aetolia around the same time, and I felt like it really wasn't for me.

Then I found Lusternia, and I fell in love with it instantly. I joined just as it opened, and since then, I've been going back and forth. I've tried my hand at building other MUDs, admining in other MUDs, and I've even done some work on the side for my own, but for some reason, I keep coming back here. The people, the culture, the friends, and the storyline just make this place heaven on earth for someone who doesn't necessarily want to level whore it out or become the next Jugothan (or whatever his name was in Imperian). Here, you can actually roleplay with others who like to roleplay simply for the sake of roleplaying. Estarra's done one hell of a job here.

Let's give her a round of applause for making a place inviting and truly one of a kind!

I still think we have that, just not to an extreme degree. I don't see too many bad names running around, and we even have less of the "normal" names, like Mitch or Kelly (not picking on them). IC, if not RP is upheld by the playerbase and admins, but RP may not be as strong as it used to. But a lot of us still work towards that end.

I LOVE Lusternia.Enough said. We should all wear I Love Lusternia Robes in-game!

I'm an Imperian refugee, and I tried Aetolia - couldn't really get into it.

Lusternia has it good: RP, people (<3 Aoife's family!), administrators that care (and openly, at that), regular updates, a family system that discourages textcest, and I could probably go on. I wish I knew the bashing areas a little better, but I discovered that I could just run through Celestia and empower angels for some pretty good experience. Since I'm new to it, I still find the crazed look the angels get somewhat amusing.

Lusternia is a well-designed game. I disagree with some of its mechanics (I'm iffy about the organization credit system, but maybe it's less painful to be GM/GA/city leader/etc here), and I wish the powerlog would condense itself (even when I do powerlog 0 0 Aoife it can get pretty long if I've been influencing), but it's just a very, very good MU*!

Not sure what about the organization credit system (I assume you mean credit rewards for the org for credit purchases?) you're referring to.


If I remember correctly, there's at least a few powerlog viewer scripts available on the forums.

There are, but they tend to be slow (and all of them are out of date by now, with newer add/drain messages). It would be nice to have a powerlog command in-game (especially since ones for previous weaves wouldn't even have to be processed again, it could just save the results for the last 6 days). Certainly wouldn't be any worse than the massive listofferings logs we've got.

And everyone would have access to it, whether they be on Nexus, zMud, mushclient. I've got my own script, and I'd still appreciate a Lusternia-side version.

I -think- she likes Imperian's system more, where the GM/CL would receive the credits.

I really disagree with this, as the people who are usually in these positions are the least likely to need even more credits. I like how it is possible for people to buy credits at a lower price from their orgs from time to time.

There are far more issues than that. It's better the way it currently is, even though the jobs really aren't worth the headache.

(And I say that as someone who would have a massive number of credits if that had been in place here. )

when I was trying to finish one of my Paths in the Sentaari back in '04, my testing was marked at about 6 hours. I thought I was back in college.