Around the age of 13 or 14 (about five or six years ago), I stumbled upon the great land of Achaea, thanks to Screen Savers on Tech TV. I was absolutely in love with the immersing world that it offered. I had a friend there and he showed me Lusternia.

Starting off on Lusternia, the "feel" of the game was completely different. I didn't quite like it at first, but I grew to love it. I played almost every day for over a year. Then, as everyone else does at some point, I became inactive. I've come and gone since then, and I've tried different IRE MUDs, and I don't know what it is, but Lusternia trumps all of them.

Lusternia's story is unique, as is the combat. Even the feel of the game is completely different. The gods take a more active role in the game and society, and they actually have some sort of influence other than a faceless entity. The Fulcrux itself is awesome in that you can communicate directly with a god without going through some high priest bull :censor:.

All in all, the other IRE MUDs seem--dare I say--shallow.

Way to go Lusternia for ruining all my other MUDding experiences. I'm not sure if I should thank you or hate you.

Yeah.

Similar to Kante, I started playing IRE games a while back, I can't remember exactly when (My oldest character is 181, on Achaea). I started on Aetolia, moved to Achaea, stayed there for a while, and got bored. I came back about a year or so later to discover Imperian, and tried that for like, two weeks. Got bored.
Somwhere along the line, I started a character on Lusternia. I immediately noticed a difference. Players cared about novices, there was actual RP, Gods talked to mortals. I was awed. Real life intervened and I had to stop for a long time. (My original Lusty character is now 119, started at 18yo.) This November, I was looking for something to do with my free time and jumped back on Achaea. I logged out in about ten minutes, disgusted by what I found. I logged into Lusty, felt a little odd on my old character, and rolled up a new one. I have logged in at least every day since late November. Lusternia has something that the others don't, and I can't put my finger on it, but it has me completely and utterly addicted. It has ruined every other RP game I've ever played, but I love it.

I was the same way. I started in Acheae (or however you spell it) back when it first opened and liked it enough to play it for a while. After some time, I got tired of the other players and went to several other things. Then Imperian then finally Lusternia when they opened. I played Imperian less and Lusternia, more. I left Lusty because I got frustrated, but I keep coming back. I do have a love/hate relationship with this game. I love everything but just a few things, but of course nothing is perfect. Plus, I've spent quite a pretty penny here.

Bah! And I thought my story was unique. Started in Achaea. Played for a year. Woke up one day, wondering exactly what about Achaea kept me coming back. And I realized, nothing did. (although the last of my 5 characters was a jester. Great fun. Love puppetry and have considered going back to Achaea for the sole purpose of playing a jester, and sinking tons of lessons into puppetry.)

Made a Paladin on Lusternia briefly, and I think Aison showed me around (I don't remember!), but kind of gave up.

So I went to Aetolia. Played a werewolf. Had fun, but realized how utterly similar it was to Achaea, and that kind of drove a stake through its heart (ha, vampire joke.). Persevered, made another few characters, and then decided that I wasn't having much fun.

Played Imperian for a day. Boo.

Came back to Lusternia, because it had the most varied and interesting races. I made a shofangi. And...it stuck. I liked it this time around. Little did I know that this was shortly after Shofangi debuted, and so I was one of a handful of players playing Shofangi at the time. I felt important, wanted. So that's probably why I stayed.

I also played Achaea first, although my experience probably wasn't so bad. I played a member of Indrani's order (she's the goddess of sin over there), and dang, my character was the funnest little manipulating machine I've ever played. I swear, nobody could rightfully trust her except other members of her order, and even that was iffy if you weren't intelligent enough for her liking. There was that, and Indrani was a really fun goddess to interact with.

I tried out Lusternia a while back out of curiosity, played a BT and enjoyed myself a lot. My character wasn't a combatant though, so when I decided to try the game again but get some combat in this time, I made a new character rather than try to make my non-com into a fighter.

My Achaean experience is probably unique, though - that game's playerbase is huge, so it can be difficult to find a good place to roleplay and do it well. It's a lot easier to get into Lusternia - the lore is great, the mechanics and flavor are interesting, and the playerbase, in my opinion, is significantly more mature on the whole. Though my experience with the Indranin order was wonderful, I love that all the gods, to one degree or another, are involved in the daily lives of mortals here, even if your experience with the divine is largely just hearing them shout.

Achaea vs Lusternia is like Night vs Day for me. Not only is the game much more immersive, the people here (admin and players alike) are so much more friendly, generous, supportive, and patient. Many of the people that used my combat systems and other scripts in Achaea became like nightmares. All my customers here are so awesome I feel like I should be paying them sometimes!

I will forever save that last sentence and hold it against you when I make my next payment .

And then I'll remind you that you're the one who's being too kind in paying me when I told you not to pay me. (Starting to sound like a "No, after you, I insist" over and over sort of "argument." Heh.)

You hear that admins? Even though we oftentimes bitch, we still love you.

Lusternia is a little more dynamic to me. Combat-wise anyway. Like me playing here it took quite a while to get used to and a month or so ago I started a character on Aetolia with Desitrus and played there for a few weeks and pretty much on PK alone I got level 76 because it's so much easier compared to here. During those few weeks I played there I also scripted my own system. That should just about give you an idea of the simplicity of it. An example of this would be both of our characters were only tri-transish and he and I killed a group of 4 people that are artied/end gamers.

Like everyone I came here after Achaea, originally because my sylvan who was working on guild(yes guild at that time) reqs got booted because I had to learn to fight and fought someone out of the arena which broke guild law so byebye (like... I didn't know about them at that point)

Ended up trying lusternia out while waiting for my outguild period to end and never went back. <3<3<3<3<3<3<3 for Est

Achaea is wonderful; but in such a huge community, sometimes it's harder to keep a grip on the good things. It's easy to drown within the newbies, griefers and issues with the game.

Lusternia is not only a world that suits me more (it's your usual high fantasy + extras) but it's a smaller and more mature, intelligent community. It's not only more interesting, as much as people bitch and moan, everyone here is much nicer.

How did I miss this thread?

I started playing Achaea around 4 to 5 years ago. Honestly, I have no idea why or how I lasted -that- long. The game has great potential, but the player base essentially ruins it as a whole. Sure, there are some good ones, but they're few and far between. After getting dragon there and then the changes, wasting all that time doing it, I ended up disgusted and resentful. Which led to my just phasing out before trying this one.

Like many others, I popped into Aetolia and Imperian briefly. They seemed slightly interesting, however there just wasn't enough players to interact with and they weren't newbie-friendly at all. After a couple months, I decided to give Lusternia a go. Frankly, I didn't expect to like it much more. Yet, since I've started playing, I've found the player base here is sooooooo much different. I'm not sure why, but this game seems to have attracted much more mature players. Even though the game is a huge learning curve compared to the others I've tried, it's also very newbie-friendly, thanks to the players.

I haven't yet heard much out of the god players, but that's probably because I don't play for long everyday. I generally play for maybe an hour each day, sometimes less for the time being. I'm sure they're great here though. I've seen some interact with the forum users here actually in a nice way, and I never saw that in Achaea's forums. Overall, they seem to be much friendlier, which counts for a lot. After reading some of the posts above, I'm a little excited about potential player/god rp here. I may even develop an interest in joining an order here, where I never once did in Achaea.

I'm not yet willing to invest real life money because I lost so much time and money in Achaea. Dragon demolishing, thieves, skills made utterly useless, etc. I have to see if things are changed on a whim here without much in-depth thought based on crying and such. If things are more stable here, I'm sure I'll end up building a good character here as well. After being burned in Achaea by losing thousands of dollars though, I've learned to be a little more cautious with my money. I'm trying to be objective though and not allow other bad experiences from Achaea cloud my judgement for all other IRE games!

Edit: Spelling > me

Lusternia was actually the first IRE game I tried, and the first MUD I've ever played. My Glom cousin got me interested in it, and I remember asking him would it be alright if I only played a few hours on the weekends, as I wasn't sure how much time I could devote to another online game .

And here I am, playing hours a day. I don't know what it was about Lusternia that got me hooked. Maybe it's because I know it's different from other games out there. Many of my friends were addicted to WoW and I heard them talk about it over and over. I even watched them play it a few times to see if it was something I'd like to try. I've never seen a warrior yell "lawlerkittens" so many times, and have everyone think that was cool. I quickly realized it and games like it were NOT for me.

I attribute the maturity of Lusternia's playerbase to 1) the players themselves and 2) the learning curve, actually. We the players work hard to immerse newcomers completely in the world and help them up that very steep learning curve. Those that want to enjoy and RP world like this recognize that we are trying to help them and ultimately end up staying around to contribute. Those who don't really care about RP and were just looking for something to keep their 13 year old brains mindlessly busy, don't. (Not to say that we don't have some incredible young players. You know who you are )

I gave Imperian a try, but stopped playing after a few days. I liked some aspects of it (escaping from Hell, not choosing a guild until after you start playing), but overall, I didn't feel like the players cared. I'd heard all sorts of bad things about Achaea so I've never tried that. I knew a few people who'd played Aetolia, and the whole game sounded like a 200 player Glomdrama emo orgy, so I avoided that too.

The Divine interaction here is great! Even if your character doesn't particularly like the IG Divine, the people behind them are great. The idea that you can go to a fulcrux and talk to a Divine if you have a problem is amazing. I had to do that when I accidentally found a hole in some code and my hunting companion basically got stranded in the void . Thank you to Charune for finding him again . I've been afraid of the Oneroi ever since we discovered "Oops, I guess you really CAN'T have two bookshelves in one room...", but that's because they always show up when I do something stupid. The Divine really do listen to players and interact with us, so thank you!

I started as a Priest in Aetolia, as I liked the concept of having a partner angel following me around. I didn't get past the novice stage due to essay requirements. I mean, I write essays for my homework, I do not want to write essays just so that I can get past Adept. So, I forgot about Aetolia.

I then found Achaea, and took a look at the Druids. Man, I LOVED the concept of Groves. I spent hours looking for the perfect spot to put my grove. I spent lessons in Grove instead of Metamorphosis or Herbs, even though either would be better. My mentor was really nice and helped me a lot as well. But then, the novice essay requirements struck again, and I forgot about Achaea as well.

Then I heard that there was a new IRE game, and it had Aquamancers in it. I love water-based magic stuff, so I immediately made an Aquamancer. This time, no novice requirements, I could do whatever I want and still graduate. Yay! At that time though, no one was in Celest at my timezone. Only the guildmaster, who was slightly amazed that he got GM, and so he was my mentor. However, I got bored bashing dreamleeches and starsuckers all day. as I had no idea where else to go, and no one else was available to help me. So, I forgot about that character as well.

I tried Imperian. Got past the tutorial quest, then somehow stopped there. Still don't know why the Imperian style and atmosphere didn't suit me.

So, I was fed up with bashing. I remembered that Lusternia had something nifty called influencing. I saw that Faelings have nice charisma, Shadowdancers have Penumbra, and I liked the concept of an entourage following you around, as well as the Night aspect. And Shayle was awesome, all the GAs were awesome, I became an Undersec, which kept me further hooked on Lusternia, and now I'm lost to Lusternia forever.

I started in Lusternia, stayed. Now I hang around like some sort of parasite/sybiotic organism.

I played in Achaea back when there was only Achaea. I had lots of fun there, I won't lie, but I didn't care much for the direction the game was headed. When Lusty came out, I jumped ship and never looked back.

Just last week, I made a character on Aetolia. Not to badmouth the other IRE games, but the experience was horrible. Even the guide was useless. I may not agree with every decision made by the admin, but it's very easy to take for granted how well they did the fundamentals of the game. The novice system is better. The novice areas are better. There's always something that needs doing (and doing the same thing for the billionth time is better than having nothing to do except level). It makes a huge difference.

QFT. That's the reason Lusternia wins over, say, Achaea, where I got bored after a week because there was absolutely nothing to do except bash and try to fulfill the stupid druid requirements.