Lonely Nights in Shuma

[Lord J]

Well, I just leveled my Klingon Warrior up to 23, and I decided to come here and make a thread about it.

  I realize that 23 is not extrmely high in the world of MUDs, MUSHes and MOOs, but you need to know a little back story.

  A few years ago I was searching for something interesting and fun to do on the Internet.  I played Planetarion, tried a few other web-based games and I played some multiplayer PC games.  One late night I discovered Areth, it was much like some other RPGs I had played, only text-based, which made it better in some aspects.

  My first character in Areth was Blakout the Klingon Warrior.  I leveled him up many times, killed him several times, made several large mistakes, but all in all at level 47 he was the Highest Klingon Warrior in the whole MUD.  He was the launching pad for other characters, a sprite, a few elves, a protoss and eventually another Klingon Warrior.

  About a year ago I decided to start playing again with Blakout.  Sadly, as they implemented a new system utilizing Agility, my character was screwed.  He was outclassed, outdated, and outmanuvered.  So I threw him out the window and began a new pair of characters.  Maergh the Klingon Warrior and Topps the Elf Cleric.

  Well, it's not easy to play two characters at the same time, so I let Topps slide to train up Maergh.

  Maergh is doing quite well now.  I started playing again a few nights ago, and, 4 deaths, around 100 Ogre Gang Members, and around 3,000 expirience points later, I finally leveled him up tonight.

  I'll probably start a journal of sorts now that I've started.  I really like Areth.

  If anyone would like to join me, the website is Areth.org.

  Comments?

[Jack Leaf]

I tried once a MUD and it was extremely complicated and boring.

[bryorama]

Looks very well interesting, yet I wouldn't want to join.

[Lord J]

I tried once a MUD and it was extremely complicated and boring.

  Well, to best enjoy MUDing, one must like RPGs, like writing and text detail and you have to like repetition.

  And the biggest part of enjoying MUDing is the lack of graphics.  As someone who dislikes most of the graphics is recent games, not to mention the expense, ArethMUD has been a great expirience. 

  It's a system that takes a bit of practice (Which is why I suggest Areth's MUD School for beginners), but once learned can be incredibly entertaining.

[bryorama]

I suppose it could be fun, I like the MuDs that don't involve fighting, but more role playing.

www.castlemarrach.com

You get the first month free, but after that you have to p2p.

What you reall do is [Glances around cautiously] just keep making different accounts after your free trial period ceases and you can have another month...free.

[Lord J]

Well, in the drive to get my character a bit more expirience, I found myself exploring a new realm a bit south of Moria.

  Using scan and where I found my way around the area, coming upon a hole  in the ground.  I scanned, and the screen told me that a Minotaur was down there.

  I knew the area was 20-25 and I thought, what the heck, so I ate a blue ruta and popped down (Blue Rutabegas are somewhat magical in nature, they cast the 'Sanctuary' spell on the person that eats them, cutting damage taken by half).

  I was greeted by an aggressive creature with about (it seemed to me, anyway) five attacks per combat round.  I think it was probably five levels or so above me, and thus, I died in about six rounds ("A Minotaur has a few scratches").

  So, seperated from my equipment, I faced the great fun of recollecting it, bit by bit, from those I had taken it from originally.

  But with the help of some more blue rutas, and the reinitializing of an old Elf Cleric character, I've managed to recollect a good bit of my equipment.  Now I think I'm going to start another character (a Kzinti Psioniscist, very high TNL, extremely powerful, I've been wanting to expiriment with this class/race anyway), try and get a pair of the Pigeon Exterminator Handbooks (very nice for stats) and see that Maergh gets one.

  In other news, I've been playing Areth with a couple of guys I play the Wheel of Time D&D RPG with on weekends.  We're having a goodly bit of fun.  Expirimenting with the Martial Artist class as a Drow has proven quite...enlightening.  He's no tank, definately.

[kkbrando]

Looks comlicated, I wouldn't like it.

[Lord J]

Well, I leveled up again today, both characters at the same time, nontheless: It was quite fun!

  Lately I've been looking for a new place to fight, somewhere with better expirience and less extinction.  I decided to make a trip to Yggdrasil and see what it had to offer.

  I killed several non-agressive mobiles, not some experience, and I had a decent time.  Then, I happened upon a Frost Giant.

  A Frost Giant in Yggdrasil is an agressive mobile.  This means that they attack players on contact (if you walk into a room with them or vice versa).  Also, because they're giants, they give more exp because of thier size and amount of hitpoints.  My first kill gave Maergh 86 exp, and Topps 92 exp.  If you've played Areth you'll know that that is quite a bit for a post-mud school kill.

  So today I was in the middle of killing one Frost Giant when another walked into the room.  If it had not been for my cleric, I would have died.  My tank got down to around 150 (out of 1425) hp, and my cleric ran out of both movement and mana points.  But in the end two Frost Giants were dead, and my characters were a level higher, each. :)

[Lord J]

Once again I leveled up my two favorite characters, Maergh and Topps.  The interesting part though is how many times Maergh almost died in the process.  He actually got down to unconiousness (negative hitpoints -- "You feel the Grim Reaper's fingers touch your shoulder") several times, and Topps would (barely) keep him this side of Limbo with his 'cure critical' spells.

  It was truly an eyeopener for me, as I thought with negative hitpoints one would automatically die, one way or the other.

  I also restarted the process of cleaning up the streets of Shuma by attacking vandals and gang leaders in Dangerous Neighborhood.  Not an easy task, but usually rewarding.  I also found the end to the dwarven mine maze in the Dwarven Kingdom where I confronted a powerful and strange little man with sex-changing pills... It was quite an expirience.

  Lastly  I think I should elaborate on exactly why I started writing these bits.  Firstly because I love the community, and I thought many of you would be interested in this type of Gaming; but mostly because of an article in GMR that I have been reading for some time now.  It's called "My Life in Vana'Diel" and it's a log of one character's expirience in Final Fantasy XI.  It's a very interesting article, to me anyway, even though I don't play Final Fantasy XI or any other MMORPG.  Either way, I hope you all enjoy your online gaming expiriences, and feel free to comment.

[Lord J]

Maergh: level 37, Klingon Warrior.

  Topps: level 35, Elf Cleric.

  Just a mention of how far I've gotten the two characters I've been focusing on.  They are getting better by the day.  Topps just got Portal, which means he can open a portal to any character or NPC.  This means that we can go places instantly, instead of walking everywhere from recall.

  I went back and paid a visit to that minotaur that killed me in my first post.  I ripped his head off.  I couldn't find any traces of my equipment, but the kill was very satisfactory.

  One of the more unique things I just did was finding the One Ring (to rule them all).  That's right, I tracked down Frodo in the Shire, used Faerie Fog to reveal his presence and ripped his head off.

  I already knew of the existance of the One Ring, I'd seen other players wear it, but I finally found it tonight, thanks to Detect Invis, Locate Object and Portal.

  Now my firends will be seeing a lot less of me... Considering I'll be invisible and all ;)

[Alexander_Ordos]

Finaly I got to learn what is MUD actualy. Well it's quite cool with all this TelNet stuff. But I play different games that have graphics. MUD's ar for people who have slow PC's.

[Lord J]

  Well both of my computer are pretty fast, actually.  I just don't like the price tag for most computer games.  Not to mention the fact that, the best in-game graphics on a computer screen are horrible.

[Lord J]

  I finally got both of my characters, Maergh and Topps, up to Adept today.

  Adept is pretty high, level 51.

  I don't have much else to report, I just wanted to boast.

[Alexander_Ordos]

Well yes i totaly agree about the insane prices, that's what are the "illegal" games for. And why play a non graphical RPG when you can play...for xmpl SW: KoToR ?

[Lord J]

Well yes i totaly agree about the insane prices, that's what are the "illegal" games for.

  Illegal games are just that, illegal.  I don't want to go to jail (or get fined) over a piece-of-crap, probably virus-infected, 3-day download that didn't look very good (to me) to begin with.  And as this topic (illegal/warez games) is restricted for discussion, that's all I'm going to say on that matter.

And why play a non graphical RPG when you can play...for xmpl SW: KoToR ?

  Because, A: The graphics are still pitiful compared to what I want in a game, B: As repetetive as Areth is, Kotor is more so, because it's just the same static movements over and over again (as adverse to non graphic Areth, where you at least have a mental representation of the encounters), and C: I've played Kotor on XBOX and I didn't really like it, it's as slow as most graphic RPGs are, you get bogged down in storylines, alignment and dialog when all I want to do is kill something.  A lot of something.

  I've already boasted about Maergh and Topps, but I just wanted to mention that, shortly after I leveled up those two to Adept I leveled up Blakout, my original Klingon Warrior, and with Topps' Awen, Godfire, Holy Sight and Invincibility spells I have managed to make him highest once again.  Joy.

[Alexander_Ordos]

Jail ? Honestly, NO ONE is going to check your home pc  :) And I haven't got a SINGLE infected game yet  :P All are good and wokr just fine...on the other hand if you're a "lawfull good" person...I understand you.

And yes, no game can be compared to one's imagination, but reading a good book (Dune for xmpl) is quite enough to feed my imagination  ;)