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This is a lets play thread.
Are you bored of pretty wow-like mmos for 13 year old kids where any performance leads only to progress? Want something where skill matters and equipment still earns respect? I know I do =(
And of course TL forums have their reputation of having more competitive gamers per cubic meter than boxers birthday party in a Japanese minivan. So if you could appreciate games like DAoC, EvE and hc D2 and looking for a competitive mmorpg with pvp that matters - I know just such a game and, in fact I, want to start playing it again. It's old school and bad ass, it's 15+ years old, but it only got better with time, because it's all text and user generated content.
Best part about this game is pk, it's very fast paced, has dota feel to it and, more importantly, it has loot. Loot that cannot be simply farmed. The principles behind pvp are very simple, but they give rise to complex end game. The game world is omg-huge with depth and history, there are new areas no one has explored yet with leet loots still to uncover, yet there are very old areas which evolved with time with mazes of incredible complexity impossible to solve without relying on knowledge passed on by older players to new generations. It has actual artifacts, one of a kind items with their own history, owned and enhanced by many generations of players. It's different from many modern games where there's one set best endgame eq every non-noob is wearing.
To those concerned about IT IS JUST TEXT part, in the beginning it will matter a lot, especially if your English isn't too good as it was in my case when I first started playing. But after a week or so you will stop seeing it as text, it is the same thing that happens with any game, it takes one glance to evaluate a whole screen for sc player. They don't look at the geography of that part of the map, as they know it, they don't look at units, as they know how a bio-ball looks, they don't count every marine, or examine the textures on the units. The game is in your head, you don't really look at things, you get the necessary information. The same will be with text scrolling past your screen at crazy speeds - you'll just know what's happening. (It also looks very cool for a unknowing spectator).
Anyway, I want to get back to playing it and it would be really cool if we could get a party going to run some bigger mobs, hang out in the game and, of course, PK. If you going to try it, post here your in game name, so I can find you in game or contact me in skype - lolusparta.
How to start
1. Get a client.
I use JMC http://mudlogs.foghaven.net/clients/jmc/ or http://www.elvenrunes.de/download/clients/jmc/, I hear a lot of people use zMUD.
Other clients http://www.realmsofdespair.com/clients.phtml#windows.
2. Connect to the server - realmsofdespair.com, 4000 port
Syntax in jmc: #connect realmsofdespair.com 4000
in telnet it is: open realmsofdespair.com 4000
3. Create a new character
By typing NEW in caps if you're using jmc. (It assumes lowercase to be a path - north east west).
Answer the rest of the questions. The most convenient first character would be a gith thief or a gith vampire.
Thieves and vamps are easy to level, have great defense which is handy for mob running and pk. Gith as race because they get innate detect invisibility and it can save a lot of trouble for a newbie.
to Would you like ANSI | no graphic/color support (A/N)? answer A.
4. Next step is the hardest in your mudding career: Finish tutorial area. It teaches some good basics but it requires too much reading and attention.
You can chat by typing: newbiechat text
Navigate by typing first letter of direction: up - u, down - d, north - n, northwest - nw, west - w and so on.) You can see exits on the compass to the right of the room name or by typing exits.
Interacting with objects is quite intuitive. Get something or get smth (from) container, drop smth, wear smth, remove smth, kill smth, flee, buy smth, examine smth, examine container (to see what's inside), eat smth, quaff smth (from) container.
l or look - looks around the room. Look self, look name, etc.
i - inventory
garb - displays all wear locations
score - displays general character info
Once in game follow the path north, don't forget to take a beacon on your way. If have any questions don't be shy ask for help in newbiechat, this thread or skype.
When asked if you want to be deadly or peaceful, choose peaceful unless you have past mudding experience.
After that it would be wise to check your stats by typing stat.
As a thief you want 17 or 18 dex and 15 or more strength, vampires should aim for 15+intelligence in addition to dex and str. To change you stats type reroll. As it’s your first character it’s not really the matter of big importance.
5. Level to lvl 50, learn the game, run basic eq, join pk.
Too much to explain here, but once you in game you can use ask channel to get help from the rest of community.
It may seem like a long journey till you can actually participate in the best part, but you don't have to do this. Someone with experience can go through all the hoops of the game (like leveling and eq gathering) in less than a day from nill and start pking the same day, the only reason you are making peaceful first is to learn the game.
Some helpful sites:
maps: http://www.tokai.ws/
for example first area you see http://www.tokai.ws/areas/sunlesssea/
equipment database:
http://silverwolf-den.com/cgi-bin/db.cgi?db=equip2&uid=default&view_search=1
devotions and such: http://home.grandecom.net/-nelkum
pk info: http://www.excordis.silverwolf-den.com/excordis.html
And remember, after two weeks it is no longer just text.
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/S9lHy.jpg)
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Gotta show some love for text MUDs. I played one that was run professionally (still going strong and continues developing new ones from time to time while still supporting the existing products) for a few years. If you can get past "no grafix?" then you'll find that text games can offer things that conventional video games just can't.
A text MUD developer can put "A dragon is here" and then write a description of the dragon if you examine it, for example. He can then have it attack with something like "The dragon swipes you with its claw, the sharp talons tearing your flesh." A modern day developer has to spend several hours creating the model and animations. Took the text dev maybe 10 minutes. This leads to being able to have so much more variety possible (obviously still depends on the dev to make use of the potential from game to game) because it doesn't take the dozens of hours upon hours to make a single area and populate it. If it can be written, it can probably be put into a text MUD.
And it's very true regarding getting used to the text. After awhile you don't really read what's going on so much as recognize the phrases. After seeing "X has entered from the south" a few hundred times you mostly just see "X south" or "X enters." When you enter a room you don't see a giant paragraph that you need to read. You'll likely vaguely notice the room name, so you'll know that you aren't lost, ignore the room description/items in the room (giant paragraph, always there, don't care) and just see the one or two things that are different than normal (player X and player Y are here).
I can't speak for the the game he's talking about as I haven't played it, but I've yet to find a mmo with a deeper pvp system than the text MUDs I was exposed to. For example, as everything is text you can replicate what things look like fairly easily, if the game lets you. One of the abilities in the game I played was illusion, which basically just displayed what you typed (cast illusion "blah"), which led to things such as "You have been paralyzed by X's attack!" looking exactly like the readl thing, leading to the person trying to cure paralysis when they don't have it You'd then be able to hit them with some other affliction. Much harder, if not impossible, to allow something so freeform in the combat system of a graphics based game.
Also, disappointed at the lack of "to save the president?" line upon opening the thread.
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Holy shit, I used to play a ton of RoD back in high-school. That was almost 15 years ago. So many great memories though, really good game. Interesting to see that it's still running. In a way this game ruined MMOs for me for a long time, I tried a bunch of the early ones but they all seemed like garbage in comparison to RoD.
Thanks for reminding me how old I am. 
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On March 17 2011 20:51 Vortok wrote:
Gotta show some love for text MUDs. I played one that was run professionally (still going strong and continues developing new ones from time to time while still supporting the existing products) for a few years. If you can get past "no grafix?" then you'll find that text games can offer things that conventional video games just can't.
A text MUD developer can put "A dragon is here" and then write a description of the dragon if you examine it, for example. He can then have it attack with something like "The dragon swipes you with its claw, the sharp talons tearing your flesh." A modern day developer has to spend several hours creating the model and animations. Took the text dev maybe 10 minutes. This leads to being able to have so much more variety possible (obviously still depends on the dev to make use of the potential from game to game) because it doesn't take the dozens of hours upon hours to make a single area and populate it. If it can be written, it can probably be put into a text MUD.
And it's very true regarding getting used to the text. After awhile you don't really read what's going on so much as recognize the phrases. After seeing "X has entered from the south" a few hundred times you mostly just see "X south" or "X enters." When you enter a room you don't see a giant paragraph that you need to read. You'll likely vaguely notice the room name, so you'll know that you aren't lost, ignore the room description/items in the room (giant paragraph, always there, don't care) and just see the one or two things that are different than normal (player X and player Y are here).
I can't speak for the the game he's talking about as I haven't played it, but I've yet to find a mmo with a deeper pvp system than the text MUDs I was exposed to. For example, as everything is text you can replicate what things look like fairly easily, if the game lets you. One of the abilities in the game I played was illusion, which basically just displayed what you typed (cast illusion "blah"), which led to things such as "You have been paralyzed by X's attack!" looking exactly like the readl thing, leading to the person trying to cure paralysis when they don't have it You'd then be able to hit them with some other affliction. Much harder, if not impossible, to allow something so freeform in the combat system of a graphics based game.
Also, disappointed at the lack of "to save the president?" line upon opening the thread.
If you're the Vortok I think you are, you mean conjure illusion!=p Iron Realms MUDs ftw. Achaea, Aetolia, Imperian, and whatever they made after. I spent over a year logged on those three. No graphics really does stop being a problem after a while. In fact, graphic games felt really shallow in comparison back when Imperian was released (atleast 5 years ago). Now they're catching up though^^
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Did the ninjas kidnapped the president's daughter again?
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On March 17 2011 21:27 Mercadia wrote:
If you're the Vortok I think you are, you mean conjure illusion!=p Iron Realms MUDs ftw. Achaea, Aetolia, Imperian, and whatever they made after. I spent over a year logged on those three. No graphics really does stop being a problem after a while. In fact, graphic games felt really shallow in comparison back when Imperian was released (atleast 5 years ago). Now they're catching up though^^
Indeed I am! I still use the Mercadia surname in other video games that ask for one to this day.
For Magi it was cast illusion. Serpents was probably conjure though, and if we're being honest they're the class that used it in combat more than everyone else combined.
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@ Vortok
Agreed, so many things are hard to implement in a graphical game yet so easy to make in a text game, like a 3 or 4 dimensional shifting maze/landscape (think Cube movie) or shapeless mob that you have to fight inside a painting. Also helps to keep endgame tasteful, free of giant spaulders and flaming buster swords, even if someone makes those, it's up to you how to imagine them.
@ OTIX
I once knew a Scandinavian pker on RoD, are you marcus by any chance?
@ OPsavioR
Which part seems HC to you?
Learning curve isn't that steep as you can choose to make either a peaceful or deadly character. Peacefuls can't be attacked by other players except when in arenas and can't be looted under no circumstances. So you can learn and explore the game at your own pace.
If it's loot that is bothering you, then it is limited to 3 pieces per kill, while there are 24 wear locations. So you can easily replace the missing few pieces and get back in to the action. On the other hand 80% of characters wealth is usually in those 3 best pieces, so it's always rewarding to kill someone and death is still a very srs bzns.
If you have any questions about MUDs in general or the one I want to start playing again, feel free to ask itt, if anything it will bump it.
PS still looking for bad dudes to keep me company.
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Question: How do you actually PvP in text based games? I don't get it.
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Is this MUD even alive? Try Aardwolf. Makes No.1 Most of the time on topmudsites. Has about 300-400 active most of the time. The game is so flexible that whether you like PvP, PvE or just exploring, doing Area quests you will probably have fun.
I would recommend everyone to give text-based games a chance. With the absence of graphics, what are you left with? Gameplay.
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As a veteran player of both a MUD (6 yrs), DaoC (1yr) and WoW (4yrs), I can only agree that while this form of text-based game might seem hard to grasp at first, it adds a depth that I've never seen anything else being even close to match.
As stated above, you only read the room and monster descriptions the first few times you encounter them, then you automatically filter the already known. But that first impression you got when first exploring through a zone instinctively comes back as you enter that certain area again.
A question to the OP about this specific MUD;
Since the creation of content is (almost) always handled by active players for this kind of game, and as I understood from your initial post (just like my old MUD), knowledge about areas, keywords and monster specifics is invaluable - do you run into problems with "corrupt" creators (immortals/gods)?
From my old server who had around 100 players online at any given time, the playerbase had divided itself into basically 2 camps who were constantly warring against each other. Most of the staff (immortals) were from the same side, which created all these rumours and accusations of cheating. It really was detrimental to the game. (And yes, they often showed up with spells and items that no one else knew how to access)
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I will be playing a little bit at first to see if I'm still interested in MUDs. If I am, expect to see me "k all"ing a lot.
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Sounds intriguing and since it's so old, I bet it will still exist after this semester finishes. See u in the summer
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On March 21 2011 01:43 jstar wrote:
Question: How do you actually PvP in text based games? I don't get it.
The gameplay usually consists of "rounds" which comes every 4 seconds or so. During that round, everyone who is in combat will deal their blows to each other. In between that, you have access to various skills or spells depending on class etc. Often limited by a certain number of allowable actions per round, or by a cost to mana/energy or similar. Everything happening is represented by one or more lines of text.
So basically, you enter a room and see something like "Totalbiscuit is standing here".
You then activate combat by typing "kill Totalbiscuit", which makes you automatically hit with your weapons once every round. In between that, you could for example "cast 'lightning bolt' Totalbiscuit" to deal extra damage to him, or "cast 'hold person' Totalbiscuit" to prevent him from fleeing.
Rambling anecdotes:
From my own MUD experience, you walked around in a 12 people group, following a leader. You had druids in the group to refresh everyones movement points, mages to locate where opposing team was, warriors to "bash" the opposing teams healers to the ground so they couldn't heal, as well as other classes such as hunters and rogues to deal huge damage.
When two groups met in the same room, a massive battle would ensue, where page after page rapidly fills with text, as everyone is performing actions. Once everything started to slow down, you either emerged as a winner, gaining access to equipment that the other team had spent hundreds of hours to gain. If you lost, your character would lose a (very hard earned) level, as well as every single item you had.
Since the PK (PVP) was so hardcore, large scale battles would understandably not happen especially often. Usually it was the less geared side who would try to perform "ambush" attacks by coordinating a surprise log-on and quickly running to the enemies and killing them while they were engaged in PVE content fights.
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On March 17 2011 21:27 Rashid wrote:
Did the ninjas kidnapped the president's daughter again?
This ...
lol, I was certainly mislead by the title 
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I played Aetolia for like.. 7 years.. Nuff said.
edit - okay, to make it less of a empty post. MUDs rock. You can do a lot of stuff there that cannot be done in graphics in such a way or such a speed. In some muds you can generally do anything, rule a city, rule a guild, a vampiric house, fight wars for territory, spy on people and then blackmail them..
For anyone who knows what it means, I had a priest back on Aetolia, then had Shadowsnake/Syssin for much longer, was a mentor for guild novices (that's a lot of fun with nice novices), aide of minister of Trade, later Minister of Trade (I was daily filling up tables with prices/statistics of markets (5) in all cities, raising or lowering prices of commodities, increasing reserves for case of war, etc., secretary of guild, kinda ruling the guild, making decisions, doing negotiations/diplomacy, solving issues guildmembers had, etc. Also a member of an order of one sneaky deity, in the end being accused of traitorship, kicked out of guild and hunted down, then jumped few guilds trying to find 'peace' (monks) ending after a RP with my friend as a long lost, now recognized son and becoming a vampire/Bloodborn.
Well, good times. We created a new vampiric house (kinda hard to do, because it has to have certain level of quality and has to be voted and agreed to be a new house in voting of all present houses (there were like 5 at that moment). And then we both quit.
Yeah so. It's a really nice thing. And it's the best when there is lots of stuff you can learn/explore do. I was mostly a sneaky character, avoiding combat if I didn't have to, although capable of fighting almost anyone and winning (and I mean this, I had a good combat system with a friend that we developed for years). I enjoyed guiding people/novices and doing espionage. TBH I prolly never had such good times in game again since then. Text and imagination rocks. Oh, and I never bought a credit for $$s.
I don't mean this post as bragging or something. Just trying to illustrate how a 7 year gameplay of such game can go..  You can do anything.
EDIT2-
to make this even longer.. why I decided to quit. Well, my friend stopped playing, I stopped playing too, we prolly had state exams at that time too so we were preparing for that. Another thing was many things got stagnating and less people were playing when new MUDs opened and they left. Also there wasn't much new stuff to discover. But before that, I sometime had 1-2 days of time being online per week. A lot of that time I was idling and waiting for quests (for good money) when I had time to do them, and then playing for few hours. But it really can use a lot of time, when you get into roleplaying.
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I already see a few TL'ers on RoD at this moment, gogo!
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I'm trying to create a name... everything is "an Illegal name" ... literaly everything. Random characters that no one would choose as a name, random words from the dictionary... everything.
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type in NEW in all caps in the beginning, I don't know why it's caps sensitive but it is. Also, my character in game is named Essau, and my skype is essau. (with the period).
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On March 21 2011 01:43 jstar wrote:
Question: How do you actually PvP in text based games? I don't get it.
First person view:
![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/2fNiq.png)
Brownish color is user input, you see player typing where pk (displays playerkillers in the area).
Player sees his target trapped in a corridor with no exits except past the room where he's standing. So he spams murder as to not let him slip by, while slowly pushing south (s) deeper in the corridor.
As the victim was already low on hp a couple of melee rounds finish him off.
Any big kill is a much more complex affair, as person looses months of investment, it is hard to summarize it in one screenshot.
I'm rolling myself a character right now, as soon as my name gets authorized, I'll post it.
Cheers to all the TL'ers already in the game.
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I hope noones name is Patrik..for your sake...
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This sounds pretty freakin' awesome.
I'm only 16, so I guess I'm kind of young to have played MUDs a whole lot, but this sounds really interesting and fun. Sign me up.
I'll probably go back an edit this post later with my name and whatnot, once I get it all going.
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Made a character, name is Kagamin. Tell kagamin hello, once past level 2 :3
Also, I got lucky and rolled one too many thieves, now I have a male half-troll with 16str 17dex 16lck for the taking. Still in authorization area, so choose a name and he's all yours.
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My in game name is GORGIAN. Add me to your friends list and we can group together or whatever. I' pretty new, but it'd be great to go kill stuff with some TL'rs!
Feel free to also add me on skype: imjorman
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Never played this MUD, but I encourage everyone to try. I played on Forsaken Lands for many years as well as running my own MUD; I still believe PvP (PK) is more skill-based on MUDs than any modern MMO. A good player rarely dies; they know all the good hiding spots, how to prepare, how to get the jump on their opponent, how to gear up quickly. It takes a _lot_ of training to get good at a MUD. Additionally, some MUDs have really good roleplay elements as well, which you may or may not like.
So yeah, in summary I agree with most of the OP. The skill curve of a MUD is really almost as sharp as Starcraft; it is definitely for the hardcore gamer.
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First time playing a MUD, this is completely new to me. So much text to read and learn!
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i've played batmud, moongate, medievia, achaea, federation, core, etc for yeaaaaars and years. MUDs are love. definitely give them a try if you haven't. and what everyone here says is true: you eventually just see the important information; the text comes quickly.
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The Realms of Despair are a diverse and welcoming environment for those with imagination and a desire to explore. Great area construction and incalculable mysteries. I should know, I've played for approximately fifteen years. It's a great game, and I encourage you all to try it.
Seek me out on the chat channel and I'll help you get started, should you desire such assistance. Come one, come all. Honour, glory, and (text) blood for all.
-Qaulorn Calonderiel
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What code base? My old MUD was Smaug/Diku, I'd probably have a little trouble adapting to something too different.
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Realms of Despair is the home-MUD of the SMAUG codebase.
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Ah nice. I grew up playing Burning Eye and Rebirth of Arda, heavily modded Smaug. Might check it out.
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I'm curious as to who you are now OP, being a long time mudder in general & realms player in particular, TL is like the last place I'd expect to find a thread about this on. :p
Also, if anyone's trying this out, feel free to 'tell rhyan' with any questions you might have, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand to a fellow Starcrafter!
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Saw you in Pre-auth Erzz, but you're link dead. Anything I can help with?
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Does it require monetary donations to play competitively? Such was the case for Medievia, although I donated to that because I got lots of hours of enjoyment out of it.
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No. There is no monetary program on Realms of Despair. No purchasing of top-tier equipment. No re-mort for cash system. It's all free, all the time.
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Ah, I used to play RoD too once upon a time. Quit after reaching level 50 though, because I didn't have the energy to level up another character.
But I have to say it's a great game... certainly one of the best MUDs I've ever played (and believe me, I've played a lot of MUDs instead of MMORPGs).
I also recommend Mozart MUD too.
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edit: noooooo i can't afford to let myself get sucked into another game
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On March 23 2011 10:34 Sethronu wrote:
I'm curious as to who you are now OP, being a long time mudder in general & realms player in particular, TL is like the last place I'd expect to find a thread about this on. :p
Also, if anyone's trying this out, feel free to 'tell rhyan' with any questions you might have, I'd be more than happy to lend a hand to a fellow Starcrafter!
I lost all my peacefuls (never was known for them anyway), but was able to recover some of my deadlies: Deaz, Jibzaar, Ashalah. If you pked about 5 years ago you might remember me.
As posted before, I'm currently leveling Kagamin to start at the game together with TL'ers.
If you are new, type 'friend <name>', then 'who friend' once in a while to find people in the game.
On March 23 2011 13:43 Mothra wrote:
Does it require monetary donations to play competitively? Such was the case for Medievia, although I donated to that because I got lots of hours of enjoyment out of it.
No, in fact, players who get caught selling game items for rl cash get perma-banned and their characters deleted.
PS still have 16str 17dex 16lck half-troll thief for giving, name is Rainor.
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On March 23 2011 11:33 Qaulorn wrote:
Saw you in Pre-auth Erzz, but you're link dead. Anything I can help with?
I Xed the game rather than typing "quit" since I didn't know I could do that. Could that be why?
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On March 24 2011 08:40 Erzz wrote:Show nested quote +On March 23 2011 11:33 Qaulorn wrote:
Saw you in Pre-auth Erzz, but you're link dead. Anything I can help with? I Xed the game rather than typing "quit" since I didn't know I could do that. Could that be why?
Indeed, that is why. Notably you can not quit in pre-auth and your character is not preserved until in the game proper.
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Just had an introduction tour with Kagamin, or could you say information overload lol.
Gonna play again tomorrow and see if anything stuck to my synapses.
Once again thanks for the help Kagamin/lolusparta, otherwise I'd still be wandering about wondering what the hell I'm doing ^^
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I assure you it get easier as it goes along. Welcome to the game Zilver.
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I went to check this one out last night. Does anyone actually PK in this MUD? According to where there were like 200 people on and only 2 of them were deadly.
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You can only log either a peaceful or deadly, and, as you would imagine, it's much more convenient to chill on your peaceful characters. It also goes to most of other activities such as exploring and running equipment.
The way it usually works is that deadlies log, fight and log out their fighters to save buffs and do not needlessly risk to be ambushed and looted.
Those who you saw on who pk were probably naked afk characters or newbies preparing their fighters.
Should you kill one of them you'd probably get attacked by their fighter than see another fighter to jump on the one who logged, then next one, then the they'd stop to agree on fair'ish teams and then pk.
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Created an account the other day. Liking it a lot so far. Name is Kaleb, so say hello if you see me running around
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I used to play a Merc mud called Paradox until it shut down several years ago; I just started playing Chaos MUD last week. I'll give Realms of Despair a look too. I forgot how fun these were.
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EPT
