prep 702

cast 702

prep 720

cast 720

From TSC to Wehiemner Gate

ne,n,n,e,n,go gate

Just off the top of my head

btw original Cienna from GS III

Originally posted by Cemm

Holey moley, hey there Celtar, Welan and Aluvius! I was Typhus back in GS3 and Cemm in DR and I find myself missing them both quite often. I wish Bubba would have been able to put together some kind of Simu all-access 'Diamond' level account so we didn't have to choose. I'd even have dabbled more in Modus Operandi with an all-access account.

I know GS4 has taken strides to try and make skill selection a lot more open and less of a 'Plan your character's entire career out before it even starts or prepare for tears later on!' situation like when we all started in the early to mid 90's. Can you believe it was 18 years ago?? At least for me, a bit longer for the three of you old timers (haha)!

Forced to choose though, I'd love to wander around in DragonRealms again. The freedom of learning what I wanted when I wanted, choosing any weapon, etc. were huge selling points to me from early on. The vast world to explore and diverse environments. I always felt that both Gemstone and DragonRealms were pretty well written. Ah well, definitely in for an afternoon of nostalgia now.

 Hey Cemm, I'd have recognized the account name anywhere. :) Part of what drove me away from Gemstone was that Marty/GM Warden kept driving for changes that made the game mechanics more narrowly defined as what you could and couldn't do. Note all the various training paths I did over the years. Once he became Senior GM things grew worse and between him and Eric/Bubba I just couldn't stand to log in. 

  GM Warden's view of the games mechanics were more like these main stream graphical mmo-rpgs, when he stepped down finally I thought that was the best thing that ever happened to GS. That year after year he'd make my characters unviable really grew tiresome. Changing spell casting failures in various armors, raising point costs in various skills etc etc.  Nice guy Marty but honestly couldn't stand his point of view on game mechanics design and how he changed mechanics from where they had started when I started years before he came along to where they were when I left.

  He also was terrible about communicating on what his team was doing and also would infringe upon the other areas that were not his responsibility. Sadly many of those SGM's in charge of the other areas or GMs for that matter would take what he said as law when he wasn't the PM, just because he was for so long "the go to man" when it came to mechanics. Most GMs would buckle behind the scenes and say "oh well Marty told me to do it that way." He pretty much acted like autonomous power in the games behind the scenes structure. I blame Simu Melissa for that since she was too green and nice to really be put in charge of the game back then. She didn't understand as much as she needed to in order to keep Marty in check. Each PM or APM after Melissa would leave the sleeping cat alone.

  The other thing that kept me from going back after a time was Eric/Simu Bubba, I could barely deal with him as PM of Dragonrealms once he took over after Eric Slick went over to HerosJourney development. As time went it got worse, though not a bad guy to have a drink with or three, Eric was a mixed bag. He holds personal grudges and isn't very professional and gets very emotional when provoked. Apologies from Eric are rare and he's quick to tantrums and acting out while doing so. David Whately (Simu's head honcho) should have paid attention to Eric's antics long ago. Once Eric took over as PM over both Dragonrealms and now Gemstone I knew my time was over. I couldn't avoid the guy and it got old when he'd get all passive aggressive in his private sends, emails and forum posts. 

  He was supposed to leave Gemstone alone and let the APM run things but that didn't last as I said it wouldn't. lol.  Hell he'd go off someone who he "thought" was me forgetting my account name and simply replying to the a poster who also signed off as Jim/James. I recall someone forwarding one of those links to me one day, where he went off and someone had to gently point out that it wasn't Jim/Celtar posting. Defensive much, Eric?

 Anyhow on to lighter stuff, I miss our community of thousands of players, whether you all got along or not, you were family. I miss the role-play, the events, and the interactions, hell I even miss Eric sometimes. lol I miss the Gladiator Games! I miss friends who have died over the years, they live on in my memories of course. Not as bad as I used to ramble but still a long post.  Anyhow nice to see your are still around Cemm! :) 

Originally posted by LimChori

prep 702

cast 702

prep 720

cast 720

From TSC to Wehiemner Gate

ne,n,n,e,n,go gate

Just off the top of my head

  LOL! Sorcerer spell spam! :) I do miss playing my sorcerer who started out as a two handed sword wielding sorcerer and later on once we were able to reallocate skills became a archer sorcerer. Now that I've gotten rid of all my macros, highlights, help files etc I could never learn all that again to play him well. I purposely deleted all those old files and notes I'd been holding onto since 1992 when I left a few years ago finally for the last time. Same thing for the Dragonrealms stuff. Figured it was the best way to keep me from being tempted to going back. 

I am pretty sure I remember you Cemm. Were you a trailblazer? I still remember alot of the old trailblazers..Violet, Gurt, Mir, Elriic, Wyett, Shapeshifter. Those were the days....

Originally posted by colonnelli71

I am pretty sure I remember you Cemm. Were you a trailblazer? I still remember alot of the old trailblazers..Violet, Gurt, Mir, Elriic, Wyett, Shapeshifter. Those were the days....

    He was. :) Oh and I was more known in the  TB days as Shargr Hightower or Celtar Lomion. Damn beta testing on GEnie ended without a warning that a reset was the final one. So at first I was stuck with Shargr who was meant to be an experiement.  Then the AOL folks got access and the things went pretty crazy population wise.

people i remember were driddtz, crimson, kylinarr, risky

Originally posted by just1opinion

Did I read wrong, or does DragonRealms cost either 25 or 50 dollars a month to play?  O_O   One is a platinum sub and one is premium.  I think that's a bit steep for a non-graphical game.  I mean, after all.....it's MY imagination that is playing, along with all the other players....wtf?

 

I was going to try this as my first MUD, but apparently it's a bad choice for me.  Anyone know of any MUDs that are either free or less expensive and still GOOD? 

It's the Mile High Club..

Ya know, because apparently in life the more expensive something is, the "better" it's community..

Originally posted by Khaeros

Originally posted by Kruver

 boring chat rooms...

 

Well, to be fair, several of them are boring, 'adult' chat rooms.

Some are just boring chat rooms.

And some are games with boring chat rooms.

 

 

I find that in games that combine roleplay and PVP and throw in permadeath - or just simply do not have roleplaying - fellow mudders seem less socially awkward and more fun to talk with.  I have no clue why it works in the rp/pvp niche, but it does and I'm grateful for it.

 

I mean, all MUDs are shit - just like all MMOs are shit, and all cRPGs besides Planescape: Torment are shit.  The idea is that I know nothing better than PS:T will be made, so I've lowered my standards and set to playing whatever isn't as shit as the other things.

 

In this case, right now, it's MUDs.

 

Only PS:T? Really? I don't mean to offend you but you sound like an old person who doesn't like to try new things.  You're probably not a real gamer anyway. 

Looks like there are misconceptions about IRE games.

1. All IRE games ARE "pay to win" games. Don't let to fool yourself by "you don't need to pay" whiteknights, they lie in your face. Yes, you can't just create a character and start pwn people if you are new to IRE combat, but that's it. In a month or two you will learn the ropes and your PvP proficiency will be defined solely by amount of real money spent on character. Expect 300-400$ for barely playable character and thousands for one of the best. Or you can start grinding and achieve the same in your sixties.

2. IRE games require grinding of korean scale. While in most muds grinding is part of character development (you level and gain skills), IRE games have grinding mostly to annoy you (you have to buy skills with real money anyway).  Basically, if you played korean MMO like Lineage, you will find many similarities.

3. IRE games are all about scripting. And that's actually good. Requirement of scripting is a cool feature and makes a great minigame intertwined with other game mechanics.

4. Player run organizations are made quite poorly in IRE games. They are mostly pointless, as a member of leadership you can write useless help files (nobody reads them anyway), induct and ban people and that's it basically. The game world is completely static and you can't make any difference at all (besides some admin-run events). On the other hand all disadvantages of player run orgs were carefully kept. You have to put up with retarded people and cliques in leadership, you risk with your skills (bought with real money) and so on.

[mod edit]

Im sorry you hate Achaea so much, I've been playing for 10+ years and have never felt like I needed to spend thousands, grind on a Korean scale (I hate grindfest MMOs), and the fantastic player-ran cities are part of the fun.

You have to put up with cliques in leadership in the game because you have to put up with cliques in real-life politics, which the game does a fantastic job of emulating with players able to hold elections for new leadership, write constitutions and city laws, start wars and raid other cities. If you don't like the current regime in your city, you either fight from the inside and join one of the political cliques, or you quit the city and grab your sword and join the enemy side.

Achaea isn't a game for people who want to be anti-social (unless you play a Thief), nor is it a game for people who want everything handed to them on a silver platter. You can get from level 5 to level 80 in under a week, older players are always happy to take new players on XP runs.

Oh, but you might have to join a "clique", I forgot that MMORPGs stand for Single-Player Roleplaying Game.

The sub fees you are paying for Gemstone/DragonRealms are of more direct benefit to you the player than in the modern graphical mmo's.  You get direct GM interaction in the form of live quests, merchants, festivals, invasions, etc.  Not just the development that both games give you. 

Both are available at a base sub of $15.

Not to mention that I just don't understand the general outcry over sub fees in the mmo world.  Its $15 a month.  If you can't afford that then dare I say you shouldn't be spending any money on game boxes, internet access, computer equipment, etc.  Personally I think most of this is coming from minors who have a hard time convincing their parents to hand over the credit card for a game.  I just don't see how we can expect to have quality continuing development of a title without paying a sub fee. 

Oh well, the older I get the less what I want matters in the gaming world anyway.  :)

Anyone low level playing Aardwolf? I need some grouping buddies.

Originally posted by Kruver

 You're probably not a real gamer anyway. 

Awww shit, you got me bro.  I'm not a real gamer. 

I'm a fake gamer.  I play fake video games in my head.

Originally posted by Khaeros

Originally posted by Kruver

 You're probably not a real gamer anyway. 

 

Awww shit, you got me bro.  I'm not a real gamer. 

I'm a fake gamer.  I play fake video games in my head.

     I think he nailed all of us! Well all but him of course, he is a real gamer. :)

Ah, the days of MUSHes and MUDs.  I never delved too deeply into MUDs personally, as I always preferred the roleplaying aspect rather than technical hack-and-slash.  Pokemon Evolutions was one of my old haunts as well. :P

Some of the MUSHes used to combine technical elements with roleplaying ones quite interestingly.  Pokemon: A New Beginning had a full fledged combat/XP system.  And HorseMUSH (an offshoot of PernMUSH) had an intricate stable/horse-racing system as well.

In all honesty, while many MUDs are still alive and kicking, I do think MMOs did replace them in a way.  Many of the MUSHes I played on died once the playerbase started to wane.  As the players got older, the time requirements of MUSHes became more taxing.  I remember sitting on SimpleMU for hours on end typing out poses when I was young, but I can't imagine doing the same in my current life.

Younger players just didn't join up in the same volume either, perhaps snagged up by the much flashier, more user-friendly MMOs.  So once the playerbase dropped, the appeal dropped.  And without appeal, there's no GMs. And without GMs, no game events. Etc. etc.

Granted again, this primarily only applies to MU*s. MUDs themselves are still around and kicking.  Just, once again, with a smaller playerbase than they might have had in the heyday without graphical competition.

Good gravy, all the names I've not heard in years from GS3 and DR.  Like lots of folks, I started when GS3 first became available on AOL, as a very forgettable healer who died in rats until I got bored.  Then a friend from the Game Parlor actually showed me how to play, and Megaera and Joybright became my mainstays (or Joy when DR opened).

Now I want to try Gemstone again!

Originally posted by simu-solomon

In fact, anyone posting here that has been away from GemStone or DragonRealms for more than a year and wants to come back for a peek around, drop me a note and we'll get your account reactivated for a couple weeks or so on the house. :)

I would be interested - dropped you a note, now I'm waiting for a reply.  Amazed that my old account and chars are still available for reactivation!

 

 

Hey Joy, I remember you from DR. Pretty sure I knew your character in GSIII as well. Hope all is well.

Mysil

Having been a player, builder, and admin on ValhallaMud back in the the day, I find that my experience has colored the way I look at MMO's today.  Back then if I saw something bugged, or overpowered, or exploited, or if struck with sudden inspiration for something cool, I could dig up the zone file, fix it, broadcast a message that the game was going down for a fix, and do a shutdown reboot.  3 minutes later the game was up and all was well again.  Today as an MMO player, if I see something wrong I have to log into a clunky bug reporting system, try to give details about a mechanic that the developers have purposefully obscured, and then hope and pray it gets looked at sometime in the next 6 months..all the while paying a monthly sub.  Drives me bat-shit loco sometimes.