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Contemplating A Return
The last time I played Achaea with any type of seriousness I was about 15 years old. I'm now 23 and thinking of a return. Apparently a ton of stuff has changed since then and the new landscape has sparked my interest. My big mistake back then was mostly just hunting alone and never forging any lasting connection with fellow players IC or OOC. I leveled really quickly and passed House tests quickly, and that was about it. This time I want to immerse myself more in the RP side of the game... Though I definitely want to level a lot, but with friends... So where's the party at? Where should I start? I was thinking about a rogueish Bard but I'm not super creative at least in terms of music, art, poetry, and I think that may limit my RP options there quite a bit.. I'm really loyal in real life so the path I choose is going to be pretty permanent, unless I just need some huge change waaaaay down the road to keep me engaged. I guess I'm just looking for a really engaged community mostly around RP. The other thing that's always hindered my return is my horrible ability to create any sort of useful keybindings on my own. I use to remember how to do it, but I've forgotten. I had someone set it up originally for me and basically just used their template to create more as the need arised... Any advice as to where to look on that particular problem would be much appreciated!
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- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
Bard class should never limit your RP options, you don't need to pigeonhole yourself into the role of an art-loving poet who wields a sword. A class does not define your character's personality. You could be a Bard who simply enjoys combat and the rogue lifestyle, and regards music as a mere tool for achieving it. Don't ever fool yourself into believing something as flimsy as class defines your character's personality. My character is the houseleader of the CIJ and has gone from Jester to Bard to Serpent to Magi in a short timespan, but Aktillum's personality remains the same.
As far as keybindings and stuff goes, the website client is particularly fancy these days and offers some great scripting support, especially with server-side curing being a thing now. Alternatively, you could use Mudlet which is a highly popular client and there's a clan for it with tons of people who will help you, myself included.
- With sharp, crackling tones, Kyrra tells you, "The ladies must love you immensely."
- (Eleusian Ranger Techs): Savira says, "Most of the hard stuff seem to have this built in code like: If adventurer_hitting_me = "Sarathai" then send("terminate and selfdestruct")."
- Makarios says, "Serve well and perish."
- Xaden says, "Xaden confirmed scrub 2017."
As far as whats actually going on with Houses, they're all being "deleted" and merged together to form new, bigger Houses that accept nearly every class. Sort of. Hard to explain, but the new Houses are much less focused on class roleplay and more focused on the roleplay of their organization, so you no longer have say, the Paladins or the Priests guild, and each focuses on roleplaying Paladins or Priests respectively. Rather you have the Luminai and the Dawnblades, which accept both classes, but one is focused on combat and the other is focused on ritual roleplay. Thats a short gist of it anyways, without going into full detail. So for Eleusis you have the Scions and the Heartwood, the Scions being the "combat focused" House and the Heartwood being the "ritual RP" House, but both accept nearly any class.
Its an on-going project that hasn't been completed yet, as Ashtan and Hashan are still undergoing the House changes.
If you imagine Achaean organisations in which you're a member like circles in a Venn diagram, cities are the largest, and tend to be the least personal. Houses are smaller, making it easier to form relationships with other House members. Orders are smaller still, but hard to get into as a newbie or lowbie. Various IC clans exist and are also small, but can be hard to discover.
Mhaldor
Eleusis
Hashan (sometimes) = Cyrene*
Targossas
Ashtan
* Cyrene varies a lot. It's got a lot of solo players, without any requirements, so actually FINDING the RP can be more difficult.
I put Ashtan at the bottom as really anyone else would because it's honestly just PvP for the most part. As of being unenemied to Ashtan some months ago, Ive even noticed people OOC in say.
Targossas has diminished in RP imo due to Pvp; I noticed this on an alt. When I first started though I'd probably have placed Targ as tied for first.
Eleusis picked up with it a lot and sort of replaced Targossas. Plus the "nature" theme appeals to a lot of people.
Hashan is basically one big clique of people in the Xanatov bloodline, and I can't imagine any of them leaving the city. It's basically like "family role play" lmao.
Mhaldor is the only City ive really been with on Stuneree, and has always been the favourite. It's just a little bit too hardcore sometimes. If you want RP to be strict,
Immersive, important, I'd always say Mhaldor. You just need to realize it's the most hardcore for RP, and some people there take it more seriously than real life.
Hope it helped.
And Ashtan has a huge amount of RP, it's just such a massive city that there isn't the same sort of "city-wide RP" that's makes it easier to see the RP in places like Mhaldor. You're not going to see people announcing a ritual on CT in Ashtan, but I would be very surprised if it weren't the case that more rituals and other little RP events are performed in Ashtan than in Mhaldor. And some of the Ashtan organisations, especially the Occultists, but not exclusively the Occultists, have longer histories of deep, engaging RP than any other orgs in the game. Ashtan, as its own massive entity, doesn't provide much RP, but there is a ton of RP to be found within Ashtan.
With this said, I wanted to add my roguish two cents on what cities and citizens I think particularly show themselves best in terms of public roleplay based on experience.
1) Ashtan - I never considered Ashtan good in this area, I assumed they were all a bunch of weirdos based on rumors, but recent interactions have changed my mind. I'm not going to go over details as they are private, but Ariettie, Klendathu, Ahmet, Khaibit, and Sybilla are fantastic characters.
2) Hashan - This was the second city that it was the easiest to roleplay with the individuals despite people saying it is cliquish. Even being a devotionist, the people look past that and actually engage in conversations! The leaders, especially Tharvis, seem rather open and willing to share knowledge of their city/beliefs. Several roleplayers, that I recommended to wander the city, seemed to share the same thoughts I did.
3) Targossas - Will always be a personal favorite of mine even though it is always a pain in the ass to roleplay there due to raids when I'm awake. While I'm technically a very volatile 'I do what I want' priest right now, the people are not afraid to roleplay conflict. Harbingers are supposedly the house that publicly roleplays the most, but I'm seeing other characters drift out of the woodworks. Favorite roleplaying individuals would have to be Aodfionn, Tristyn, Despran, Vithincus, Tesha, and all of the minature priestlings I'm probably forgetting about!
4) Mhaldor - Unfortunately, this is a newer city to me and I haven't had many interactions besides the occasional recruitment attempt. I did like the secret messages and meetings I got to participate in. A couple of the Mhaldorians I did have close contact with seemingly don't play anymore. Individuals I'd like to list are Melodie, Makaela (she's a doll), Herenicus, Cresil, and Multon.
Targ, imo, is in a class of its own in terms of the diversity of the RP as well as the scale upon which people get involved. Mhaldor might be similar, I'm not sure - but the Team Good RP definitely has some of the most potential for awesome badassery. Also, Targossians are (as Jeslyn noted) pretty good about embracing conflict and just rolling with whatever. If you can get past the frequent raids, the only shoddy RP comes from the TextPope's mistells on CT or Diaspora.
Occultists have only a while before they get swallowed up. Might suggest hopping on that train while it's still in the station.
As for RP, I'd assume it's everywhere if you find the right people. If you're not okay with dying a few times (possibly a lot), don't join Mhaldor. People join Mhaldor for RP, but get mad/sad when they lose xp for "no" reason.
OP, I do think you'd probably enjoy Achaea most of the IRE games, although, I kind of wonder about Lusternia, which has a big bard culture, but I just don't know much about it. Also, I can't believe no one has mentioned the Outriders in Cyrene. It's a huge, welcoming House with a sort of "well-rounded" approach where you will design one item as part of your advancement, for example. It's where I designed the one and only clothing item I have ever made - the Team Yudhi sweaters, and had a ball doing it, not something you hear every day about House requirements. You could also try Virtuosi if you're more "serious" about the arts. I tend to recommend Outriders for best experience, but I'd ask around and try to get a feel for both.
You also won't feel like you have to die a lot in Cyrene, which is technically true in all of the cities, but is actually part of Cyrene's culture both in and out of character. And so long as there is XP loss (or really, any loss from death that you have to "grind" back), a city like Cyrene serves a very specific purpose beyond its other fine qualities, and that is that it's much easier for players there to mostly opt out of PK that is probably going to mean a lot of deaths to other players, and a lot of XP loss with that. If you'd said you were most interested in PK, I'd definitely say try another IRE game that's ditched XP loss because of that (for now that's only Imperian I think but I still haven't tried EVERY IRE game yet). However, as you seem mostly interested in RP, Achaea is a much better venue for that (not that any of the IRE games have people running around babbling in text speak), and possibly Lusternia (maybe).
While this is an extreme example of roleplay, there's really no limit to what you can do provided everybody involved is cool with it. Obviously, Mhaldor is going to allow a bit more brutality than Cyrene, while a dangerous and untested procedure in Hashan will probably be "Tuesday" in Ashtan.
Ultimately, try out things and figure out an atmosphere you enjoy. Arditi is the main that came out of a veritable mountain of alts that never amounted to anything.
That having been said, welcome back, @Askel. I recently came back after a near two-year break myself, so if you have questions, or simply need moral support because of the culture shock, please feel free to ask. As Jinsun has stated, the Occultists are in a transitional period, but if the RP intrigues you, we would be glad to have another person on board.
Ummmmm...encouraging people to not join does not solve issues of people not being around.
Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."
No regrets.
Doing reqs often allows you to get a feel of the culture and where you are, not to mention experience something for the last time before it truly goes away forever. Now granted, I went through the Insidium reqs much slower (and because I was HR5 before, I was allowed to 'skip' a lot of the HR1 and HR2 reqs), and only just recently got full member in there (HR7). But I just attribute that to doing a lot of things at once. Anyone who sits down and just pumps out the reqs can do so.
It's just about having a good frame of mind and (hopefully!) at least semi-interesting requirements.
That love soon might end You are unbreaking
And be known in its aching Though quaking
Shown in this shaking Though crazy
Lately of my wasteland, baby That's just wasteland, baby
On the other hand, the Occultist requirements are, at least to a certain kind of player (and I am that type of player), really, really interesting. Easily my favorite of any org in the game.