IRE: Origins

Mathilda

Curious, where did you start your Iron Realms adventure? Answer with your very first IRE, not the most recent one aside from Achaea (if any!). Reply with the year you started playing, too, if you want.

Caelan

I started playing in.. 1998?  1999? Wait, Caelan is named after my son, who at the time was still not born so... around Sept 1999-ish. 

 Some a-hole at my unit was always on this game instead of working and I made fun of him for playing D&D games online with no graphics.  So he had me make a character and I said I was just going to kill him with it but just to shame him, I wanted to pick the worst class.  At the time he said it was Sentinel.  We ended up partnering up and I helped make his legacy (okok..not quite but I HELPED!!)

Aralaya

2015! 

Torinn

Haha awesome.  In the end he won. 

Synbios

I started playing in the 90s. I forgot when exactly, but I remember Guilds, no maps, and Shallam.

Torinn

Ahhh nostalgia.  I remember in 2016 when i was new that Tsol'teth weren't a thing, the elements were for using, the credit prices were like 8k.  The good ole days.

Severina

I can't remember the year of my first real character, but I remember RP in the Sorcerers sucking and being directed to this new hotness Revolutionaries of Chaos clan that had started up, and gambling away my lessons. -shakefist-

Caelan

Torinn said:

Haha awesome.  In the end he won. 

Debatable.

Melodie

Either 2005 or 2006!

Antidas

2006/2007 here

Minifie

2001, was my first year of high school, and it definitely turned me into a typist for sur

Zekeros

2011, such a late adopter. How did you guys find this game? I literally cannot remember but I have no idea where I'd see it advertised

Garner

The very first time I played Achaea, I think I was around 11 or 12. Which means it was around mid-1999? Damn, I'm old... I first made a Sentinel, remember getting hoisted and carried into the House hall by someone who I can't remember. He tried to get a spear vs. trident argument on GNT for me when I asked which was better (they didn't bite, alas). But the whole hoist-and-track really disoriented me (I was young, and Achaea was my first big MUD) and I kind of put it off for a few weeks, then I made another character, a Dawnstrider, who I stuck with for a while. Well, first I stupidly spent all my lessons in non-class skills, suicided and came remade to fix it. Serpent bashing really sucked back then, too - complaints about classes being bad at bashing is kind of funny with that kind of perspective. And the Shallamese requirement of hunting only things that made your mechanical alginment go up, THAT was annoying. That and the "innocents" lists they had later on. Made quite a few friends, but it's been so long, I don't remember who any of them are...

Ugh, you have me being all nostalgic over here.

Valnyran

Val started in 2002.  I think she was my first character but damn that was a long time ago it's hard to remember.  I think Gemstone was actually my first MUD and I found Achaea through the top mud site.

Chiam

2014 I think. not my first mud though

Thalyssra

Aetolia 2007 - My boyfriend got me into it, after months of teasing him about his silly text game.  I am pretty sure I used to say, We should go out and have a date instead of you playing "Frog Village" - I didn't know the name of the game until one day he was like...you should make a character and you can be my wife in the game.

I made a character, I never ended up being his wife in the game.  Or IRL...

But, I met a really cool community who got me through a breakup and I have enjoyed it ever since.  IRE as a whole has been awesome, and the same goes for Achaea who has taken me in equally as wonderful.  Best part is, I was just going to up and give up, and now im here and I have that spark back I have been looking for.

Dunn

Native Achaean since 2001. I was 11 years old and my brothers friend showed it to me. 

Puxi

Started playing MUDs on the Telnet client (then eventually zMUD) when I was 12 or so. I turned 34 today. Didn't discover Lusternia until I was in my mid 20s but didn't play much on IREs until I made Puxi just over a year ago and even then I took a long break.

Xaden

Ehr.. 2004? I think. My girlfriends brother introduced me and a bandmate to it.

I think I'm the only one left out of a group of 5 lads who used to play the time.

Xias

2005 or 2006, forgot which. Definitely remember playing in highschool after I got bored of playing Runescape for 4 or so years.

When I hit college, I took a break from Achaea and started hard core WoW raiding, but always had fond memories. Logged in once a couple years ago and left again until last September where I've been playing pretty frequently.

Sobriquet

2005. Only ever played Achaea although did some building for MKO.

Aralaya

I lied, I started back in 2013 but didn't make Aralaya until 2015

Telendrieth

I started playing around 2004/2005. During the 2004 school year my group of friends kept talking about Achaea and how awesome it was, so over the summer I ended up giving it a spin. It was a bit of a mistake because I didn't know any of their names and the learning curve was a bit heavy having never even seen a MUD before. But by the time the next school year started, I was able to come to Taril, Aerek, Lancelion (never bought credits so he's dead now), and the handful of like 4-5 other people, and be like "I'm playing your text nerd game too!". Of them all, I think I'm the only one still regularly in realms, though Wessux pops in from time to time to be annoying. 

Rom

https://youtu.be/0X_wZZgIRyc

My dad showed this to my friend and me when it aired live. We went and played that night, and I’ve been playing on and off since.

[Deleted User]

Started with Achaea in 2001. Migrated to Imperian when it opened (retired now). Drifted to Aetolia while taking a break in Imperian at the time (still sorta there). Back to Achaea about a year and a half ago.

I tried Lusternia and even got to end game, but it was mostly due to friends wanting to play it, and when they went inactive so did I. MKO never stuck for me.

It's weird to go full circle from age 13 to 30 but here we are!

Cailin

February 2017! 

I had never heard of MUDs before, and in a discord chat for another game, I was talking about looking forward to Star Citizen, and this kid said he couldn't wait til Starmourn came out. So thanks to that conversation, here I am. His Achaean char is long dead, but he mostly played Aetolia anyway, don't know if he still does.

Achilles

I believe I logged on for the first time in early 1998 (possibly late 1997) during winter break.  I met Sarapis on another MUD and he invited me to his game.  Even when I logged in I remember getting some vague instructions like go north on the highway and you'll reach Ashtan (the only city coded at the time).  Initially you would get lessons every hour you were logged in, so a lot of people were just AFK for days on end.  This was pre-broadband, most of us were logged on via dial up such as AOL, Prodigy, NetZero so we probably spent half our time logged in complaining about lag or praying we didn't disconnect while bashing.  Achaea (IRE wasn't even a thing yet, at least to the players) pretty much copied the model of muds back then, mostly from Avalon and planned to sell credits that would be charged hourly and also sleep learning when off-line.  They were close to launching this pay to play model a few times but scrapped it a few times when they realized most of the players would quit.  Then they started a gold auction for artefacts and that then evolved into a credit auction and now that's the model they have used for the last 15+ years.

Sherazad

I first played in late 2008. My sister played first, she was in the CiJ. I remember how amazed we were watching Beya do his thing in his maze-like property in the subs. This was back in the Philippines and I didn't have the internet connection and the computer capable of playing graphical games. My first character wasn't Sherazad. I was an Ashtani first, then moved to Hashan. It was actually on my first character where I met my hubby irl. I would play more if I have the time, we are just busy running a business these days. 

Accipiter

First started in 2000ish. My sister was in Uni and her boyfriend at the time was playing, got me into it, started Accipiter a few months later, kept playing for years, took a break to play WoW and came back on and off since then.

Jurixe

I started playing another MUD back in 2005, but after 3 months the trial period ended and you had to pay to keep playing. I couldn't do that at the time so I had to stop.

Then one Chinese New Year, we were all bored in my uncle's office and my cousin was like, hey, you like reading books right? And they were debating whether to introduce me to Achaea or to Aardwolf. Achaea made it just because they thought it was easier, and thus, here I am. Jurixe isn't my first character, but is perhaps the one I've accomplished the most on.

I've tried Aetolia a few times, but could never really quite get into it, even though I wish I could sometimes.

Devran

Native Imperianite. My first MUD was a game called Avalon - The First Age. It was set earlier in time to their flagship mud Avalon, which is still running. First Age has long since closed however. At one point, they had to switch to a new engine because someone bought up the rights to the one they were using at the time. I cannot be certain as my memory of that time is very hazy, but I believe I was told it was the Rapture engine and that a place called Achaea owned it now.

I switched to a MUD called REalm of the Magi based on the Dragonlance universe for a while before somehow hearing about Imperian and giving it a try. Love at first sight. Played there exclusively for several years (sorry I don't have dates). At least 8 though. Thought I'd give the other IRE games a try and I played Aetolia for some time before Imperian died and I moved to Achaea.

The urge to play here comes and goes for me, which is fine. I am grateful to it and its creators for being here for me.

I tried Lusternia, but the whole planes thing just confused the heck out of me. 

I would have gobbled up Midkemia Online if it used the same style combat as the other IRE games, but I couldn't stand the way it worked there, so I didn't play.