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IRE: Origins

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  • ZbacoZbaco
    Dupre said:
    Speaking of, remember when Achaea was like only yay big:

    (map.jpg)


    Funny you should post this, I was cleaning out some old old paperwork the other day and found a copy of this exact map that I'd printed out all those years ago. A much smaller world then, that's for sure.

  • FinchyFinchy
    Zbaco said:
    Dupre said:
    Speaking of, remember when Achaea was like only yay big:

    (map.jpg)


    Funny you should post this, I was cleaning out some old old paperwork the other day and found a copy of this exact map that I'd printed out all those years ago. A much smaller world then, that's for sure.
    I'm so glad I'm not the only person who did that. Having to explain a four foot print of the wilderness/sailing overworld printed and then badly sellotaped together on my wall was fun too.

    For the record I honestly am not sure of the year, 2004 or 5 I think. Achaea first because I liked the logo at the time, no prior MUD experience so I spent the next three months going "Hey this is cool" "wow I have no idea what I'm doing bugger this" then trying again a month later. I've tried the others and made a tiny dent in Lusternia but that's it.

  • RiveninkiRiveninki
    I believe my first experiences with Achaea were in 2001 continuing on for another seven years.  Left for many years later to re-emerge periodically.  Tried other IRE games but always, always went back to Achaea.  Now my life is settled down, I simply started all over again.  It's like playing a whole new game; it's nothing like it was before in 2001.  I don't know if that is good or bad.
  • CooperCooper
    Probably half that stuff didn't exist or wasn't possible in 1999, maybe 2005 would be more accurate. 

  • [Deleted User][Deleted User]
    I dunno about you... But for me, selling curatives is still good business. A bonus that it's on top of the gold cap.
  • AthelasAthelas Cape Town South Africa
    Cooper said:
    Probably half that stuff didn't exist or wasn't possible in 1999, maybe 2005 would be more accurate. 
    I started playing Achaea before I met my ex-wife. That happened in mid-2000, so my Achaea start date falls between late 1999 and early 2000. Most likely late 1999 because I was on a rather time sensitive project for the first half of 2000.
  • TasusTasus
    2003! My first character has since been lost to the ravages of time, and I tried off and on for a bit between, but here I am now. 
  • KorrokKorrok
    ~2006 Girl I liked loved the game and I played D&D, so I tried it,  and hated it,  but stuck with it and dated said girl. We didn't work out, she went on to Lusternia, I started a new character. 

  • ElseElse
    I began in Achaea back in ... 2000, maybe? Some friends of mine were discussing it in Junior High gym class. I played for a bit, moved on to Aetolia, and eventually Imperian. It's been quite a few years since I've played an IRE game, but I'm excited to get back into Achaea and do some roleplaying and lore stuff again!
  • StefanaStefana
    ~2006-07. Still remember the adrenaline rush of pretending to be 13+ for registration on that first character, it remains probably the most thrilling lie I’ve ever gotten away with.


  • TasusTasus
    Stefana said:
    ~2006-07. Still remember the adrenaline rush of pretending to be 13+ for registration on that first character, it remains probably the most thrilling lie I’ve ever gotten away with.
    🤣🤣 hilarious. 
  • LanreLanre
    Early 2000s...don't remember exact date. I had gotten bored of games without depth and wanted a real medieval fantasy world gaming environment (I was young, probably 11-12, and had just seen Lord of the Rings for the first time). 

    Achaea got me through awkward high school and early college years (didn't have much friends at the time). I remember vividly the War of the Divine Child. I was a young shallamese novice stabbing rats with my shortsword to offer them on the Mirror for Eiodolons to protect the city, constantly asking what I could do to help. Being in awe while Gods shouted and in absolute terror of Sartan and Mhaldor. 

    I'll never be more affected by any world (it's never really been a game to me), than Achaea. I don't play like I used to and not on the same characters but Achaea's always going to hold a place in my heart, for better or worse ;). 
  • TalrothTalroth
    Covid has me wishing MKO was still a thing.....
  • MilabarMilabar
    2000 I believe, maybe '99.  Mila was my second character in Achaea, but he's become my staple since in most games.  I know I had turned 18 and was playing another MUD, before I randomly clicked achaea on I think it was zmud.  I believe I was looking for something to play outside Gemstone 3??  Been a long time.

    Never got into the other IRE games mostly cause anytime I joined one as Mila, inevitable some Achaea transplant would talk smack and I never felt like dealing with such.
  • ImberwickImberwick
    I started with, I believe, Lusternia back in the mid-2000's. Spent about a year I'd wager, then went to Aetolia for another couple years. Then I started down the path of RPIs and played through the majority of Atonement's lifespan and frequently rolled characters in Armageddon, Harshlands, and Sindome. Still a big fan of perma-death as a mechanic, btw.

    I quit MUDs for nearly a decade but now I'm back because I live in the middle of the mountains and have to rely on an unreliable cellular connection. I checked out some of the more role-play heavy games, but I wanted something with a larger player-base and a system I'd be at least a little bit familiar with, so here I am.
  • AshaiAshai
    Been here, there, and everywhere in IRE. Started Achaea in around '99 or '00. I can't remember exactly (first ever char met the purge since I didn't log in often enough). I played through mains in Aetolia, Imperian, and Lusternia mainly, with a tiny dabbling in MKO (which didn't last because I was a book snob for the novels the game was based on and it felt weird paired with IRE to me). The only one I never tried is Starmourn.

    All the same, I just keep on coming home to Achaea and Ashai isn't going anywhere in the foreseeable future.
    Pain sears your shoulder as a weighty claw presses down with the acknowledgement of Evil's Lord.
  • AshaiAshai
    edited June 2020
    As an aside, I remember my biggest true-noob moment being not wanting tattoos (because I thought they were a decorative thing).

    Credits were 2000-2500 gold on market.

    Guild ranks were based on WHO COULD WRITE THE LONGEST ESSAY EVAR (may as well have included MLA).

    GR3 was the most valuable resource in the game, cause to hell with investment if you left your guild prior to getting full guild membership, or heaven forbid you got kicked out. If you wanted to try a new class, you had to forget the one you had. Ugh. All those credits! So many classes... so many traded artefacts. My heart hurts thinking about it.

    LANDMARKING. Let there be blood! Oldschool(tm)

    Was there for Aringar becoming the first dragon and thinking that was a pretty kickass event, and then wanting dragon so bad! But... Imperian hijacked my interest before I got there.

    I also knew my way, in memorized fashion, all over Achaea typing out directions (n, e, s, w, etc). It's kind of like old phones, where you had to memorize numbers, vs cell phones. Who memorizes numbers these days, let alone directions in Achaea when there's a mapper?

    Good times...
    Pain sears your shoulder as a weighty claw presses down with the acknowledgement of Evil's Lord.
  • KakotasKakotas
    Mathonwy said:
    I have really disconnected memories about my first characters. For a while in middle/high school I got into MUDs. I think it was  sometime around 2003, 2004 maybe? I don't remember the exact date, but I do remember manual curing and guilds were still a thing, that navigating my way around Ashtan was pretty confusing and landmarking was still a thing, because having the effectiveness of one of my skills tied to it meant my Shallamese character lasted about 0.7 seconds before I deleted it.

    One of my strongest initial memories of the game was someone telling me that if I didn't bow to the denizen tutor I was learning from/show them sufficient respect, I'd get kicked out of the guild. That stuck with me for pretty much my entire relationship with this game. I'm not someone who likes to look back at 'the good old days,' but I feel like that kind of atmosphere has changed or eroded in some ways. Who knows, though. Maybe I'm wrong.

    Anyway, I would create a character, get to about level 20 or so (when the gold/level really starts to drop off), and get bored/suicide it, etc. So I always thought the skills and the way they were done were so interesting, but I never really got far enough to experiment too much with it. And the other games never really had that primal allure that Achaea did. Who cares about vampires when I've got the primal forces of Good and Evil and Chaos brawling it out in real-time?

    With Mathonwy, though... I think it was shortly before Halloween, 2008. My best friend had died from cancer a few months earlier and I was (months later) still an absolute wreck with pretty acute insomnia. I needed something to do to fill the hours. I remembered this little game I used to play a few years back and wondered if it was still around. After googling for a few minutes, I found out what it was called, started Mathonwy (not his original name, fun fact), and rolled a paladin (my preferred class in tabletop games and RPG actually).

    I have a lot of really great memories from when I started, but I definitely wouldn't have stuck around had it not been for Aaseth in the Guardians, Quoren and Palanor in the EA, and especially Seelie and Pentharian. I know there was a meme in the old Guardians of the Light House that Seelie would send a billion messages to newbies, but honestly any time I did anything, the fact that a senior member of the House recognized it and had nothing but unconditional praise was really a drive forward. And however Mathonwy as a character ended up in relationship to those characters, I as a player have always been really grateful about the kind of start I got in Achaea.

    And then Pentharian truefavoured me and kind of encouraged me for a post I made to the Guardians House and I almost pissed myself because I wasn't aware at that point that the Gods were anything other than fiction devices in Achaea. Hilarious stuff. (I don't know if he actually knows that story or not.)

    The guardians and paladins will always hold a special memory in my heart. From landmarking with Maeve yelling for buckets of blood to running around with the goat version of a playboy for a paladin mentor to the moment I was knighted being inducted into Lord Pentharians order to standing almost 100 to 1 against Aegis order while Pentharian was imprisoned by Slith. So many friends and memories. The best part was the brotherhood/sisterhood of being a Knight. I genuinely miss Knighting ceremonies because they were one of the few times everyone would stop and attend as they were such an achievement. The endless hours the players behind the Deities would spend with us never ceases to shock me these days they truly were a dedicated garden and I'm thankful for that.
    (Blades of Valour): He just has that Synbios Swagger enough said.
    (Blades of Valour): Draekar says: "Synbios if sunbeams sparkle off that I'll kill you where you stand."

    (Party) Halos says, "Disbar?"
    (Party) Draekar says, "You know here we have disbar."
    (Party) Draekar says, "And over there we have datbar."
  • AzeleAzele
    2008. 12 years ago... Hard to believe after 12 years you all still suck. 
  • DraukoDrauko
    edited July 2020
    Achaea since 2002ish. I started with aardwolf and it sucked and then tried Achaea. I have done fairly terribly in all facets of the game since I started, but I still like it somehow. I tried to go to other IRE games but they didn't capture me (or I didn't feel like investing so much more time in learning another game). I've retired multiple characters and have been a lame newb jerk. 

    Thankfully, I'm much older now and more mature, and my life is in order, so yay. I am getting better with social situations, even though I greatly envy the players that are comfortable conversing in RP all the time with one another... I'd love to do that but it scares the daylights out of me. I tend to wimp out and go bashing or anything else, but I really want to be playing with other players. Hopefully, this year is the year! :) I have a couple of alts that I'm trying to find my footing with.

    I may be one of the most wasteful persons to have ever paid money for this game, recycling characters and changing classes with the previous characters. 

  • VanVan
    I created my first character in 2000.  His name is Radius and he was in the Infernals guild, if you can believe it, before it was exploded by Ashtan into nothingness.  I couldn't get into the game as a 12 or 13 year old, so I put it off for a little while and returned in as Van, a Shaman in Hashan.  My brother had introduced me to the game originally and we overlapped somewhat for a time, but he eventually went permanently dormant to contribute to the creation/expansion of Imperian.  Saw some cool stuff back then!  I remember watching the year 350 quiz, or something like that - whenever Shakti was really active.  Saw Aringar's public celebration when he achieved dragon.  I think the largest peak population I was around for was something like 750 people.

    I joined the Apostates guild almost as soon as they sprang to life, and joined Mhaldor.  Hashan didn't like that, lost some RP friends, but made a lot more in the early days of Mhaldor.  2005-2006 were really good times, learning to RP differently in Mhaldor, learning to PVP, actually buying credits to tri-trans - could actually hold my own back then, knew a thing or two about writing triggers and making a system work for me.  I've since forgotten -all- of that and just play on Nexus occasionally.  Miss Shallam, somehow.  Lots of raids, and I'd throw a daegger eliminate on Manu in a room of 35 people and then he'd hunt me down for the next week while I tried to blackwind away.  Loading up on Herenicus's and Wulfen's arties to duel Carmell, and still got roflstomped.  I'll be dormant on/off forever but I'll always pop in to say hello to those old acquaintances and friends from yesteryear. 

  • DraukoDrauko
    I remember Chatting with Wulfen about Perl, since we were both using xpertmud (I think was the name) and Perl was/is one of my favorite languages.
  • AntoniusAntonius
    Drauko said:
    I remember Chatting with Wulfen about Perl, since we were both using xpertmud (I think was the name) and Perl was/is one of my favorite languages.
    I can only assume you've never heard of or used literally any other language.

    Results of disembowel testing | Knight limb counter | GMCP AB files

  • DraukoDrauko
    Antonius said:
    Drauko said:
    I remember Chatting with Wulfen about Perl, since we were both using xpertmud (I think was the name) and Perl was/is one of my favorite languages.
    I can only assume you've never heard of or used literally any other language.
    lol, I know many languages. For work, it is mainly C, x64 and ARM assembly, and python, with some PHP here and there. Perl is now a relic of the past I look at with fond memories.
  • KemzuKemzu
    Aetolia back in 2002 or 2003 I think... I was in 9th grade and was hanging out in the computer room on lunch cause I was bored. Dude I sat next to was playing Aetolia. Asked him what it was and he explained the whole game to me, sounded cool so I made Demion and well the rest is history!
  • SophiSophi Rally Point
    My very first char was a jester probably like 2000-2001. Also had to lie about being 13. I remember having fun with chariot and balloons for a while before I had to go on an extended trip so I emailed the admin please please pleeeeeease don't wipe my char because I wouldnt be able to log in for a while.

    He got wiped.
  • KresslackKresslack Florida, United States
    Started Achaea in 2008, had been dabbling in other MUD's for a few years prior. Discovered Seafaring and the PoM early on and got started with that as soon as I could. Think I ended up Trans'ing Seafaring before my third class skill. When I wasn't sailing I remember spending a lot of time hanging out with Vexlore at the Infernal Forge in Ashtan (before it got reclaimed) chatting with him as he hammered out sword after sword trying to get the best of the batches. 

    I remember my first big ship battle was with I think Imyrr, Katalyst, Tanris (maybe?), Poergh, and a couple of others on board in an intense fight against someone (might have been Ellodin and his crew at the time). I wasn't even level 80 yet, think I had just been appointed Admiral, and I remember our ships just circling each other, popping off shots, casting and dodging each other's whirlpools, putting out fires, a couple of quick hit-and-run boarding attempts (imagine getting boarded by that). I will never forget literally passing out at the helm and Imyrr just rolling his eyes and stepping over me to take over until I could come to again. I had already been pretty hooked on Seafaring by that point, but that experience solidified it for me.

    It's actually really good to start seeing some of these people around again.


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