Looking for RP home.
 

Hey there, I'm a casual gamer who's looking for a good RP Mud or Mush out there. I've been looking for a while, but it is really hard to get an actual idea about a game unless you spend a few days learning all the rules and immersing yourself in the environment. Then I end up spending a day or two designing a character (if I am going to design a character, I want to do it right). When I finally do play, I discover all my time was wasted on something I hate. I'm looking for some input from some experienced gamers, who have been around the block. My specifications:

1. Active player base of 17-25+ daily average. I've found some really interesting servers that just didn't have the numbers. Nothing like logging into an empty server.

2. No loss of xp or gear if I'm not logged in daily. Like I said, I'm a casual gamer. I'm on maybe 1-3 times a week, and that can be sporadic. Though I am willing to have set days and times if I find a good group to RP with.

3. Not PvP heavy. I don't mind even permanent character death if it is RP justified. I've played MUDs where the skill sets were heavily geared toward PvP, just not my thing.

4. Not a fan of XP grinding. I completely understand having a leveling system and having to earn your levels. What I don't want is to end up spending hours mauling rats in the woods every time I log in, just so I have a high enough level to survive walking down the street without being killed by every mob in sight. If I wanted grinding, I would just reactivate my WOW account.

5. Noob friendly. I've played a couple MUDs and Mushes, and even EVE online, but I am still a casual gamer w/out amazing coding/typing skills. What I don't want is to be cast adrift as soon as I finish character creation. Not everything is covered by the wiki or in game files, so I always like to have some real folks I can touch base with OOC.

6. Not a fan of pay-for-perks that leave everyone else in the cold. The games where if you don't, there really is not much hope for you.


I know I am picky, and I don't expect there to be a perfect game out there. Again, I am a casual gamer looking for an RP heavy scene. I'd like to thank anyone who can shed some light.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

Alter Aeon has literally everything you're looking for, except RP. If that requirement is allowed to slip, you may want to take a look. We recommend you use our custom client if you can, as the mapper alone really changes the experience.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

I'd say the OP is looking for just about any game -except- for Alter Aeon.

1) RP-heavy. You say yourself that this isn't going to happen. That disqualifies you immediately - that's his #1 priority.

2) No pay for perks. You have pay for perks. While your paid perks don't affect the characters directly, they do offer an advantage indirectly such that someone who doesn't have them, would be at a very distinct disadvantage (buy a death card? Unlimited storage? Anyone wanting to stow his three uber-swords of doom while he uses his semi-uber sword and uber shield for hunts on level 20, and then switch on the level 30 area is going to have a -huge- advantage over someone who is stuck with whatever he's carrying, and nothing more.)

3) No exp grind. From your own website: " At low levels, the
easiest way is to simply fight monsters." That'd turn off anyone who is looking, very specifically, to *avoid* grinding.

So really, your game has nothing to offer the OP, that the OP actually wants.

OP, I'd suggest New Worlds. It's RP-heavy, doesn't require a lot of grinding, and is free with no pay for perks as far as I know (I'm pretty sure they do accept donations but I don't believe they offer any in-game advantage for them). It's also newbie friendly, has a fair-sized player base, and I don't recall losing any gear upon logout when I played it for a very brief time.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

Not sure if you've ever given any RPI games a try, but just opened last month and we fulfill most of your criteria:

1) We generally have a minimum of thirty players on, except at the extreme off-peaks, when it may dip down to 15-20.

2) Gear and skills don't decay.

3) PvP is unrestricted, and character death is permanent, but the former is rare (due to the IC repercussions) and the risk of the latter can be mitigated by caution.

4) Skills raise by use, but grinding is fairly inefficient. There's no proper experience system- all skills just have a rating, from beginner to legendary. The wilderness is extraordinarily dangerous to even well-skilled players, and is generally only traversed by groups of people.

5) We're extremely newbie friendly. We have an in-game helpline to let you ask questions, in addition to an OOC chatroom available on our website, which always has at least a few people in it who can help with anything you might need.

6) There's absolutely no pay for anything. We accept donations, but they come with no perks or advantages.

If you have any further questions, as I said, we have a , which you can access after registering on the website.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

Jazuela,

I think you're being overly harsh in your assessment.

1) I've seen many other cases where "RP" meant "some place where rules are enforced, the admin isn't anarchy, and the world is at least somewhat coherent", and other cases whre RP was a strong preference, but could be overpowered by other considerations. Given that we have all of his other requirements, there was a legitimate chance he could be interested.


2) The exact wording was:
I totally agree with him on pay schemes that leave everyone out, and I've tried really hard to integrate things that aren't required, that are conveniences and don't directly unbalance the game. I play all my characters, on my own game, without perks, and I can say with confidence that you can never pay a dime and do perfectly well. This seems well within his scope.

(As a side note, your equipment example doesn't make sense; if you already have a high level and a low level character, just keep the appropriate equipment on them. If you want to trade from high to low, just do it, or have the low hold equipment for the high, or even make a dedicated storage character to hold overflow, or just toss the extras in a tensor. You hardly need to invoke a special perk for any of this.)


3) Again, the specific wording:

I'm not a fan of exp grinding either, but new players understand it and it makes sense to them, so there's a lot of opportunity for it at low levels. There's also a lot fewer available skills and things to do at low levels, so it makes sense that a higher proportion would be death experience.

But those lower levels come and go quickly, and I rarely if ever have a sense of actually grinding in them. Our goal is to get new players into the storyline, get them some levels, some skills, and some playing experience so they can handle themselves, then turn them loose. Some players continue to grind after that, some don't. It's hardly required.

Here's our current 2-month global exp stats for mob grinding:

( 5.27%) damage
( 36.70%) death

Add in incidental experience from participating, and maybe half of the total experience on the server comes directly from making things dead. That's a lot of room to allow for non-grind behaviour.


To the original poster, if I've overstepped or misunderstood here, I apologize. Good luck in your search.

-dentin

Alter Aeon MUD

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

On the other end of the spectrum, how much do you need the fighty-killy side of stuff? I did the D&D-style MUD thing for years, and then recently stumbled on World of Darkness games like The Reach. There's stats and skills and such, but it's more of a tabletop feel, with people sitting down to craft a story, rolling dice when need be, and just having a good time roleplaying. XP is garnered from running scenes for other people, as well as a weekly amount that brings brand new people close to the xp level of the top people within 6 months or so, so the ambitious are being funneled into making more and better rp for everybody else. There is PK occasionally, but it really depends on the kind of character you build on whether you ever see any.

The rules aren't too difficult to learn (especially for someone with a D&D history, where minutia are so important), and there are plenty of flavors of characters to choose from. Right now, I'm playing a character who was kidnapped by Fae and escaped with magic powers, but with his soul in tatters. He's now in charge of a group of people like him (Changelings) with a desire for democracy and in killing their former masters (the Fae), fighting against a society that doesn't much like either of those ideas, and I'm having an amazing time. Look at for more info.

edit: Oh, and we have around two hundred+ people on a night, with no paying for anything.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

Hi
Midkemia is a game with excellent rp which is fairly consistent throughout the game. There is a real effort made to make it all mesh, which is highly unusual I have found.
Many players are newbie-friendly and will welcome the chance to rp with you and to help you understand the game.
The only unfortunate thing about it is that it has unrestricted PK anywhere anytime. Some effort exists to make the Player-vs -Player events IC and RP- based, but the the oldest players are far more interested in pk than in rp.
If you play Midkemia and get unfairly pk'd (which you will), your best hope is to deal with it IC'ly through the elected officials in-game.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

I would suggest Cosrin - A New Dawn. The playerbase is very helpful. I haven't played it very long but it fits most of the requirements from what I have seen.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

Try Geas.

It is quite newcomer friendly. PvP can be a bit annoying unless you know how to avoid it (which you can find out by speaking to other characters quite easily).

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

Heya! You should try , which is the best game.

UL has 20+ people a night, more if something interesting's going on that day.

Gear and XP in UL are persistent even if you go on a break for years and years. You also don't lose either when you die.

There is very little PvP, and all of it is based in RP. You can't just go around ganking people, but if you really look for trouble, you might find it. That said, in more than a year playing UL I've been in like 2 or 3 fights, and I went looking for all of them.

UL Has a buffer system. You can spend thirty minutes fighting mobs and earn an hour and a half of buffer. Buffer converts to XP at a constant rate based on your level, so there's not a lot of grinding to be done. Most aggressive mobs are well off the beaten path, so if you don't fight at all you're still quite safe.

Furthermore, the RP is strong enough in UL that you can make a non-combat character (like a merchant, traveling chirurgeon, bookkeeper, or some other "mundane" type of person) and still very quickly dig in to some great RP.

UL features a live help channel (gamehelp) and pretty extensive documentation on the website, the wiki, and the in-game help files.

UL has no pay-to-win stuff at all.

Re: Looking for RP home.
 

This -was- a post advertising for , but then I realized that there was quite the gap between posting time - about five months! On the off chance the OP does come back, I highly recommend Legacy. It fits every one of your requirements without being too demanding of a sporadic gamer.