|
After I left a mud that I had spent alot more of my life on that I like to admit I set out on a quest to find a mud with great rp where I hopefully did not have to spend 1000 or more hours of learning and busting my rear to finally stand a formidable chance. In pk and against the stronger mobs in the game.
AU sounds like it would suit you well, but I must argue with the well put post by Esithae on one point. The player base does cycle regularly and naturally, but there are still those players that do not play frequently that are real powerhouses with lots of time and experience. Mind you if you do not go into pk this is not really something to worry about. Also the way to become powerful (stats wise) is largely by questing and getting practices which you convert to trains to train your stats and hp. This is a slow process and is probably the reason this mud does not take off as it is exceptionally well balanced and many of the players are great roleplayers.
Another flaw this mud totes is that within the temple system you gain ranks and authority by spending gold which you can get from questing or gold running. A player can effectively never talk to anyone in his temple (A very large part of the rp on AU), and within a lengthy amount of time (probably 800 hours of pure busting your rear) you can become the highest rank (Which is something formidible and worth a good amount of time there). But nine times out of ten the people that put so much work into their rank only do it because they are serious about their rp.
To be fair these flaws may have been fixed somewhat to be more reasonable within such an RP focused enviroment. I severly doubt the quest system has been changed as so many have already worked so hard within the system to get things. Wouldnt want to cheat some to benefit many and the mud right?
Enough with my ramblings about that though, here is my other reccomendation.
Unwritten Legends,
PVP is pretty rare, largely because of how serious everyone takes their RP and killing people is hard to get away with when the guard will come down on you for it. Don't get me wrong, if you wanted to play the killer\theif there is even a hidden theives guild that would help you get away with some of your acts. Punishments for serious crimes are treated seriously by the guard though (which is player run). One punishment even sends the player to a desolate island for an alloted period of time. To my knowledge no one has found the secret escape from this place, but I bet when they do it will be worth a fortune.
The world is the consistently best written I have encountered. With two continents both with their own cultures and laws and a third continent on the way. The continents are ever expanding as well. The world is already larger (and actually fun to explore) than most other muds I have played (that includes all of the Iron Realms games, but I am rather jaded when it comes to that, pay for perks makes my stomach lurch).
Your characters strengths are skill centered. It is the best balanced system I have encountered yet if you want to feel like you have power (and you will) without devoting your freckin life to it. If you are a spellcaster you largely learn your spells by attending classes or reading the right spellbook. A given spellcaster class of say 'level' 10. Could probably stand a chance against the same spellcaster class of higher levels, and also stand a good chance against any other class of higher 'levels' but since there is next to no pk you will be happy with your powers against the mobiles you will fight. There is also lots of eq and even custom eq you can buy from stores so you can customize your look.
I think I am starting to ramble and I dont feel like spellchecking this post because I am way to tired. My opinion is just this, on any mud you play there will always be the power gamer, the L33t people that just focus on stats, even in roleplay intensive games. I only found one instance of that on Unwritten legends, and that character just kept to himself and largely did it so he could test bugs. He dosent play that character anymore.
I think both AU and UL fit what you want in different ways and I have reasonably long term experience with both of them. So this is just my long and probably off subject take:P
|