2016-10-24 16:22:19

This is a game I've heard about on several occasions, but never really tried consistantly. However, since I'm trying at the moment to give pages to muds that have screen reader adaptations it seemed to need a review, and I know we have at least one major player of the game on this board.
Also as we've not had a specific erion topic in new releases I thought I'd  give my impressions of this one while playing.

So, mud's website is here and connection info is:
erionmud.com port 1234.


To anyone who has played Aardwolf, a lot of Erion will be similar, albeit the class and race selection is rather different, given that as well as the standard things like Warrior, clerric and thief, there is also Gaian and archer (I'm trying an archer myself now).
Races also include selections like kitsun, ie, half fox, shade, giant, ogre and feline, with chances to evolve into stronger races later, which also go with subclass options for each class some of which look rather interesting, for example a necromancer can subclass into either minian creation or voodoo like curses or an archer can subclass into either a scout or a beast master.

Like Aardwolf you start in a mud university and take an exam, and get pins and other equippables, there are also autoquests, global quests and other events, plus command like runto to help getting around. However, unlike aardwolf the game has missions which work rather more like the quests in alteraeon or similar games, ie, there is a "missions nearby" "mission info" etc command, also from what I gather other players aren't aversed to helping out with missions at all, albeit I'm still on the university missions.

the areas in the game i've seen thus far seem to be a little less schizo than aardwolf, though like aardwolf agro mobs seem relatively uncommon and there is a screen reader toggle which does a lot to reduce spam, alter ascii flags and other handy stuff (hence why I'm looking at Erion for the db).

Unique stuff I noticed while browsing the game include player houses, --- and that is Houses in the Hogwarts sence rather than dwellings. These include a newbie helper house,a pvp house, a hack n slash mob killer's house,an alchemists house who specialize in experimenting with potion brewing, and an exploring and questing house.

There is also a monster collossium where you can fight monsters for rewards and not die as a challenge, several sorts of trivia games, as well as runes to customize weapons and weapon effects, pets, also from what I gather player customization is pretyt extensive even going as far as deciding whether you want to remort or not when reaching the max level of 151.

Oh, and you keep equipment when dying, and there is no corpse retrieval required which again is an advantage over Aardwolf.

I'm not sure in general what else the game has, but uptonow I like the look of things, and I'll be investigating the game and writing a db entry.

Oh, and I've not forgotten frandum, I just fancied something a bit less interlectually challenging and a bit more combatty for this afternoon.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-25 09:47:40

Okay, I've tried a little more of the game.
One thing I'm definitely liking, is that while this is a hacknslash, there is a lot of effort going into the game to insure it isn't too hacknslashy.
These include events like treasurehunts run every day as well as the more normal global quests (though since there are fewer players in the game global quests are actually possible to win, particularly since after doing one your not allowd to do another for some time), minigames you can play with others like freeze tag and races, and a lot of interesting random world drops.
For example, chocolate bunnies that give quest points (indeed in general quest points seem fairly easy to obtain), sigils to equip your character, scrabble letters that you can make words with and submit to gain quest points, and other items, indeed just as I think I've got a handle on things something else will drop and I'll be checking the help again.

pets are pretty cool, and what is nice is mission rewards tend to be equipment and spells and fun stuff to play with.
I also like the fact that the base cost for every class level is the same, ie, 50 k xp, and since it seems you get an average of between 300 and 500 k xp per kill that's actually not too bad in terms of progression (meaning about 150 monsters per level), not when fights occur so quickly, it also insures your max xp loss upon dying is 9 k xp and not usually that much.

One mistake I've already made however is concentrating on missions rather than getting levels, meaning I got trounced by something which I really shouldn't have. Indeed I'd recommend checking the "where" command in each area to make sure your not in somewhere with something that will kill you too quickly, since while agro mobs are less common in this game than most, at the same time fights can end in short order if you attack something that is too strong for you, though i am getting good milage out of my Archer's shoot skill which can pick off mobs in the next room, ha!

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-25 15:07:05

Hi.
At dark, sounds quite fun indeed, I might check this out.
Two questions still remain, do you have to fight everytime when you want to gain XP, or can you also explore the game and do quests which aren't fighting quests. Even though I enjoy muds with lots of blood and bones, I am also an explorer person and like taking a look here and there.
Secondly, what do you mean by the wording that players are not, aversed in helping with missions?
Greetings Moritz

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2016-10-25 16:14:48

Hi.

Regarding missions, what I mean is where in Aardwolf if you couldn't do a goal you tended to be told "Well  that goal isn't for you", or similar, in Erion people are quite happy to give hints or info.

As to gaining xp in other ways than fighting, this isn't the mud for that. If you want something like that go and try a game like Frandum, which doesn't! reward xp for fighting at all.
Erion is definitely a combat heavy game, albeit one where there are different options to try and keep the fighting interesting.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-25 19:27:29

Hi.
Ah well, as I stated above, I enjoy a good slaughter fest, if the combat mechanics are good and i have a good aray of weapons and skills to choose from.

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2016-10-25 20:39:09

How xp i need to level up and where in game can check this?

2016-10-25 21:24:52

@simba, on the one hand, techniques seem interesting (I'm loving my shoot tech as an archer), on the other you don't get new ones each level, or at least archer's don't.
On the other, you can multiclass, I've taken a level in thief and later subclass to get more stuff, and levels at least for main classes are easier to come by if you just concentrate on them (you can also toggle hardcore and get more exp at risk of harder fights), ---- so six of one half of the other I think.

I enjoy the game for what it is thus far, though there are a couple of things I'd like to see, firstly, doors even when closed  in the show exits command, and secondly a way to  get a little more detail on wher eunexpelored rooms in an area are, something like alter's area map, which I'll suggest in the  ideas board, though other players are fairly good if y0our really stuck looking for a room.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-25 23:55:39

hello
oh that game is excellent correct
but I'd like see future sound pack things

2016-10-26 07:13:58

Hi Dark!
Can you say something about grouping? Rules, restrictions, experience, differences in levels and so on?

2016-10-26 10:58:23

Short answer, no I'm afraid not.

Grouping does exist in the game since I've seen references to it elsewhere, and you have commands like follow, but how it might work I'm not sure gruping not really being my thing in games.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-27 15:41:01

Hello!
As I played Erion like crazy some time ago, did you mean me in the first post? smile I know alot about the game. Ask here if you have any questions. Maybe I will try the game once more?

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2016-10-27 15:59:48

Yes nuno69, I was specifically thinking of you and the topic you posted about Erion a while ago, indeed it was that topic which made me go and look up the game.

I'm actually enjoying thus far, though i still have a ways to go and I'll be glad to give a db page, but Erion is a very unique game and I don't want to write a description which just makes it sound like Aardwolf, since while it has features in common with Aardwolf I'm seeing it has a lot of personality on it's own, indeed I keep discovering new stuff which is great.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-27 18:56:04

What's your name on the game?

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2016-10-27 20:54:18

Hey.
I have a little problem with connecting to the mud, i am using the mush client, I hit the option to create a new world, entered in all the data erionmud.com and port 1234, but when I hit save and connect, nothing happens, dark, did you already destroy the world? xD

Hail the unholy church of Satan, go share it's greatness.

2016-10-27 22:53:28

@Nuno69, I'm Tanquest on the game.
@Simba, Nope, last I checked the world was still hanging in there, ---- my evil army of killer alien zombie robot dinosaur unicorn cyber dragonmorphs is stuck in traffic right now big_smile.

I did notice the mud was down last week, though I tried just now and it seems okay, so the problem probably isnt' one with erion.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2016-10-28 17:34:05

Ah, and about the archer class. When i've last used it it made the game pure easiness. I could shoot 50 lv creaturtes on lv 1 as it was taking incredible amount time to achieve, I was able to down these, because they weren't spotting me or anything. How's it now?

If you want to contact me, do not use the forum PM. I respond once a year or two, when I need to write a PM myself. I apologize for the inconvenience.
Telegram: Nuno69a
E-Mail: nuno69a (at) gmail (dot) com

2016-10-28 18:47:33

Well some creatures do have a tendency of coming to get you, but not half as many, I've certainly taken out level 30 or so creatures and have completed a good few missions by standing in one room and shooting into another, it rocks!
I chose thief as a second class since it also had dex, and I wanted some more abilities to play with, though other than improving my hand to hand skill it's not done much yet. Still, I need to concentrate on actually levelling up rather than getting missions and quest points, since I can get levels fairly quickly if I work at it big_smile.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-02-21 20:27:38

Well I fancied something I could progress at by wandering and slaughter, so gave erion another go today.
There is a new witch class in the works which sounds interesting, though at the moment I'm still working for qps and experience.
Still, the game is fun, particularly because of how progression seems relatively easy.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-02-21 20:43:22

Not nearly as easy as it was when this mud was Rising Kingdoms. Back when EXP was calculated by level and you could earn your first 30 levels just from doing the newbie stuff. I pretty much gave up on this thing after they changed the levelling requirement to 100000 exp per level no matter what level you were at without consulting any of their players and drastically changing the feel of the game. Now they think they've compromised by dropping it down to 50k, but when the game used to be a massive power-levelling fest that was a blast to play and now it's a tedious near-aardwolf clone lacking in uniqueness, it's just not for me.

I totally understand that some people are happier with slower progression, and I am too as long as that's how the game starts like 3Scapes. So I'm not going to totally trash the game or anything. I just don't think a game should be drastically altered like that just because someone got a bug in their bonnet about players levelling too quickly and instead of making more endgame content, decided to mess up the levelling formula. Medievia lost three quarters of it's player base by doing something very similar with equipment, and from what I see when I bother to check up on this game they haven't exactly had an influx of players since the change either.

2017-02-22 01:33:11

Well I didn't know about the xp change you mention, so it obviously is not as much a deal breaker, or at least not for me.
Actually I like the fact that in erion as opposed to most games gaining levels takes roughly the same amount of xp, meaning youll always know when to get a new one, and while levels do take a number of kills, getting qp equipment is muuuuch easier than in other games which is definitely a bonus.

Indeed I always find it silly in games when it takes 20 rat kills to get from level 1 to 2, and yet it takes 200 red dragon kills to get from level 19 to 20, as though red draghons are worth less than rats even though the amount of xp you gain is so much larger (though in terms of total amount to progress a level it's actually smaller).

I also like the fact that in erion the missions are pretty easy going as far as guess syntax goes and people are willing to help. it is also nice that the zones tend to have interesting stuff like extra shops etc to find in them.


the only thing that is a little off in Erion is the fact that you don't seem to get many interesting skills to play with that quickly. There are interesting things to do in the game itself, but it would be nicer to get more combat abilities, indeed most of my practices have been converted into trains for stat gain since there is no point sitting on a huge pile of practices I'm just plane not going to use.

As for how it compares to aardwolf, yes the university and autoquest systems are similar, but various other things are different.

Erion has far more random stuff to find while exploring, in terms of random rewards, sigils, runes etc, plus erion has missions that are actually possible where aardwolfs goals system could get bloody obscure, ---- oh and the fact that you don't get told "well that goal isn't for you" if you can't get the goal is a major bonus.

I also happen to like erion's writing better than aardwolf's though this is likely is just preference.

in general I'll say there are more complex games, but for a bit of random slaying and something based very much on running around and smack stuff, erion seems to work rather well.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-02-22 04:01:29

Actually it's the other way around. Generally anything built in DIKU/ROM and sometimes CircleMUD, anything with that little character customization prompt after creation, has it's experience per level set at a given number. Muds that have progressive advancement are rarer. Not sure if it's me being used to and wanting to play RPGs like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest, but I prefer games where experience per level is dynamic. Even if that means I have to kill 600000000 black cyborg dragons of ultimate obliteration to get to level 20. I know that sounds contradictory to say I don't like that they've slowed the progress of the game down in one sentence and then say I don't mind slow progress under certain conditions in the next. I think it's just because it started as a very quick levelling process, where you could max out a character in a couple of weeks and actually get to your cool skills early on, and now to try to add more longterm play value they've just drastically slowed down levelling.

I feel the same about games that use limited turns to keep players replaying, or add limits to events where you can only do one part of that event per day. I'm looking at you, sryth. I think if a developer wants to extend the value of their game, they should actually develop more playable content like Lands of Hope, Puppet Nightmares  and other games have done. Not just add cheesy replay hooks like slower levelling or limited play per day.

2017-02-22 08:55:46

ah yes, i haven't tried this mud in a while, but that is because i have been stuck on Geas hehe:d but yes, i reallu did like the options for subclass on the archer. was working on getting that sniper subclass:)

Why didn't the Romans find algebra difficult?
because x is always 10!

2017-02-22 11:55:27

@David, Actually in rpg terms having the same xp cost per level is rarer even if it is a dicu/circle mud thing. it's actually why I gave up with six dragons, since I got sooo sick of grinding at the same level for no progress, ditto with alteraeon for a while, though at least now there are enough quests and areas to keep me busy and engaged so I don't feel I'mgrinding the same areas.
For me, I don't mind having to work at a character so long as I get interesting stuff relatively often, eg, new skills, areas to explore, quests to do etc and can see I'm making some sort of progress. That is what is nice in Erion, since there are other progress methods and rewards like qps to earn as well as experience, and while I can understand if your used to faster level gain seeing the 50 k per level probably seems a bit irritating, at the same time getting a level really doesn't take that long if you concentrate on murder.
Plus of course there is the hardcore tobggle which you can set for double xp which means pretty much 800-1000 xp per kill, though that is a tougher option and will! get you killed.

Agreed on turn rates though, games with a dayly turn limit can get irritating fast. I don't mind games with a dayly login reward a partial dayly event just so long as I can carry on playing after that event without.
Again puppet nightmares did this well, as did both wayfar1444 and aardwolf, actualy it's a shame erion doesn't have a dayly login gift, I suppose you could count divine favour which you get every 18 hours and gives things like double xp etc.

@Zub0, yep, erion is fun. I'm still not sure if choosing thief as a second class for my archer was unwise, but we'll see when I've levelled it a bit. I am looking forward to getting the subclass though, since archer subclasses look cool!

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)

2017-02-22 19:16:31

@Dark: About static versus dynamic EXP, I think you're right about that since most RPGs I have played have slowly escalating experience you need to earn per level. I just meant that out of all of the muds I've played, literally hundreds of them, a majority of them have gone with the static exp system. The unique ones tend to go with the typical more experience per level formula.

Haha, hardcore used to be one of the ways to power level. Turn that on and when you only need 2500 exp to level early on, you're obviously piling on the levels every couple of kills. Things did even out a bit around level 30, and by then you had some nice skills and gear to play with and the like. I guess at the end of the day I just prefer that mechanics that might draw in certain types of players aren't just stripped out of the game suddenly, especially when they've been there for years before that. 3Scapes is one of the slowest muds in terms of progress I've seen and yet I don't mind it, probably because the guilds almost always have something new to unlock regularly accept for maybe juggernaut.

I may give Erion another try at some point, maybe it's a little better now that they've dropped the exp to 50k per level instead of 100k. I just remember doing all the newbie missions that I could, which before was very possible and got you to level 30 easily. I got stuck on one of the earlier missions and kept dying, and by the time I had completed them all I was only level 2. That's a pretty drastic change. I liked it better when you got a large pile of skills to play with early on and then things slowed down somewhat and let you explore and the like.

2017-02-23 01:34:11

Well I will agree the skill gain rate is slower than perhaps I would've liked, especially considering I'd done all the newbie missions (accept those that required you to be level 35), while under level 8.

On the other hand, one thing I notice in Erion is that if you just go to an area and deliberately slay things and explore you can level fairly quickly, probably one level in 10 or 15 minutes or so. This also makes recovering from death fairly quick when it happens since you lose about 10 k xp, which is usually about 13 or so hardcore kills which you can do extremely fast, so it possibly levels out.

I ctually do intend to give 3k another go once I've decided what is happening, I think I'm probably just a bit lucked out on complex quests right now and need something a bit simpler.

With our dreaming and singing, Ceaseless and sorrowless we! The glory about us clinging Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing; O men! It must ever be
That we dwell in our dreaming and singing, A little apart from ye. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy 1873.)