wait, is this iron relm mud?

wowowowo gonna check it out then

Hi.
Regarding the terminal on the Mac: What is TDSR? I find it difficult to imagine playing muds using the Mac's terminal because of the way text can be skipped.

To the one asking about ‘TDSR,” ...

https://github.com/tspivey/tdsr

Hi everyone, I'm Astrum from Asteria. I'm just a player like you guys, not a member of the staff, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone for checking out our MUD.

We've had a lot of new players join the game today, and I'd love it if you all decided to stick around. Asteria is a pretty special place once you get the hang of it. In my opinion, it's one of the best MUDs on the internet.

I wrote a detailed review of the game on Reddit four months ago, and I'm pleased to report that my opinions haven't changed. If anything, I feel even more strongly about the game and the people that make it possible.

Having said that, it's still a relatively young game. Asteria has been open to the public for less than one year. Fortunately, the two guys who run the game (Greg and Arcades) are wonderful people. They're always open to player feedback, and many of the things in the game today are the result of player suggestions.

I know many of you use screen readers to enjoy games like Asteria, and so I wanted to let you know that your feedback is important. The staff have made a real effort to make the game as screen-reader-friendly as possible, but I'm sure there are plenty of ways to improve too. If you're playing the game and you have a suggestion to make things better, I encourage you to use the "IDEA" command to submit your thoughts.

I'll try and respond to some of the comments you guys have made in this thread:

No, but I think Asteria is the perfect place for anyone who wants an IRE-like experience without any of the drawbacks that come with their games (real money transactions, cliquish behavior, etc.)

Crafting is in the game. I think it's accurate to say that we have a "light" crafting system at the moment, but from what I understand, new additions are in the works. Right now, you can do things like create potions, scribe enchanted magical scrolls that contain spells, and collect pigments to perform ritual tattooing that can give your character a variety of benefits.

I'll do my best to respond to each of your initial impressions -

1.) In most cases, item names can be shortened. For example, if you want to pick up a "Bronze Longsword" from the ground, you could also type "g bro". What may have given you this impression was that for certain quests you need to turn in an item, and in those cases you may have to type out the full name of the item.

2.) There are over 1,000 quests in the game, all hand-crafted by our writer and builder Arcades. Sometimes you won't be able to complete all of the quests in a certain area until you come back later after having leveled up a bit.

3.) Skills can be acquired from trainers which are located around the world, but they're all pretty easy to find once you get the hang of things. In the game, you can type HELP TRAINER DIRECTIONS to learn how to find all of them. With an open skill system like Asteria (which has been compared to the Elder Scrolls games), you have total freedom over what your character learns -- and it can be a little overwhelming at first. If you're not sure what to learn, you can read the help file HELP WHAT TO LEARN FIRST, or ask other players for advice. We're a pretty welcoming crowd and I'm sure everyone would be happy to share their knowledge with you.

4.) The inventory system does offer a bit more realism than many other MUDS. For example, if you want to wear a cloak, you first have to unpack it from your backpack and hold it. Then you can wear it. It's an extra step but many of us feel that this system adds to the flavor. Plus, you don't have to "equip" weapons -- simply hold a sword in your hand, and there you go. Finally, yes, Asteria has a balance-based combat system, where you'll be doing more than simply typing "KILL MONSTER" when you're in battle. You'll be advancing and retreating, bashing goblins with your shield, and shooting fireballs out of your fingertips.

I hope this helps and I look forward to seeing you in the game again!

As I mentioned above, a great way to learn more about skills and which ones you should start out with is by reading HELP WHAT TO LEARN FIRST and by asking other players for advice.

And fortunately, there are many great ways to prevent taking damage! I'm guessing that you're still wearing the gear you start the game with and perhaps wandered too far away from the starting village and encountered some bandits. Some new gear from the city of Rhojidan or Kalmyr will make you a whole lot tougher. The next time you log in, ask someone for help and I'm sure they'll be happy to show you how to get there.

Anyway, thanks so much to the community here for checking out Asteria. We'd love to see you all in the game!

Thanks for all the great questions, I'll see if I can give you some decent responses:

Asteria is considered "roleplaying encouraged" or "roleplaying focused." I think the staff have to avoid using the terms "roleplaying intensive" or "roleplaying enforced" because on some MUDs that can be such a strict requirement that, as you said, every time you log in you feel like you're taking an English test. Asteria is not like that at all.

However, I can tell you with total confidence that roleplaying is alive and well in Asteria. Most if not all characters remain in-character whenever you meet them in the game, and it really enhances the atmosphere of the game. We also have roleplaying events (some pretty big ones are in the pipeline right now) that are generally "tuned" to be inclusive of all players logged in, though participation isn't mandatory.

Players are also encouraged to arrange for roleplaying events themselves, and the staff is always willing to help -- have an idea for a story where a village is attacked by a dragon so that you and your friends can fight it off? That can happen.

Finally, the staff is willing to create "vanity" roleplaying items for you. Imagine that you're playing a thief character, and you wanted to have a customized dagger that was given to you by your grandfather. Maybe it looks a certain way or has a certain inscription on it. The staff can create that item for you -- but you won't get any special advantages in terms of the stats of the item. This is what we mean by "vanity items." Here's another example, let's say you're playing a spellcaster and you want your fireballs to be made of, say, purple fire. If you have a roleplaying reason for that (your character has researched a means to do so, perhaps) then they'll change the way your fireballs look.

These little cosmetic changes might seem frivolous, but they really let you make your character your own and add a lot of flavor to the game.

Having said all that, the "chat" channel is considered to be OOC, and if you feel like logging in and just having a nice chat among friends, you're more than welcome to do so (we do it all the time).

As for population, we're a small but growing community. A few months ago, we were reaching up to 15-20 players online at the same time. We've had a bit of a lull, some of which I suspect has to do with the release of WoW Classic, school starting, and so on. These days we typically see about 5-10 players online at the same time. However, since we have players from all around the world, there's usually always at least a couple of other people online when you are.

I think this are pretty respectable population numbers for a MUD that's been out for less than a year, especially considering that with every passing year MUDs become more and more of a niche genre. (A shame, really, as there's no other "gaming" experience like them, even with today's impressive video game graphics.)

As for a sound pack, to my knowledge, there isn't one yet. However, this sounds like a great project for the community to start up -- maybe you could help? As I think I might have mentioned in my last post, the game is very community-driven. For example, one of our players wanted a fancy user interface for Mudlet, so he built it -- and now dozens of players use it.

As the years go by, Asteria will become the game that *we* want it to be. So if anyone reading this wants to help make the best possible mudding experience, please join us!

...And yes, I know, I must sound like one big advertisement for the game, but as I said, I'm not a staff member, I'm just passionate about my "online home."

Hope that info helps!

Hi,
so, I really like and want to play this mud, I really do. But I have a serious problem with it, which is combat, especially with casting spells. It's just far too slow to cast a spell when you have a hostile creature upon you who beats you up. In the time it takes to ready a spell, I'm already dead. That's quite frustrating.
Besides, for blind players like me it's quite difficult to keep track of my hp when fighting, since I don't use prompts which would just create more combat spam. So, when fighting I never really know how hurt I actually am.
Any advice for this problem would be great. Like I said, I really like this game and do want to play, but I won't get very far with it at this stage.
Thanks
Tikki

Hi and thanks for the answer.
It's great to have skill options which can help casters survive, but these don't really solve my problem right now.
I'm just too slow on my feet when fighting hostile mobs. The time I need to register that something is attacking me and what it is is already enough to die, before I even get to cast a single spell.
Besides, like I said in my previous post, it's really hard to track my hp when fighting, and while we're at it, the same goes for mana.
So, my real problem here are not skills, but a way to handle combat in general as a caster who can't see the screen. Listening to all the combat stuff obviously takes too long, but at the same time I don't know what is happening when I don't listen to it. So, it's less a gameside problem than a mechanical problem I'm having I guess.
It's just hard to do manual combat without seeing the screen for me, just because it's not possible to type commands and listen to the combat messages at the same time, but this is exactly what would be needed in this kind of setting.
So, I'm kind of stuck right now, but open for any suggestions on how to make it easier.
Thanks
Tikki

Unfortunately, i don't think there's a way to blank out a quest once you've seen it. The journal more serves to keep track where quest masters are and what you need to do.

  You know, I still hope someone fully goes through with an unarmed mgic build. though, while working on magic skills, you might want to tick in either acrobatics for dodging defenses, or coercion and grab some pets to divert attacks on you. I sometimes wonder how well a Lich unarmed user would do, since you'd also get a decentish heal when death touch strikes a target for massive damage.

yeah, the journal mainly states general area. You'll have to get to know the places better to refind certain qm's again. I know that rogue one is northwest of the square, and on the first path going north and east into a hut. Or uh west into the other hut. I think it was west.

  I mean, I've been pondering the following skill spread for an unarmed human. Adjust if one only has 100 skill points with whatever. The willow whisp and arcane power are the optional parts.

20 Unarmed

20 mysticism

20 acrobatics

20 enchantment

  14 evocation.

7 magical dexterity

3 necromancy

whatever for one's last 6 points. maybe upgrading necromancy or magical dexterity to last longer. I heard people say good things about including energy shield at magical dexterity 12. However, that does clash with wholeness of body, but since magic can regen while in a fight, and the point is to use ice wall and dodging to avoid taking so much damage...it should help for when you do get hit.

If you aren't human, just dump the magical dexterity concept entirely and do whatever with the last 6 points if you also don't want willow wisp.

  Depending on guild, you can also exchange enchantment for coercion if playing with pets from wild enclave. Also coercion makes you a great team player, as you can apply some powerful buffs to your party (however not for yourself).

  Shockwave is quite terrifying. Evocation at 14 I believe grants elemental steed and wall of ice. The steed provides a raw damage boost to elemental attacks, like setting shockwave to fire/ice/thunder with the proper mount. You can also use ride the lightning to get a temporary boost to spellpower, which increases unarmed and shockwave due to chi strikes.

Edited because typing is hard at 1 am.

@dark
The sage at the beginning gives the wrong advice to newbies. i have suggested much more better quests for him to direct new players to and the staff quickly agreed with my idea and were working on it.
Do not be discouraged by the quests at the garden. those are actually for  level 5, even 10 or above, in my personal opinion.
In fact, @dark, i thought this is a  great game towards your preference. I know you like exploration, no PVP, relaxed atmosphere and open world, plus the  staff and community are just brilliant. I'll write a review about it later but for now if you can stand a game without a soundpack, give this a try because it is quite unique. It has its disadvantages but compared to what it's got, it's worth playing.

I tried the mud out yesterday, and here are my thoughts.
I like it overall. You have a crap ton of quests you can do... which is good, I'll certainly be attempting to do it all. The world is well-written, and the commands are logical. I actually found that the parser is really forgiving, meaning you can type u boo to unpack an item beginning with boo or c l to cast lightning bolt. Some commands are long, but those are few between. There are just some things that can be improved upon in my humble opinion.
1: I would like the ability to quickly see exits in the room. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy descriptions, but sometimes I just need to get to where I'm going, you know? So, speedwalk would be nice.
2: I do agree with the combat, I was able to keep up mostly, and really the only reason why I died twice was because I stuck my nose where I didn't belong. Still, the game needs a fast screenreader in order to keep up with all the action. I'm thinking about it, trust me. Perhaps I'll look at VIP reference and attempt to create a bear bones soundpack which either shortens and or gags the messages you receive... unless somebody wants to do it first?
I'll continue playing and will let you all know of my progress (I am currently level 4 if memory serves me right)