Review Submitted By: Vardonyth
Author Status: Player
Started on Elysium RPG: Summer 2003
Submission Date: Mar 12, 2005
TMC Listing: Elysium RPG
The following review is the opinion of the review's author [Vardonyth]
and in no way represents the opinions of this website or its staff.
Elysium is an excellent mud. I urge any new players reading this to
disregard all previous reviews, as a great deal has changed and the
most recent posts are either downright incorrect, written by players
that have not played seriously in quite some time, or that just have
no idea what they are talking about.
---Starting Out---
Elysium is 100% custom and is 100% free (you may pay to study offline,
which will allow you to gain some lessons while not connected [see
skills for a lesson explanation] but with a penalty). The 9 cities
are completely player run (outside of some very minor Imm influence
in the form of patroning), with one emperor and 8 positions (5
ministries and 3 helpers) for players.
The 15 guilds are completely
player run. A large majority of them are auto-inguilding and most
newbies will be able to join the guild of their choice right out of
the gate. If a newbie knows their place, they will be helped openly
when they ask questions. If they demand that people cart them around,
or act improperly (like using IC globals for OOC chatting) they will
irritate many of the veterans and probably not receive a whole lot of
help. The main reason for this is not because we don’t want new
players, but that there is a huge problem with alts and it seems that
almost every newbie is just someone else’s alt.
---Skills---
There are numerous skills in the game (roughly 30, give or take a few)
which you can mix and match as you wish. Many RP’ers will look down
on folk that learn skills just because they are powerful or pick
skills that have nothing to do with each other (for example, a
thief-mage-warrior-bard-crafter) there are no restrictions on your set
of 6 skills that you can learn. Each guild has 3 skills. You do not
lose skills when you leave a guild (unless you purposely forget
them). You can also learn skills out of guild (at +50% the lesson
cost). Lessons are how you learn skills. You receive one lesson every
2.5 hours you are connected to the game. If you choose to study
offline, you get one lesson every 6.66 hours while you are not
connected. This may seem like a long time between lessons at first,
but believe me—they come a lot faster than they seem, unless you are
waiting for that last lesson to learn a skill—then it takes ages!
---The World---
The world is divided into 3 large continents housing the 9 cities.
Occid, the northwestern continent, is home to the dwarves, goblins,
and orcs. Orien, the northeastern continent, is home to the specter
and the Cyclops. Polaris, the southern continent (and the largest) is
home to humans, elves, hamakei, and spawn. Skilled mages can teleport
between continents using magical artifacts, but most people will
simply choose to sail, using a variety of ships. Sprinkled throughout
the large ocean are several islands, some of which hold powerful
items that will give you assistance, such as a necklace that gives you
more hitpoints or a ring that will let you locate people or objects.
You might choose to be a fisherman and make your money by sailing
your trawler over the ocean and selling your catch to the city of your
choice, but beware… as you travel the sea, you may encounter great
sea serpents that are fiercely territorial, and will likely not
appreciate your presence in their areas!
---Sins of the Past---
I’d like to point out that the administration has tightened the screws
on the two huge complaints in the prior reviews: Aurora[good] and
Silathis[evil]. This pair, a bit overzealous in the past, have been
reigned in and very rarely act out, and even rarer is it that they are
visible. Alaric[good] has seemingly disappeared, though his order is
far from dead. The new law around the mud is Velarq[neutral], who
isn’t really new but people are quickly learning that they need to
follow rules. Many will call what she does harassment; but let me ask
you this: If you broke a rule and got killed for it, and you broke
the rule again, and got killed for it again, and you kept breaking
rules and kept dying, would you consider this harassment? I
wouldn’t—I would consider it stupidity on the rule-breaker’s part.
She’s more lenient than I would be, were I an imm.
This review is already long enough, but has barely even scratched the
surface of what Elysium is all about. The features are far too
numerous to list here, but connect and give it a try, and you’ll find
yourself quickly learning the ropes and all that this mud has to
offer. It'll be worth your time.
