This Mud. Is the greatest mud I have ever laid my eyes upon. I know that's a pretty common claim for these types of game, but I promise that this time is real. Every Line Matters. Every single line of text in this game drips with hidden meaning and inneundo that would stump even Hemmingway. The hidden secrets I've found to which I am the only discoverer number in the hundreds. I've built stories with people whose subtlety in their roleplay hides depths of dreams, wonders and failure. The setting is a dark fantasy dystopia. The world is deeply broken and its gods are self-serving, racial tensions are at all time highs due to recent history, occupied territories see executions daily. Your character is thrust into the middle of this to act as yet another pawn in the grand scheme. From there you can choose to develop yourself mentally, physically or something in between. Every choice matters, every mistake piles onto another. As a result everyone feels unique to play around, the sum of their character's deeds becoming the foundation of their rich backstories.

I have been playing Geas for almost 5 years now. It is by far one of the best games I have ever played in my life and I consider myself a very avid gamer and competitor. I love how you can jump into a character and literally do anything your heart desires. If you love roleplaying, there are plenty of opportunities for many in depth conversations with the player base. If you love grinding skills, killing monsters and fighting other players, there are plenty of opportunities for that as well.

The real gems in Geas are the great roleplaying, the combat system and the skill system. The amount of different things you can just create on your own really means that the only limit to what you can do in the game is your imagination. The combat system is fantastic and slow enough while you are new to very fast when you are an older character and perhaps have to engage in some player versus player. The skill system is very broad. You have to learn the basics to get good at anything so it is very realistic in this sense. If you want to be a mage, learn skill pertaining to increasing your intelligence like fonts or languages. If you want to be a warrior, learn everything about combat... from fighting with your main choice of weapon to learning about acrobat so you can dodge blows even with heavy armours on. This doesn't even dent the surface of the possibilities.

I won't pretend that Geas doesn't have some flaws. I understand that newbies have trouble getting into the game because it is very large for the 20-30 person playerbase it has. However, I think that the access to the 'newbie line' in which you can ask any number of questions to be answered by the older players should help with feeling too solitary until you get your bearing. I had a super easy time learning the game because I had friends who played the game and got me into it and I realize how important that was, so I try to be as helpful as I can for the transition of others into the game. Once you get hooked, you won't be able to stop and sometimes it is easy to get emotional about your characters because of the great amount of time invested!

I can make the guarantee that if you put about an hour of your time into playing the game and asking for some help on the newbie line, you won't find a better MUD. Plenty to explore, plenty of quests to engage, plenty of politics to get in, plenty of guilds to choose from. Oh... and plenty of trouble to get into! >=D

As a player of games like World of Warcraft, Guilds Wars 1 and 2, Diablo - I can say that I have never spent so much time on those as I have on Geas. It is just great.

Don't feel intimidated! Join Geas now! You won't regret it if you love MUD's!

I have been playing Geas for several months now and must say that it is my favorite MUD yet.

Geas is an highly immersive medieval fantasy MUD. The first thing you'll notice is that if you don't turn on DIKU commands, all of the commands are long winded and complicated. This makes getting into the it at first a tad difficult but there is a newbie line with very helpful experienced players.

That being said, once you get the hang of it, you'll be hooked.

The world will pull you in and keep you there as you develop your character and meet the other players. There are no levels and no classes. How your character progresses is entirely based on which skills you use, and later on what guild you pursue. Your stats are initially based on your race and then based on how much of your experience you put into each stat.

All in all, Geas is a great MUD with a devoted playerbase and I encourage anyone interested to have an open mind and check it out.

I’ve been trying to play Geas for four years now. I say trying because in all honesty this game is impossible to get into if you don’t already have a friend who is a longtime player on some kind of IM service, if not in real life.

Before I delve into the many reasons why this game is bad, let me offer a few reasons why it is not. The system is easy enough to figure out, and the newbie intro is extremely helpful in explaining the basics. The world is both original and large, and can be quite fun to explore for the first thirty minutes or so.

Unfortunately, this is almost immediately countered by the torrent of bad things I have to talk about. Geas advertises itself as a roleplaying game, specifically with roleplaying enforced, but at some point, the admins seem to have forgotten that roleplaying, in the context of a MUD, does not mean ‘wandering around in the middle of nowhere playing with myself’ or ‘trying to figure out which keyword makes the NPC tell me what I want to know’, nor is it meant to be a solitary activity. It is meant to involve multiple people, each playing at least one character, and that’s one of this game’s biggest flaws. There are other players, supposedly, but good luck meeting any of them without the use of an IM client of some sort or other methods of contact outside the game.

To make matters worse, access to virtually any kind of skill beyond basic combat requires that you track down a member of one of the ‘guilds’ and talk to them. While I for one have no problems with the second one – after all, if I want to play an evil cleric of the god of Death, I’d better have a good idea what said god’s teachings are – the fact that players are spread so thinly over so large an area means, once more, unless you know someone IRL or are extremely lucky, be prepared to do a lot of work to get beginner-level skills.

In conclusion, then: this game has a few good ideas. But it’s simply too big for the playerbase it currently has.

GAES is a truly impressive MUD. Though the playerbase is small, it's obvious the staff have dedicated a great deal of time and effort in creating and maintaining a _very_ unique game. The number and variety of features available is beyond the scope of a simple player review to cover - it's a true gem!

An intricate, albeit complex, combat system make hunting a pure joy - as the options for customizing your character's fighting style and preferences are limitless, letting you roleplay and hunt as a truly individual character.

The skill system is a learn by doing one, with training as an option for many skills as well and is done exceedingly well, with a great attention to the details of 'realism' when practicing and using skills.

The game itself sports detail unlike most others I've seen - creatures in the forest, for example, that hide or flee from predators (including players) making hunting and tracking truly useful skills. Trees can be climbed, herbs can be searched for, potions can be made, skins can be cured and tanned, traps can be set...and this is just the TIP of the iceburg!

There is a small, but strong roleplaying community as well, and the players are given plenty of tools to express their opinions and thoughts to help form future developments and improvements in the game as well. (I was particularly impressed with their reporting system for bugs, typos, praises and ideas).

In addition to the skill system, each player can chose to join up to four guilds of varying type - racial guilds, occupational guilds, crafting guilds and layman guilds. So essentially one could be a fighting, singing, trapping scribe...again, making diverse character development open to almost limitless possibilities.

It has it's weak points, of course, like any game - this game is definitely not for those that can't be bothered to read helpfiles and 'put in some time' to familiarize themselves with the vast array of commands, options and activities available. And though the game's web based OOC forums are fairly well used, the website is lacking in a lot of basic information that a new player might find useful.

This is NOT your typical hack-n-slash MUD by any means, nor is it excessively self-aggrandized with pompous, unnecessary roleplaying - the two seem to balance together very well. But because of the smallish playerbase, joining guilds (run largely by other players) can be quite frustrating - as you must wait until someone high up in particular guild is around and willing to join you up. Though it should be noted that joining a guild of any sort is NOT required to advance your skills, stats or levels in the game.

The staff are currently working on a more 'newbie friendly' introduction to the MUD - though for now, an inexperienced MUDder might find some frustrations in getting started. But overall this game is well worth the time and effort - there are 'easter eggs' to be found all over the game as well, amazingly 'intelligent' npcs to converse with, a religious system (that I'm not overly fond of as it has its share of fanaticism associated with it), politics and a wide variety of quests as well.

If you're looking for a unique, depthful and interesting gameplay experience where pure 'bash the beastly fido' is not the only thing to do...if you enjoy some solid roleplay balanced nicely with skills and very complex and interesting combat, and lots of 'suspension of disbelief' detail and interest, then Gaes is DEFINITELY the MUD for you!

Before I started on Geas, I played most of the other big, popular MUDs. They all were the standard fare; pick a race, pick a class, kill the monster, level up, get skills deal. No real focus on the individual character's progression, since you couldn't stray outside the skill list. And since everything is just raw numbers, you are struck with no real wonder or awe. Or at least, I was.

And then I played Geas. Right off the bat, you pick a race, pick how you want them to look, do an optional tutorial, and then you're off to explore. No channels to turn off, no trainers to find, no level-specific dungeons to find, because hey, there are no levels!

The skills are learn by doing, so if you want to be a swordsman you get a sword and find something to kill (there is plenty). The combat system is deep and intuitive with specials and toggles, everything working off of your skills, what you wear, etc. Incredibly realistic. Also, the combat itself has no numbers. Based on the weight of your weapon and how strong and agile you are, you attack every x seconds and then, depending on how skilled you are, and your stats again, you might hit the enemy. Or, their armor might deflect it.

You might be saying to yourself, 'Well, how is this different than MUD x?' Trust me, it is. You just have to try it to see it. Did I mention there are no stock rooms? Also, there are guilds in the game which offer special powers that are, for the most part, player run. There's so much in this game I can't think of it all. It's been so long since I've played a different MUD that I probably take all the great things this one does for granted.

Roleplay is mandatory, by the way, so please keep that in mind. Hmm... that's about it. If you are looking for a different experience that will keep you playing forever, Geas is for you.

First a short list of features: - LP Mud, nothing stock - Medieval tolkien influenced high-fantasy, good vs evil - Classless, levelless, skill and quest-focused - Legal systems, judges - Saved equipment, lockers and bank accounts - Skills in numbers, stats in descriptions - Detailed combat - 7 deities - 2 good, 3 neutral, 2 evil - High magic world, gods and religion play a big part - Guilds (clerics for 3 gods, evil warriors, good warriors, shaolin monks, druids, thieves, rangers) - Professions (skalds, scribes, alchemists) - Crafts (gem-cutters, parchmentmakers, tanners, trappers, book-binders) - Seas, continents, ships and shiplines - World divided in 'good' and 'evil' areas - Reputation system, and clerics/good warriors can detect your 'reputation' - Combat focused, highly PvP - No global shouts, no IC channels (except a newbie channel), toggle:able room-based OOC speech - Wizard-run live-quests (about 2-3 times a year)

The main problem in Geas is the huge lack of history. There are only a few documents describing isolated events in the worlds history. How the world belongs together, the meaning/purpose of the setting, history in general, is usually left to 'players define it'. While this is nice to some extent, it leaves many problems. First of all, it is very hard to define a character. This should be self-explanatory.

Second, it is very hard to make any sensible plots during game play. There is generally very little to do except 'gaming', when you are online - most people do powergaming and optimize their character strength by the maxi-min principle:

Most of the game is about combat and PVP - at least there is little support for any other kind of character type. For example, the druids guild is a non-combat concept, but the subsystems do not really support them. They have basically nothing to do. It is *possible* to play non-combat characters, but do not expect any designated support for that. I can not think of a single character which played a successful non-combat politician or merchant for example. And this is sad, because Geas has potential for so much, if there was just a bit more focus put on it, things could be a lot better. All subsystems seem to support combat as well; alchemy makes you able to create potions to heal in combat, mining gives you metals which gives you possibility of ordering custom weapons/armours and so on. If there were maybe a few more dimensions other than combat, where people actually could make an important part of a story without being über-strong, the game would be a lot more interesting (and diverse!).

A lack of history/setting generates many other flaws. For example, races are totally undistinguished. There is basically no difference at all between someone who plays an elf and a human. They do the same things, speak the same way, care for the same things, go to the same places, carries the same attitude. There is no difference at all between these as groups. The difference between races is, sadly like most DIKU (or whatever), only in stats. There are some differences in history, but they differ very little. I can only think of one character which ever played an elf in a distinguished way, but it was mostly because of his own roleplaying skills, rather than a good system that helped him play it. You will find humans, dwarves, elves, tshaharks and halflings, sitting at the same place, chatting with each other, as if there was no history between these cultures. Then again, there is no description of the cultures. The available races are: human, elf, dwarf, half-elf, halfling and tshahark (an über-strong warrior race). Elves also have the possibility to devote their soul to any of the two dark gods and turn into darkelf. Darkelf is the only race which is treated differently in practice. The lack of descriptions of historic events and cultures leaves a big scar through the MUD.

Power in Geas is very centralized. Decisions and verdicts are taken by basically one person, at best, by one and a half. Major decisions are supposed to be taken by two or so other admins as well, but their saying is very anonymous, if even present. You will also find snappy comments on your opinions or suggestions, some admins are better, some are worse, some do not speak at all. While the admin nowdays have improved the communication with the players, communication is still more a statement of the belief of the admin. Never will you find anything concrete to meet your arguments, and if you did actually make a good point, there is usually silence.

There is also a lack of rules in Geas. It seems like sometimes they forgot to copy their predecessor's rules to their own MUD. Rules are 'follow common sense' - which works pretty bad - you will know 'afterwards' if you broke any rules, where some of those rules you had no idea they existed or were considered common sense. This, in combination with centralized rulership of the MUD, plays badly. If you also happen to have criticized anything, you will find yourself in a bad position.

The world is also very poorly documented. Some helpfiles are even directly wrong! You can usually not trust what is in them. Some things are also only commented on in the news (with the helpfile missing). Finding the documentation on a feature might be impossible because the news item is long gone in the history.

Another disturbing thing is that the syntax varies from place to place, and you can end up missing things you actually did discover, just because you could not figure out the syntax in a particular situation.

The In-Character experience is mostly pleasant. People take IC/OOC separation seriously, and the big reason to play Geas is for its realism. Sadly though, the IC/OOC separation is mostly cosmetic. When it comes down to important things, people chose to ignore roleplaying. This includes things that people not only choose to do, but also what they do not do, which is an important part.

Combat is detailed and there are many special attacks. The skill system is learning-by-doing and guilds are mostly political war guilds. Guild skill-bonuses were lately removed, which promotes that it is a class and levelless world. This is great! The problem is that, while you can customize your character a lot, the stereotype characters still work best.

If you are able to accept that you can not realize your character in a good way, shut out the constant lack of content, and deal with a tiresome OOC atmosphere, then you can consider this a good MUD, probably one of the best out there.

Geas is undergoing some exciting changes right now. A new area has just opened, rich with history and danger, to challenge more experienced players. This area has a well thought-out backstory that enhances the history of the mud and offers plenty of opportunity for exploration as well as fighting.

Through the forum and new report system that Geas has implemented, characters and wizards have unprecentended levels of communication, which has made bug fixing and general improvement easier and faster than ever before.

This is also an excellent time to get started, because some really big additions are scheduled to roll out later this year. If you want to be well positioned to enjoy them, start a new character today!

I started in the MUD world playing a basic MUD in spanish. There I met a wizard whom I finally started to chat and so. He talked to me about GEAS, and warned me it was nothing like I was played before.

It was truly nothing I was used to. Just after creating my char, which only took me around 2 minutes, I appeared at an inn, where I met a lizardman and an elven lady chatting. After some roleplaying and basic guidelines by them, I was invited to visit Ironhold, a former dwarven city that had been invaded by gnolls and other goblinoids.

On our way we met a Taniel cleric, god of light and order, who joined us in our mission. I barely knew basic commands for fighting, and the ones I was told were meant to keep me alive, but what I saw was amazing:

Used to combats where you simply type attack and watch succesive fighting rounds, the lizardman started to use a lot of shaolin moves, jumpkicks, backhand chops, tackles, while the elven lady wielded a katana with both hands and took the tanking, performing moves, like impales and spins. The cleric stayed at backrow, safe from melee attacks, and fried some goblinoids with holy smites, while also caring for the health of our team. I must admit sometimes I forgot to attack too, and simply watched the fight trying not to lose myself :P

It has been five years since then. Now Jezz is the Dreadmaster of the Crowned Skull, god of Death and Destruction, and roams the lands looking for enemies of HIS god, ready to spread suffering. In those five years I have barely been able to master some skills, which alway keeps me wanting to improve my char. I also learned to profit from the never seen before combat system Geas offers. He often has to deal with druids, crusaders, thieves, dark templars, rangers, shaolins, skaldens, alchemists...

Roleplay is one of the major aspects in Geas too. I and the 90% of people here have adopted a charismatic way of playing our chars, which makes every time i log in a new opportunity of enjoying a MUD session.

This is something I'm sure not everyone can say about their own MUD...

I've been playing Geas for about three years now, and I’ve been continually impressed by how innovative the gameplay is. The world is totally unique, and has an interesting storyline, which is enhanced by enforced roleplay.

There is a legal system to govern interactions between characters - although evil characters often try to circumvent the law. You can play a wide range of characters, thanks to the broad variety of guilds, each of which has its own goals and tasks. Beyond the standard fighting and cleric guilds, there are also craft guilds, where you can learn special skills to help your character. For example, it’s possible to skin animals, turn the skins into parchment, and use the parchment to write books on useful topics. Reading books that others have written can help you to improve your skills.

Skills are very important in Geas, because it is a classless and level-less MUD. Raising your skills is how your character becomes more powerful. The MUD is also learning-by-doing, which means that your character becomes stronger by concentrating on the things which you enjoy the most. There are many more possibilities to advance than just running around in a circuit and killing the same old monsters over and over again.

For new users who are thinking of trying Geas for the first time, this is a great time to do it as Geas has recently implemented new help features for newbies. For example, a newbie-only help channel makes it easy for new players to get in contact with any of the friendly players or wizards who have volunteered to answer questions and help solve technical problems. This makes it easier than ever to get started in the world of Geas.

Geas is a large world that is growing every day. I highly recommend stopping by and giving it a try!