Tales of the Abandoned Realms

Guest blogger (and recently returned Immortal) Lydana has a bit to tell you about her time with Abandoned Realms! You old timers probably know me as Chro. My most notable characters were Nara, a storm healer, and Nebai, a halfing warrior Justice, plus my Immortal Lydana. Now that the introductions are out of the way, it’s time to reminisce about times gone by. I don’t even really remember how I started playing Abandoned Realms, but I know it was back in ‘98 or ‘99 when I was in high school. I remember I had a typing class where I would always finish early and I would bring in my floppy disk with my MUD client on it so I could have a chance to play for a bit once I was done with my work. Eventually I convinced a few of my friends to play with me. We were all total newbs but had a lot of fun. We would bring all our giant PCs and CRT monitors to my friend’s place where we would set up for our MUD party. My friend had just got DSL and had two phone lines, so the three of us were abl...

So there's a lot of memories that stand out in my gaming on Abandoned Realms. And they range from super negative to fairly positive. I think it's important to acknowledge that everyone does stupid things, even some of the people who help run the game these days, as a sign to people who are trying to be more on the straight and narrow that almost any amount of bullshit can be forgiven if you're honest about wanting to do better. Earliest "big" moment that stands out was the purge. There was a lot of little stuff like getting my first few pks and looting level 50s and having the University library banned from AR due to the actions of a lot of us (I contributed, guilty as charged.) But with the purge, I totally had a "Holy F**K, what is this?" moment. I'd been struggling to get characters past 43 or 44 due to all the 50's who loved to prey on people as soon as they hit range, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity to have a level play...

Most players have a favorite class, what makes that class their favorite is usually a combination of what notable characters they've had with what fits their play style the best. My first 50 was a shaman, and I feel like I did pretty good with it, so much so that I've gone back to the class several times over the years, having had a total of five level 50 shamans (All Duergars, go team stunty!). Shamans are a great class for learning, you get locate object so you can discover as a new player where a lot of things are, AND solo the things that have them. They also do a pretty good job in a pk fight, with the right amount of survivability and offensive capabilities. I started getting pk's reliably and gained a lot of confidence in fights from my time with my shaman. This was of course at a time where shamans were overpowered (I think most people would agree with that statement anyways). They, like all classes with multiple healing spells, lost the ability to use their m...

Now, my first bit of time in Abandoned Realms was spent groping around blindly trying to find a niche that suited me. This was something that I spent a few weeks doing late summer 1998 (I think it was mid August). But if you put a gun to my head and asked me for a specific memory of all that dickering about, wouldn't be able to give you a single thing. Rather, I think one of my first memories of the game that really sticks out was being dragged to Emerald Forest with my friends to level. Now this was at the pinnacle of MUDs, before a lot of people had the computer or the fast internet connections capable of playing first gen MMO's like Everquest. So MUD's were HUGE. If you were around for this, you're probably nodding right now in agreement with me. I remember in the middle of the week after supper I'd see easily a 100 players on. Let that sink on for a minute, 100 players. Minimum. And while there might have been a dozen or so level 50's smashing around, t...