Skip to main content

A Trip Back to Memory Lane With....Lydana!

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 able to all get on at the same time. It was awesome. We also got killed… a lot.
Lydana chillin' at the back
I remember we were trying to learn to PK better and two of us would just watch while one of us would go to Emerald Forest to find an easy target. More often than not, we couldn’t solo and even more often the whole gang of 3 of us would get wiped out by one guy. It was just embarrassing.
Even more embarrassing was the one time my friends and I decided to dress up like our characters… It wasn’t my idea, but I went along with it because we were bored and the internet was down.

It takes a lot of courage to let anyone see this photo

Even with the three of us together, we never got any characters past about level 40. It wasn’t until I left for college the next year that I got ‘serious’ about Mudding. This was when I got my first to 50 (Nara, storm healer) and my first character in a cabal (Nebai, halfling warrior Justice). It was around this time that I got my Immortal Lydana and started to run Heralds. I think my biggest legacy is probably the Serin Mystique, which was always fun to organize and write. Probably the best part of being an Immortal (other than being able to smite people), was being able to role-play without fear of death! Woohoo! I eventually graduated college and moved across country, at which point I got too busy with life to play AR. I hadn’t played AR in several years, and got injured pretty badly and while in the hospital I started getting calls and letters from my AR family. It was pretty awesome seeing how strong the community response was, even though I hadn’t played in quite a while. So, now I’m back (sort of), and even playing some. I’m hoping to see the player base grow!!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Early Memories

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...
Post a Comment
Read more

How great are shamans, right?

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...
Post a Comment
Read more