Astaria
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Astaria. | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | HoC Productions |
| Publisher(s) | HoC Productions |
| Engine | Heavily Modified TMI-2 mudlib and MUM gamedriver |
| Release date(s) | 1994 |
| Genre(s) | MMORPG, MUD |
| Mode(s) | Multiplayer |
| Platform(s) | OS Independent |
| System requirements | Internet connection via telnet or alternate client. |
Astaria is a free multi-user dungeon (MUD) that was first available to players in mid 1994, and is currently still quite active and administered by HoC productions. Astaria is free to play, although donations are accepted to help cover server fees. Astaria's gameplay centers primarily around adventuring, exploring, and player-player interaction. Roleplaying in Astaria is encouraged, but not enforced. A large part of Astaria's gameplay centers around the 'world' of Astaria's political scene, and the interaction/power struggles between guilds, clans, and individual adventurers. This heated political scene is often simultaniously lauded by the game's player base as being both a boon and a burden.
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[edit] Theme
Astaria is a heavily 'high-fantasy' themed mud, featuring a large number of traditional monsters and creatures (dragons, elves, gnomes) from sources varying from Dungeons and Dragons to Greek, Roman, and Norse mythology. Despite this fact, much of Astaria's history and lore has been written by the players and/or the design team in the form of completely original content and ideas. Over time, Astaria has 'discovered' itself to a progressively greater degree, with the vast majority of in-game content today being unique.
The world of Astaria centers largely around the daily activities of clans and guilds, as well as the triumvirate (The three deities of Astaria) and their constant struggles. A number of other 'hidden' or lesser known plots do exist, extending and complicating these concepts to a far greater degree.
Within the game, the majority of the average player-character's life is centered around adventuring and the quest to attain mastery in that player's guild or clan. This 'growing up' process often helps defines the style of the player's character. While the gameplay does largely revolve around hack-and-slash combat which many players refer to as 'borging', gameplay is not solely limited to that particular side of adventuring. Astaria features a large number of various quests, as well as a vast world for exploration, and an often heated political scene.
[edit] The Ages of Astaria
Astaria is currently in its third incarnation, having been heavily revised two separate times in the past.
[edit] The First Age (Astaria)
Astaria's first and shortest incarnation could likely be considered a "beta" period. During this time, the game was open to the public, but the game itself still featured a number of balance issues and gameplay bugs like instantly-casting spells, stackable 'buff' abilities, and various equipment and item exploits. Administered by 'Aurora' at the time, the game was still in its infancy at this point.
[edit] The Second Age (Astaria II)
The second incarnation of Astaria was by far the longest, and it marked the beginning of Astaria's perceived 'golden age'. Beginning only a couple of years after the official release in 1994 and lasting until late 2003, Astaria's second age brought with it a number of changes, both in geographic structure and game mechanics. A large majority of players still believe that the second incarnation was the game's 'best' and requests have often been made to either remove some or all of the modifications from the third incarnation, or simply reinstitute the old program code in its entirety.
Some notable changes occurring during the second age include:
- The addition of the Astarian Justice System. (The Pit of Despair)
- The addition of skill/spell/effect timers, preventing excessive casting for magic-based characters..
- The creation of three new guilds. (Bard, Paladin and Elementalist)
- The removal of the entire continent of Sable.
- The creation of the continent of Altheon.
[edit] The Third Age (Astaria III)
Astaria's third incarnation brought about an even larger number of sweeping changes than the second age. It has so far been met with mixed opinions from players.
The third age brought about the following changes:
- The removal of the ability to donate to the pantheon of Gods in order to receive favor.
- The rebalancing of a large number of monsters, items, and skills for both PVP and PVM gameplay.
- The rebalancing of monster wealth distribution.
- The removal of the "abode and house" system.
- The addition of several new areas and maps, including Krysallis, the Djinni home city.
- The institution of the "ailment" system.
- The addition of several new races.
- The institution of the "estate" system of land ownership/management.
- The addition of a large number of new artifacts and unique items.
- The addition of the stat-point system in place of deific favor.
- The addition of quests to join guilds
- The creation of the "treasure server" system for random magical equipment drops.
[edit] Gameplay
In Astaria, all new characters begin by selecting a race and gender. This provides the primary foundation for a player's physical characteristics. Height and weight are generated in accordance with a given race's averages (although rare discrepancies have been noted) and cannot be selected at character generation. Various minor features such as hair color, eye color, and other details can be selected by the player at creation time. All of these properties, including height and weight can be altered by a player's actions in-game.
New characters once physically generated, and introduced to the game via a series of 'heritage' levels. These levels provide the character with a chance to experience actual gameplay, select a deity, and then finally select a guild if they choose to do so. During this time, the new players have access to a public armory where higher level players often donate large amounts of equipment for the good of the general public. New players in the 'heritage' stage of the game also have access to a global help line where a team of volunteers offer assistance, advice, and answer questions.
Once free of the his or her heritage levels, a player has the opportunity to 'pledge' to one of the guilds of the guilds. The pledging process varies from guild to guild, but all guilds will request a simple 'test' to see whether a given character is qualified to join. Once the pledging process has been completed, the character receives a token of his or her guild's faith (usually in the form of an item representing that guild) and gains the ability to begin studying and training within the guild.
After a character has joined a guild, that character can then gain 'guild levels' over and above that player's base levels. Once a character has reached the highest level attainable in a guild, he or she is considered to have 'mastered' all of a given guild's teachings. Masters in various guilds are generally respected more than neophyte guild members, both inside and outside the guild. Master guildsmen often serve as mentors, role-models or trainers for neophytes and trainees, although this is not always the case.
Players primarily increase their levels by adventuring, slaying monsters, and completing quests. Using certain guild abilities also often yields experience points or other rewards.
Players in Astaria are free to progress as they see fit. While generally seen as the most favorable course of action, reaching the highest levels is not necessary, and some players even choose to forego joining a guild, preferring to venture out alone. Players might choose to found or join a clan, become guildmaster of their guild, attempt to discover old secrets or treasure, or simply socialize. Thieves and Psionicists in particular often choose to go the route of amassing legendary amounts of wealth and enter into the dangerous areas of commerce or thievery.
[edit] Power struggles and controversy
Over the years, the struggle for control of Astaria has been surprisingly heated for a community of its size.
During its formative years, Aurora and Empacher (both renowned for megalomaniacal personalities) had a very public struggle for creative control over the MUD. The two of them were the largest contributors to the world-building efforts, with most of the other staff still working to get the game's base functions operational. Aurora developed the continent of Astaria, while Empacher developed a continent named Sable. Being the system administrator, Aurora had the final word on all decisions, and eventually went on to delete Empacher's account. Empacher took his work on Sable and used it as the foundation for his new MUD Threshold.
By the year 2002, Aurora's role on Astaria had turned to merely ceremonial. Although she still paid the hosting costs for Astaria, it had actually been other staff members (most prominently Edison and Finian) who had paid for and maintained the current server at the time. Furthermore, she hadn't contributed any code to the game in almost eight years and was felt by the player base to be largely out of touch with where the game had progressed to.
It was during late 2002 that Aurora decided to return to a more prominent role on the MUD. She took an informal survey of half of the staff members (Adele, Rafael, Randle, Sarabi and Shylo) and determined that part of the staff had fallen out of favour with the active administration. The game's active administrators, Edison, Nix, and Yizashi who had been running the game for six years, were summarily dismissed without notice by Aurora in January 2003. Also dismissed were two other staff members, Erdos and Nawara, who were considered "loyal" to the dismissed administrators. A fifth staff member, Finian, left immediately in protest to the treatment of his fellow staff. And a sixth, Meryiotes, was assumed to support Aurora, but in reality simply wanted to remain uninvolved in the power struggle and continue working on the MUD.
Aurora immediately set to work to reinstate her creative vision and cancel a number of projects that were already underway. In their place, she set up a series of new initiatives, the most notable being increasing the maximum player level to 50/50 (from its current 36/20), a full purge of player's bank accounts, and the elimination of the guild system upon which the game was built. These changes were to implemented within two months and launched with a grand celebration on March 15, 2003.
Meanwhile, the departure of six staff members had caused a major upwelling amongst the player base. Aurora was being criticized at every turn and players were threatening to leave en masse if the former administration weren't restored. In February, at the 2003 MUDdie Awards, two additional wizards, Lloyd and Porkins, resigned to protest the termination of the most active staff members, the hastily-conceived plans Aurora had laid out, and the general direction the MUD was heading in. The next day, the MUD went offline.
Over the next four months, Astaria's community kept in touch via internet message boards. Though denied by Aurora, the general consensus was that she had pulled the plug because the community uprising had spread out of control.
Finally, in April 2003, the MUD was restored by Edison, Nix and Yizashi at its current URL. Now free of Aurora's influence but without its long-time domain, it has taken time to redevelop its player base. Many of Astaria's users returned to its new location, but competition from other MUDs and MMORPGs continue to erode the community's size over time.
The game itself is entirely player run, with the development team (WIZ/wizards) intervening minimally in the gameplay itself.
[edit] Gamedriver
Astaria uses the MUM gamedriver. MUM stands for "MUM is Unofficial MudOS." MUM is a heavily modified gamedriver branched from MudOS in 1994. MUM retains compatibility with the TMI-2 1.1.1 mudlib and MudOS v20r1. MUM may be freely downloaded from ftp://mum.dyns.cx.
