Lands of Myst MUD

stories

LOM Review by Khell

Intro

I started playing this mud a couple months ago and it has kept me addicted ever since. It’s a game of risk, exploration and fun with an amazingly hard world that keeps you coming back for more, especially if you can get past level 10. The game was different when I started playing months ago. I joined and stumbled into the donation room where a plethera of items awaited me. In a way, this sort of handicapped me from experiencing the game as it was meant to be. With a recent overhaul, I was able to explore the game the way it was intended, and i’m having a blast!

Gameplay

You have 51 levels, and level 1-9 you get free recall and identification of items, after that you’ll either need to be a mage for identification or a cleric for recall or purchase scrolls. The game recently went through an overhaul of the system and it has been made what was desired in the first place: extremely difficult. You’re meant to die in this game, because sometimes risk is worth the reward. There are over 100 zones specifically crafted for a certain level range, including a “boss” mob with that sweet sweet loot. Speaking of bosses, once you get to level 6, besides getting the exp required to level, you’ll have to kill all the bosses of your level before you can advance. Some of these are -exceptionally- difficult, and may require assistance from other players, or if you’d prefer to solo, you make sure you have sanctuary and pets and whatnot. From the beginning of the game, there is a character called Yoda that will give you quests to take for quest points, these quest points will send you to a random zone of your level and have you complete a task, it’s an awesome, and sometimes frustrating system, depending on the zone you are sent to, and what type of quest it is, but that’s the point. Quest points can be used to purchase practices, gold, and some top tier EQ. This system helps break up any exp grinding and boss hunting, so it’s nice.

This is a game where you’re always looking for the next best piece of gear. Exploring the world and looking at random passerbys in hopes they have an item you haven’t seen. All kinds of good stuff, and there’s enchanting and forging/hammering which give you the ability to enhance your items (warrior/monk get forging/hammering as a skill at a higher level than can be bought). Blacksmiths around the world can enhance the items, but be careful, but it has a chance of breaking the more enhancements it gets. Enchanting is a gamble in it’s own way, while there isn’t a chance of breaking, it could be a good, or bad enchant, (and sometimes great enchant) that can make any item worth using. But all that aside, this is where the EGO system comes in. Think of EGOs as doing Mephisto runs in Diablo 2 in hopes that you see that legendary drop. Sometimes, on any mob anywhere, the item that they usually load, will have a (hum) flag on it. This means that item has an EGO on it. Basically, this is the same item, just better! Until you identify the item, you won’t know how it is enhanced, and new EGOs can be discovered as well out of randomness. My most recent EGO was pretty lucky, I had a 1d14 sword, which normally i would just sell to the shop, but the EGO unlocked on it was called Skull Smasher, which gave it +1 STR, +1 DAMROLL, and enhanced the weapon damage by 2 dice, which turned it into a 3d14 sword, very admirable for this point in the game. I threw an enchant on it and got lucky and now it’s going to stay with me for at least 10 levels I would bet. Anyways, so these EGOs are out there, and they are what keeps you locked into the game late game. They are that Mephisto run that keeps you running around killing things.

Stat System

The stat system was part of the overhaul I discussed a little earlier, you have STR, CON, DEX, CHA, INT, WIS, and i’ll just break them out the best I can instead of writing a novel. Please note that I am a player, not an immortal, so there could be and are hidden values I am unaware of what they fully do.

STR: Influences carry weight and DAMROLL. Also is required to use certain weapons (big weapon xxx requires 17 str for example). Also influences parry, bash and melee.

CON: Influences HP and HP regen. Part of the overhaul is that you no longer have to worry about having the highest CON at the beginning of the game, making sure you get the best HP roll per level. Instead, it’s all real-time. You put on a piece of EQ that gives you +1 CON, you would get the perks of that CON as if you had it at level 1.

DEX: Influences MV and MV regen, and HITROLL. DEX also greatly affects many combat abilities like second attack and your AC. DEX is a great ability to get up for any melee class. Just like CON, the DEX gains are real-time, so no need to stress about having high DEX right out the gate.

CHA: This one is kind of a mystery. I don’t know all of what it does, but it’s supposed to increase the damage of criticals, and makes aggressive mobs less likely to attack. It’s more like a LUCK stat in my opinion because it affects dice rolls and some other stuff to my knowledge.

INT: I haven’t played many spell casters, but INT directly affects the damage your spells can do, and your critical hit %. It also affects the % you gain per practice session. Like CON/DEX, the mana gains you receive from INT are real-time as well.

WIS: Influences practice gains per level. This is the one stat that you will permanently benefit from having a high WIS at level 1. Once you choose your WIS, that number is set in stone for how many practice sessions you receive per level. Increasing WIS through equipment will enhance your ability to increase your skills as you use them, and will real-time increase your mana pool, just like INT.

Classes and Races

The game has a good selection of classes and races, each with their own balanced (and some unique) set of traits. The game also allows you to dual class if you so wish, that has very little penalty for those that are patient. When you dual class, you literally just pick two classes, and will receive the skillset from both classes. Your exp is 2x harder to get, so it’s definitely a slow grind, but can be a huge benefit as you playthrough. It’s good to remember that you only get a certain number of practice sessions per level, so you may have to be careful to make sure you have enough to accomodate both skillsets. In the end, you can always buy practice sessions with quest points, but that would be a long endevour.

The benefit of playing a single-class over a dual is that dual class skills are limited to 90% learning capacity, whereas single can go to 100%. The bigger benefit is that exp is also much easier. At level 51, you do have the option to remort if you so choose, remorting allows you to keep your gear and remake your character with more creation points (to make higher stats at creation) and it’s the only way to triple class as well. No one has done this yet though, so not much else is known about it.

Spellcasting and Abilities

Again, i’m probably not the best person to talk about spellcasting, but from what I understand it’s quite powerful. Also there are MULTI spells, which require multiple people to cast, and I know for a fact that these are -extremely- powerful spells. These are the types of spells that will be needed in end-game battles. There are tons of abilities that keep you having fun in combat, some which can get dicey if you say kick on a hard mob and miss, you may end up paying a price for it. If you love multiple pets, go with the Ranger class, if you love a single pet that you can equip and be powerful alongside you, go Mage for the clone spell.

Conclusion

There is a lot about this game I didn’t over, and it’s just because this got longer than I anticipated and am running out of time writing this up today. But honestly, this game has been fantastic and has two immortals pumping up updates and content all the time. The player base was pretty good before the overhaul (5-8) usually, but when it was overhauled and made harder, the game was player wiped, so folks are having a hard time coming back. That all being said, got a pretty active discord up and I hope you give the game a try and stop by and say hello.

playlom.com:4000

https://discord.gg/9JuZc4A

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