When I was a newbie...

Cyndarin

CRAP. I didn't mean to put this in combat logs. Can an admin move it to Common Grounds. Thanks.

With the snow storm hitting the east coast and DC declaring it a snow emergency (or as I call it...Snowmergency), I am bored and will be stuck at home, safe from all the migrating polar bears so I thought I'd start another fun thread like the last.

WHEN I WAS A NEWBIE...

My first character ever was a merian aquamancer. I hunted Spectre Isle because that's the only place I could find after the Tidal Flats. @Malarious tried to grief me and then declared me an enemy of Magnagora. He and this Mag named Sybl tried to gank me, Sybl gave me a lacerated leg and since I was brand new, I had no idea how to cure it. I just kept running and falling down. Eventually I hid in the inner sea and melded, and waited for the passive aqua demesne effect that cures random affs to fix me.

I wanted a turtle so badly that I spent all my lessons in aquamancy just to get it. I was then so excited I could hunt on the water plane without swimming. I guess I hadn't figured out waterwalking yet.

My first pk experience was some newbie Nihilist I ran in to on the road outside of Serenwilde. He just started attacking me. All I did was spam hailstorm. I thought it was a damage over time skill like hailstorm in Achaea. I didn't even have him enemied so it was doing literally nothing. The only reason he ran away is because it attacked my turtle and my turtle hit him back.

My first time playing a bard, I had no idea what any of the skills actually did. I thought perfectfifth was like lust based on the wording of the AB. There was a fight with Xavius where all I did was spam pfifth and getting annoyed because his demesne kept hitting me.

I had just started PKing and gut suckered into being the demesne holder when the Undervault was released. Narsrim convinced me to turn PK CAREFUL OFF. So I did. Someone choked the room. We sat outside the illithoid prison seal in my choked geo demesne and I proceeded to collect upwards of 15 avenger statuses on all the poor schmucks who walked into it. I also ran out of mana while sitting in choke, but I was anorexic and impatient...so I couldn't sip mana or focus mind to cure anorexia. Took me like 15 minutes to figure out how to cure it manually.

My first ever wargames as a geo mugwump. I didn't really know what a wargames was, so I just enemied everyone in the arena...including my team. I stood in the middle of the fight and spammed boulderblast. My team died...and they were upset. On the upside, I still won the wargames. The Mags I were in a clan with were laughing their asses off.

My first ever duel was against Talkan. I was a Nihilist. I didn't know what Inquisition was. I got facerolled.

Everiine

When I was a newbie, I exited to Avechna's Peak, stopped in every single room and read the description. I was really confused by the org terrain, as I thought each one marked part of the city/commune and I couldn't figure out how I was going from Serenwilde to Glomdoring to Magnagora to New Celest so quickly.

Elmund met me in the Serenwilde and became my unofficial "mentor". He taught me how the game worked, helped me buy all my supplies and equipment. At the time, Klia, Kiarlea, and Malicia were the three elected leaders of the Serenguard, and I was intimidated any time I came into their presence. They were so composed, and elegant, and appropriate.

I believe my first death was by drowning in Moon River. I had the same reaction I think a person would in RL--I panicked, couldn't figure out how to swim away, and died. How embarrassing.

I also found out that flying in the mountains with high winds was a terrible, terrible idea, as I came crashing down on my head and suffered a concussion. I managed to not die by going to the Ring of Portals, where another Serenguard newbie happened to be. She cured me up and they became good friends.

Shaddus

My first newbie was an aquamancer. I was still pretty new, and the city chancellor (I think) approached me and made friends with me. She told me she had a friend (ended up being her alt ) who was looking for kids, and so I messaged this friend. I ended up being Athine and Thoros' daughter, which was, needless to say, a bad thing being in Celest. Half of Celest suspected me of being a spy, including Forren. 

I hadn't read any of the history and didn't know much about the taint. We had a pair of viscanti people come through the Portal (twins, they said), and the city treated them like crap. I had this weird idea that the Light = Christianity ethics, so I treated them nicely, bought them some clothes and hung out with them in the Deep Blue Cathedral. I made friends with Simimi, who rp'd with me in making friends with these two kids. I got in trouble for changeselfing into Viscanti to make them feel better.

I never did get along with Forren, mostly because he thought I was a spy, and I didn't know much about Lusternia. I remember during a wildnodes one time he was complaining about needing power, and I handed him a powerstone. He stared at it, stared at me, and told me to get out of Astral.

Lavinya

When I was a newbie...I'd never played a MUD before. I was so horribly blind and clueless as to how to do the most basic things (say! I head to learn how to say and emote and look and everything. Xiran, most patient mentor in the WORLD).

I died to a cow once because I'd been told for some reason to renounce innocence and attack it, and because I would try to read everything flying by on the screen, by the time I realised it had hurt me and I should do something about it I was dead. How embarassing.

I made a friend who left Celest for Magnagora and convinced me I should go there too, a day or two after discovering the game. I knew nothing about Lusternia's history, I couldn't even remember how to spell Magnagora for a long time, let alone what it the rp was like there. I had been a moondancer elfen. Suddenly I was being interrogated as to why I wanted to join the Nihilists (it was oocly suggested as the most similar choice), being sneered at for being a disgusting filthy elfen and told I would have to reincarnate (what does that even meeeean?? What's a viscanti??). Destridas was terrifying and it was awesome. I was hooked! Even if it did take me a while to realise why leaving the Seren made Xiran sad.

I had my first taste of PK while following someone around as they did the spectre quest (I was too little to kill them myself) and didn't even realise what had happened until I was well and truly dead. After that I was terrified to step out of the city for a long long time. I was too scared to take a wrong turn and end up in enemy territory or being gored by those terrifyingly vicious cows.

Dramshanks

When I was a newbie I was introduced to MUDs by a friend who played them a lot. That helped with the basic mechanics of it all but it also was very hectic. I kept using goto after I got reflexes and because I was so clueless I would just wonder through the Blasted Lands and I kept dying to gravediggers. I remember a particularly embarrassing time where it happened like three times in a row until someone finally sent a tell and told me what I was doing wrong.

A certain Shadowdancer who is no longer with us took a bit of an interest in me and gave me a reading list a mile long. It was intense. I learned so much, so fast, and I spent so much time reading it was ridiculous. I loved it, though. That right there is why I stayed. That introduction to the lore of Lusternia led me to purchase credits, remain as active as certain times in my life let me, and work for advancement.

Rialorm

When I was a newbie (not Ria) I did not get enemy and planes. I thought UV was open PK and did not dare to go in there. On the flip side, I didn't know about survey and enemy territory and got killed several times hunting merians. 

(I wish I could remember more of these, I absolutely love this thread)

Tacita

When I was a newbie I got lost on the way from the Moonhart to the Moondance Tower (or maybe the other way round) and this frustrated me so much that I logged off. It was not the most auspicious start - and I wasn't even new to MUDs!

Maligorn

My first newbie was a lucidian aquamancer (I'm starting to see a trend here with first characters and Aquas), but I'm pretty sure he never made it out to the Path of Solitude.

My first real attempt was a trill Harbinger, but again, once I specced into Shadowbeat and realized I had to compose a song that didn't make me look like a tool (very difficult), I let him get purged. This was when Pruxi and his husband were in charge of the guild, I can't quite remember his name. I remember bashing so hard because I was so excited to become a Nightwraith or something but I needed a certain amount of mana. Also, because I was planning on essentially being Crow's Avatar, being trill and all. Brennan creeped me out. Dead spiders kept falling out of the Master Ravenwood and for the life of me I couldn't tell why. It also occurred to me, after the fact, that I'd gotten my mandolin fashioned after one of the generic, boring Public designs instead of getting a doom and gloom one like everyone else had, which made me quite unhappy.

Xenthos

I hunted weevils until around level 50.

Yes, really.  I leveled on weevils- I saw no reason to ever leave Serenwilde's borders for the longest time.

Tuek dragged me out once and paid me something like 20,000 gold to go into Angkrag to buy him some metal commodities.  He came up to me, made me follow him, dragged me off to some weird out of the way place where I was completely lost and gave me instructions to get to the commodity house.  I ran really fast.

I refused to spend money on consumables (such as health potions), so once I finally left Serenwilde I only really hunted moose and rockeaters in the mountains.  I would bash them for a while until I was low on health, then I would invoke circle...

... and sleep my way back to full health.  Yeah, it was so much slower than health potions, but think of the money it saved?

I started bashing Glomdoring's critters for experience around 60ish, and got myself caught up completely unexpectedly in the Summer Court around the time of Viravain's return.  I had been playing maybe a month, a month and a half, and the whole thing was just so fun and exciting.  Every day I logged on and something new was happening!

Shulamit

When I was a newbie, Krellan was in Serenwilde, and he was my (is) my mentor. He's still my mentor, because whenever he wakes up, I ask him how I use the hoods on a set of robes.

When I was a newbie, you couldn't change languages in bookbinding. Changing races also messed it up sooort of badly. I was an aslaran that didn't know aslari.

I was born a lucidian, then went aslaran, then back to lucidian.

When I was a newbie, designs were in the 2000's, not the 20000s. Also, the first way I learned a design was accepted was when someone heard it talking to them on astral.

When I was a newbie, there was that ooc costume contest. That was awesome.

I was going to say something about pvp, but I didn't pvp even as a newbie, soooo...

That's what I remember from being a newbie. Well, also the snowball fight with Tully and Isune, and falling asleep, and getting painted blue by Isune.

Iasmos

Parua

When I was a newbie, I was  immediately drawn to Glomdoring, and made a furrikin Shadowdancer.

I don't remember who the leaders were at the time, but that's because Shayle was head of novices at that time, and had a much bigger impact on me than almost anybody else.

I leveled to 50 in Glomdoring, having been killed by rockeaters the only time I tried to travel outside. After that, I never left the forest. I remember being raided by Gregori, Munsia, Narsrim, etc., and being encouraged to go up and defend. I would spam vines, die, pray, then rez and do it all over again. I felt part of a community, and it was -so- awesome.

I chose alchemy as my trade, and remember selling individual vial refills to people, because I don't think artisanry or kegs were a thing yet..

The second time I made a character, it was a faeling Blacktalon, and I finally started to get involved in the actual game. Not long after I started her, there was the event with the false gods, and the nightmares dropping into Glomdoring, and that was just -so awesome-

Kethaera

The very first newbie(about 6.5 years ago?) I created started off in Celest, and I think was an aquamancer merian. I didn't understand anything about the game or the roleplay, and ended up accidentally taking the portals to Magnagora and talking with a bunch of people who kept calling me a fish and threatening to eat me... but it was interesting. I started using changeself to look like a viscanti(based on the people I'd seen in Magnagora), and couldn't figure out why everyone in Celest was so upset about it, or offering to kill me to reincarnate, and getting angry when I explained it was just the skill.

I ended up switching to Magnagora and the nihilists(they seemed nicer, in spite of the threats) and reincarnating to viscanti. Most of what I remember after that was wandering around to various places and getting asked questions I didn't understand or know how to answer- "Are you here to kill the tidal lords?" "Are you influencing the villagers?"... and bashing my way up to level 70 or so solely on Spectre Isle.

I was still very much a newbie when I created Kethaera, and hadn't bothered to read any of the help files about Glomdoring... so I was exploring Faethorn for the first time as part of the planar quest when @Xeria appeared(I assumed to kill me) and started asking questions and saying things that I tried very hard to pretend I understood... like what a 'wyrdling' was or why she kept calling me it.(I read the help files/scrolls afterwards). A bit later I attempted to explore Serenwilde, got lost and confused about whether I was in the northern or southern part(despite using TWO maps), and had to ask @Aramel for directions when she came to chase me out. Oops.

Ah, memories.

Munsia

When I was a newbie I killed Weevils for a few minutes to buy credits at 500 gold.

Silvanus

When I was a newbie I took Kaervas and Narsrim bashing..

They followed me around as we bashed out all the villages. To this day, I still have those enemy statuses:

+-------------------------------------------------------------- ENEMIED TO+

| Aeromancers             Glomdoring              Paladins                |

| Airlords                Goloth                  Pyromancers             |

| Angkrag                 Gorgogs                 Rockholm                |

| Aquamancers             Hallifax                Serenwilde              |

| Blacktalon              Hartspirit              Shallamurine            |

| Cantors                 Hartstone               Shofangi                |

| Celest                  Hoaracle                Southgard               |

| Celestia                Kalikai                 Tahtetso                |

| Celestines              Kelpies                 Terentia                |

| Crowspirit              Kephera                 Tosha                   |

| Delport                 Lisaera                 Valtreth                |

| Estelbar                Maylea                  Viravain                |

| Faethorn                Moondancers             Waterlords              |

| Firelords               Moonspirit                                      |

| Gaudiguch               Nyalia                                          |

+-------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Xiran

@Lavinya: Aww. Always cheered me up to see Lavinya online, even if Xiran didn't say it.

My first character was an Aquamancer. She tried to teach another newbie when others were busy and ran into the problem, "You have to know more than your student to teach a skill!". I was pretty embarrassed and didn't try to help again for a long while.

Someone tried to help her set up curing in Nexus (this was years before Mudlet) and even got her an expensive set of robes. Unfortunately I stopped playing for a while and never managed to pay them back.

She also tried to be scholarly and write an essay on why Roberto's so ginormous. This is how she ended up with a scroll from Soll (who went on to become Ayridion). She never turned the essay in.

Turnus

When I was a newbie I first got enemied to glomdoring for killing the undead and Rowena when Nikua took me bashing there, as it actually was a bashing ground at the time. Then later Nikua became the original SG traitor, with much drama.

Along with tons of other newbie memories and beta shenanigans. I remember making 10,000 gold the first time and thinking I was rich. Then getting summoned and killed and dropping it all.

I also remember 500 gold credits!

Laysus

Aw, man. 500g credits. Those were the days.

When I was a newbie, I remember Moondancer's guildhall not having the doors shut, so anyone who wanted to could go in. Then people raided so we got it changed. Also, like Iasmos my first kill was Visaeris. He raided, and the Serenwilde did its classic Zerg formation. Except I wasn't following anyone, so when  I got the last hit on him, I got something like five levels from it

Munsia

This is so weird. I got into pvp because of Visaeris raided....my first kill was Daevos I think though. Gained like 2 levels off it. 

Turnus

I don't think you can tell a beta story without Visaeris somehow being involved most of the time.

Hiriako

I killed Visaeris a lot back then. Oh god, when Hiriako was a newbie. (He was my first character!)

Credits were that cheap, yes. I was playing with Fae and Hexes making people stick in place to try and figure things out. That case of scabies that was going around? I infected a couple people with it via hexes and asked them to go run around Magnagora. That was glorious fun.

Laysus

Hey @Hiriako - remember how MDs were overpowered because of all the things Fae did?

Lillie

This thread needs this image. That is all.

Revan

When I was a newbie, phantoms + staff killed about 90% of the playerbase. And contagion. And hailstorm hit EVERYONE and it was GLORIOUS

Rivius

When I was a newbie, my first death ever was to Shitake the warrior shroomie in the Loliprin valley place. I just felt very sadistic and wanted to kill him for no reason and that totally backfired.

I got interested in combat from standing outside the glade of observation a lot and watching people spar and talk about it after. It sounded super exciting and I totally wanted to give it a go. @Aerys became my mentor and I asked her "How do I fight?". She told me to swing at her. I hit her rebounding, cut my artery and bled to death. 

Afterwards I started collecting lines to auto-raze which wasn't really all that good since it didn't work if I was off balance (it was really simple. I didn't know anything about coding). I asked @Iasmos to spar me, and while I didn't die to cutting myself, he did kill me with riposte it seemed. Or something.

My first ever fight was in faethorn. I can't remember how it happened, but a fight broke out between Seren and Glom and I walked in swords swinging and hit @Crek. Somehow I got some bleeding on him and he bled out and died. I got enemied for that fight. I felt super excited about combat after that.

My first wargames was in the glade of champion. I think Alianna and company really disliked me for some reason so they all conspired to kill me and @Relk was kind enough to give me a heads up. They still all ganged up on me and killed me first. I eventually grew on Alianna and she actually started really encouraging me to be the best I can be or whatever.

I remember regularly joining wargames and people really hating to have me on their team because I was totally clueless. But I still kept going at it because I'm just too hard headed and it was really fun

Yay newbiedays.

Zvoltz

When I was a newbie, I was extremely sad that I couldn't be a pyromancer. I ended up joining the Geomancers because I wanted to be a mage and sweet, sweet fire was denied me. I spent hours upon hours doing the quest to free Gaudiguch whenever I was online and wasn't the person responsible for melding Earth/Nil and standing there watching for enemies.

Once, while I was in the desert, Visaeris came along and killed me so I made an alias to burrow below. The next time I saw him, I used it but then couldn't figure out how to come back up, instead only burrowing deeper. I ended up being stuck underground until Karrah issued and a helpful admin teleported me out.

Shortly after, I got kicked out of Magnagora for trying to free Gaudiguch because I had no clue where I could get enough gold to pay the 10,000 gp yearly fine. And that was the end of newbie me!

Jack

WHEN IIIII WAS A YOUNG JACK FLAAAAAAGGGGG

Yeah, I remember 500 gold credits. I also remember the free credits everyone got when open beta ended, along with a sweet little "thanks for sticking with us!" message. (This was before bound credits and I had about ten alts, so I managed my first trans skill by sending all those delicious credz to Jack.) And pre-nerf hailstorm/boulderblast; during the Tainted Fae event, Geomancers were killing ten or fifteen people at once on Faethorn. How I envied them their free levels.

On a more personal level, I remember being highly confused after making Jack, since Lusternia was my first MUD. Thankfully, there were plenty of cool people in early Magnagora like Nepthysia (my first mentor), Arilyon and Chade, who were willing to help out little ol' teenage me. I stuck with Magnagora partly because of how cool everyone seemed, and partly because we had the most badass fighters. Visaeris had just jumped ship to try and revive Glomdoring, and Narsrim's mission to spy on Serenwilde had converted him into a real tree-hugger, but we still had Daevos, Valek, Kaervas, Silvanus, Morslade, Brona and a host of other cool-looking undead fellas leading the way.

I also remember my first real friendship on Lusternia - with Guido, one of the original Disciples of Crow. Our characters had similar goals, which was neat, but we were also the same age RL and had the same dumbass sense of humour, which was better. We ended up bloodbonding and having all sorts of crazy shenanigans. Even when he got sick of being the resident pariah and whipping boy of the basin, and suicided Guido, his new character (Kahazul) ended up bloodbonded to my new alt, Kymir, and we continued the mayhem! Good times. Still got that dude on Facebook, actually.

Daraius

When I was a newbie I was taking a break from a leadership position in Achaea that was stressing me out. I needed a change of pace and I wanted to play as a dog man so I rolled a little loboshigaru Celestine. I planned on keeping track of every important interaction and event so I could have a really cohesive character development. But that was about as much work as the thing I was taking a break from and didn't last long. Some things I remember because I wrote them down:

~ Making pledges to the Supernals in Loboshigaru because Common was difficult for my guy

~ Being really broken up about not figuring out the matchmaker quest

~ Terentia appearing to say she knew Loboshi and could see her spark in my character :x

~ Getting invited to a manse with a heart-shaped bed and wondering if I was about to be mudlested

That character was about the right age to be best buds with Gadritan if they'd ever met, which would have changed the course of my relationship with Lusternia and Achaea, I'm sure.

Munsia

Gadritan and supernals only remind me of one thing and it's NSFW -.-

Shaddus

Plot twist: Zvoltz is Dysolis

(Please don't zap me)

Xeria

Kethaera said:

The very first newbie(about 6.5 years ago?) I created started off in Celest, and I think was an aquamancer merian. I didn't understand anything about the game or the roleplay, and ended up accidentally taking the portals to Magnagora and talking with a bunch of people who kept calling me a fish and threatening to eat me... but it was interesting. I started using changeself to look like a viscanti(based on the people I'd seen in Magnagora), and couldn't figure out why everyone in Celest was so upset about it, or offering to kill me to reincarnate, and getting angry when I explained it was just the skill.

I ended up switching to Magnagora and the nihilists(they seemed nicer, in spite of the threats) and reincarnating to viscanti. Most of what I remember after that was wandering around to various places and getting asked questions I didn't understand or know how to answer- "Are you here to kill the tidal lords?" "Are you influencing the villagers?"... and bashing my way up to level 70 or so solely on Spectre Isle.

I was still very much a newbie when I created Kethaera, and hadn't bothered to read any of the help files about Glomdoring... so I was exploring Faethorn for the first time as part of the planar quest when @Xeria appeared(I assumed to kill me) and started asking questions and saying things that I tried very hard to pretend I understood... like what a 'wyrdling' was or why she kept calling me it.(I read the help files/scrolls afterwards). A bit later I attempted to explore Serenwilde, got lost and confused about whether I was in the northern or southern part(despite using TWO maps), and had to ask @Aramel for directions when she came to chase me out. Oops.

Ah, memories.

Are you the one I gave a black and white woolen hat to?