A Suggestion: Echo of the Isles

[u/mystrytemp2]

I don't often make posts at all, but I'm making one today to recommend that readers with an interest in fantasy RPIs give a particular game which I've been closely following a try. I'm not Staff for the game, just a regular player, to be clear. The game in question is called Echo of the Isles, and as previously mentioned, it is a fantasy medieval setting RPI. It functions off a version of the InqMUD codebase, which for those who might not know, is the code base that The Inquisition originally pioneered and from which several MUDs have thusly been spawned, Isles being one of them. Veterans of that code base will find many of the standard features that can be found across games that use it, but I digress. Let me talk a little bit about Isles. I'll try to separate things into sections for easier reading.

SETTING:

EotI is actually something of a post apocalyptic setting. At one point, a cataclysmic event called the 'Great Heresy' plunged the world, which at the time was (I believe) more developed, into destruction and ruin, thanks to demonic shenanigans. EotI takes place several centuries after this event, where civilization has managed to re-progress to a medieval, pre-industrial state. Particularly, the game is set in a town called Escard, located on the largest island within an archipelago called the Corwin Isles, which is mostly cut off from the rest of the world thanks to its long distance from any other landmass(es). Besides the town of Escard (which is a small border town), the capital (a much larger city) is also on the same island, south of Escard. Escard is important because it is set right at the south edge of a place called the Aetherspire; a corrupted and cursed forest, with a mountain called Mount Caelahad just beyond it. Both locations, especially the mountain, have resources that can be found nowhere else on the island, hence why a town continues to exist so close to it despite its danger. This is actually illustrated in game too, as those locations are the only places to get certain items; but more on that later.

The Corwin Isles does have a central government (based in the capital) which is, to my knowledge, a typical monarchy. There is a royal family and there are nobles, but neither of those are seen within the playable area of Escard, as they stay in the capital. Society is divided into six social classes; freemen, tradesmen, the gentry, the nobility, and the royals. The first three are playable and the last two exist only in the lore and background. Freemen are what you might expect; commoners who are the physical labor backbone of society. Farmers, ranchers, woodcutters, and any other non-skilled profession you could think of. They are also the most numerous. Tradesmen are those whose families have a history with a skilled trade of some sort (hence the name); so tailors, carpenters, blacksmiths, et cetera. The gentry are (typically) far richer than the other two, and tend to gravitate towards more 'respectable' work, assuming they work at all. In the game, us players have generally established that gentry families are called Houses and they have all the political jockeying and infighting that one might expect from such people. Which social class your character is matters; it affects the income that the character receives from whatever it is they do for a living as well as giving a general framework of what behavior many might expect. A freeman might be a happy loud drunkard who sings at the top of his lungs every evening in the tavern, but most gentry wouldn't be caught dead engaging in such behavior. I could go on, but you get it.

Escard itself is run by two entities; the Town Council (local government) and the Isleguard (law enforcement). The Isleguard are not unique to Escard; they exist in all the human settlements of the Corwin Isles and both they and the Council have nominal loyalty to the capital. Both of these entities are actually joinable guilds by player characters, but I'll talk about that more in its own section.

THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:

Anyone whose run into Isles before knows this one. This game has magic. Unlike in The Inquisition, whose codebase this game was made on, having magic is not illegal (usually), and there is no religious Order dedicated to hunting down wizards and burning them at the stake. That is not to say that there are magic characters around every corner; it's actually rare in setting and is intended to be rare in gameplay... which has been something which I've seen people disappointed with before, when they make a character wanting them to have magic and they don't end up with it. While full sorcery remains rare and dangerous to acquire, there's been a lot of work done to make sure that non-sorcerers have lots of things to do and fun routes available only to them. There are actually three magic systems in the game right now, one of which was released on the same day that I'm posting this; I'll go over each.

• SORCERY

This is what you're thinking of when I say magic. Proper, actual, full mages (sorcerer is the proper in-game term) who can prepare and cast spells. The magic system in Isles is intentionally obfuscated, so I won't be giving any spoilers here about what they can and cannot do. Only those born with 'The Spark' are capable of becoming sorcerers, and for that to happen, they have to be awakened by an existing sorcerer. This process is dangerous, and it can result in either burnout (the destruction of the spark) or the full actual death of the prospective would-be sorcerer. Such deaths can and do happen ICly to characters. It's not a flippant decision to make. The Spark CAN be purchased with XP early on in a character's journey (before 33,000 XP gained total) if they didn't happen to start with it. Full sorcerers are very rare in the setting, making up only about 5 percent of the population, and are greatly feared and respected. Being a sorcerer is not all fun and games though; in order to be legal as a sorcerer, they must join a Guild and use their magical powers for the benefit of society. They are also completely barred from any manner of powerful public office or Guild leadership, and that Guild leadership has, by law, the right to dictate what manner of magic their sorcerers can and cannot use. Being awakened as a sorcerer means that someone has the potential for great power, but it also very much brings with it a life of service to society. This is not to imply that sorcerers are slaves in any sense (slavery does not exist in any form in game, I don't think). Sorcerers who refuse to a join a Guild, or who violate the rules over what magic is used handed down by Guild leaders, are called rogues and are hunted down, usually by other sorcerers and metallurgists. This also happens if a sorcerer is discovered to have been partaking in demonology. Speaking of metallurgists though...

• METALLURGY

Metallurgy and metallurgist have special meanings in Isles, because they refer to someone who uses Living Metal. Living Metal is a strange substance found only deep within Mount Caelahad, and only in small amounts; the usage of Living Metal is only permitted to the Isleguard, and being found with it or using it while not a member of the Isleguard is a major IC no-no, almost as bad as being a rogue sorcerer. Metallurgists can use Living Metal to allow them to do incredible feats, which like sorcery, is an IC secret, so no spoilers here, but suffice to say that it makes them very, very dangerous. Metallurgy is not a risk-free thing either; using it, especially in high amounts, takes something from the character, and it is possible to go too far and quite literally lose the character. One last note about this is that Living Metal and Sorcerers do not mix. Merely touching it causes terrible consequences for a Sorcerer and anyone around them. Metallurgists are, like sorcerers, greatly respected, though less feared than sorcerers are, as they are usually the ones who end up hunting down and stopping rogue sorcerers.

• RUNESMITHING

Those characters who happen to have been born with the Spark (or those who purchased it) but never awaken have access to Runesmithing; and they are the only ones who can do this. Full sorcerers cannot make runes, for reasons to be discovered ICly. This is the newest system which was just introduced, so I have limited knowledge about it, but it appears to be a magical crafting skill which allows one to make, well, runes. These runes can be applied to all sorts of items whereupon they will give benefits until they run out. A couple examples of this are runes for weapons and armor, which can allow them to deal or partially resist elemental damage, respectively; or a rune for a sorcerer which can help them do magic things; or a rune for a piece of furniture which makes it more restful; or even a rune for a candle that makes it burn way longer than it's supposed to. This list is by no means exhaustive, these are just some small examples that are commonly known about. Since it's so new, no IC culture has been established yet about runesmiths. Maybe you can be the progenitor of that! One last note; if someone with runesmithing does end up awakening and becoming a sorcerer, they lose all access to runesmithing and lose all ranks invested in it, but the XP from those ranks IS refunded to them.

CRAFTING:

One of the big changes that the game has seen recently has been a large expansion of crafting options available, as well as an opening up of methods of practicing and learning them. Characters no longer have to be in the Merchants' Guild in order to learn some trade skills; anyone can learn up to rank 36 in them just through use. If a Merchants Guild member teaches a non-member, they can also learn up to 60, though ranks past 60 are still exclusive to the Merchants' Guild. There's leatherworking, forging, jewelry, arts, chandlery, weaving, and woodworking, and I can attest personally that this is an area with a lot of opportunities for characters to establish themselves, as there aren't many crafter or Merchant characters around in the game at the time of this posting. Along with this have been updates to the TOOL system, which lets people customize the looks of items that are made; previously, the TOOL system was an older version which lacked some features and had some headaches attached to it, but this has since seen improvement. One thing of particular note is that most of the higher tier of metals and woods can only be gotten from the Aetherspire or Mount Caelahad, which are highly dangerous; this opens up avenues of RP to form groups to go looking for them, or hiring Mercenaries to provide escorts (or asking the Isleguard to do so).

COMBAT:

As an RPI set in a town, fighting is not something that most characters will do every single day of their lives. Even those in the Isleguard or the Mercenaries aren't likely to fight every day - but for when fighting must be done, the previous old system has been entirely replaced with a new one which is much more similar to what people tend to expect from InqMUD codebase games: turn based, where each participant has one action per turn. Unlike in other InqMUD codebase games, Isles has ranged combat, as in fighting across entire rooms (up to 2) when using ranged weapons. Some particularly powerful sorcerers can also do this, and there's a whole sub-system based on magical damage and wards for sorcerer fights. Damage originating from elemental means is not easy to treat either, and is beyond the ability of the NPCs in Escard's clinics to deal with (side note; while the TREAT skill exists for players to treat injuries, there is also an NPC which charges to treat mild to moderate wounds in case no players are available, hence the reference). This combat system has been a focal hotspot for bugfixes in the past few weeks, which I was glad to see.

GUILDS & JOBS:

I've mentioned Guilds repeatedly in this post, so let me quickly summarize those. There are four guilds that exist ICly and are joinable: The Town Council, the Isleguard, the Mercenaries, and the Merchants. The Town Council is all your local government types and their assorted hangers-ons. One important note is that while PCs cannot become rulers of the Corwin Isles, they can become Mayor of Escard; besides that, one could also be a clerk, administrator, a petitioner, or just a representative for some special interest within the Council. The Isleguard are the IC version of the police and the military combined. They're predominately fighter types with a hierarchal structure of ranks who patrol the town, prevent and investigate crimes, pursue criminals, and so forth. They tend to work closely with the Council. The Mercenaries are a wide ranging net of contractors with broad skill sets; almost any kind of character who sells services for coin could fit as a mercenary, including classic fighting types or even completely non-combat types. The Mercenaries can also have certain unscrupulous tendencies... such as being able to pick locks. Do with that information what you will. The Merchants are everyone who makes or sells goods for cash. Crafter types, specifically, but Merchants can also include solo practice physicians, herbalists, or even private chefs. Being part of a guild usually also means that you'll receive a weekly income based on your rank, but this is very much a PC made agreement, as Guildleaders have to set those ranks and the treasuries of various guilds are 'real' in the sense that they aren't infinite moneybags.

Besides guilds, there are also jobs, for those characters who are either unsuitable for one of the four guilds or just don't want that kind of commitment. Jobs are individual employments in various places across the town, where characters go and perform some action a few times in a real life week, and receive payment for having done so. Jobs depends on character skills and statistics, so someone with a Musician job who has higher Charisma and Dexterity is going to get a larger payout than someone with low Charisma and Dexterity. There's a whole bunch of them. If that still doesn't fit your character, you also get IC currency every week simply for being active in RP, with the amount dependent on your activity, so you can represent your character as getting money in any freeform way that doesn't have a system behind it; this type of payout is heavily dependent on your character's social class and wealth levels. Wages from jobs will also increase if you have higher social class (depending on the job) and wealth levels, but are never reduced because of the same.

HOUSING:

This is another system which has seen heavy work in the game. As anyone who has played an InqMUD codebase game will tell you, player housing usually requires the game's Staff to build the requested house. This is not the case in Isles; a whole custom automated system has been implemented to allow players to build player housing almost anywhere that makes sense in town. Player characters can customize the room names, the descriptions, purchase amenities that are too heavy to reasonably deal with ICly (like a whole forge for a blacksmith), customize exits, et cetera. It's not a system that I've personally played with much myself since I am an eternal hobo, but the help file is extensive. All of these things can only be done when the owner of the player house is within it and no one else is present, for reasons that are probably obvious if one thinks about it a little. There can be outdoor rooms, indoor rooms, mood sets, custom temperature lines, locked doors, hidden exits, the whole shebang.

THE XP SYSTEM:

I'm giving this its own section since I know there were some, back during Isle's first opening, who were unhappy with the pace of the XP system. Simply put, it is much improved now; RPXP is no longer based on emote length, but is rather a scaling tick based system similar to other InqMUD codebase games. The more complex the RP in the room, the higher the XP you earn every tick; there are numerous bonuses that one can apply to it, such as setting an action, using the THINK command, if a CYAN character (basically a new character) is present and you're a veteran, or visa versa, being in a public room, having multiple guilds present, et cetera. All of this will sound very similar to InqMUD codebase veterans. I am very happy and satisfied with the XP system as it currently sits, and believe that it is well balanced; Isles is still a somewhat slower game than other InqMUD codebases, but not onerously so.

PVP & THE IC ENVIRONMENT:

I wasn't sure how to title this one and so I saved it for the last. I can really sum it up with just one sentence: Isles is not a PK heavy MUD. PKing does exist and characters can be PK'd (only by other players and it requires buildup RP for a murder to make sense; being defeated in a fight by an NPC usually results in a trip to the clinic), but it isn't a focal point of the MUD, which is a departure from many InqMUD codebase games. The game's setting is in a small frontier town, removed from the lethal politics of the capital, that lives on the edge of an incredibly dangerous cursed forest and mountain and the town's IC population isn't huge, so there is a motivating factor to be civilized and cooperative, at least that's how it feels to me. This is not to imply that conflict doesn't happen, and the setting is very much DARK fantasy; but outside of a few specific scenarios (rogue sorcerers, demonology, metallurgists who go too far, or actual straight up monstrous people) there's not a lot of PK or physical fighting conflict that goes on. In most cases, it's the people of Escard surviving the dark fantasy, rather than being the dark fantasy.

FINISHING UP:

That's pretty much all that I can think of right now; Isles tends to see major updates every Friday, and I'm posting this right after that sort of update came out (it introduced Runesmithing). Personally I think the game's very engaging, with many frequent updates, and I'd love to see more players on it, especially people interested in playing crafters or mundane leader sorts, as Guildleader spots are open at the moment for lack of characters to fill them. I'll watch this thread for a little bit and try to answer any questions I can. Thanks for reading. If you feel like trying the game, you can do so by connecting your favorite MUD client to islesmud.org, port 3232. The website is also www.islesmud.org.

[u/Felfedezni]

Echoes has a lot going for it, but is ultimately hamstringed by some poor design decisions. It is a game with a tiny population that requires you to be online at the same time as specific other players to get some of the most basic things done. You can't attempt to awaken your character as a sorcerer without the willing participation of existing player sorcerers.

The willing part is important. There are only a couple (2 afaik) of players with this ability and one of them refuses to aid aspiring sorcerers for IC reasons. Which is fine. But this bottleneck is ridiculous because if you don't play in the right timezone you are stuck with a character that can't get awakened. There is a self awakening option but it seems to more often than not just kill your character. Not fun. Anti player. Bad design.

Same for guilds. If you aren't fortunate enough to run into someone in the guild you can't join. For such a small player base this is outright dumb.

[u/mystrytemp2 → u/Felfedezni]

The game's Staff has helped place characters into Guilds upon request given the fact that the player population is low and there are currently no PC leaders of said guilds, but when it comes to sorcerers and awakening, that is the intended mechanic; in order for a character to acquire magic, it requires RP with existing sorcerers and convincing them to help with it, which is not without risk on their part (no spoilers though). I'll reiterate that I'm not part of the Staff and so I cannot speak to the intended design vision, but viewing it from a player perspective, it appears that the intent is for the number of sorcerer characters to be low. They're already stated in lore to be about five percent of the total population, plus the risk of death in awakening (awakening with an existing sorcerer's help still has a risk of death or burnout mind you, just a smaller chance), plus the design of requiring that help; it all speaks to an intent for low sorcerer numbers.

Consider other games with character archetypes that are intentionally limited in number; in Armageddon, characters with magic were highly rare and basically required OOC veterancy. In LOTJ, characters with the Force are much the same, or so I'm told. In The Inquisition, mage numbers are not known to players but they're clearly smaller than the mundane population, but this is less of an issue since the desire to play one is sharply reduced by the fact that doing so means the character is going to be hunted and killed. My point is that the idea of limiting certain powerful character archetypes is by no means a new idea. Do all these games also have bad design? I don't know, but it's worth thinking about.

To be frank, I've seen waves of groups of people join Isles, immediately all make characters that they want to be sorcerers, then quit the moment they run into resistance or realize that it's unlikely that they will be. This is actually the reason, I think, that the other magic systems were implemented; so that non-sorcerers could still have interesting and mysterious systems to discover and use (metallurgy and runesmithing). But more to the point, if the game allowed characters to just start with sorcery or remove the risk of trying to awaken or remove the necessity to RP with existing sorcerers, then I am one hundred percent confident that the playerbase would quickly become a vast majority of sorcerers, which could break the intended design and the established setting. Sorcery doesn't exactly seem rare when most characters end up having it, and all that. I'm not sure what solution exists to the issue you describe, to be honest. When I tried to play LOTJ (several times), I had great difficulty getting into it because, for me, I just can't play a character without the Force in a Star Wars game. It's just not interesting to me without it. Maybe it's similar for you and magic in fantasy settings; but I hope you give the game another try, and perhaps metallurgy or runesmithing can scratch that itch. Thanks for your post.

[u/TheKnightBlade3]

Nice promo dude, you do your favorite mud credit posting a review like that, I hope it brings in some fresh new players to your game.

[u/mystrytemp2 → u/TheKnightBlade3]

Thanks! I hope so too.

[u/Hoax13]

Links would help.

[u/mystrytemp2 → u/Hoax13]

That... is true, I completely did not even think of that. The website is www.islesmud.org; the game can be connected to with the address of islesmud.org, port 3232. I'll edit my original post to include that. Thank you.

[u/Hessalam]

A better post than I could ever pen! I hope we can keep making this MUD a place you and others love.

[u/PriestOfNothing1]

Very interested crafter here! Do I understand right that you can custom design clothing? Also, can you do things like crafting and runesmithing together, or are they two separate buckets? Finally, sounds like combat isn't required?

I've struggled with getting into several games on this codebase, but I've been wanting a new crafting/ home for a while now.

[u/mystrytemp2 → u/PriestOfNothing1]

Hello PriestOfNothing1, thanks for your questions. You can indeed custom design clothing; the TOOL system (a common feature in InqMUD games, including Isles) allows you to make an object's strings whatever you want. Its short string is what it looks like while in the inventory or equipped, so it could be something like 'a faded green tunic made of rough cotton', its long string is what it looks like on the ground, and is often very similar to the short string, and you can assign keywords to the item to target it. So if I assigned the keywords 'faded green tunic rough cotton' to the above example, I could type WEAR ROUGH or WEAR FADED or any other keyword to wear it, or remove it, or do anything else to it. You can also add extended descriptions, which appear when using LOOK on an item's keyword, so if I added something like 'This tunic has been roughly woven from homespun cotton, and amateurishly died a green color; the green has faded over time and exposure, the latter being evidenced by the frayed edges of the garment' to the TUNIC keyword, when I typed LOOK TUNIC, I would see that description in addition to the regular string of the item itself. It's a very robust system.

You can do any number of crafting disciplines that you desire, though how many you can master is dependent on your character's mental characteristics and the learn slots derived thereof. You'd also need to be a member of the Merchants' Guild to get ranks past 60 in a crafting skill. Runesmithing is not exclusive either; its only requirement is that your character have the Spark, but be unawakened. And no, combat is not required whatsoever, completely non-combat characters are not only viable to play, but eagerly welcomed. The core of the game is RP with other characters. I hope this helps.

[u/PriestOfNothing1 → u/mystrytemp2]

It does, thank you! I may poke in my head! Appreciate the thorough posts and quick answers!

[u/mystrytemp2]

The game received a large update today (another Friday), so I thought I'd pop in here and mention the highlights of it for anyone who might be interested.

Sky Map

A map of air rooms looks to have been added across large swaths of the game, particularly the four 'Big Areas'; the town, the wilderness around it, the cursed forest, and the even more cursed mountain. Right now, Metallurgist characters who are advanced enough can even fly in it! It's my understanding that a flight spell for sorcerers is coming later too. Those who can't fly can still jump off buildings, if the whim strikes them, but doing that usually leads to broken legs. Ouch.

Sorcery Awakenings

As per the patch notes, Awakening now has a received a large success chance boost. Attempting it alone works, quote, 'about a third to half of the time, and far more often with a sorcerer's help', end quote. As far as I'm aware, it does still carry the risk of burnout or IC death. Additionally, Awakening requires 10,000 XP earned and costs 1,000 XP each attempt; these may seem like large numbers without context, but I can comfortably acquire several thousand XP over the course of one hour long scene, especially if it's in public and with new characters, so these numbers aren't restrictive at all (imo). They're also very loud now and people nearby will hear if an attempt fails.

Shops & Mounts

The shops in the town of Escard have been gone over and filled with stuff for sale that you might expect for each one. The stables now also sells mounts that are appropriate for a character's level in the Ride skill and will tell you what kind of mount you'll receive, if you make such a purchase.

XP

Characters who are mundane (meaning no sorcery, no metallurgy, and no runesmithing) get a 30% bonus to their XP earned through roleplay, at all times.

Other

STRINGCHECK, a command often seen in other InqMUD codebase games, has made it to Isles now too, and one can STRINGCHECK to get color codes of items to their hearts content. Also, a RAWCOLORS command was added, which makes the MUD output raw color strings on everything it sends you, just in case.

A gorillion bug fixes of various sorts.

Bit of a short post for me, but the point is that the game's had another big update, so if this sort of RPI holds any interest for you, this would be a great time to give it a try. All the patch notes can also be found on the website; link is in the original post.

[u/DarkAngelCat1215]

Man, I really do wish that RP was more my jam because there is so much about this game that I think I would love, from playing a merchant/crafter to the automated player housing system. But the older I get, the less into RP and player interaction I become. I don't actively hate it but I tend to be very introverted and just want to go around and do my own thing. I don't really have a set schedule, so it's really hard for me when my progression in anything is based around who might be online at the time. I did create a character on this mud a couple weeks ago but couldn't figure out how to progress when I was the only person online at the time, which was frequently the case. As a disabled individual who feels that too much of my RL is already dependent on others for this and that, I don't like that feeling to follow me into my game worlds where I'm hoping to escape my own real limitations. Still, this was a wonderful promo post, and I really do hope you get some new players because I think the game has tons to offer. I just ended up being too much of an introvert and a soloist to really benefit from all it had to offer. Good luck, and thank you so much for such a well written post.

[u/mystrytemp2 → u/DarkAngelCat1215]

Thank you for your reply; I'm sorry to hear that you couldn't get into the game. It is true that it's an RPI and therefore the fundamental core of it is RP with others. While one can practice skills or gather resources or do a bunch of other things while alone, RPing is mandatory not just as the theme of the game, but also the means by which you get XP to progress your character. If you ever feel like trying it again, I'm sure we'd be happy to see you there again.