Greetings. I'm a fresh Illarionite with less than a week of game experience under my belt, so I figured I might just as well share my newbie impressions here.
How did you hear of Illarion, what made you decide to make a char and play?
An acquaintance of mine, whom I know from Tibia, mentioned Illarion when we were discussing roleplaying and the lack thereof in Tibia. He himself apparently played Illarion 10-15 years ago.
I've been bored of Tibia and disappointed with its development since many years, so when I heard that there's an MMO out there with a focus on roleplay I got intrigued.
I read up Illarion's concept and rules, briefly skimmed over the lore of the land and races, and liked what I saw. I tried rallying some fellow roleplayer friends from Tibia to join me, make characters together and roleplay as some family clan or band of adventurers, but despite some initial enthusiasm no one really followed up on it yet. So I decided to create a character and embark on a solo adventure for now, just to give the game a shot and see what its all about.
What was your first impression whether negative or positive about the game?
The character creator is, for better or worse, very detailled. My character's precise height, weight, age, and birthday are things I haven't even really considered yet.
Deciding upon his attribute distribution without any previous experience wasn't too easy, either. How should I know what's "good"? What if I start as a mage but it turns out that the magic system sucks? What if magic was the way to play and mundane warriors were useless? Only one way to find out. I came up with a rough idea of what I wanted my character to be and tried to set his attributes accordingly. Fortunately I got some helpful advice on the game's Discord server on that matter. Thus Malchus the maceman was born.
Malchus disembarked the boat at the Hemp Necktie Inn's dock, stumbling clumsily across the pier while being greeted by tutorial messages and an NPC's explanatory dialogue. Trying to grasp the janky controls I looked around at the enviroment. The graphics are dated and hardly beautiful, but at least not ugly. Charmingly quaint in a way, reminiscent of some games I played in my childhood.
After picking apples, brewing cider, and squelching rats for the locals, Malchus hurried to get away from the boredom of Tutorialville. Some woman pestered him about joining one of the three ruling realms - Malchus gave her the cold shoulder; He doesn't know any of them yet and doesn't care to swear fealty to some strangers. Instead he settled on remaining a vagrant without allegiance for now, an "outlaw", and to make some forays into the inn's surroundings. After a brief exchange of blows with the local wild(un)life Malchus was repelled by them. Despite immediately bordering the Newbie Inn, these bony fiends were obviously too much for Malchus to handle. He could beat them by chipping away at them one by one, but it clearly wasn't worth the hassle. The castle to the inn's west was supposedly even more dangerous. Fortunately an elven witch showed Malchus the way to Galmair and teleported him shortly afterwards to Cadomyr, where he has been kitted out and instructed by the local Countess Katharina. Malchus spent the following days roaming Cadomyr's countryside, exploring the lay of the land, clubbing the fauna, and collecting raw materials to trade for better equipment with his benefactor.
The world is big, too big perhaps. The number of other active characters can be counted on one hand, and actually meeting one of them is discouragingly rare, as they're either in different towns or maybe somewhere in the wilderness. In fact I never met another player anywhere far away from town. Most of the time it feels like I'm playing a single player game.
Also, despite its age, the game feels very unfinished yet. Equipment upgrades are linear. Your choice of race really doesn't matter outside of rp. From what I read the magic system is apparently still very bare bones, with only rudimentary wand magic and something about glyphs and magic gems existing. Priestly magic and actual spellcasting seem to be planned, but who knows when we'll see them. Apparently the last big update, the VBU, was over a decade ago, which doesn't bode well for me.
If negative, what made you stay? If positive, was that the defining factor that made you decide to stay?
Despite its many flaws I like the game, or at least the concept and ideas behind it. It has everything I missed in Tibia: A focus on roleplay, a nice community, and an intricate crafting system which encourages trade between players. Sadly in a way thats also its drawback; You need other players to roleplay and barter with for resources and equipment. There's no point in doing anything when you're alone. Why bother collecting resources if won't use them in a craft yourself and there are no other players to sell them to? What's the point in crafting items if there are no other players to share them with?
Illarion is a passion project that appeals to a very niche audience, made by a few guys as their hobby with a small, tightly-knit community, and it shows.
Even if there's still a lot of work to be done and few hands to do it, its still a work of love. I like the game and try to enjoy it, but the lack of players makes it incredibly difficult to do so.
What is your most exciting time in game, something that keeps you coming back?
Nothing so far. I enjoy building Malchus up, having him grow stronger in skills and upgrading his gear in hopes that he may one day "matter" in the grand scheme of things. Of course, this goal rests on the hope that there will be more players to interact with, groups or clans to join, allies to cooperate and foes to feud with. I've browsed the forum and got a glimpe of what Illarion's community once was, or what potentially could be - stories of adventure, diplomacy, crimes and punishments. But all these posts are from years ago. Has Malchus arrived too late to partake in all of this? As it stands right now, the idea of Illarion is better than actually playing it.
Do you think you will continue to play and why or why not?
To be honest I don't know if I'm here to stay, it really depends on if the game will become any more lively.
Do you feel comfortable with roleplay, had any experience before Illarion, or feel still learning?
I've been roleplaying for many years now, mostly in Tibia, on forums, or on Discord. I enjoy it and its one of the main reasons why I signed up for Illarion. Of course I'm still getting accustomed to Illarion's "style" of roleplay.
Newer Players
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