Any Dragonrealms or Gemstone players here?

Cafe Society
1

Lots of people talk about Everquest being there addiction but Dragonrealms platinum has been my mega text addiction.

I’ve tried Gemstone a few times but it seemed really different but nonetheless still a text based game going strong today.

My favorite part of Dragonrealms is the text descriptions of hits. Forget about numbers I want to know about that apocalyptic hit to the groin. Or the flea trap that just got out and it torturing me with its antics.

So anyone else around here play? How about in DR plat? Excellent roleplay on that server, plus they’ve basically redefined the tog race on that one and written an entire unofficial history of togs, almost all done by one person playing tons of togs. Of course the new foraging system threated the turnip economy of DR plat. :smiley:

In plat, Togs love Turnips so much they were accepting them for services, but now everyone can forage for them so they have to try to redefine the quality issue of found turnips.

2

I used to play Gemstone III back in the days when AOL went from charging by the hour to monthly, and before GSIII started charging to play. That’s where I first used this screen name in fact!

They just introduced GSIV, so I got a trial membership. It’s pretty darn cool.

3

DR II is coming out some time next year. They plan to update the base code so they can put in many newer cooler things.

4

Oh. My. GOD.

Like Phnord I was a Gemstone III addict back in 1995-1996, when AOL was charging hourly… and I racked up $400/month bills playing GS3 every garddomned night from the time I got home until three or four in the morning.

I was bored one night, and logged on AOL looking for a game to play. The graphic client for Neverwinter Nights wouldn’t run on Mac, so I tried this thing called Gemstone…

And discovered that it was almost completely based on the rules of my favorite RPG, Rolemaster, and set in ICE’s Shadow World. And it turned out that Rolemaster was nearly perfect for a computer RPG - too unwieldy on paper for many folk, but ideal for a computer DM to calculate hits and resistance rolls and such.

I was immediately hooked.

And then, the very next week, “The Conversion.” It seems that the Gemstone company, Simutronics, was using the trademarks and copyrights of the Rolemaster publisher, ICE, without permission… so they shutdown the system and renamed EVERYTHING…

People were pissed… many understood, but a lot were angry, and left. Others complained but they were too hooked to just find another game. I was a newbie still learning, so I just roleplayed.

And that’s another thing. Roleplaying. When I created my first and best character, Tuileon, the peak server load during the busy hours was about 50 people. That’s no typo… fifty. The server would regularly bog down if the number of players got much higher than that. Everybody knew each other, and people actually roleplayed.

By the time I left, when AOL switched to flat rate and I could never get anything but a busy signal, peak server loads were around 3000 people. Gemstone was a completely different game then, replete with PKs, campers, kill thieves, just total weenies and munchkins that ruined the game experience… the oldtimers retreated to areas that newbies couldn’t manage, but it still wasn’t the same.

The town square, which used to be a peaceful place to relax and rest to absorb experience (a unique rule that encouraged roleplay) got so crowded that you couldn’t hold a conversation with someone… so many speak messages would fly across the screen that your partymate’s text would be lost in everyone elses, and fly by.

That’s about the time when Dragonrealms was launched. I played for about three weeks, but didn’t like the skill system. It required far too much repetition, and was just begging to be abused by people with bots and macros. But the combat system was awesome.

I left Gemstone behind when I couldn’t log into AOL for weeks, and when I finally got back on, I discovered that my character’s stats had been reduced. They had a rule that atrophied unused character’s stats, and I hadn’t munchkined my stats up to all 100’s like a lot of folks, so my poor thief was nearly useless…

I left in disgust.

I miss picking locks on treasure boxes, though… that was the funnest part… I got really good at that, and could open nearly anything.

I miss setting off the fire cloud traps, too, though… :wink:

5

Man, I started playing GS when it was on AOL and my account is STILL active. I have a DR account, too. I don’t play as much as I used to, but it was so much fun back in the day.

6

I also played Gemstone III back in the $3 an hour days… 'course, I was twelve years old and unemployed, so I usually just played for a few hours a week. I really loved that game, and had a lot of friends and good times to remember from it. Mostly I remember killing rats and healing scrapes and bruises in the healing tent. Good times, good times.

I quit after it wasn’t free anymore, partly because twelve-year-olds don’t have credit cards.

7

I’m Granita Smithdott, 52nd level dwarven weaponmistress, Master of Voln, Warrior Guildmaster (master of tackle and warcry). Right now I’m hanging out in an elven city that I can’t pronounce, but my husband likes the hunting here. We very rarely hunt around the Landing any longer, because of the aforementioned weenies and munchkins. My husband, Telagan Vangauri, is an empath, and on the rare occasions when he does try a rescue, he’s disgusted by the vultures around the landing. He rarely sits and heals at a node as most other empaths will do, he says he did enough of THAT when he was lower level.

I’m somewhat pissed about the recent level compression scheme. I’m trying to adjust to it, but it’s hard.

It would be nearly impossible to play GS on paper and pencil…but it’s very well suited for computer play. We do get some lag at times, but it’s gotten better.

I think that I pay about twelve bucks a month for unlimited time in GS, which I think is a fair price. I get a lot of enjoyment out of it, particularly since I have problems making it to facetoface roleplaying games.

8

I played Gemstone for about a year (as Lynn’s Granita’s nephews), and found it very enjoyable… but the continual rules upgrades for wizards and rogues became too confusing.