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[DoomOnion]

Greetings, fellow B12 dwarves. I am here to share with you guys a fairly niche, well-polished little game called Dragon Realms.

"The most complex and highly-developed MUD, evolving since 1996. Advanced combat, magic, & skill systems, unique guilds & races. Craft gear, open a shop, own a home, explore for hours. Hundreds playing in a rich world. Now with F2P!"

Compared to other MUDs, Dragon Realms has a definite edge. It has an amazing combat system. In Dragon Realm's combat, tactical environment takes a great importance as much as your own skills. Here's a quick example:

You assess your combat situation...

You (solidly balanced) are facing a ship rat (1) at melee range.
A ship rat (1: very badly balanced) is flanking you at melee range.
A ship rat (2: solidly balanced) is facing you at melee range.
A ship rat (3: off balance) is flanking you at melee range.

< Moving as a single sinuous force, you slice a longsword at a goblin.  A goblin fails to dodge, failing
miserably.  The longsword lands a devastating hit that cuts deeply into muscle on the right thigh, lightly
stunning it.
[You're nimbly balanced and in dominating position.]
[Roundtime 4 sec.]

Combat is not a mere comparison of skill values and equipment between characters, it has great immersive tone and tactical gameplay in it. You need to time your strike with various maneuvers, and likewise learn to defend and know when and how to find an opening. Frankly it's a bit complicated and can be quite hard to grasp, but once you get the hang of it, you'll love it, especially if you enjoy some good tactics.

Wounds and overall health system is fairly detailed as well. So far, this is on par with DF in terms of simulating wounds. My brief encounter with a mob a few nights back ended me up with a severe bleeding in one of my legs, which I successfully tended. However, there was also internal bleeding which I could not treat, and the wound ended up getting infected.

Just to clarify, this game used to be a subscription based paid MUD, and they still offer a subscription. Unless you subscribe, you are limited to one of the five provinces this game has, and you don't get to access some of the classes such as trader, necromancer and so on. However, this game is still very playable if you feel like its not worth paying for. The province you have access to has the most population and you probably won't feel like you're restricted to something for a long time. If you do reach that point, you probably spent a great time with the game, and wouldn't mind subscribing anyway. On top of that, F2P players gain access to CHATTER system, which is an OOC channel players can use to ask others about how to do things and where to find certain things. You'll want to stay F2P for a while if you are new.

The role-playing environment, in my humble opinion, is downright perfect. There *is* an option to pay for strictly enforced roleplay only server, but so far with my experience with the game I have not found the need to get into that. People generally seem to enjoy roleplaying, and a number of emotes are available as stock commands with adjectives that can be used to further tailor your emotes. This makes roleplaying immensely more fluid, and makes it a heck lot faster since you don't spend 5 minutes to come up with an original, edgy description to your actions every time.  Wizards(Admins) offer PnP style RP enforced events that last for about an hour you can sign up for as individuals or groups. The events permanently impact the game world, so if that's your thing definitely check it out.

From generic Humans to feline folk Prydeans, there are 11 different races that you can choose from. There's a huge community for this game, last time I logged in they had about 500 players online. For more information you should probably check out the wiki.

Summary

* Free to play
* Great combat system
* A huge community (Around 400 to 500 average) and an ample opportunity for RP
** Rolepaly is not enforced, while you are expected to roleplay in public, you may still opt out of roleplay in private (e.g. with friends only) if prefered.
* High-fantasy setting
* Great detail in almost all rooms, items and actions
* (Optional) PvP
* Horses and Jousting
* You can grow beards... even as a Dwarven female
* Lots of active admins, mentors always available to assist you

!!NOTE!! - This MUD is a commercial mud, meaning that is was originally built around the idea of making profit from this product. It's seen a lot of dev time from professionals, and it's only very recent that they turned F2P. F2P features were originally intended for demo for potential subscribers in the past, so they are subject to change.

If we have enough people we might even be able to start a B12 oriented organization in there, who knows!

[wereboar]

25$/month to access a lot of crucial conveniences and content and 50$/month to join the cool-kids RP club? Really?
You've got to be kidding.
I bet this has like 10 people all of whom are devs' friends.

[DoomOnion]

Last time I checked, it was 15$ per month, nothing too much in my opinion. I don't know what you guys think, but nothing really is FREE, especially a commercial product. This game turned F2P this march, so the pricing and odds and ends are still being adjusted it seems.

The 50$/month thing is what I don't understand as well, the page really... emphasizes about how the devs try to keep the 'elite' community small, but as long as they are segregated from the rest of 500+ normal players, I'm game.

I mean, whatever floats your boat. I'd steer clear from the 50 bucks thing, but the rest plays out okay.

I'm going to emphasize this again, probably should put it in the OP as well.
This is a COMMERCIAL MUD, it's been running since 2001 and has had hundreds if not thousands of players paying 25 per month, (now reduced to 15).
It's not a hobby project nor it is run by people who has a day job of their own. So you get the idea.

Edit: Let's also not derail the thread. If you have problems with F2P games that offer options of payment, you should probably start a separate thread somewhere else to discuss the matter.

[Rex Invictus]

I really wasn't impressed with it, I didn't get far but picking up sticks isn't the most riveting experience in the world.

[DoomOnion]

I really wasn't impressed with it, I didn't get far but picking up sticks isn't the most riveting experience in the world.

Stick-foraging to make money is only intended for the newest of the new players. I really hate grinding, and I'm assuming you do too, so if you still play, we should try hunting some things together. Skinning things and selling the hides and byproducts at local tannery is far more interesting.

Ninja edit: I mean what did you expect? You essentially collected firewood for people in the city. Pretty much about as exciting as collecting firewood for Belathor in Skyrim 

[wereboar]

If you have problems with F2P games that offer options of payment, you should probably start a separate thread somewhere else to discuss the matter.

Way to miss my point. Commercial games I have no problems with.
But it's a bloody MUD that costs more than some decent modern MMOs.
And you still didn't answer just how big the playerbase is. What's an average online there?

[DoomOnion]

If you have problems with F2P games that offer options of payment, you should probably start a separate thread somewhere else to discuss the matter.

Way to miss my point. Commercial games I have no problems with.
But it's a bloody MUD that costs more than some decent modern MMOs.
And you still didn't answer just how big the playerbase is. What's an average online there?

Made it pretty clear on OP, most I've seen was 503, least was 393 at 4 am EST