Nothing But Alter Aeon (AA)

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What is AA?

• If you don't know the answer to this question, then you've never come looking for us on a weekend where we were hidding from everyone...
• No - AA is not Addictions Anonymous like the name implies
• AA, short for Alter Aeon is a multiplayer real life simulation combat fantasy oriented game where a player can have as many characters as he or she wants as long as the characters are played one at a time.
• For someone like me who grew up and spent most of his life playing AD&D second edition, AA is Heaven on Earth. It is a quasi-perfect adaption and modification of dungeons and dragons 2e that millions of game masters have ever dreamed of coming accross or creating
• The owner of the game, Dennis Towne, called Dentin in the game, developped the game as computer science masters project in college. The aim? To create a fun game that blind people can play with non-blind people and at the same speed. He succeeded.
• AA is technically a MUD (Multi User Dungeon)
• AA is a completely text based game - not without visuals however - which inherantly makes it a game with many more options then one where memory has to be alloted to pictures.

Why AA?

• The game is completely free and non-profit
• People who donate money can not get a direct advantage over people who do not give money (they can get more space in their bag or a cooler looking description when their person enters a room but nothing that gives them an edge on other players)
• Gods are not people who have reached high levels (like other MUDS) but people who have significantly advanced the game and showed integrity
• The game has literally hundreds of commands / skills / spells / ways of doing things
• The more you learn, the more it feels like a better and different game
• AA is the only game online that has a person blind in real life as a God (admin) of the game - and he's good at it too !!
• You learn something new about the game every day
• The quests and areas can be very challenging
• The options to deal with any situation are numerous
• You play everything at once (mage cleric thief warrior) but you can only develop one class or one skill at a time
• The game encourages teaming (like you get more experience for healing others, experience for saving someone from getting hit, etc.)
• When you play, you can't tell the difference between someone who is blind in real life and someone who is not
• Over 50 thousand areas and increasing !
• Areas and equipment are well play tested before they are released
• Because combat is largely based on what you type and that is executed immediately, the fights seem to be real and happening as you type. This really gives a feel for live combat and spell casting and literally brings your mind into the world in question.
• The personalities of players in the game add to the fun and the scenarios (see socialites and assholes section below)
• Although the number of players is gradually increasing, there is a limited number of people playing the game and for years to come you will feel some sort of "ownership" of the game as a player
• No matter what your starting typing speed is, this game will Definately increase your typing speed !!
• The main god of the game (Dentin) - its creator - is a very fair minded person.
• A way point system was created to allow you to go from one safe recall place to another once you "pray" there. In this fashion your list of recalls is the unique numbers in which you found them and prayed at them.
• There is absolutely no limit to how many people can be on a team. So if everyone logged on decides to get together into a huge team, more power to it !!! (And this has happenned before...)
• You are mostly protected from player killers. If you do not flag yourself as either a temporary killer (one session only no lost or gain of experience) or as a permanent killer (criminal that can only kill other permanent killers), then other players can not attack you !!! The game will refuse to let them attack you. There are ways around this but someone can get their account frozen or deleted for killing a non pk. The gods don't play with that at all.
• Killing others players,even when done legally between two parties who agreed to it, is still seen as criminal action. So for example, if you kill too much store keepers won't sell you stuff anymore, the gods refuse to recall you to safety when you request it, you can't rest in peace in case another killer is around, people you need to talk to for deeds (quests) don't talk, etc. Bottom line: going permanent player killer gives those something called Bad Karma in the game.
• A donation system exists in 2 rooms (and soon to be 3) where players who do not want items can donate them. And the items are automatically sorted into the system of those rooms - for other players to get the items and information about them.
• Players who reach the top level of 32 in all of the 4 classes still constantly play !!! That tells you about the game right there. Some quests even unlock only when you are QUAD 32 (32 everything)
• The teaming system allows for people of any different levels to team together without penalties - unlike other games. And actually the game itself gives indirectly more experience to high level players helping out low level players. It this fashion Dentin created a game that is a win-win scenario.
• The game is ever improving - both in amount of places and creativity of areas and also in new features and spells and skills gradually added in the fullness of time

Who the Game is NOT for

• The game is not for you if you like repetition with no meaning
• Its not for you if you are a max/min type player who is only about hack and slash (although you could still play)
• Its not for you if you dont like depth of game or scenario. For example, World of Warcraft (WOW) is seen as a very shallow game by AA players
• Its not for you if you dont like trying different ways to overcome an obstacle
• Its Definately Not for you if you cant see past the fact there are no graphics in the game.

Connecting to AA

• Simple connect client
• Better connect client (with "cancel actions in progress" feature and also auto-map feature)
• I prefer Dentin's second (better) client but I recommend learning the game with the first (tiny) one. Why? So you learn to type your way around and do things instead of learning to press buttons which will get you killed sooner or later. Go with the fast way - typing abbreviations (see some abbreviations in section below)
• Note: Most players connect via other ways such as gmud or zmud programs. Some computer savvy players of AA such as Myst created their very own program just to log into the game with and made those programs available to other players as well. To get on start on Myst's client click here.

Game Links

• Who is on? Right now !!
• Potions Recipes (50 selected by game admins - submitted by players)
• Player Clans
• Skills and Spells (all are not listed believe it or not)
• Recent Changes
• Social Commands (also called emotes)
• Game Commands (stuff yrou character does within game play)
• Socialites (top liked players)
• Assholes (top ignored or channel banned players)
• Quests (See section on QUESTS HELP on this site)
• Gods (these are all played by real people with the exception of email)
• Random Help Generator (that's one of the ways to learn new stuff)
• Rules of Game Conduct
• Game Areas (Yeah right ! There's a ton more then those listed - a good start though...)
• Player Lookup (On or offline)
• Who lost the most experience since the game started?
• Game's Stores and Player Shops

The Battle of Good vs. Evil

• In theory, going evil will get you better weapons whereas going good will get you better armor.
• In practice I still don't know where all these bad ass weapons and armor are - after years of playing the game
• However, in practice still, evil aligned players tend to be very verbal and soloers at high levels. Good aligned players tend to team more and help out beginners more.
• Also, evil players tend to keep cool game stuff secrets and get mad when good players share them. In general, good players donate more though stuff donated is generally of medium value (of course)
• The fight of good vs. evil is present in the game with opportunities for both sides. It is also present in players.
• Here is a great example that also shows how creative the game can get: A good aligned player once had it with the evil aligned ones. The main town being the city of Ralnoth, he decided to quarantine the evil players by summoning Ents (yes the trees from lord of the rings) to every one of the 13 ways in and out of the city. You see a single Ent is hard to beat and attacks evil on sight - called AGGRO towards evil in the game. Well this guy summoned and positionned not one, but many, Ents at each entrance. All the evil players were stuck either inside or outside of the city of Ralnoth but no going through the 13 gates. As a result of this action, the game coders made it to where no one can summon that particular creature anymore - the Ent.
• Here is another example: A rainbow case is a container so big that even a player could fit into it. Well eventually evil players were sneaking illegally other players into clan headquarters, into safe areas, etc. As a result the gods struck again and made it to where a rainbow case containing a player can no longer be picked up. One can still use them to sleep inside of it safely - provided no monsters around pick up the case!
• In game terms, some quests (called deeds / see below) are either good or evil but not both. In essence it is the same process but you have to chose a side. For example, when a priest tells you the key to the church's lock box is missing and you find the key, you can either get a good deed called "returned the key to the lockbox" or get an evil deed called "stole the churches meager donations". But you can not do both !
• Some spells depend on good and evil. For example Ward Evil will try to kick out of the room and prevent from entering all evil aligned creatures. Or detect evil will do just that: detect who has an evil aura in the room. You can also casts spells to conceal your alignment (many possible reasons for that).

Socialites and Assholes

• These two terms can be very misleading but in general they are not
• Socialites are people that have the most other people listing them as friends on their list
• Socialites are said to be able to gather the biggest groups of people in the game, but don't like their time to be wasted.
• Assholes are people who have the most other people listing them as ignored on their ignored list and/or people that have been banned from many player channels
• Note: In the perfect world of AA that Dentin created there is a way to ignore people harassing you to where you do not get messages from them anymore. Unfortunately people simply log on to another character to try to keep harassing you. This can be a great advantage to you because you quickly learn who is a multi (other character) of who.
• Prime Example: Of the 50 asholes, about 10 are the same person. He is hated by even several gods, has had one of his characters flat out deleted for killing another player who was not flagged pk, etc. Some of his characters are Porom, Rydia, Ryuzaki, Chocobo, Oink, Vivi, Alton, to name but a few. Let me tell you about my very first encounters with this guy and how he plays a role in the fun of the game being the asshole (rightfully tagged as such) that he is. As a newbie (beginner) I was working on a quest to put the soul of a king to peace and rest. It was labyrinth where one key led to a room where the guy had another key that led to another room where the guy had another key, etc. Well Rydia (the a-hole in question) got me to team with him by saying he needed to do the quest too. As soon as I slept, he left with the key we had just obtained - left the area - and I had to wait about 20 minutes for the area to repop. It did not end there... the next day someone got on a chat channel to say that they were stranded in an area with skeletons and zombies and could not recall (get to safety) from there. In effect, that quest is in a tomb where you have to walk out before you can recall. This poor soul did not even know how to open a door in the game yet or scan for one. I knew it was Rydia who had led the guy there and I went to save him. Rydia's asshole behavior made me a hero to this person who started the game but a single day after me!!!
• Socialites and Asshole ratings are not always accurate because people can create multiple accounts to increase the ratings either direction. It is also largely politics: someone tells his friends "yeah that guy is cool" or "I have this guy on ignore cause he did this or that". To show how political the system is, my main character - an orc named OUCH - was both top socialite and number 3 asshole within the span of a few days.

Screen shot of Ouch as top socialite (also became number 3 Asshole a few days after) / Shows the political background to social ratings in AA.

Game Play / Abbreviations

• The game has some sort of dictionary feature that automatically picks up your abbreviation and matches it to the nearest existing word/skill/spell/command/emote etc.
• My goal here is to list enough abbreviated commands to get someone started pretty quick

Moving and searching abbreviations

• n (north) s (south) e (east) w (west) ne (northeast) nw (northwest) se (southeast) sw (southwest) u (up) d (down) are all commands that will get you moving around very fast.
• l (look) scan (scan) search (search) are commands that will help you see what is in the room you are in and rooms around you. Note: scan will reveal rooms on automap. Some areas are not scannable though. You can use look to see a neighboring room's monster/people presence. l n (look n) for example.
• Map (map) will show you a map in text base of what you have already explored or scanned. This map shows you also sometimes passages that scan or search did not reveal. You can also see the nature of rooms visited (waypoint / road / forest / ocean / building / ruins/ deep forest / mountain / cliff / etc.)

Who Commands

• The WHO commands show you who are in the game and who are logged on to channels. Here are a few who commands you can use:
• Who / Example: who. You will see a list of people currently in the game. Note however people hidding or invisible will not show on the list unless you know detect invisiility etc. Also not that people in another realm of existence, like the elemental plane of ice, will not show either. They will only show to people in the same plane
• Who gods. Shows gods currently on
• Who followers. Shows you people of your religion in the game that are on - fellow worshippers
• Who friends. Shows you people on your personal friend's list who are on
• Who lo. Shows you all the people on whose names start with lo / another example: who art - will reveal all those whose names start with art
• Who - (minus sign). Shows you a ton of info you can find useful or not. Like how many players of each alignment and level types etc.
• Groups -who (groups dash-and-who). Shows you current groups of players teamed together that are visible and exactly who is in the group. This command will show you even people you are ignoring so its a fair warning to you not to team with the team you are interested in.
• Channel who [channel name here]. Reveals who is currently listening to a given talk channel. For example: channel who xp
• Please note the WHO command reveals players with all four of their classes' level ranks (numbers from 0 to 32) and with whatever titles the players themselves decided associate with their names.

Grouping and team play

Combat Commands

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