"An intensive roleplaying game complete with powerful guilds, varied races, rich history, vibrant politics, and a player-driven, ever-moving storyline."
New Worlds Ateraan
is a free-to-play roleplaying Multi-User Dungeon set in the fantastical world of Ateraan with some minor touches of scifi. There's many things to do, guilds to join, places to visit, and people to be (though you can have a maximum of two characters at any one time). Players run the religions and guilds, but their higher-ups are staff members who play royalty and interfere where they feel necessary, which leads to some debate within the playerbase.
This game provides examples of:
- All Planets Are Earth-Like: Somewhat subverted, what with magic and the different sapient races and a few mythological creatures; otherwise, quite similar. Also, for many intents and purposes Teciann.
- An Interior Designer Is You: You can describe rooms in homes and ships, though only those of the Merchant and Trader guilds can implement your designs.
- Similarly, A Homeowner Is You - at least, if you have the funds to purchase a home.
- Anti-Grinding: A borg meter is used to combat grinding. Borging is the practice of running around killing anything as soon as it resets in a room. The game is designed to slow down borgers by slowly decreasing the reward for killings over a time period - if you keep going, you might be shunned and your character is marked as a bloodthirsty killer.
- Background Magic Field: Supplied by the world, Ateraan. Or the cosmos, or maybe the cosmos supply it to the world. Depending on who you ask, you're likely to get a different answer.
- Beast Man: Lykos, felines, and nykos are this.
- Character Customization: Immense levels of this. The code allows nearly complete customization, from all the general ones - name, backstory, appearance, personality traits, accents - to much more, since the game itself is based on roleplay; this results in a wide variety of characters.
- For instance, the available clothing and jewelry is nearly all player-made. There are rules set in place to prevent immersion-breaking items, but there's still a gargantuan amount of text describing all sorts of outfits and garments.
- Similarly, tattoos and piercings are described by players in text, as is the sight, smell, and taste of food. And there's more!
- For instance, the available clothing and jewelry is nearly all player-made. There are rules set in place to prevent immersion-breaking items, but there's still a gargantuan amount of text describing all sorts of outfits and garments
- Character Level: People call them 'lessons'. You get exp from killing stuff, roleplay bonuses, introductions, and coins from varied sources - when you get enough, you can spend them on levels, thereby learning more powers and increasing the health cap. There actually is no known level cap, though known powers do end at 30.
- Crossing the Desert: Complete with sunburn and Circling Vultures in the Thirsty Desert.
- Dress-Coded for Your Convenience: Dahkoar clerics wear black robes with serpents on. Clerics of Waylumi get white and doves. Druids get druid robes, Garrison members get soldier uniforms, so on and so forth.
- Fantastic Racism: Though in a way, it's still normal racism because the skin tone of elves and malor are much of what physically distinguishes them.
- Master Race: Can apply to malor.
- Description of playable races on the game's site: Describes how the different races feel about one another.
- Fantasy Character Classes: Played pretty straight, with guilds rather than classes. Of the North, there's the Garrison members, the Clerics of the Goddess Waylumi, the Magi of the Tower, and the description-writing, economically important Merchants. Hailing from both North and South are the Druids of Ateraan and the Rogues. From the South are the Warriors, the Clerics of Dahkoar, the mystical Shaman, and the Traders.
- Prestige Class: Much lesser-known are the Thieves and Assassins - but shh, we don't know they exist. There's also the Retters, who are pretty much The Paladin of their respective religion.
- Fantasy Pantheon: With three main religions - Waylumi, Nature, and Dahkoar - the global religious conflict is really more balanced than you'd think, considering that the clerics of Waylumi far outweigh those of Dahkoar when it comes to sheer numbers. Waylumi and Dahkoar are potentially Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, while Ateraan is also worshipped.
- Functional Magic: Device magic is used with fire scrolls, ice wands and such, usable by the common man and made by magic. Elemental magic can be used to create elementals who are often used for their extra carrying capacity.
- Elemental Powers: Druids get the most of this, though other magic-users can use the elements, too.
- Gold–Silver–Copper Standard: Plus Crown coins, which are worth ten gold, each of which is worth ten silver, each of which is worth ten copper.
- Good Weapon, Evil Weapon: Played straight, with some white weapons blessed by Waylumi and black ones carrying Dahkoar's aura. Though some would argue the "good" and "evil" distinction isn't much of a distinction at all.
- Made a Slave: One of the options when starting in the South: Made a Slave and Slave Liberation go hand in hand in the game; most Player Character slaves are freed, and it's generally seen more as particularly strict indentured servitude with a Slave Collar and all that. The story is different for the NPC slaves, though.
- Non-Player Character: Plenty, running the gamut from boring Red Shirt Mooks to prestigious noblemen with extensive background and dialogue.
- Place of Power: Various locations within the game are this.
- Player Character: All main characters of players, though there are some that can be controlled by a player - such as pets - that usually do not truly count as characters in and of themselves.
- Player-Generated Economy: Merchants and Traders play a large role in controlling the economy, with some side-businesses as well.
- Religion is Magic: For clerics of Waylumi, Dahkoar, and Ateraan, this is true. Their 'spells' are known as 'prayers'.
- Scenery Porn: The only way to portray location is through text, so this is generally used well,
- alongside Scenery Gorn.
- Shades of Conflict: Black is the color of Dahkoar, White is that of Waylumi. Played straight.
- Weird Moon: Ateraan has two moons.
- What the Hell, Player?: Trying to tell yourself things results in "Talking to yourself again. I don't know." while using a special attack power on yourself triggers "You can't attack yourself!"
