Illusia: Quest for the Eternals
In the mid-to-late 1990s, I had signed up to alpha-test a game in development called “Illusia: Quest for the Eternals” which was being produced by Living Mask Productions. It was a tile-based RPG based loosely off the old tinyMUD programming scheme, and was among the first graphical MUDs (Multi-User Dungeons) being created.
Of course, the 2D graphical MUD was vastly overshadowed by the onslaught of a new gaming format: the massively multiplayer online RPGs, or MMOs, which immersed you into a 3D graphical world – but it didn’t deter the creators of Illusia from trying to push forward with their world idea, a land divided by two factions of groups – the ‘light’, human-aligned races and the ‘dark’, vampire-aligned races. 10 playable races in all, and I believe 6-8 overall classes.
I’d become so enamored of my gameplay it inspired me to write, and I posted many of those writings on the game’s writing forum – the Dragon Circlet. That got me the attention of the staff, and eventually I was invited to join the Writing Staff for the game as “Inktomi”, an Immortal within the game (which was code for staff ). Eventually I took over as Lead Writer, but unfortunately by then the game’s end was a foregone conclusion.
I did manage, in that brief time, to flesh out much of the ideas that had preceded my involvement. The races were only loosely defined, little more than a paragraph about each; I’d decided, as a writer, I personally needed more – more knowledge about the race I was playing, their motivations, their history and land. So I began crafting histories for each of the playable races, so that others like myself could then use that information to further define their own characters – and hopefully infuse their own writings with this information.
I’d also decided to add some cohesion to the mythology of the world itself. There were odd non-playable characters scattered throughout the game world, and descriptions of haunted places with no history as to why those places existed. There was a pantheon of Gods, but nothing to give the “religious” a way to show their devotion – or even to understand the beings they’d decided to worship. To that end, I created a primer outlining the gods and mythologies of Illusia.
I wish the game had gone further, and my tenure had lasted longer; I had much I’d wanted to do, and perhaps one day I’ll find the means to recreate the things I’d liked best about the game, for my own ends.
Until then, enjoy the histories and my own personal tales from within the game world.
The more I thought about this, the more I thought this woukd be cool to meet online and just discusd memories of times in Illusia. I am setting up a facebook group for it. If anyone sees this and wants to join, please do so.
It is currently a closed group, under ‘Illusia: Quest for the Eternals’ .
Yeah, Randor@microsoft.com doesn’t work either!
TQQdles™,
Noldor Numbwit
Eternal Testing Newbie
I enjoyed reading all the comments and the trip down memory lane. Good times people, good times. Yes i remember just about all of you lol. Wyde/Nekbyter/AkuTenshi
discovered a clone webpage for old Illusia.com. http://www.sota-gfx.com/portfolio/clients/LMP/html/index.html
Whenever I check Google for Illusia, I always find something called Illusia 2, which has nothing to do with the Illusia I have in mind.
Whenever I check Youtube for Illusia, I always get upset because I cannot find any video about this game. If the time could turn, I would have at least make some videos about it and have something more to remember it by.
By the way, I miss my full set of max agility armor.
Illusia.com has been taken over by some domain seller since it’s expired. Hopefully it will be free again so some of us can register it again and make it a memorial site.
I put in a enquery today to see how much the group wants for it. They are asking 6500.00 to let it go
Blast from the past. It was a great game, which I enjoyed immensely. My main character was “Knapweed”, an elf but I also had a “Hero” called Skwirt.
I carried out some proof reading of the room descriptions and also specialised in discovering and reporting exploits, like the summoned insects dropping gold and getting two, high level MOBs to fight, in order to claim their gear and/or weapons.
Hey all, just saw this and wanted to say hi. I was the server developer and co-founder. Ah the memories. 🙂
This is a blast from the past. I remember playing this with my little brother around 2000-2002. I had a human wizard named Arkan and a Centaur Hawre.
I had a lot of fun. I might pop in if someone restarts it.
Wow, blast from the past. Not sure what prompted me to google illusia, but I agree with a lot of people here, it is great to see some familiar names. Hello everyone!
Most commonly played characters: Shantia, Audiva.
You know, now that my initial fan boy moment is over, I am with Noldor. The community and experience that brought this game together has me thinking about it, even 15ish years later. It would be awesome to see this game resurrected if there was a way.
Anyone wanting to reachout and talk about the old times at Illusia, I will throw an email out there for anyone who may stumble upon this.
Mech_of_war@hotmail.com
The same email I used, way back then. Just throw Illusia in the Subject, the old Filters still exist. Fond memories never die!
Ok Randor, where do I send the check to entice you to resurrect Illusia? -)
I was around towards the end of the game…as a player. I never became a builder like Lady Cal. Nor donated art like Lady Diana. But my ex-fiancee Precious did discover that the correct spelling was “Machicolations”! -)
TQQdles™,
Noldor Numbwit
I still remember playing/building for this game. I always wondered if the maze I built was ever incorporated into the game for testers.
It’s awesome seeing so many names that I can still remember! And Randor, I feel twice-blessed (by Maug!) hah.
It was definitely an amazing community, one I hadn’t seen duplicated with all the games I’ve played since.
Omg This game. I was playing this at like 15 (Lying about my age) Pretty much on it every day after school. I remember so many names from here, sometimes wonder what happened to people. Looking back I was such a dumb kid. I even still have my ICQ (Someplace) That was the cool thing to use back then.
-Cole/Hex
This was a game I remember spending ‘alot’ of time playing. The community was FANTASTIC. I myself miss the old days of it!
Hey folks,
Great to see names that I recognize. I am at Microsoft now. Still have both the client and server source code… maybe I will resurrect our old gaming world one of these days.
Howdy Randor. Never actually saw you in Game. Nice to hear from ya.
Ahhh but did you save the items in the Dragon Circlet? That was gold LOL. I think you owe copies of all my stories as payment for all the times you “Backstabbed” me to test the code. 🙂 Good to see you’re still about
Still waiting Randor…and wondering if that was just an eternal tease! -)
I’ve posted on other sites about Illusia and what Randor said. Hopefully that doesn’t come back to bite me! -)
TQQdles™,
Noldor Numbwit
Eternal Testing Newbie
Member, The Older Gamers (TOG)
I played that game for a while as a member of the DeMaxx clan! Such good memories. I was a Paladin, I think. That’s what I have always been in any RPG, so if that class existed, that’s what I played. It was really mind blowing for me (until WoW came out)!
I would love to see some of the old icons as i made a few of them 🙂
Hit krakken hit krakken hit krakken hit krakken – I loved that game, spend “years” farming those berzerkers, running textscripts to move around, buying gear from the forum, lost everything in the wipe. I would do it again :- )
I need a *like* button 😉
is it possible to get the program to run my own server? Miss the game so much should have at least taken a video on game play
I don’t have any of the old game files, sorry – all the code was kept by Randor & Co., and gods only know where he ended up.
ah I see. I still have the game folder with client, pictures, player icons and the main theme midi. They are the things I look at to recall the old time.
Ditto. Still have the hard drive with those files. Hopefully Randor will restart “something wonderful” -)
TQQdles™
indeed, hopefully. =)
I miss Illusia
Intomia! I have been searching and searching for someone who was there during my tenure @ Illusia! Please if you get this email let’s get together and talk!
Hey not sure your email address is still active, I reached out but got a bounceback. Hope this reaches you!
I played as well under EVOL and Brok.