Used to! Still live in the northeast out in the country, but now I have a dedicated T1 line. It's wicked expensive (figure about 5-8 times as much as a DSL, for about the same speed) but it's here, it works, and it's a joy. My ping times are down in the 100ms range! Wheeeee!

A grouchy old man, who use to play a character named......Xavius, a member of Blacktalon. However, he no longer does and last I had heard he was playing an alt somewhere.

The Xavius is a lie.

You should always assume that I concurrently play 22 alts, each with a position of minor power.

But together they form.... CAPTAIN GRIEFER

Last I read about you they still haven't put it in. So, when does the griefing start?

What stops gedulah from working?

Being off EQ or balance. No afflictions stop it currently, IIRC.

I hear a lot that Lusternian combat is more complicated than any other IRE. Can someone list the major differences between say, Lusternian and Aetolian combat?

Maybe it already has and it just hasn't been discovered yet!

(or maybe it has to wait for my real life to ease off a little so I can start training...)

Deepwounds and Ego are the biggest differences. I'm also pretty certain that no other IRE game has setups like Astrology spheres or Inquisition.

Power is another big difference.

Ack. How could I forget that. Yeah. Power is a HUGE difference. Compare Judgement between Lusternia and other IREs. In Lusternia, not only does it look far cooler, but you can't spam it because it costs power, while other IRE judgements cost nothing.

In terms of user-end difficulty, it's mostly the number of balances, the amount of overlap between those balances, the sheer number of afflictions, and the different mechanics by which said afflictions are generated.

Three forms of aeon, anyone?

Deepwounds, vessels, ego, power, three types of aeon, five billion different balances, twelve billion possible buffs, masked afflictions out the wazoo, stances, sheer number of afflictions, cleanse, manual responses required against some classes (eg. escaping Infidel or Choke), idiosyncrasy of certain mechanics (eg. you can apply regeneration to multiple parts at once, but not multiple times to the same part), high entry barriers...

So does this mean if you're competent in Lusternia pvp you'd do great in other IRE pvp? >_>

Probably just have an easier time getting into combat and learning to cure.

Depends. How do you feel about a low-xp crawl to level 100?

Depends on the game, I think. It flows rather differently in some of them. I also find combat in the other IRE games to be vastly less interesting than Lusternia's, which is the reason I keep coming back to Lusternia; there's just nothing else like it. I suppose shallowness is the price you pay for simplicity.