The Vast Universe of Materia Magica

• Endless Realm of Adventure: Materia Magica features a huge, totally original, realistic universe (you won't find it anywhere else) - with over eight million locations to explore, as well as remarkable and numerous means of travel, such as horses and dragons, magic carpets, enchanted brooms, powerful worldgates, strange devices of gnomish design, and much more! With seas, jungles, plains, desert, mountain areas and underground, you have virtually unlimited possibilities for adventure. In addition, Materia Magica's visible compass provides information and direction as to where you can go and what might await you there.
• ANSI-based Terrain: We provide ANSI-based, fully colorized, seamless wilderness terrain connecting cities, dungeons, towers, castles, and many other expansive structures (See some Screen Shots to fully appreciate this feature).
• Experience-adjusted Wilderness Encounters: Experience many wilderness encounters solely based on your gaming experience - the difficulty of the world grows with your character allowing you to progress at your own pace.
• Player-controlled Ships: Our shipwrights offer player-ownable and controllable ships that can be sailed across the wide blue oceans of Alyria. Travel the world with your comrades in your very own ship, visiting faraway ports and perhaps even brave the Great Whirlpool to explore the vast stretches of the underground ocean. Live the seafaring life you've always dreamed.
• Sea-Based Combat and NPC-controlled Ships: If you or your clan own a ship (or an armada!), you may want to venture out past the Council-patrolled zones of the Alyrian ocean and seek out adventure on the high seas. Battle pirate ships and sea monsters using cannon and ballistas, and keep fleeing ships from escaping with your harpoon. Recover pirate booty and bounties, but don't forget to stock up on cannonballs and black powder before leaving port!
• More Realistic, Interactive NPCs: The non-player-character (NPC) interactions are sophisticated and elegant. NPCs don't just stand around doing nothing, they continue on with the business of their lives. Players and NPCs interacting with each other take the gaming experience to a new level.
• Unique "Mark" System of Exploration: Participate in our original "Mark" system of game exploration to guarantee an Adventurer's knowledge of the game. Go on a quest to gain the Mark of Fire, so you can pass the Hellbent Mountain guards! Gain the Mark of the Traveller by questing! Search for the hermit that will give you the Mark of Force! Marks are given by the Powers for performing certain tasks or reaching certain levels of expertise, and are an exciting way of measuring your progress.
• Immense Underground World: A rash of earthquakes revealed a vast underground world, complete with dangerous, outcast cities, a central sea, mysterious volcanic caverns, and a ferocious whirlpool. The Great Alyrian Underground, as it has become known, provides a thrilling experience for experienced Adventurers with its many tunnels, caverns, and secrets.

Powerful Combat and Magic Systems

• Unique Formation-Based Combat: We offer cutting edge formation-based combat. As formation leader, move your team members around to achieve the optimal defense of the weaker characters, while putting your strongest characters up front to take the brunt of the attacks. You may place your magic-users in the back of the form so they can blast the opponents with spells, while you take advantage of your short-range weapon in the front of the form. You can aim at a creature's specific body parts and take advantage of vulnerabilities. Try to blast their arm (or tentacle!) with a magical wand or even parry an opponent's sword, or block his deadly fireball with your shield. You can use the default settings with great ease, or customize your combat settings for more control.
• Original Armor Resistance System: We have developed an Armor Resistance (AR) system that reduces damage from attacks based on the stopping power of your clothing and armor, instead of confusing 'armor class' systems that determine whether or not you've been hit (?) taken from commercial RPG systems.
• Customizable Equipment: Many pieces of equipment within the game offer the capacity to hold Relics, which are pieces of Alyria's past that still hold great power. Relics may be combined and bound to these equipment items, offering different attributes and affects. Some combinations of Relics are even known to produce unique magical equipment. While knowledge of Relics and their interactions with other magic is not well known, clues exist in the form of fragments of old manuscripts, books, and other documents dating back to the magical renaissance era in Alyria, when such things were studied by the Druids of Old.
• Equipment Sets: Hundreds of pieces of equipment in the game that work well together grant the wearer additional bonuses when they are worn together. Depending on the set and how many items are in the equipment set, special bonuses are granted based on how many of the items you are wearing at once.
• Bardic Song Magic: The Bards of Alyria possess a unique system of song-magic. Imagine having the ability to actually play musical notes in order to cause changes in the physical world around you. The songs are based not by player level but by difficulty and the instrument on which they are played.
• Druid Elemental Magic: Druids have the power to call upon the elements in their various forms and combinations, and thus invoke or evoke the primary elemental forces of air, fire, water, and earth, as well as the quasi- and para-elements, for powerful effects.

Player-Driven Economy

• Realistic Economic System: Materia Magica has a highly detailed commerce, trading, and economic system. Our bank branches charge fees and provide financial stability. The shops restock themselves from a centralized warehouse instead of having items 'magically' appear in their inventory. Ships and trading ports stock, sell, and trade resources with seafaring adventurers. The supply and demand theory is alive and well here as price decreases and increases are based on item demand and availability.
• Live Auctions: Bid on items put up on the auction block by other players, or place your own items up for bid in this intriguing method of trading items through the in-game IMAIL system, with enchanted auction imps powering the process and making sure your item(s) arrive safely at their destination (for a small fee, of course).
• Player and Clan-Controlled Shops: Journey to the colorful Alyrian Bazaar, where you and/or your clan can lease and run your own in-game shop. Stock it with items, set and adjust prices and "hawking" messages, and enjoy becoming a powerful merchant with this economically-inspired feature of Materia Magica. A whole subculture of Adventuring Merchants has been created, with capitalism as their binding philosophy.

Remarkable Characters, History and Mythology

• Adventuring Races Bring the Game to Life: The player races have fully been developed to include a powerful story behind their creation, and each have their own histories and storylines that become richer and more detailed as time progresses. Watch your character come to life and become a part of the daily activity in the game.
• Balanced Player Classes: Materia Magica has fourteen different Adventuring classes, all of which are well-developed and balanced. We encourage players to select the classes based on their individual personalities, or go for something totally different for a change of pace - the choice is up to you.
• Unique Multiclassing System: We offer a four-tiered multiclassing approach. Feel free to create a character that will be with you for a long time to come allowing you to create bonds with other players from all over the world.
• Unique Skill System: Experience a completely unique, complexity-based skill system, utilizing proficiencies and spells to create and provide more intricate gaming environment. No skill levels - you learn the skill when find an appropriate trainer and obtain the right information and understanding to progress in your chosen Adventuring path.
• Fully-Realized Theology: An amazing theological system brings you further into the universe of Materia Magica, allowing you to explore the cities and temples of the elemental Powers themselves. In Alyria, the Gods do not walk the land, but are amorphous forces that are called by many names across the different races and societies.

Technologically Advanced Server and Game Support

• Moongate Client: Materia Magica is proud to provide the Moongate Client, a Java-based, cross-platform applet that can be run from any browser that supports Java 1.5 or greater. The Moongate Client is designed specifically for Materia Magica and has lots of features, including variable support, key bindings, triggers, aliases, user-definable buttons, visual attribute display, and many more. Settings are also saved automatically to the game server itself, so you can launch the client from any browser and access all your stored information.
• Support for MSP and MXP Sound Effects: If you're using a client that supports the MXP or MSP sound protocols (such as ZMUD, CMUD, MUSHClient, or Portal), you can take advantage of Materia Magica's sound effects support by downloading our free sound packs here and enabling them for use in your client. Hear fireballs explode, worldgates shimmer, and shields block!
• Portal MIP and ZMUD MXP Client Enhancements: If you're using the Portal or ZMUD game clients (or any client that supports ZMUD's open specification, MXP, such as MushClient), you can take advantage of special features such as hit point, stamina, and spell point status bars, text enhancement, HTML links, and much more!
• Support for MCCP 2 (MUD Client Compression Protocol): If you're on a dialup connection (where every byte counts), and/or if your connection isn't as fast as you would like, Materia Magica's MCCP 2 server support can help! If you have a client that supports MCCP 2 (such as recent versions of ZMUD and CMUD), it is enabled by default, enabling you to get a faster connection and use less bandwidth.
• In-Game and Technical Support: Most importantly, we have friendly technical support savants available for email-based assistance when you are having difficulties. We want your gaming experience to be enjoyable. And within the game, we have trained experienced players to act as Guides. These Guides are there to assist both the novice and the more experienced players alike. Adapting to online play is a breeze with our many dedicated Guides waiting to assist.
• Active and All-Encompassing Website: Materia Magica's website offers the widest range of resources available to Adventurers, from the basics such as the Annotated Help Files to the Towne Hall Message Boards, designed to spur community interaction. In addition, Materia Magica's website features player-written guides for subjects as varied as first-class PK to information on specific sets of enchanted items. There's also the Alyrian Chronicle, Alyria's voice for the community and a good source of articles and advice from fellow Adventurers.

... And Lots More!

• Clans and Clan Alliances: Enjoy adventuring more with a group of like-minded individuals? Materia Magica offers an intricate clan system - whatever your beliefs, thoughts, or devotions are, there is most likely a clan to which you can relate. There is even a clan designed specifically for Novice Adventurers, in order to help new players acclimate to the game. Clans can run shops together, own and build Clan Halls customized for their particular needs, and if the clan is set as "PK", they can engage in battle with members of other PK clans outside the domain of normal PK areas. Clans can also join Alliances with one or more other clans, which enables additional exciting features as well.
• Plentiful, Detailed Quests: Do you need a bit of structure and purpose in your play? Try a quest! Journey into the various towns and seek a quest from one of the Lords. Based on your level and experience, receive a quest to honor the Lord and return to gain a handsome reward. While Materia Magica was the creator and distributor of Vassago's Automated Quest Code, used in hundreds of games all over the world, it has taken that original concept much further and turned it into an even more fun, enjoyable way to participate in the world of Alyria and gain rich rewards.
• Integrated Chat Rooms: Need a break? Tired of role-playing? Escape to the Materia Magica Chat rooms, where you can talk with who you want, when you want. With password-protected rooms for secret meetings, you can keep out your enemies and bring your friends closer. You can even relay a chat room through a special custom communication channel so you can play and still chat with your friends at the same time - creating, in effect, your very own chat channel to be used from anywhere in the game! The Materia Magica Chat Rooms are set up to be similar to Internet Relay Chat (IRC) in that you can assign room operators, place bans, kick people from rooms, moderate conversation, etc.
• Capture the Flag Arena: Come join the Capture the Flag (CTF) arena for player groups, clan tournaments and other strategic battles! Want to hone and fine tune skills or your combat strategy? Battle in the CTF Arena! Plan a clan-wide activity or a melee with a host of players of different races, classes and experience, or just play a game with whoever wants to join you. Choose to be on the Red Team or the Blue Team, and invent strategies to recover your opponent's flag in this exciting feature of Materia Magica.
• Casino Games: Feeling lucky? Head over to the New Rigel Casino! Try your hand against your fellow Alyrians in no-holds-barred group-based card games of Draw Poker or Beltane Hold'em. Leave it up to fate by playing the Gnomish Slot Machines, or try a simple roll of the dice with craps. Don't forget to tip the dealer! You can also play card or dice games on your own or with friends by obtaining your very own in-game deck of cards or dice set!
• Alyrian Chess: Test your brain against some of Alyria's best chess masters and play them in a game of Alyrian Chess, Materia Magica's unique adaptation of the classic game that can be played from anywhere within the game.
• Completely Free: This gaming experience is completely free! We exist solely off of non-required contributions from our players, who think that it's the best game around.

This is just a partial list of the many unique things that make Materia Magica one of the leaders in online, text-based, multiplayer gaming. Come experience the Materia Magica universe! Click here to get started.