The setting for Achaea is a sort of combination ancient Greek/Roman and Medieval setting, with lots of Gods and magic thrown in. There are involved and complicated creation myths, and the opportunity for players to make history through heroic or especially dramatic actions.

One of the first questions people often ask is, "Why are there no graphics?" The answer is that while perhaps someday the technology will exist to rival your imagination, it doesn't yet, and won't for a long time. Yes, there are some very large graphical online games, but none of them can even approach Achaea in terms of depth. A similar comparison can be made books and movies. When was the last time you saw a movie that could approach the depth of a good novel?

The thing to keep in mind when logging in for the first time is not to get discouraged. If you've never played a game like this before, it will probably seem alien and overwhelming at first. But don't worry, within a short amount of time, you'll be used to it, and you will begin to have no problem keeping up with the pace of things. After awhile, you'll see the world in your mind's eye, and you'll have to remind yourself that there aren't any graphics!

Below is a short introduction to interacting with the game environment. If you've never played a multiplayer text game before, you will benefit.

Think of the world as composed of three main types of things:

	Players like yourself.
	'Things', which may be items like a sword or piece of food, or computer-controlled characters like a dragon or a blacksmith.
	Rooms

Each letter represents a room, and the lines between them represent how they are connected. Think of them as a two-dimensional map, with 'up' on the page being north. So, you can move east from A to B, and east again from B to C. Or you can move southwest from A to E, and then east from E to F, and east once more to G. Alternately, you could have gone north from F to pass through D on your trek northward to back to A, which is where you started!

In order to move in these directions when in the game, you just type "northwest" (or just nw), "east" (or just e), etc. You may use all the cardinal directions, plus "up" and "down", and "in" and "out".

But how do you know where you can go? What connections (called 'exits') there are from your room to others? Simple. Type 'look' or just 'l'. This will show you something like the following:

The first line, 'Center of Loom Island' is the title of the room. Next comes a description of the island itself, ending with '….your privileged vantage point affords.' What is listed next are the 'things' in the room. In this case, there is a young man in the room. Players are listed next, of which there is only one in this room: Aeyr, the God Of Magic, who is wielding an elemental staff. Finally, there is a separate line showing you what exits exist from this room (in this case, north and south). If you wish to see a quick list of the room's contents and exits without the long description of it, just type 'ql' (for QuickLook).

This is really all you need to know right now. There is about an automated introduction to Achaea that will take you through some of the basic commands, and get you some basic equipment, while leading you through a little adventure in a dungeon, and on some quests for some of Achaea's personalities. You may log in by clicking on the circular 'Play Now' button on the left side of the page to connect using our custom Nexus java client (your browser must support java in order to use it however). If you are unable to connect using the Nexus client, you can view other options here.