Eternal Lands

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Eternal Lands
Image:Eternal-Lands-Startup.jpg The startup screen of the 1.1.2 client
Developer(s)	Radu Privantu
Version	1.5.0 beta (November 26, 2007)
Released	0.5.7 pre-alpha: Feb 13, 2003 0.8.0 alpha: Sep 2, 2003 0.9.0 beta: Nov 30, 2003
Genre	MMORPG
Mode(s)	Online Multiplayer
Platform(s)	Windows, Linux, Mac OS X
Media	Internet Download
System requirements	32 MB OpenGL 1.2 graphics card
Input methods	Keyboard, Mouse

Image:Gamepad.svg

Video games Portal

Eternal Lands (EL) is a free to play multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) initially created by Radu Privantu in 2002/2003. Though the OpenGL-based client is open-source, the license specifically forbids connecting to the official game server with a modified client.^[1]

1 Gameplay
2 Requirements
3 Critical reaction
4 Spin-offs
5 Notes and references
6 External links

[edit] Gameplay

The setting is a medieval fantasy world, with both historic elements such as medieval architecture and weaponry as well as fictional elements such as other humanoid races, gods and magic. It is currently made of up two main continents; Seridia and Irilion on planet Draia.

Players begin play by selecting the race, name and appearance of their character. Skills, abilities and alignments are generated automatically. There are six races available; Humans, elves, dwarves, gnomes, orchans (half-orcs) and Draegoni (dragon-men).

Image:Eternal-Lands-Char-Creation.jpg

The character creation interface

The latter three races are pay-to-play races; in order to play a character which is one of these races, you have to donate a small amount to the game.

Image:Eternal-Lands-Tutorial-NPC.jpg

The first steps in Eternal Lands

In-game activities include exploring the 36 different lands, improving skills, questing, worshiping gods and socializing with the other players.

[edit] Requirements

A PC or Mac with a 3D-accelerated graphics card and an internet connection is needed to play Eternal Lands, with the software download being free. Eternal Lands currently supports the Microsoft Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X operating systems and the X86, X86_64, IA64 and PowerPC architectures. The game client is open source (under a QTPL-style license).

[edit] Critical reaction

About.com awarded 4 out of 5 stars, praising the game's graphics (considering it is a free game) and realistic crafting and food systems, but found it hard to get the audio working.^[2]

[edit] Spin-offs

There are several games derived from Eternal Lands:

Landes Eternelles^[3]^[4] is a French port currently in development. Although it is architecturally identical to Eternal Lands and shares some of the graphics and other gameplay mechanisms, it has a different role-play approach with different races, geography, storylines, religion and quests. Landes Eternelles is currently in open Beta stage.

Other-Life^[5] is a project that attempts to create a more challenging variant of Eternal Lands. It was started by Steven Wilcoxon (Learner), a server developer of Eternal Lands, and is based on that game's server and client code. It is not released, and is currently only tested by a couple of handpicked people.