A Concerned Moon Mage

Subject:	DragonRealms Goal List
Time:	8:28 pm.

QUESTS
# At least one new Quest
# One large scale, competetive Event (a la Droughtman's Maze)
# One Auction
# One Festival
# Continued Storyline Development of Event-Driven Post and Pre-Title rewards
# Expansion of Player-held "Positions of Importance" (Political, social, etc.)
# Development of reusable "Prop Driven" Events (AKA Task/Job System "Go find 15 of X items and take them to So-and-so.")
# Savage Fight Nights - ONGOING
# Minimum of Four Calendar-posted Events per month
# At least six Queen's and six Prince weddings/parties offered per month

GAMEWIDE SYSTEMS
* Additions to Substance System (More Foragables, New Createables, etc.)
* Combat and Magic Damage Review
* Addition of Metals and Minerals to Substance System
* New Special Attacks and Combat Moves
* Lottery
* Pawnshop Updates
* Order Halls - System to design and construct Order HQs
* Forging Re-write - ONGOING
* Fletching Re-write
* Skinning Re-write
* PLAY/SING re-write
* Instrument Updates
* New RECALL abilities
* New Premium LTB System
* New Premium Tracking System (Cumulative Premium Time)
* New Armor Types (Cloth and Bone)
* Muspar'i Updates - Phase I RELEASED
* Ship-to-Ship Naval Combat
* Survival Skills Survey
* Addition of New Types of Ocean Encounters for Player-Owned Ships
* Feature System Rewrite (Enhanced Character Descriptions)
* SHIFT Re-write
* Lockpicking Re-write
* Disarm System Upgrades
* New and Improved Shops
* Rossgallan Keep
* Riverhaven Updates
* River Elf Village

GUILD-SPECIFIC SYSTEMS
* Khri Re-write (Thieves)
* The Warehouse (Thieves)
* Anatomy Charts (Empaths) - In QC
* Additional Protects (Paladin)
* Auras (Paladin)
* Glyph Review and Technical Upgrades (Paladin)
* Nature's Pool (Ranger)
* Meditations (Barbarian)
* Custom War Paint (Barbarians)
* Warhorns (Barbarians/Bards)
* New Screams (Bards) - ONGOING
* Hirelings (Traders)
* New Commodity Pits (Traders)
* Songbook Updates (Bards)- RELEASED
* Elemental Attunement ability (Warrior Mages)
* New Elemental Arcana skill (Warrior Mages)
* Elemental Barrage (Warrior Mages) - RELEASED
* Familiar and Talisman changes (Warrior Mages)
* Spellcasting Familiars (Warrior Mages)
* Aethereal Pathway quests for abilities 5-8 (Warrior Mages)
* The Ways (Moon Mages)
* Predict Weakness (Moon Mages)
* New Enchantments (Moon Mages) - In QC

MAGIC
* Comprehensive Spell Reviews For
+ Clerics
+ Bards
+ Paladins
+ Warrior Mages - Ongoing
o "Spell vs Agility" Spell Review
o "Spell vs Spirit" Spell Review
o Cambrinth FOCUS/CHARGE Updates - Final Stages
o Cantrip Overhaul (Warrior Mage)
o New Spells to Include:
+ Rutilor's Edge (Paladin)- Final Stages
+ Hands of Justice (Paladin)
+ Heavy Hands (Paladin) - Final Stages
+ Harm Horde (Cleric)
+ Flames of Ushnish (Cleric)
+ Eylhaar's Feast (Cleric) - In QC
+ Resonance (Bards)
+ Siren's Call (Bards)
+ Breath of Storms (Bards)
+ Harmony Enchante (Bards)
+ Syphon (Warrior Mage)
+ Anther's Call (Warrior Mage)
+ Aegis of Granite (Warrior Mage)
+ Mark of Arhat (Warrior Mage)
+ Telekinetic Aura (Moon Mage)
+
Mirror Wraith (Moon Mage)
+ Mind Shout (Moon Mage)

ODDS AND ENDS
* Item Registration - Final Stages
* Last Name Mechanics - Final Stages
* Enhanced Renown Scrolls and Guild Registries - In QC
* Justice and/or System Updates to Handle Deportation, Exile, or Incarceration
* Title System Phase II
* Encoding/Enciphering System
* Lots of new Library Books
* Scribing
* Text Book System Phase II (Player-written text books)
* Redesigned Item Bonding System
* The Prydaen Hub
* New Wedding/Party Area
* Five New Magic Item Types
* Mechanical Lore Split
* Necromancer Guild
* Province 5
* Elothean Houses

MAYBE, MAYBE NOT
* Bit-Based Experience
* Graverobbing Overhaul
* Creature Trading System (Trading WITH Creatures...not Trading the actual Creatures themselves)
* Mining
* Gold Panning (Phase I)
* Gnome Village

Commentary: Yeah, right.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Raw Utilitarian Analysis: The Most Useless Moon Mage Spell
Time:	9:43 pm.

The common sense answer to the question of The Most Useless Moon Mage Spell is simple: Dazzle.

How true is that analysis, really?

Lets take another look at candidates.

1. Dazzle
2. Unleash
3. Piercing Gaze
4. Clarify Gem
5. Focus Moonbeam

1. Dazzle - For any combat situation, use Mental Blast instead. Any mana you use on this spell in combat is completely wasted. A core spell for Enchanting (Enchanting may be a horrid system but is nevertheless something that Moon Mages grow into and should use for training).

2. Unleash - Esoteric but potentially useful main function, unfortunately weighed down by unnecessarily harsh penalties. A core spell for Enchanting.

3. Piercing Gaze - A terrible spell that exists in order to offset pointless throttles on Moon Mages.

4. Clarify Gem - Esoteric but potentially useful spell.

5. Focus Moonbeam - A terrible spell that exists in order to offset pointless throttles on Moon Mages (future upgrade / cantrip of Shadow Scribe may make this marginally useful. The spell still needs to do something in and of itself, such as the planned spell idea of Avren Aevararaeraerae.)

As we can see from looking at the list here, we're looking at two categories of spells: Unique (to a greater or lesser degree) spells with esoteric functions, against spells designed to reduce throttles on Moon Mages. In a raw calculation of CPD (Casts Per Day), the unique-esoteric spells are always going to lose out. However, in any situation in which these spells are cast, the UPC (Utility Per Cast) is arguably greater for the unique-esoteric spells than the throttle-removing spells, whose utility is strictly limited in that it only allows the use of other powers (but do not grant much, if any, in and of themselves). We should probably note that, to the extent that the usefulness of any spell vested in the Enchanting System, it is functionally equivalent to a throttle-removing spell. So a simple dichotymous relationship does not actually exist due to multiple functionalities that may exist within a single spell.

Let's examine the spells again, with two questions in mind: What is the benefit and what is the cost for using the spell?

1. Dazzle - Benefit in Combat: Penalize self. Benefit in Enchanting: Remove Throttle. Cost: 1 second tier spell slot.
2. Unleash - Normal Use Benefit: Utilize scrolls in unique way. Benefit in Enchanting: Remove Throttle. Cost: 1 post-20th circle spell slot).
3. Piercing Gaze - Normal use Benefit: Train Astrology / Use enchanting. Cost: 1 second tier spell slot.
4. Clarify Gem - Normal use Benefit: Increase gem profits by 30-50%. Cost: 1 (second tier?) spell slot, benefit/time-to-use.
5. Focus Moonbeam - Normal use benefit: Remove throttles. Cost: 1 spell slot.

If we're looking only at these five, we've got a tie. However, lets look at some more:

6. Imbue - Normal use benefit: Remove throttles. Cost: 1 spell slot.
7. Whole Displacement - Self-cast benefit: Attempt to stay out of melee combat. Cast other benefit: Penalize self. Cost: Fourth tier spell slot, level 15+.
8. Ripple - Benefit: Area of attack spell. Cost: No treasure, fifth tier spell slot, no snap-casting.
9. Thoughtcast - Benefit: Send a few characters of text to a player whose IM name you do not have yet. Cost: Fifth tier spell slot (Requires: Seer's Sense->Locate->Clear Vision + Hypnotize)
10. Moonblade - Benefit: Penalize self (aka, create a subpar, short-duration, non-sheathable weapon 75% of the 0.01% of a time in which you do not have access to a normal weapon). Cost: 1 second tier spell slot.
11. Steelstar - Benefit: Penalize self (aka, everything bad about Moonblade but worse). Cost: 1 third tier spell slot.
12. Aura Sight - Benefit: Imperceptible, short-duration bonuses to Power Perception and Enchanting. Cost: 1 second tier spell slot.

The winner so far? Steelstar. The runner-up: Thoughtcast. After that: Moonblade. After that: Aura Sight.

Judge's prerogative: A dark horse candidate, Starlight Sphere.

No matter how useless Thoughtcast, Moonblade, and Aura Sight can often seen, they, in a raw CPD/UPC analysis, come out better than Starlight Sphere. Starlight Sphere is the magical equivalent of a Moonblade, in that Starlight Sphere is worse than every other attack spell in a Moon Mage's arsenal, and a Moonblade is worse than pretty much any other weapon a Moon Mage could choose. In sheer uselessness, they are matched evenly, but the cost of Starlight Sphere is much greater because it requires 40th circle, a quest, and a third-tier spell slot.

For that given cost, a Moon Mage is almost always far better off in terms of UPC to use Burn or Dinazen Olkar. Crystal Spike and Partial Displacement are both 40th circle spells, although granted, fourth tier, and far more useful and efficient in any given situation than Starlight Sphere. The fundamental problem with Starlight Sphere is that it is a spell that overcomes penalties of low-level characters, but is only available to high-level characters. By the time one makes it to 40th circle, the usefulness of having a spell that sticks around for some period of time and is capable of making repeated attacks based upon a single-time mana cost is gone. A low-level character who doesn't have good Power Perception or Harness skills benefits more from being able to cast once and have the spell stick around than a "high" level character does. For a spell that seemed so amazingly cool and useful when it was first released, realizing that it's obsolete by the time you can choose it is depressing. No one ever really expected Steelstar to be good, because Moonblade was never good, and Light Thrown was never good, so how could a spell that combines the worst of both worlds be any good?

No, the honor of being the most useless spell must go to a spell whose potential usefulness seemed so great but has been revealed to be so little.

Gold medal: Starlight Sphere
Silver medal: Steelstar
Bronze medal: Thoughtcast
Tin medal: Moonblade
Coal medal: Aura Sight.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Systemic Slowness
Time:	9:40 pm.

SWENGLE

Re: Time to hang it up and move on from DR. · on 11/15/2005 7:51:17 PM Generate a link to this post in a pop-up window. 40098
["I think I can agree, in part with your griefs. Everyone wants upgrades and new releases."]

Me too.

I love DR. I took a long break from the game and I eventually came back. I still spend a great deal of time in Elanthia, so there is some draw there, clearly.

That said, I remember being shocked when I quit DR and started playing Dark Age of Camelot. Fixes came out on time. There was lots of new development. Things were always being adjusted. I didn't realize how slow DR development was until I saw something else. It is frustrating, certainly.

In addition to the fundamental problem of the pace of development, one related problem is that the game doesn't have a terrific "institutional memory." One GM leaves and those projects are often shelved by the next GM, who starts some new projects, some of which will be shelved when he or she leaves. I was just rereading a meeting log with Tribanin, an astounding GM, who said that it took him six months to dig up some notes on updates to the Crossing Moon Mage observatory planned by Westryl, another really great GM. This game is fairly expensive, especially at the premium+ level. One might expect a better turn around time for fixes and better communications/storage of information on the part of the company.

At the same time, I recognize that, while GMs are paid something, it is not much and they are all still holding down their day jobs. There is no Mythic or Blizzard or other such organization to pay these people. Compare Simu's $3.7 million in revenues, 38 employees and 2 people in it's headquarters with Mythic's $24.5 million in revenues. As with DR, when Mythic got down to the volunteer-based positions (like board liasons, etc.), I noticed the same start-stop slow pace of things as persists here in DR.

As I said, I enjoy the game. I spend hours at it. The pace of development is a bit of a shame, however. When the releases are coming regularly, for example, when Ssra was releasing a wonderful new tweak every two weeks last summer, DR can be very exciting.

On the notion of quests and such, I'm so glad to hear that something is being implemented. I enjoy other games much more on a day-to-day, routine task basis than I enjoy DR. When DR is good, it's really good. The community is great. The players and GMs are smart and literate. The players role-play pretty well for the most part (certainly compared to the l33t gamerz in other games). And, of course, the wonderful GMs who devote their free time to development for little pay are fantastic. I think each one of them cares deeply about the game and it's development.

There does seem to be a systemic slowness, however. People joke about it but the frustration can definitely accumulate. I'm sorry to see another player go. The number of players is down noticeably since I started in 2001. I remember 1200 players was the norm during busy times. Now, I'm happy to see 800. Most often during my playing hours it's 300-650. Which leads me to a really scary thought...

How will I feel about all the hours I've spent in Elanthia when DR is no more.

Amaldur Ypress

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	GMs Can't Keep OOC OOC.
Time:	9:28 am.

DR-ARMIFER

GM Censored

Burn · on 10/3/2005 3:43:05 PM Generate a link to this post in a pop-up window. 1591
After a series of formerly secret meetings between Guildleader Mortom and Grandmaster Taramaine, Guildeader Mortom announced that he would defy the Grandmaster's orders to destroy Karosti's spell pattern.

Mortom claimed that he has conclusively proved there is nothing harmful within the spell, and "that the only thing to possibly fear is ignorance in the face of knowledge. We are not Barbarians to break something just because we do not understand it. I will not deny our society a valuable tool simply because an insane elf is playing mind games." It remains unclear if he was referring to Karosti or Taramaine.

Within a few roisaen of Mortom's declaration, Guildleaders Gylwyn, Kssarh and Tiv announced they are satisfied that the spell pattern is safe and will be teaching it in place of the current Burn spell to new students. Throne City insiders were surprised by the speed at which the three Guildleaders rallied behind Mortom.

Guildleader Lomtaun has made no comment on the situation and Guildleader Cherulisa could not be reached for comment.

Taramaine has made no official response to these events. With four Guildleaders in open opposition to his order and the Council still in shambles, he is not expected to. Insiders point out that the same circumstances that sees Taramaine with virtual dictator powers over the Guild leaves him bereft of anywhere to turn when the Guildleaders disobey orders from Throne City en masse.

What affect this new gulf between Throne City and the distant Guildleaders has remains to be seen.

---

The new version of Burn has been released. Three major changes have been made to the spell:

First, its difficulty and mana efficiency has been tweaked to update it to the current TM model. Like all the other updates to the MM TM spells, this does not change the minimum or maximum effectiveness of the spell, it only changes how you get there.

Second, Burn is now a pure TM spell. It will use the same skill-checks that all other TM spells use. Its preparation time has been reduced to bring it on-par with the other TM spells. You can now use TARGET with Burn, but cannot specify a body part (you can TARGET GOBLIN, but you cannot TARGET GOBLIN HEAD). Which body part you hit is determined by the same means as the previous version.

Finally, Burn now accepts Katamba as a source of energy. The spell has new messaging if Katamba is the only source of "illumination" currently available.

For those keeping score at home, this update concludes the round of Moon Mage TM spell updating that began earlier this year.

These changes are currently live in Prime and Platinum. They will go live in Fallen in a few days assuming no major problems occur.

-Armifer
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." H.P. Lovecraft

This message was originally posted in The Moon Mages, Game Master and Official Announcements. To discuss the above follow the link below.

http://www.play.net/forums/messages.asp?forum=20&category=18&topic=1&message=187

DR-FICTIONAL
Master of Roleplaying

Foraging Rewrite · on 13/32/2004 3:43:05 PM Generate a link to this post in a pop-up window. 1280

Following the recent outcry from PvP fanatics, it was soon discovered that the excessive use of the Warrior Mage spell, Chain Lightning, has been having an extremely deleterious effect upon the ecosphere of Elanthia. Ionization of the atmosphere caused by the Chain Lightning spell has sufficiently damaged the ozone layer of the planet to permit unusually high levels of solar radiation to reach the planet's surface. Furthermore, the powerful elemental energies foolishly wielded by amateurish Mages has resulted in self-coalescing "clouds" of roaming elemental energy, much like that controlled over the Warrior Mage tower in Shard, but comprised not of traditional electrical energy but the far more dangerous form harnessed in the Chain Lightning spell. The net affect of these and other circumstances is that the surface of Elanthia has been stripped bare of vegetation that was once abundant and prosperous. Elven representatives from the city of Leth Deriel have been quoted as saying, "If fully half of us weren't Rangers, and therefore pretty much unaffected by the destruction of the planet's ecosystem, we would be really pissed right now."

In the wake of this ecological disaster it has been discovered that many miscellaneous objects, such as rusty nails and thumbtacks, have been thoughtlessly scattered everywhere by malicious traders imitating villains from the "Captain Elemental" Gwethdesuan show. The governments of all four provinces have convened and deliberated over this newly discovered defacement of their lands, and in the newly energized spirit of ecological preservation have decided to inflict stiff fines upon the Trader's Guild of Elanthia. In response the guild has demonstrated its own commitment to preserving Elanthia's dangerously threatened ecosystem by promising to revoke the extensive benefits it offers to guild members if they are found violating the provinces littering ordinances.

Recent reports have also discovered that the Guildmistress Kalika has gone missing. Eyewitnesses speculate that Kalika, who has, in fact, never been seen in the same place at the same time with the notorious villain, Sidhlot, may in some way be behind the precipitously sudden destruction of the planet's flora. Ranger scholars, however, repudiate this claim, calling it a "bald-faced lie engineered to remove pressure from reforming the extraordinarily destructive Warrior Mage guild."

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	The (Outdated) Genesis of Complaints
Time:	3:25 pm.

PHENOCAIN

The Genesis of Complaints · on 8/8/2005 1:33:49 PM Generate a link to this post in a pop-up window. 19838
I figured I should go ahead and consolidate all of the guild's complaint into one story.

On the sixth day, SIMU created the guilds and saw they were good and placed them in the Garden of Eden and instructed that no guild shall eat from the Tree of Truth. On the seventh day, SIMU relaxed under the shade of a sansiri tree.

"SIMU, I am too weak," said the Bard, interrupting SIMU from His sleep.

"I hath created thee from the Sands of Life and given thee existence," said SIMU angrily. "What do ye desire of me?"

"I have no worthy Enchantes to use," said the Bard.

"Fine. I shall give thee a new Enchante system but it shall nae teach thee power perception, I shall cut thine experience for singing thy songs in half, and ye shall sing Demrris' Resolve forever and ever for there will be no other Enchante that is better," intoned SIMU in booming voice. He raised His voice and His Will was Done.

"I thank you for this," said the Bard, his voice parched from singing Demrris' Resolve, "but I cannot use my Enchantes around others."

"Behold thy stinginess and shamelessness! I, thy SIMU, hath given thee an Enchante system and thou complain so?"

"But, SIMU, art I a performer? Should I not perform these Enchantes in the midst of an audience?" questioned the Bard.

"Nae," said SIMU, "thy art a performer only if the aggregate magical resistance in the room cannst be overcome by thine will. If ye cannot do so, ye must singst alone like the dove."

"Can I change guilds?" asked the Bard, her lips quivering.

"Nae! For thine insolence, I shall kick thee out the Garden and triple the pain of thy requirements during childbirth."

The Bard was kicked out of the Garden.

"Why hath thine given me the backstab of the lion yet the stealthiness of a lamb?" said the Thief. "Why must I past skill checks to hide, to advance, to go to pole, to reach melee and to strike?"

"Behold! I shall give thee khri to assuage thy pains," SIMU told the Thief.

"Thank you, my SIMU, but it seems my new power is less than thine other creations. Does thou not carest for me?" the Thief asked.

"Thine insolence is troubling! For thy crimes, I shall make thy invisible power make you visible to those who search thee out, this makes no sense but it amuses Me." SIMU said, gesturing.

"Please," said the thief, with tears rolling down his cheeks.

"Nae! For thy tears, I shall punish thee. Ye shall toil and toil over thine boxes but receive a pittance for thine work. Other guilds will ne'er use thine services and shall leave their boxes on the ground for the janitor to clean up. Ye shall be needless and superfluous," said SIMU.

The Thief was kicked out of the Garden.

"What am I?" ask the Cleric.

"Behold! I hath nae idea. Ye hath changed hands so much, ye are a lost lamb amongst the flock and an abomination onto me," sayeth SIMU

The Cleric was kicked out the Garden.

"I sit in a Garden with a bounty of jadice flowers, yet I cannot forage a single one," said the War Mage.

"I hath given thee many jewels and thouest complain to me?"

"Aye, but ye gives me jewels but thy quickly give them to other guilds or make them sparkle less than before."

"Thou complainer! For thou crimes, thy shall ne'er be unique."

The War Mage was kicked out of the Garden.

"Um, I can't catch up with the requirements, please lower them," said the Moon Mage.

"I tire of these complaints!" exclaimed SIMU. "Thee art a Prophet and a Scholar, but thy shall climb, swim, and toil in the dirt like a peasant and thou requirements shall reflect this. Ye shall be a known as a Moon Scout: extraplanetary beings employed by Kalika to survey new star systems."

"No!" said the Moon Mage, "please have mercy."

"Nae!" said SIMU, "I shall change thine spells and not give thee the option of getting rid of them and the prerequisites. I could do so if I choose to but it amuses me to see thee suffer."

The Moon Mage was kicked out of the Garden.

"Please help me," said the Empath, "my spells are redundant and wrought with too many skill checks. I suckle on the teat of others, I want to make my own coin and flourish under my own abilities rather than dependancy of others."

"Behold, thy stingy and naked nature!" said SIMU. "For thy stupidity, healing others shall nae be an option for thee. Thy shall heal and heal with ardour. I shall tie thine requirements with thy healing to reflect this." said SIMU.

"Why must I live a life of servitude?" sobbed the Empath.

"Thy cup runneth o'er with the servitude because that is how I want it," said SIMU. "I shall give thee the ability to shift but woe to those who do it in public for my vengeance is swift like a thief in the night."

"Can I hunt?"

"Nae! But I shall give thee the ability to manipulate but ye shall nae be able to heal thy goblinoid ally. Thy must sit for hours and hours watching two goblins maul each other." said SIMU, raising his hands in a gesture.

"Thank you."

"I hath given thee too many gifts and ye must leave my Garden." said SIMU.

The Empath was kicked out of the Garden.

SIMU looked at the other creations in the Garden with a wary eye . . .

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Catching Up
Time:	11:33 pm.

DR-SSRA

H.

Combat Update · on 1/27/2005 10:52:55 PM
1330

Tonight, I rolled a fairly large update into Plat that is the backbone of several upcoming changes to combat. This change should be largely 'invisible' on the player side of things. This will remain in Plat for about a week and then be rolled into The Fallen. Once everything seems to be in order it will finally be rolled into Prime version of the game.

1. The Armor/Weapon Cache System

In the past, each attack cycled through your 'worn' inventory to find armor. As you can imagine, it takes time to go through your entire inventory. With the advent of DR2, it's possible for us to 'cache' this data -- meaning store it -- so we can easily pull the data. Instead of your armor list updating every single attack you defend against, it is only updated when you wear/remove a piece of equipment, when a piece of equipment is destroyed, or at a time we specify explicitly. Translation? Fewer resources spent finding your combat equipment (potentially less lag) and easier setup of "worn" equipment which leads us into the next section ...

2. Support for additional worn combat equipment

The combat system now supports worn shields and brawling weapons. While the support is there, more work needs to be done on shield and brawling code; therefor it's not yet fully implemented.

3. Creature natural parry and natural block

Currently, creatures must have a weapon or shield in their inventory to parry or block an attack. Creatures can now be set up to use their bodies as defenses. What does this mean? It's possible (just an example) for a peccary to now parry a blow with tusks or for a warklin to block a strike with its carapace.

If you notice what you believe is an anomaly related to this update please bring it to my attention in the Combat folders.

/salute

-Ssra

The ultimate in reasoning is to come to the realization that there are still an infinite number of things that are unreasonable. -Blaise Pascal

----

I like the natural parry change, and by like, I mean, I think it's conceptually a good idea, but remains to be seen in practice. The idea of using a carapace as a shield though, is asinine. Creatures with hard skins already have armor on, which reduces damage. There's no reason for giving them a chance to shield-block with their carapace, in the same way there should be no chance for me to shield-block with my suit of chain-mail. That is, it's called getting hit.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Missed This One
Time:	1:27 pm.

Simutronics, I will bill you later for this · on 12/26/2004 10:36:07 AM 16718

Reply

Cayene's Image Consulting Services:

Dear Simutronics,
Normally I only tend to work with high profile clients who can afford my services... but hey kiddo, you got a nice face yanno? I like the cut of your jib and all that good stuff. So I'm going to do this favor for you. Don't get all mushy with me or nothin' son.. I don't wanna have to rough you up. Got that chummy boy?

Right then, moving along.

I'm going to break this down nice and simple, I know you can't pay attention to anything for all that long cause you got your head in the clouds of Heroe's Journey and all that jazz..

1) You just look plain lazy. I mean.. would it kill you tuck your shirt in? And look at these message boards. Honestly... HOT WINTER NIGHTS 2003???? Maybe you didn't get your complimentary "Girls of Taelbert's" calendar this year.. but, IT'S ABOUT TO BE 2005. I'm assuming that's an oversight, so I've simply contacted your optometrist. Hopefully that solves the problem.

2) These "QUESTIVALS" have got to stop. Nobody wants to shell out thier hard earned cash so that thier character can shell out thier hard earned cash. Me personally, I just bump off Everquest players and use those greenbacks to support my DR habit.. but, let's face it.. your average DR player doesn't have that killer instict like I do. How about this.. turn the "QUESTIVALS" into "GAME EVENTS" like.. casino night, or "Mystery Dinner Theatre". You should really think about getting an events team to do stuff like that.

Repeat after me:

CODE HAS NO SOUL

CODE HAS NO SOUL

That's right.. so when you convince me sweet little wife to pay 45 bucks to ride on your little boat, I don't wanna find out that she's spent the entire time looking for people to go into doors and tell her whats in there.

I want to hear her LAUGH at the FUN that's going on.

CODE HAS NO SOUL

You'd be amazed at what a few little events could do to liven up your QUESTIVALS.

3) Carrots taste fine, but we all remember that reader's digest article about the guy who ate so many carrots that his skin turned orange. Simu.. this isn't a space themed game. Nobody likes orange skin except Captain Kirk.

Are you willing to trust your company in the hands of a guy that does commercials for priceline.com?

I didn't think so.

STEP AWAY FROM THE CARROTS TIED TO STICKS.

Give us a break every once in awhile. Remember when you just up and extended the amount of characters premium account holders could have? You were on the right track.

What you actually did was just give everyone a few more mules, but hey.. at least it was a nice gesture. It's the thought that counts.

STOP. TAKE A DEEP BREATH.

Now.. promise us that "THE NEXT THREE THINGS YOU DO WILL BE BOTH **FREE** and ***FOR EVERYONE***

Non premies need love too. Just ask the cabbage patch kids.

4) Fire your secretary right now. Apparantley you aren't getting any of your messages. Lucky for you, I happen to be both a certified courier and a registered member of the Hermes Message Union so I'm going to catch you up real quick.

a) GIVE THEM 100th CIRCLE, for the LOVE OF GOD. Have you lost your mind? Don't you realize that for every 99th circle in the game there's 100 people who go "Wow.. he's 99th circle! He's like a hero to me!"

Now.. what do we do when our heroes complain? WE AGREE! We're stupid people, we need to be lead.

Who would you rather lead us? You with your great ideas and great game? Or your MOST dissapointed customers?

Hey Simu.. how'd you like it if Apu and Nausikaa sat down with every potential new player and gave them the 4-11 on how they feel they've been treated?

b) STOP ANNOUNCING STUFF YOU CAN'T GIVE PEOPLE. Yeah, we all celebrated and hi-fived each other and went "huzzah! I'ma stay for another year" when you gave us all those moist chewy morsels about DR-II.

But.. well, Necromancers and Careers turned out to be moist chewy carrots. And you KNOW how we feel about carrots now.

How about this.. treat us like we're your kids, it's july, and we are asking you about Christmas.

"Simu, I want Necromancers with kung-fu grip, a pony that does more than need to be brushed every 8 seconds, and barbie's corvette. (Hey.. screw you guys, corvettes are cool and barbie is hot)"

TO WHICH YOU REPLY:

Duly noted, we've got a strong list of what you want, and we've got some nifty ideas you are gonna like. When it gets here you'll like. it.

"Simu, I want it NOW!"

TO WHICH YOU REPLY:

Aww... c'mere you cute little players you, lemme tell you a story and let's have some fun.

(you do remember fun right? It's over there to the left of those servers, right behind all those billions of 1's and 0's and VERY FAR away from your quarterly profit reports.)

5) MAKE YOUR H.M.F.I.C.'s ACT LIKE THEY HAVE A REAL JOB! (Bubba, I'm looking at you on this one)

Why is it that...

I showed up late for work at a 7-11 when I was 15 and they wrote me up. I forgot to refill the nacho cheese sauce and they wrote me up AGAIN! (those bastards!) AND THEN!!.... When I showed up late again.. they fired me. (those b-a-s-t-a-r-d-s!!!)

So check it out. I'm gonna tell YOU a little story here my sweet little cuddly Simu chums.

I paid about 200 clams for this assisted wedding deal.

Was GREAT! Alot of FUN! I loved it! Would do it again in a heartbeat.

Tvini and Ambellina were AMAZING! EXCELLENT JOB!

ahem

That ^ is the dragonrealms player talking. As a DR player.. that's how I feel.

As a normal everyday person, I know better than to rock the boat. I don't wanna complain. Ya know.. I mean.. GMs are just people trying to do the best they can and all. We OWE them right?

Welly welly well o'well well well well.

First off, my invitations were screwed up so I got EST time on them, but the actual wedding was scheduled for CST time. Strike 1.

Strike 2.. for 200 bucks, I could have hired a REAL LIFE wedding coordinator who would have scheduled numerous meetings with me. I had to ASSIST in game to get my invitations with less than a week to go.

The wedding ended up being ALOT of fun and it was SUPERB! However, it was absolutely nothing like what I actually wanted. I'm still HAPPY with the way it went... but, I'll always wonder what it would have been like if it had gone the way I envisioned it, as opposed to the way the GMs envisioned it.

***the purpose of that psuedo-complaint is not to air my personal beef with you. It's to show you a simple case of "Everyone has something to complain about in this game" but nobody does it because to us...

SIMUTRONICS ISN'T A MULTI-MILLION DOLLAR COMPANY with employees and staff and people who can get hired and fired and people who get paychecks.

Nononononono no no NO! It's a "GAME" that we "PLAY" for "FUN" so we treat it's employees like people we want to have "FUN" with.

It's NOT FUN to gripe at you. We HATE doing it. We just get to the point where we are TIRED of holding it in and the we explode and become disgruntled.

(Not me of course, I'm happy fun! Happy deserve an alteration fun!)

So how about YOU, oh great and wise leader, do our griping for us. How about YOU go and tell those wedding GMs "Hey.. you guys did a great job on Cayene's wedding. He says he really loved it, but... maybe you should apologize for the screw up with the invitations and apologize for not being a bit more proactive in meeting with him. HE didn't understand that you do dozens of these things and code and have a workload the equivalent of an inner-city Los Angeles defense attorney, HE just thinks he spent 200 bucks on something and you are there to help make his day the best it can be. He's stupid, doesn't know any better.. go scratch his back."

Bubba, if YOU did that for US.. some of us wouldn't have anything to complain about.

6)SPIT OUT THE (insert numerous foul adverbs here) PACIFIER.

Simu, I want you to picture a giant room with every DR player in it. Now, I want you to picture you are asking this question: "HOW MANY OF YOU ARE SICK AND TIRED OF HEARING US SAY: 'Sorry I can't help you, you should go post on the boards or write feedback'"

How many people in that room raised thier hand?

Listen, we all know that's the damn answer. We all know why it's the damn answer. That doesn't change the fact it pisses us off to hear it.

It's been a decade chums, and we've taught you better than that. If it's broke, fix it. If WE are the ones broke, then FIX US. If you CAN'T fix it.. then tell us, hey.. I can't fix this. I I'm going to contact the GMs FOR you and have them shoot you an email about it. THEY will contact YOU and try to resolve this problem in the best way WE can FOR you.

There, don't you feel better already?

Listen.. Simu, I love you and all, but I'm doing this as a personal favor. I could go on and on.. but you got things to do and I got other people to help. Go ahead and get started on this list. When you've learned how to sit up straight and keep your elbows off the table I'll come back with a few more tips.

And remember.. when all else fails.. stick to the three F's:

FRIENDLY (to your customers)

FUN (over business)

and

FAMILY (we love you, don't treat us like meal tickets)

~Cayene Li'i

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:

11:20 am.

RAZIAAR

The Dark Troubadour

Re: Why is IG things costing RL cash? · on 1/6/2005 12:52:06 AM Generate a link to this post in a pop-up window. 16807
Well. I only have one reason for you.

Simutronics is money grubbing. Plain and simple.

Now, let me explain before I get instantly banned. While I love the game services simutronics provides, I believe they are taking advantage of their customers way more than they should be.

It's believed by me and many other dragonrealms players, that DR is one of the best text games out there, even though many others are free. They take advantage of this fact, and charge for it, because they know people are willing to pay the cash. That's fine by me. If you have a superior product, surely you should be allowed to charge a subscription price to pay the game. And so they do it.

However, over the years I have noticed simutronics become more and mroe money grubbing. They keep raising the price in line with the other graphical mmorpgs, not because of rising costs for servers or other such nonsense, but because they can, and they use the defense that 'Well, it's the industry standard, so that's why we charge this price'. The fact is though, simutronics is NOT part of the mmorpg industry when it concerns those standards. The costs for setting up and maintaining servers to provide the customers a stable and enjoyable experience for a text based game, are FAR cheaper than that of maintaining and buying the hardware to support graphically intensive mmorpgs that have to send out and recieve hundreds of thousands of more times information than the text based ones.

How do I know this? Anybody who's even remotely knowledgable about computer hardware and internet hosting and bandwith prices can know this. And proof that these games are not 'that' cost intensive is by observing free text based games that have more players than simutronics, FAR more rooms and tons more information passing from the servers to the consumer and back. They're FREE, and operate easily on small contributions from a few customers!

That all leads me to believe, and know for a fact, that simutronics is money grubbing. They're just trying to run a buisness to gouge customers of money in every way they possibly can, including quests, weddings, recovering characters, and increasing the prices every year or so when the other graphical mmorpgs do so.

I abhor this practice, but nothing I can do about it, and they don't care what the customer thinks regarding this, simply put. I will continue to pay these prices, unfortunately, and enjoy the game that I love. However, I still avoid all the excess costs in real dollars that you see 'everywhere'.

Troubadour Raziaar

Comments: Add Your Own.

Time:

10:52 pm.

DR-TRIBANIN

Tribbles

Re: Updates coming down the pike... · on 11/1/2004 2:42:08 PM
2986

No one should be forced into anything. You're already forced into things all the time - how you cast, what you can do with your spell, etc. You're forced to be online and to log into the game if you want to play Dragonrealms, for that matter. Whenever you're agree to log in, your decisions become mine and I can force you to obey my every whim...Mwhahahaha!!! Just kidding, honest. Anyway...

The end to this particular argument is easy - no one forced you to choose the sect you joined, but I can choose to make you live with the choice you've made. Don't join if you're not sure. That's the same piece of advice we gave everyone when sects were released. Some listened, some did not.

So, here's an idea I'd like to propose.

"Sect Affiliation"

Any pc, whether it is their first day in game or they've reached the uppermost reaches of the game's circling ability who has not chosen a sect would be able to join a sect as an affiliate, not a member. The difference is in taking those who wish to roleplay as someone who say was brought up with one form of heritage or no heritage of any particular sect, can "join" the sect on a limited basis. You would get a new spiffy title to use, though, not the same title or post-title, you would eventually have access to the sects abilities, but not at the same point that an offical member would or you would not be able to use it as often or effectively.

New players who want to have the feeling of joining could do so, and those who are already members could more easily identify and assist those willing to be mentored. Those seeking the ability to float from sect to sect could do so, without suffering limitations for quitting a sect to join another, but simply for not being willing to immerse yourself in the culture as deeply as others. You would be considered an outsider trying to prove yourself to those who have lived the life of that sect's heritage, or a young member who is seeking to take the right of passage.

As an affiliate, you would be able to leave the sect to affiliate yourself with another, one time. It would give everyone the ability to sample each sect, and in time, sample their "perks". If you wish, you can then join the sect as a full fledged member, but once you've done so, that's it. There's no backing out - PERIOD - you wouldn't even be able to run to Heritage House and switch. If you decide the sect isn't for you, then you can leave and go affiliate yourself with another. Just don't plan on coming back.

TO me, this covers the bases. Yes, those ability chasers would have the limitations applied, but they would still have access to them. Those who are more serious minded about roleplaying a sect member can still join as they always have, per the normal requirements. THose who do not meet them, will now have a way to mark their future intent.

How does this help those who are already a member of a sect? Good question - And I just happen to have an answer.

If this is the idea that eventually goes into game to help solve this debate, what I would do is allow people to drop their status as a sect member to affiliate and you would be required (read: FORCED! :)) to either remain an affiliate for a set time. You wouldn't be able to join another sect or officially resign yourself from an existing sect for awhile, but you would be able to step down as it were. Eventually, you could then go in and turn in your walking papers, then go do whatever you wanted.

I will say this - I can not, in all fairness to sects as a system and as a group of roleplayers make them so a member can enter and then leave them as though they do a building. Roleplay does and will always count for something in Dragonrealms, and I'll fight to the last man standing to make sure that it will always be an aspect of our guild. I've never been a number cruncher or an ability chaser - there's nothing wrong with it, if that is your want to do. My responsibility can't be relegated to either side of the fence, only to the fence itself. It's up to you as a player to decide if you want to climb it or not.

And that's probably the longest "fence" analogy I've ever done. Hopefully I can now retire with that as my mark on humanity. :)

Thoughts? (and no, not about my analogy ::poke::)

Trib

Moon Mages - Illuminating Elanthia's Future for over a century.

======

Oh god, this attitude again. Please, just make it so sects can be changed. People can become the opposite sex, but they can't burn their membership card for a club. Charge people for joining a sect and charge them again for leaving a sect, you always need ways to drain money from the economy. Make them perform a quest. I don't see why leaving a sect has to be an ANTI-ROLEPLAYING! move. The only anti-roleplaying thing I see around here is the unwillingness to accomodate the option for people to roleplay changing a sect. It seems like just writing some kind of minor quest and due-paying system for changing sects would be simpler than adding this additional bullshit layer of sect affiliation.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Catfight Observations
Time:	11:52 am.

I don't really have much to add to the whole "You're inferior" vs. "You're arrogant" conflict happening on the boards with Riaka-Sukair vs. Everyone else.

Mainly I wanted to draw attention to the one useful thing that has come from the entire thread:

We don't "balance" ourselves and say...Ohhh, but the rangers are supposed to be the masters of this, or this will just make us too powerful. Of course not. That would be political suicide. You always aim higher than you expect, so that if you play your cards right you just might get what you do expect. Look at Constellation Jewelry. Rigby released them, and they were incredibly powerful. Yes, overpowered. It took time, but what we ended up with was a balanced but still fully useful and fantastic enchantment.
Sukair

This is one of my pet peeves with regard to the Moon Mage guild. Somehow the notion that Moon Mages should have to suffer under ridiculous penalties has become entrenched in the mentality of even the lowliest Moon Mages (not even to speak of the GameMasters). Every time I see a suggestion for Moon Mages on the boards, either the initial poster or someone else later suggests, "Maybe if we screw up, we could [penalize ourselves in X way]." What is your problem people?

Telekinetic Throw is not more powerful than any other first tier targetted spell, yet we still have this asinine restriction on not being able to choose what we throw without having to use a poorly contrived "combo" using two other unrelated spells. Would the spell be overpowered if we could ALL (not just members of a certain sect) choose what item is to be thrown? No.

Burn is not more powerful than Lightning Bolt, yet we've got to have this "Requires light source" restriction. Why? The spell has gone through like 6 downtweaks already. It's not because the spell would be overpowered otherwise. Not because the logic is stronger that way (Nobody seems to have any problems with shadow nooses in broad daylight or fireballs from thin air).

Dazzle? Same thing. Apparently we needed to take functionality out of one of the most useless spells in the game.

Both Teleport and Moongate have the potential to completely destroy every part of a Moon Mage. Why? No particular reason. "It would be cool." That's certainly not a legitimate factor in my mind.

Teleport has a stun that cannot be trained off. Why? The only reason I've ever heard bandied about is because removing it would make Moongate less useful. My response to that is-- And? I guess we should go back and remove features from the rest of our spells to make higher tier ones more useful. It's obvious we've hit the limit on all the potential avenues for development for spells, after all. All we can do now is rearrange features.

Spells, prediction, cantrips, enchantments. I can go on and on. Half the development in this guild is on ways to give ourselves things and then hinder ourselves from being able to use them reliably, effectively, efficiently. No other guild has to put up with this kind of crap.

"Maybe if we snipe really badly we can mess up and fall out of hiding and impale ourselves on our own arrows. Excellent!"

Recently in discussing prediction Armifer said that it's never going to be "dial-a-bonus." Oh? So wanting to be able to have enough control over our own abilities such that we can use them when we need them, more often than not, that's a bad thing? I guess it's ok for other guilds to dial-a-bonus by typing "Prepare X" or "Dance X" or "Khri X" but it's not for us? To hell with that attitude. The Moon Mage guild really needs to take a reality check and stop participating in this crap and stop putting up with it from the GameMasters.

I think the suggestion that the Teleport stun be removed as a 90th circle ability is idiotic and counterproductive (since once an ability is implemented it is almost never re-assessed, as can be seen with our entire spell list). At most this is a 20th circle ability that shows the gradual growth of expertise of the Mage between Teleport and Moongate. But at least it's a suggestion for an improvement and not a suggestion for hamstringing the guild even further.

Comments: Read 3 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	The Prediction System, Part 2: Keep Dreaming
Time:	10:01 am.

This is my own thoughts on the prediction system.

Currently the system consists of this:

Predict.
Optional modifier (Magic, Body, Hand, Lore, Weapon, Armor).
Observe.
Align.
Astrology skill.
Prediction counter.
Celestial objects.
Prediction tools.

Results possible:

*Event prediction
*Individual Skill Prediction
Accuracy
Perception of Accuracy
Duration-Power

Currently Prediction is so simple that a system to handle the general function of observe-predict could be written in a few hours. As a guild defining ability prediction is woefully inadequate. I'm glad Tribanin actually seems willing to accept the fact that the ability is, for the most part, useless ("If there's aspects of the Mm guild who feel that there is no benefit from the prediction system, then that means the prediction system as a whole isn't working at all.").

Why isn't prediction working? There's no simple explanation but a variety of factors. Most guilds are self-sufficient enough as it is except for healing and death, so I doubt the days of Moon Mages being actively sought out, as some may remember it, for predictions will ever "return"— that is unless some of my ideas are implemented.

The primary problems with prediction are the potential for negative results and the high potential for inconsequential results (Trading bonus when you wanted Scholarship). This is really indisputable.

There are a lot of solutions. The single-most important thing to be done with Prediction is to expand the system to allow the Moon Mage to balance between Strength, Duration, Accuracy, and "Safety" (chance of a Skull occurring). Perception of Accuracy should be scrapped altogether. How all of this is done is not really my concern, but there it is. Instantly the Prediction system would be used. It wouldn't be guild-defining, but it'd be functional at least.

I would also suggest that the Prediction Counter be removed, if such a thing exists. That's what Astrology exists for, as far as I know. If, as some may claim, Astrology is not specific enough and thus a counter is necessary, then make a skill that's only trained using Prediction-specific verbs. But having the counter is a strong impediment for new characters using prediction as, psychologically, they'll never catch up to the elder prediction-spammers. Not to mention it's stupid to keep people in the dark on something important. Rangers can check their bonuses which is just a vague, passive attunement with nature, a Moon Mage ought to have a reasonable idea at how good he is at actively doing something.

The problem with the Prediction system, beyond the inability to control the different aspects separate from each other, is that it, as a system, has a legacy which, for some reason, people cannot see past. Giving a bonus to a skill will never be a guild defining ability unless it is totally out of whack with the rest of the game and that very condition ensures that it will never come about.
Let me state the problem more directly. Predicting the future has nothing to do with bonuses to skills. Let me repeat. Predicting the future has nothing to do with bonuses to skills.

Nothing is ever going to change until the GMs realize this simple fact. That prediction can give bonuses to skills is only an approximation of what prediction, supposedly, does.

Maybe if you go back in time to the original creation of DR, in the discussion of the Prediction system, the creators might have assumed that all sorts of contested actions would involve skill in some way and that thus a Moon Mage would be able to affect the outcome of any possible action through a skill boost. That is not the case.
If I want to pull the mangonel on one of the ships to the islands, there's no way I can use prediction to make it easier for myself even though, presumably, Fate could make it so that the lever arm happens to be particularly well-oiled today and thus it is easier for me to pull, or I get my leverage just right so that it's easier, or maybe I'm just having a good day. Similarly, if someone targets me with a Disintegrate spell, there's no way that I can miraculously resist its contested Spell vs. Stamina mechanics using prediction. I can't use prediction to have myself walk into a store on a day when the merchant is feeling particularly generous and walk out with a great deal.
In other words, if we allow prediction to approximate "Fate" or "Luck" through skill boosts, why not through stat boosts? There is no IC reason whatsoever why one should be allowed and another not, and there are very significant reasons why predictions should be able to affect stats— namely, every contested spell in the game.

There is also the paradigm of prediction upon a skill. Why should it work this way? Should I not be able to have good fortune in a range of activities? If I notice I'm having good luck that usually means a variety of things are going well for me-- A particularly "lucky" day at the office isn't represented accurately by just a bonus to Memo Writing. In order to really approximate it well, it'd be a bonus to Co-Worker Socialization, Boss Diplomacy, Memo Writing, Equipment Wrangling, etc. In other words, related activities that are used together all seem to turn out well.
A Moon Mage who predicts on "Combat" should be able to get minor boosts to evasion, weapon in hand, armor currently worn, shield if equipped, and so on. Coming up with names for groupings of related skills might pose a minor problem— Fortunately the default options of Weapons, Armor, Hand, Body, Magic, Lore are pretty convenient places to start. I would add Combat naturally, as that's the most obvious and natural grouping, and perhaps some more categories like "Travel" (Climbing, Swimming, Tracking), "Warden" (Foraging, Skinning, Animal Lore) and "Stealth" (Hiding, Stalking, Stealing). With a good number of groups containing different numbers of skills, to allow the Moon Mage to choose how specific or unspecific he wants to be, I think prediction would be much more useful.

Of course, a prediction to a specific skill should not go away. In fact, it should be expanded. A divination tool should not be required to predict upon a specific skill, nor should a divination tool be required for any of my suggestions as they are all dealing with core issues of functionality of Prediction as a whole. With enough variety in usage and result, there is even more room for divination tools to be different and add spice and variety to Prediction without necessarily hamstringing basic functions of sky-based prediction. Back to the main subject though... Single-skill prediction can easily co-exist with prediction to multiple skills. Sometimes it does just so happen that you're doing really well in one particular thing and not a range of them (though in my experience this happens less often). Since the bonus would not be spread out over a range it would be more noticeable and useful for those situations in which only one skill is needed. Single skill predictions would still be good for those special cases, whereas grouped-skill predictions would be more commonly used.
But, in order to make single-skill predictions more desireable than they are currently, I also propose allowing a powerful prediction to unlock special abilities associated with a skill. A Moon Mage who gets a powerful prediction on skinning, for example, might find himself able to arrange temporarily. A powerful prediction on armor might lower his minimum hindrance. A powerful prediction on hiding could allow sniping or hiding at melee. Many skills have limited usefulness beyond a certain number of ranks, so even though a prediction might give a huge bonus, it really offers no substantial benefits without access to some of these restricted functions. With respect to mechanics this would be a fitting "Guild-defining" ability. My central concern is that DR is not well thought out and well coded enough to allow this to occur, but I think it would be possible to implement even if it means adding another 1 line test case to your IF-ELSE statements in affected systems. Allowing this would give incentive to do single skill predictions and ensure that a prediction's benefit can be above and beyond a skill boost. In-character, Fate is not some pansy thing that is afraid of offending guildmasters in other guilds. So what if Kssarh never taught you specifically how to utilize that skill in that particular way? Fate does not care about guild affiliation.

I also propose making the Prediction system able to alternate between straight bonus and percentage bonuses. This should be controllable by the Moon Mage. A straight bonus would not be soft capped by the user's skill, whereas a percentage bonus would be. Why? Sometimes it does make sense that one can be lucky and have this luck effectively make one better at doing something. But sometimes this luck does not come from the person performing the action, but rather environmental factors beyond his own control or simply sheer coincidence. Percentage based skill bonuses can't replicate the hand of Fate in such circumstances as a young boy who has never picked up a sword in his life yet manages to impale the charging veteran soldier when he trips and they both stumble to the floor. As it stands now that sort of thing can only be emulated by a straight unmodified by skill bonus. The Prediction system needs to be able to handle that kind of thing, even if a straight bonus caps out lower. Right now with percentage-based-only bonuses, it can't.

Another idea which I support is the idea of general "luck" predictions to affect all the "rolls" the character makes. A luck prediction would not last a duration but would instead have a set number of uses (the exact number of which would be unknown, though ranges ought to be discernable). A luck prediction could maximize (or minimize) the random "roll" involved in an action. A luck prediction could also "roll" a second random "die" that would be added to (or subtracted from) the first. Particularly powerful luck predictions could mean auto-success (or auto-failure) on any action undertaken (but only for as many "rolls" as it lasts).

A Moon Mage ought to be able to perceive and influence predictions that are active, to remove a prediction, for example, from himself or from another. This is especially necessary right now with low-power predictions that may last forever. Self-inflicted curses and Skulls should not be able to be removed by the Moon Mage himself, but perhaps another Moon Mage could attempt to remove these negative disturbances.
Eventually a resistance mechanic probably needs to be applied to predictions, and Moon Mages ought to be able to predict upon themselves to protect themselves from other predictions (possibly causing a Fatal backlash against someone attempting to do so).

Well, I'm tired of typing this now, but that's some of my ideas. I would love to see a Prediction system with this must versatility and customizability in DR. Good luck on it ever happening, heh.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	The Prediction System
Time:	9:21 am.

SHADOWVEIL

Ileia

Re: Question of the day · on 7/23/2004 7:04:36 PM 9526
Why do we need a prediction system anyway?

Seriously though, there is no benefit for me to use the prediction system. Since I don't use tools and I can't align skills to the sky, I can either spend an hour or two trying to get the correct skill and hope its not a curse. Or I can make a CJ for whatever skill I want with a guaranteed bonus, several uses and usable at whatever time I need it. When people come to me for a prediction I tell them that I don't predict but I would be happy to sell them a CJ; unless they're a barbarian and then I send them to someone like Mozzik.

I suppose enchanting can always be downtweaked to make the prediction system more desirable; other then that, I can't see myself ever using it.

So you can put me in the I couldn't care less category.

One thing not to change is Predict Events which was the best thing added to the prediction system last year.

SPRCOW

Re: Question of the day · on 7/24/2004 6:17:12 AM 9532
><

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SHADOWVEIL

Ileia

Re: Question of the day · on 7/23/2004 7:04:36 PM 9526
Why do we need a prediction system anyway? <ducks>

Seriously though, there is no benefit for me to use the prediction system. Since I don't use tools and I can't align skills to the sky, I can either spend an hour or two trying to get the correct skill and hope its not a curse. Or I can make a CJ for whatever skill I want with a guaranteed bonus, several uses and usable at whatever time I need it. When people come to me for a prediction I tell them that I don't predict but I would be happy to sell them a CJ; unless they're a barbarian and then I send them to someone like Mozzik.

I suppose enchanting can always be downtweaked to make the prediction system more desirable; other then that, I can't see myself ever using it.

So you can put me in the I couldn't care less category. <g>

One thing not to change is Predict Events which was the best thing added to the prediction system last year.

 

SPRCOW

Re: Question of the day · on 7/24/2004 6:17:12 AM 9532
><<Seriously though, there is no benefit for me to use the prediction system.>>

I think what she's getting at is that the prediction system is just not as reliable as making celestial jewelry. Once you have the scrolls you need and a bit of coin for jewelry, you have the option to either predict and risk getting a curse, hitting the wrong skill, or getting a weak prediction bonus in exchange for a one time boost to a skill, or make a CJ that always has approximately the same range of bonus, always hits the right skill, can be used multiple times, and can be saved for exactly when you want it. Admittedly, the prediction system gives you more flexibility, since you can hypothetically hit any skill during any time of the year, and prediction bonuses can last far longer than CJ bonuses, but the only time I really find myself using it is when I need to stack bonuses on the same skill, so I'll make a CJ and do a prediction.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Jilly says, "Cute..."

Jilly says, "In an odd, leathery kitten kinda way."

 

REDFERS

Re: Question of the day · on 7/24/2004 7:06:27 AM 9533
I have to agree with Ileia, Redfers almost never uses the prediction system. Spending an age filling a pool, to try for the best results, getting one attempt, which can only be aligned using a tool, on any skillset with many possibilities, with a decent chance of a significant curse. No thanks.

An item of celestial jewellery takes a few minutes to make, with many charges, you can have the bonus running continually for quite some time and you know what skill the bonus is to.

Perhaps prediction should be aimed at the non-enchanting moon mage, as one who can make the cj bonuses might prefer the certainty that that system affords over the haphazard nature of predicting.

Redfers

 

SHADOWVEIL

Ileia

Re: Question of the day · on 7/24/2004 11:34:18 AM 9539
Hey Trib--

I'm sorry if my post sounded negative. And thank you Ailaene, Redfers for explaining my perspective very well. I wouldn't say the prediction system isn't working at all, as there seem to be quite a few who enjoy it. But when we have another more reliable option (enchanting) to get the same/similar results then I'll take that instead.

If I can give you an example: Recently Ileia had to open a moongate to the islands that required a boost in her PM to accomplish the task. If she were to rely on predicting, it's possible it would have taken her several tries to hit the correct skill which could have been very time consuming. And we all know how important timing is in this guild when it comes to the moons. When and if she did hit her PM skill, there is a good chance it would have been a curse or even a very weak boost. Since stacking has effectively gone away, there is nothing to do but wait for the prediction to wear off and then try it again. Without going through all that frustration, she made a PM CJ in advance and with a rub on the ruby band, opened the moongate up without any additional effort.

Of course if the prediction system ever went beyond just increasing skills, then it will probably capture my interest. <g>

The Event Prediction is the best feature in my opinion as it adds a lot of flavor to the guild. It is something of a mystical nature and gives us something to discuss. They are often a bit too vague to make much sense of them though. Perhaps we could have linking ones like we did in the past. As we get closer to the event, we gain more details.

I will be trying out your new prediction system though, Tribanin. I joined this guild because of the mysterious nature surrounding it and I'm happy to see you're adding that back in through predictions.

 

DR-TRIBANIN

Tribbles

Re: Question of the day · on 7/24/2004 1:21:56 AM 9531
Very nice information - thank you everyone. Some of you have touched on a few things that are similar to a proposal I'm working on, that if the whole thing gets approved, it would put some of the mystery back into predicting, as well as forge an interesting bridge between enchanting and predicting that could prove to make for some unusual and exciting results. I don't want to discuss it in depth right now - I'm waiting on two things before I open it up for discussion, but hopefully both of those will be resolved within the next couple of weeks.

I will say this much - it will definately help predicting appear more of a true core aspect of being a Moon Mage, without forcing anyone to make changes to how they do things now. The benefits, based on some quick numbers I threw together, to me seem really nice, and while there would be some slight chance of negatives too to help balance things out a bit, I feel that the full aspect of the system would more than offset the low chance of the negatives being a real problem.

The other nice thing? It wouldn't require a rewrite to existing systems - we'd just need to shift a few things around and crowbar in the new code to existing systems.

How was that for tapdancing? <G>

Keep your eyes peeled, because I'm going to want some sincere, well-thought out responses once I'm ready to send it to the floor for discussion. I might even hold it for an in-game meeting so we can all speak directly, before sending it to the boards for discussion.

Trib
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Moon Mages - Illuminating Elanthia's Future for over a century.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Spell Ideas Thread
Time:	7:07 am.

DR-ARMIFER

GM Censored

Spell Ideas · on 7/24/2004 3:04:33 AM 1363
Since the Prediction thread has begun to wind down a little bit, let's try something similar.

I would like to throw out a few ideas for new spells. None of these have been proposed, much less approved yet. I'm looking at the different directions our future spells could go, both with functionality (what the spell actually does) and theme (how the spell works within our setting). I consider both aspects equally important.

Feel free to pick these ideas apart. Tell me what you like about them and what you don't. Tell me if it's a spell you'd spend a slot on and why. Tell me if Kssarh is cooler than Tiv.

Unsubstantial answers (both of the "They all suck!" and "I want to carry your love child!" variety) will result in death. Or I'll ask you to clarify them. Either way.

Perception:
Common Sight - The antithesis to many lunar spells, Common Sight disrupts the target's sense of the magical universe around him, shifting his perception entirely into his physical senses. While this increases the target's Perception, it blunts the target's attempts to sense and focus on all things magical. It also disrupts any connection the target has to the Probability Plane.

Precognitive Reaction - This spell is a refinement of Seer's Sense's subtle amplification of the caster's connection to the Plane of Probability. The caster becomes subconsciously aware of events moments before they occur, effectively increasing his agility and reflexes.

Psychic Projection:
Dominate Personality - This spell fortifies the caster's mind with psychic magic, allowing him to project his personality with supernatural force, effectively enhancing his charisma and discipline.

Moonlight Manipulation:
Spectral Horror - This spell conjures up a hideous illusory beast which attempts to strike out against threats to the caster. While the Horror's assaults can only be described as...visceral, the only real damage it can inflict is against the psyche of its target.

Transduction:
Telekinetic Grasp - Through this spell the caster's control of telekinetic forces have become advanced enough that he may weave and control a telekinetic field around himself, using the power of his mind to augment his physical strength.

Stellar Magic:
Threshold - This spell allows the caster to draw upon raw celestial power and manifest it inside his body. There is a chance of injury during this process as the caster fights to control the dangerous energies ripping through his body. If he does not kill himself in the process, the caster temporarily becomes a being of pure thought and starlight.

-Armifer
"We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far." H.P. Lovecraft

Lets go at these with my takes.

Common Sight - The antithesis to many lunar spells, Common Sight disrupts the target's sense of the magical universe around him, shifting his perception entirely into his physical senses. While this increases the target's Perception, it blunts the target's attempts to sense and focus on all things magical. It also disrupts any connection the target has to the Probability Plane.

Worst idea ever? Quite possibly. Here, lets posit another idea of similar functionality.

Magical Sight - This is a meaningless first clause, Magical Sight disrupts the target's sense of the universe around him, shifting his perception entirely into his magical senses. While this increases the target's perception, it blunts the target's ability to use weapons. It also instantly negates Magic Resistance.

Sound good? No? If you don't think so, don't throw out dumbass ideas like this. Prediction is a "Guild Defining" ability. It shouldn't be able to be screwed over by a spell, period. Magic is also an integral part of being a Moon Mage (or any Magic-Equipped guild). Messing with both is bad news. Might I also mention this is effectively a PvP only spell? No thanks.

The stat-boosting spells? Yes. Bring it on. Magic Primes need more Stat boosting (ie, more than one stat boost between all three Magic Prime guilds...). Precognitive Reaction is the exact same as Seer's Sense, and even though DragonRealms is the place where you don't have to learn Charm Monster I, Charm Monster II, Charm Monster III, it's not like things have ever been that way or that they ever will. Seer's Sense is a decent enough spell (even though trying to argue that the evasion aspect of the spell is just a side-effect is flavor-based bullshit), and having another spell with the same flavor that does something different is just fine.

Spectral Horror is not something I would choose, and I'm not aware of DR being able to handle illusiory damage. It seems like "illusiory damage" here is being used as a synonym for "Roundtimes and flavor text about the creature yelling in pain" or something to that effect. In that case, who wants it? Illusiory damage might mean "damage that appears and then goes away after 120 seconds" or something to that effect, but it seems like it would require a lot of bookkeeping (every wound inflicted would have to be tracked). If you're considering actually writing that system, don't. We already have spells that inflict real damage that doesn't go away until it's healed. Unless you've got something else big I see no need for this spell.

Threshold is another "Moon Mage kills himself" spell. Why? The only other guild that I know of that can kill themselves with their spells is War Mages and their 1st tier everyone-has spell Ethereal Shield is 100% protection from all of that bullshit. Moon Mages have too many stupid restrictions on spells already. "Succeed at cast or die" is not a reasonable restriction on the spell (nor is it for Teleport or Moongate).
Might I note that there is no substance to this spell idea? What the hell is it supposed to do in the game? I can think of a lot of things that being made out of "pure thought and starlight" would do, and 99% of them will ever come to pass in this game.

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	More Mediocrity
Time:	3:30 pm.

MATRINA

~Cow Mistress~

Con Stuff. · on 6/6/2004 3:08:30 AM 4048
Notes from the bard meeting at Con. Was waiting for someone else to go first as usual, but it's pretty quiet in here lately so something needs said. I'll try to explain as best as I can remember. Hopefully the others that were there can answer the fuzzy parts for me. I'm not quoting word for word either, these are just scribblings I wrote down that I might want to remember. Elenelear pointed out to me before I started writing that most of all this was already said in a post I think by Vae, but here it is again anyway. :)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Enchantes:
Updates and bug fixes are fixed in DR2 but they will not be changing them in DR's present state. (What all "updates and bugs" entails, I dunno.)

BMR adjustments have been done and still being monitored for future arse kickings.

Will be/have/going, to talk Barb people about MR.

Bugs with fear based enchantes.

New enchantes being released. Both are currently close to being done.(Soon)
Redeemer's Pride
Naming of Tears

We know that Pride is a fear based enchante, but what's the point of having it then when we have no feasible fear system?

If I understood correctly, the Sentinels will indeed be opened and the Pride will actually have a use. There was mention as well that a person will be stationed there to advance those on the island that don't frequent seeing guildleaders.

I got the impression the area/quest involved would not be easy involving the Sentinels. I think anyway, I get confused. I didn't write too much about this down, overall feeling was it was gonna be big though.

Other DR2 updates; Instrument difficulty & upkeep and play. Updates only, not the new play system.

No more leaving from the front room of the guild by the guildleader to do an enchante, sing, play, or teach. However, the mana will still remain the crap that it is, so enchantes are moot. :)

Stuff working on before/after DR2. (I got the timeframe of when confused)

-More enchante updates.
-Play rewrite.
-Teachable range of instruments.
-Sheet music - duets, accompaniment. Teach other bards from sheet music.
-Fixing BMR enchantes. (That's 1st right now.)
-Instrument creation.

Instrument creation, you say? Yes, Virginia there is a Santa Claus. :)
Creation is close to being finished which is good, cause it's the first step needed in sentient instruments. The process is; instrument creation, bonding, and then sentience.

I'm really fuzzy about what sentience is, so I'll not go into that much other then to say that it's gonna be big too. There will be a quest to get it and it involves using recall.

-Instrument refurbishing.
Mind is sketchy here but I think it was about being able to polish and fix instruments..in whatever way bards do.

-Instrument Storage.
I didn't understand this one at all, but I guess it's a storage system for your instruments. They are taken care of while stored, don't become quite so dirty. I'm guessing it's like a mini vault for instruments, so you change around your instruments at random times with ease.

Mmm. I still don't get this one. I already carry an instrument case with the instruments I use. I don't understand how having another vault type of thing for instruments only - that I still have to travel to get to from wherever I happen to be when the idea of changing my instruments comes over me in the first place - is going to help me as a bard wishing to advance in the guild. The idea is neat and I like it, just not something I see myself using. Of course its possible I totally misunderstood this topic, but if not, see above. :)

100th Quest - Being worked on, awaiting requirement changes as well. Currently 2 bards at 99th right now waiting.

This was interesting I thought; P5.

P5 was the stronghold for Dragon Priests so the area is very rich in bardic history. Bards in hiding back in the day actually seemed to choose living right IN the same vicinity of their killers. It was thought, what better place to hide but right in death's embrace...mmm such drama. Sounds fun though, be interesting to see how it works out.

Mmm, ok. I think that's about it and I'm tried of writing.
Enjoy, discuss.
Matrina

LORD-RAHL

Mozzik, The Fateweaver

Alright I finished them... · on 6/6/2004 12:31:26 PM 25281
Ignoring the combat seminar as we speak, and the this is the first little burst of wireless signel I've seen so hopefully this post will work... but here they are.

-Mozzik

Necromancers

Notes on focus on death, spells, and much else can be found in last years notes.

Quests to circle, entirely quest driven guild. To be specific... a Rigby Quest(tm) every circle. Good luck... you'll gunna need it!

Favors will not be immortal based beyond a certain point, that point when you've finally embraced necromancies, mostly likly this point will be when you raise your first Risen.

Deaths and Favors are being custom written for necromancers to make IC sense.

"I don't want to know about to rubbing your Risen" - Mozzik to Pomae

Lassartha (Or however you spell his name) will be the first guildleader, and he's totally coded, though he's looking for pre-exp change reqs right now.

RIsen are the primary thing that has not yet been coded.

The 1st quest, (At 1st circle presumably) is a quest to learn to now blow your arms off when using necromancies and sorceries (though not Blackfire and Feral magic).

Corrosive Touch, and Death Sense are coded and just need a little refinement.

Just to be clear, Necromancers cannot heal with scarification.

For a quick review:
1) Death Sense is PP based and lets you sense nearby corpses
2) Corrosive Touch decays items based on skill that you are holding.
3) Rot Stop prevents the auto decay of corpses.
4) Eyes of the Dead let you see through the eyes of someone as soon as they die at expense of your own sight.
5) Carrior Tongue lets you speak through the mouth of someone who is recently dead at the cost of speaking yourself. (Hey clerics! Raise me! RAISE ME! LALALALALALALALALALA!)

When everything is coded for necromancers up to 20th they will be released. Advancement is not intended to be swift at all...

Based on that Commoners will not be jumping 10-20 circles, there will be quests at each level holding them back, some of those may be quite time consuming (Making enough notes in your little black book of horrors on something seems to be the most common theme in these low level quests). Or the Guildleaders may just not wish to impart this much knowledge to someone at once and make them go practice what they have for awhile.

Should you try and shortcut your training by taking sloppy notes, or otherwise not pleasing the guildleader when you present your book to him to advance (I believe 15th circle is the last book quest) they won't hand it back to you and say "Could you fix this and this?" they'll instead shred it, throw the pieces at you, and inform you to start over on the series of book quests.

The first Risen will be possible at 20th level and will be the humanoid template.

As it stands the reqs are this, but note it's overall not accurate since it's being updated for the new exp system, but it's a close approximation for the first 30 circles other then perhaps that mech lore/alchamy one... I think one of these (Skinning or Evasion?) was suppose to drop off but I don't have it marked.
4 First Aid
4 Skinning
3 Evasion
3 Scarification
3 Scholarship
3 Harness
3 Primary Magic
2.5 Alchemy
2.5 Mech Lore
2.5 Average Survival
2 Escape
2 Power Percieve
2 Light Edge (Drops off)
2 Overall Lore
2 Overall Magic

According to Valdrik "Let me just say you will be actually a different individual when you join the guild" but when asked he said this was refering more to favors then to skills... though the more he talked about it, it was unclear if he was refering to "joining the necromancers" as in the guild or "joining the necromancers" as in crossing that line by making a Risen.

Almost 100% of Rigby's GM time is spent coding Necromancers right now.

Some Risen templates will be able to double as a vault.

While it will be possible to have multiple Risen, anymore then 2 are going to be incredibly straining on the necromancer.

The mana will work like mana for other room based guilds (You'll sense Arcane mana and it may or may not be linked to the mana types already there for a variety of reasons).

Comments: Read 4 or Add Your Own.

Subject:	Stuff For the Next 6 Years
Time:	4:49 am.

LORD-RAHL

Mozzik, The Fateweaver

Moon Mage Notes! · on 6/5/2004 12:30:40 PM 9088
Moon Mages

**IG MEETING NEXT SATURDAY WITH TRIB**
Most of this information will be gone over again there or has already been on the boards.

GM Censored was introduced to the guild - as a fluffly little dragon hand puppet/hat that Trib was wearing.

While we don't yet know who GM Censored is, Trib hinted very strongly that he's a Con attendee this year. Make of that what you will.

"You won't like me when I'm hyper" - Trib

The 1st priority for Trib is bug fixes and messaging changes, At last count Trib had 200-300 known bugs, over half of them relating to TKT and water (Unknown if he was exaggerating this or not...)

Guildleaders are also quite buggy and outdated in their messages so they will be rewritten to have more personality and accurate information.

Along that line... Trib mentioned that one of the Guildleaders will be... "Changing". For those of you not in the know that's almost certain to mean one of the Guildleaders is gunna get it. For the record my vote is for Mortom... though Tiv also seems to be a likly canidate.

The 2nd priority will be enchanting.

Varients on the beacon enchantment to work with Seer's Sense from a range for example.

The 3rd priority is the prediction system.

Trib is giving seminars to the GMs on writing visions so hopefully we'll see more and better event predictions soon, he seems to be a huge fan of this system.

More magic to be tied into the prediction system - Perhaps causing some random effects due to predictions depending on the spells used and so forth.

The 4th priority is spells.

First up spells will be reviewed, then things added to them, and perhaps some spell mergers or otherwise slimming down of our spellbooks.

Trib (and Valdrik) seems to like the idea of cross-guild spell casting effects, to combine some new effect from two other spells. This also seems to apply to enchantments.

New spells will come after this.

The man new spell discussed was the "Shield" spell. Some info on it for those not following the boards (Notice that this spell is not yet approved). A defensive energy shield that starts shield like and eventually ends up as a full body field of defense. Eventually you'll be able to reinforce certain flanks at the expense of the others. While maintaining the spell it will slow your reactions (Ref or evasion penalty). If in "manual" mode you will learn shield skill, if in automatic mode you will learn much less shield skill. The power will be based off mana (though it's not a held mana spell) as well as your magic skills and your shield skill. It could possibly be combined with a normal shield as well.

Ripple - THIS IS NOT A DOWNTWEAK! READ THE WHOLE THING BEFORE YOU POST OR I'LL HAVE TRIB SEND AN ARMY OF SHADOWMASTERS AFTER YOU WITH NO MOONS UP! ahem That said...
Ripple is being refined. Trib doesn't think it's overpowered, and that people are way overreacting over on the WM boards, Right now the spell is in a rather crude state, so Tribbles is going to refine it to a better state.
1) Proper defense checks are going to be put in place for creatures. As it is right now most creatures aren't updated for it so many creatures have no chance to avoid it at all, and others (such as Outcasts) will always avoid it. The checks that are in place right now are too generic (Make of that what you will).
2) Once these checks are put in place there is the potential for high level players to be able to Ripple other players! This would most likly dump them on the PoP (Which isn't a terribly friendly place) or the Astral Plane (Where the Ways travel through... also not a terribly friendly place).
3) Ripple will be snap castable... it may only fire off like one wave if you do this, but it will have some chance of helping in swarm control now!

Because of 2 above, and possible interactions with RS/MG as well the Ways have moved up in priority quite a ways.

By the end of the year we should have at least 5 new spell effects for "Dead' spells like Dazzle and Focus Moonbeam. Trib mentioned something about a general cast Dazzle with a possible secondary effect, and a use for FM.

Trib may look into a way to refresh moonbeams (And didn't seem to have any plans to adjust FM like we heard about under Talian and co, but also didn't seem to be too up on that situation yet. We'll see what happens.)

We may be able to detonate a SLS as a weaker but area attack spell. Also potentially displacing it... into people...

"The spike appraises as soft" - Davius
"That's because it's discharged" - Trib

A major change to skills is coming, but Trib doesn't plan to do anything about it unless he sees a benifit for us. EDIT: I think this is refering to the exp changes mentioned in the State of Elanthia, meaning that we can expect our reqs to look more or less the same but with less minor skills and bits instead of ranks for overall... but I may be totally wrong on this as Trib didn't add anything else.

We'll likly see development of Sects or Paths but not both.

The Paths would be combat/magic/prediction/enchantment plus core abilites.

The Paths would cause varied effects in your spells.

Our spells are intended to be POWERFUL and on that note, if we have strong combat spells they aren't combat spells, they are Moon Mage spells, which is all the justification they need.

Warrior Mages and Moon Mages really are quite different animals. Stop trying to compare them, it isn't meaningful at all. Now step back trolls!

Given the above if something is overpowered... it will be reviewed. For the record Ripple is NOT overpowered. For that matter Trib clearly said that NO current spells are overpowered for Moon Mages.

In a rather surprising announcement Trib said that his view on magic is that in combat the role of it isn't to blow up anything in front of us and then we get killed, but to keep us alive through a great deal of things, since if you aren't dying you already have the upperhand, even if this means you have to go finish the job with a weapon. Our goal in combat isn't a kamikazi attack.

"In the beginning you had Sects... or your parents did." - Trib

Paths are more fundamental then Sects, which are more fundamental then your Guild in your belief system. A path is how you approach your skills and your goal for what to use them for.

"Progeny are the result of sects" - Valdrik
"The result of Bad sects" - Trib

"Only Moon Mages have sects" - Valdrik

"We put Moon Mages on the path to sects" - Trib

Just as a point... Moon Mages were not forced to sign the Lunar Accord due to their combat prowess, but because they know too much. Something to think about.

Trib has no problems with icy dealings with going on with players who abuse their powers... be this removed spells for a bit, removing all spells... you get the idea. If you don't, ask Rumet. Or about him and burn since he's gone.

Potentially Trader beacons will be installed in cities that could be rented to let a Moon Mage open moon gates for caravans or some such.

We may see an increase in J and K stones in the treasure system, Trib suspects they may have been bumped to the wrong treasure tier.

Trib wants to do a very high level travel spell that wouldn't need the moons up (Perhaps a SLS varient) that may or may not be tied to the Ways.

The Ways may be opened by a particular pattern of scribed sigils, with certain sigils going to certain locations.

Su Helmas - One way or another it will be coming out. This is nicer then how Trib phrased it :)
There will be an area in it that as a lone moon mage you'll have to pray to get through.
A daily, randomly shifting keystone that will need to be studied to figure out what Sigils to use to open up Su Helmas. The large swimming area starts off with a waterfall, and the water starts easy after that to class 5 rapids, to a totally underwater area that you'll need to fight the current just to get air.
Re: Su Helmas "There will be death" - Trib
The intial release of Su Helmas should have two new spells and two new abilities for us.

The first part of Su Helmas will be out before the end of the year hopefully, with the Pethian sect hall. (Note, I'm unclear if this is the same intial release as the one mentioned having new abilities and spells, or if by intial release he means the intial overall plan for it... anyhow we'll see what comes with time)

Su Helmas will be expanded over time to add more things for us, I suspect it will play a similiar role as TC and Taisgath as a stagging area for Moon Mage events and releases.

Su Helmas was made by twisted individuals, so it's intended to be a nasty place.

Su Helmas does have it's own depart area... heh.

The P5 guild may not have been started yet (Trib needs to check) so that may force Su Helmas back slightly, but the guildleader for that guild is known (The nomad one mentioned on the mainpage) and is known to be something of an alcoholic...

-Mozzik

Comments: Add Your Own.

Subject:	Uninspiring
Time:	3:48 am.

DAVIDK93

Pervy Hobbit Fancier

SimuCon Careers Notes · on 6/5/2004 5:12:56 PM 25166
Careers - Helena, Jeremail, Ssra, Solomon
Saturday, 6/5/04, 1:30pm

Helena has been involved in careers since its inception. She will be our facilitator for this seminar.

Jeremael is heading up careers development. Careers will act to give commoners a place in the game. The different crafts will be separated mainly along the same lines as the mech lore breakup, and then specializations within them. There will be different crafts in each "hall." Development is just beginning. Tentatively, they will include Metalsmith (within that, blacksmithing, which includes weapons, armor, and jewelry), Stonemason, Woodworking, Husbandry (including gardening and herbalist), Justice (city guard, bounty hunters, debt collectors), and Academic ("geek stuff," bookbinding, alchemy. Career training points will be earned from ranks and from career tasks. The tentative lore skill list is Artistry (the effectiveness of other skills for an aesthetically pleasing result), Alchemy, Metalworking, Stoneworking, and Woodworking.

As an example, take the Husbandry Hall. Join, and you receive specialization. Herbalists include vintners and brewers. Animal hubandry has tanning and taxidermy. Textiles includes weaver and tailor. You earn points for doing jobs. Once you achieve mastery in in a hall, you can join a new hall. But you can only achieve journeyman level in any secondary hall, and you can gain skills in only one secondary hall at a time.

Q: Can you give up your mastery in order to gain mastery in a different hall?
A: No.

Q: How would you change your active secondary?
A: You are locked in until you're a journeyman in it.

Q: How will the forging counter be applied?
A: We don't know yet.

Q: Will there be some way to leave your primary specialty?
A: Haven't thought about it. It's an interesting, valid point.

Q: Will all guilds be equally good with creation systems?
A: Some races or guilds may get small bonuses.

Q: What's the benefit of mastery?
A: Skills and abilities. Creating new types of items. Greater bonusing.

Q: Will the skills be teachable?
A: All the new lore skills will be teachable.

Q: Will commoners have titles through this?
A: Yes, there are upcoming skill-based titles.

Q: Will commoners have a bonus in career advancement?
A: Don't know.

Q: Wait, do you master a hall, or do you master a specialization?
A: You can master multiple specializations in a hall.

Q: [Elriic and Jolebin] Wait, what? You seem to be using the same words to mean two or three different things. We still don't understand the secondary hall, journeyman thing.
A: Oh, that is kind of confusing, after all.

Q: When I convert mech lore, will I get career points?
A: Possibly. The mech lore split mechanics will be separate from careers, though.

Q: Will there be drawbacks for professional failures?
A: Yes.

Q: Will the halls be released together so that people can figure out which one to join?
A: There will be lots and lots of documentation. Don't worry.

Q: Will you be able to know in advance all the skills you can learn from a profession?
A: Lots and lots of documentation.

Q: Will the creation systems still be available outside of professions?
A: Yes.

Q: Is there a risk that players will depend on other players for advancement?
A: We hope to avoid that. There will be more effective NPCs.

Q: Can I just pick up a pickaxe and try to mine?
A: Yeah, sure, you can dig around if you want.

Q: Currently, Traders already recognize certain Barbarians as master forgers. Will the new system take that into consideration?
A: It will be taken into account, but it is unknown how.

At this point, the seminar was adjourned to allow setup for the career fair, which included an array of players and GMs demonstrating RL versions of some medieval professions that might be reflected in the careers system.

Sincerely,
David (Jolebin Swordstaff, Elemancer of Riverhaven)

Comments: Add Your Own.

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