I hate magickers, official thread.

[spawnloser]

If there is a single thing which dilutes the mystique of the magicker as rare/mysterious/dangerous it is these f***ing threads.  It is not their great proliferation in recent times.  It is not magicker PC's sitting in every single cave in the world spam-casting.

It is you folks talking about how magicker X can branch spells X, Y, Z in two days; about the places secret magickers hang out; about the areas of the world they are prevalent;  about how good or not good magickers are in combat; about how a warrior can fight a mage; etc, etc, etc.  So that now every player who might not have known any of these things now know.

See, half of what these people have said is wrong, though.  They're misconceptions and hearsay.  I love these threads for exposing who has never actually played an experienced mage.

So that newer players who might not have been so wary now see a magicker behind every bush.

I'll agree with this part, though.

[Marauder Moe]

If there is a single thing which dilutes the mystique of the magicker as rare/mysterious/dangerous it is these f***ing threads.

Amen.  I do think there has been a disturbing amount of IC info revealed about magicker's capabilities, both what they can and what they can't do.  I do feel bad for anyone that learned something new about magickers from this thread.

[jmordetsky]

Um sorry.

On the subject of mages being to powerful:

First - There are like at least 5 warriors in game right NOW who's skills are buff enough and who's players are smart enough to pown most mid-level mages.

Second - Very powerful mages are supposed to be able to ruin non-mages.


Trust me, I worry now much more about maxxed sneak, hide and sap (ouch) then I do about mages.


From what I could see, the biggest issue with mages are the evil floating invisible ones that don't emote and just cast paralyze on you. Um. Lamezor. All of that would be balanced by letting warriors branch scan, and creating a spice or something that boosted it.


Without invisibility, most mages are glass cannons and prone to serious weaknesses.


On the other hand as far as there being too many mages in game...yes...lets tone the special apps down a bit, eh? Jeez.

[Gimfalisette]

Have to say I'm really in LoD's camp on the overall issue. I play mundane characters who just want to not get involved in magick, almost exclusively. I also am not combat-oriented or much of a pkiller; I'll do it if it absolutely MUST be done, from an IC standpoint, but it's never been nor will it ever be my main thing. (Because it bores me.) In theory, Tuluk should be a perfect place to play a mundane, non-combat, mostly city-bound character who just wants to avoid magick, right? And yet I find that magick impacts every one of my characters in very significant ways.

"Oh great, that new friend/lover is a sekret magicker. Again."

"Wow, I didn't even do anything to that magicker and yet here I am being (insert name of magickal spell of your choice) all over the city."

"What the hell was that?! Oh just another magicker/psionicist using me for practice..."

"Hey let's go logging/hunting/foraging...whoops, just heard the news, can't go to (region we need to travel that is in sight of the city walls) because it's being plagued by magickal raiders."

"Damn, still not safe this week to travel to Luir's due to magickal raiders on the road."

Honestly, I just want to get on with my mundane characters' lives and not deal with magick so often. It's so un-rare it's ridiculous. The "you just want to be powerful enough to pkill a magicker thing" completely doesn't apply to me. I want to be left alone by magickers, because I'm leaving them alone.

But if magickers won't leave me alone, then I reserve the right for my characters to know enough about them to keep themselves protected. I don't create my characters so they can become magickers' playthings, so until magick doesn't unwelcomely impact my characters at every turn, I'm not interested in playing so dumb/naive about it that my characters are endangered.

[LiquidShell]

I'm glad that we clarified that some of our staff condone, or even prefers mages to harass, kill, and otherwise ruin the rp of the mundanes.  I'm glad that we established that it takes a run of the mill 15-20 day mundane pc to be able to do anything about a two day elementalist who's been summoning monsters on you during your hunt unprovoked, or just sleeping you for fun.  You know what? I think everyone should start making magickers, maybe if we didn't have any mundanes because everyone was tired of being stepped on by the amount of rabid magickers in game the staff might think differently about the teething of magickers.  The more I read into the thread, the more I become disgusted, the more I realize that magicker abuse on mundanes is not an isolated event, and hell you might even get karma for doing it.

[manonfire]

Aren't you the kid who got himself sitebanned from SoI?

[mansa]

I'm glad that we clarified that some of our staff condone, or even prefers mages to harass, kill, and otherwise ruin the rp of the mundanes.  I'm glad that we established that it takes a run of the mill 15-20 day mundane pc to be able to do anything about a two day elementalist who's been summoning monsters on you during your hunt unprovoked, or just sleeping you for fun.  You know what? I think everyone should start making magickers, maybe if we didn't have any mundanes because everyone was tired of being stepped on by the amount of rabid magickers in game the staff might think differently about the teething of magickers.  The more I read into the thread, the more I become disgusted, the more I realize that magicker abuse on mundanes is not an isolated event, and hell you might even get karma for doing it.

Do you know what ArmageddonMUD's Karma is?

It's a measure of trust, to trust that you will play the role as it is supposed to be played.

[Shalooonsh]

LiquidShell writes:

blah blah blah

It's quite clear that you are sore about a particular incident.

I think it would do you well to reminisce about the exact sequence of events of that particular incident, and consider the fact that, given all the evidence you were presented, you made an exceptionally bad decision.

Not unlike Don Quixote.

[a strange shadow]

1) Somebody has to be able to kill those 150 day warriors/rangers.

2) Use tactics and teamwork to kill a mage. Other than kill;bash.

[Fathi]

Without invisibility, most mages are glass cannons and prone to serious weaknesses.

Invisibility can be such an awesome RP tool, too, especially when coupled with hemotes and semotes.

There's one mage in particular that comes to mind who could make invisibility a creepshow like no other. He's so good I thought he was an NPC at first because his emotes seemed to be so environmental.

A well-played mage, to me, gives me the OOC thought, "Wow, if I'm gonna have to lose X character, at least it'll hopefully be to this guy."

Too bad I never learned his PC's name and it was back when I was too new to understand how to give kudos. You were awesome, invisible guy.

[LoD]

I'm glad that we clarified that some of our staff condone, or even prefers mages to harass, kill, and otherwise ruin the rp of the mundanes.  I'm glad that we established that it takes a run of the mill 15-20 day mundane pc to be able to do anything about a two day elementalist who's been summoning monsters on you during your hunt unprovoked, or just sleeping you for fun.  You know what? I think everyone should start making magickers, maybe if we didn't have any mundanes because everyone was tired of being stepped on by the amount of rabid magickers in game the staff might think differently about the teething of magickers.  The more I read into the thread, the more I become disgusted, the more I realize that magicker abuse on mundanes is not an isolated event, and hell you might even get karma for doing it.

I want to mention that I added to this thread despite your original post rather than because of it.  I don't believe that the Imm Staff condone or prefer mages harassing, killing, or ruining the RP of the mundanes.  They've simply mentioned that magick is a powerful force that should be respected.  Mess with the bull and you'll get the horns, etc...

Magicker abuse on mundanes happens much less frequently than mundane on mundane abuse where people murder indiscriminantly, purposefully target LD characters, spam skills with little to no thought of their application in the gameworld, or act out completely unrealistic scenes that ignore VNPC or NPC components of the game.

The notion that people would receive karma based at all on how much they harass, kill, or meddle with other players is baseless and simply incorrect.

My aim was to put reasons behind the feelings that people are describing, as well as better communicate the true issue -- which is not because the playerbase hates magickers, but because there are other issues at play better represented in the thoughtful posts of others than by your borderline trolling commentary.

Be careful not to mistake paassion for anger, frustration for hate, or criticism for damning.  They are none of those things.

-LoD

[Apocalyptic_Cow]

I think LOD brought up some good points that we should address and potentially salvage this titanic of a thread. Rather than considering this a problem between all mundanes and all magickers, I really agree that it's a territory issue. I sympathize with the clan that struggles to function, given their culture, because their territory is not recognized remotely as theirs, or is used as a highway for characters they are in conflict with. Looking at the game as it is, this is only a problem for some tribes, and I think we should look at what keeps the others from facing this problem.

There are some tribes whose land is relatively open, unmarked, and caravans could be plowed through without ever recognizing they were trespassing. Foreign characters can't be expected to understand that there are virtual tribesmen around (if indeed there are) without any indication, especially if the players themselves are unaware.

However, there are also some tribes whose land you know you are on immediately, and I'm pretty sure they don't struggle with the problem of constantly having to deal with magickers they are told OOCly to avoid. The tribe in mind has a very designated area of land, with NPCs that are visibly on the lookout, and trespassers are approached and (in my experience) told they're where they shouldn't be, and to get the hell out. This seems to work.

To resolve some of this in the new incarnation, I'd like to suggest:

:arrow: More NPC tribesmen at boundary locations, and more visible markers.
:arrow: Some NPCs that actively hunt, or are scripted to yell at intruders/toss the odd spear would be neat.
:arrow: Pushing back "guarded" territory boundaries so that they don't include things like commonly used roads or stops. This would let the tribes be territorial and the mundane players go about their lives without facing the offense of someone trespassing every time they're about their normal activity, as well as give unaffiliated rangers space to do their thing.

[jmordetsky]

As far as I can see every gripe and point on this board can be boiled to one sickness...


Diku mud combat doesn't fit Roleplaying games. You go from RP to Unreal Tournament as soon as combat starts and it sucks. You can't think you can't emote you can't do anything. People kill (or try to kill) mages (and each other out in the wastes) because they are afraid to die. If a mage floats into a room surrounded by fire, I do what any other sane person would do, I run.

As soon as someone casts or types kill on arm the entire game goes from well thought emotes to who can spam flee, type kill, kick, bash, disarm or cast fireball the fastest.

The only way to cure things to change kill so it doesn't implement a scrawl of actions, but rather becomes something that is D20-esque and semi-turn based and to implement a threaten command (which is really just making things turn based in specific instances)

List of things fixed by semi-turn based combat:

1 - Enter a Room and Flee Syndrome
2 - Cast and Flee Syndrome
3 - Enter a room and cast syndrome
4 - Walk-chasing around the rinth or cities

[Lizzie]

You know Liquidshell, I've had this character I'm on now, since August. She's been exposed to magickers of all types, both in relative safety and in dire dangerous areas. Not -once- has any magicker threatened or attempted to cause her harm. My character isn't a buff anything - I spend MUCH more time roleplaying than I do utilizing my coded skills. I don't know much about how the magick system works, I only skimmed very briefly over it in the web docs just so I would have a feel for what any mundane character might know.

If you have experienced THAT much trouble with magickers, you might consider that maybe you're the one causing it. Sure there are magickers pretty much everywhere these days, and even my PC might think everyone who walks by is probably one of those nasty vile things, heh. But 1) that doesn't make it true, and 2) even if it is true, none of them are trying to hurt my PC so I don't really give a flying fig.

Why have I managed to have such a long-lived, UNbuffed character, exposed regularly to magickers during the usual mundane course of RP, and continue to enjoy my RP unscathed? Why do you have a buffed character, exposed to the same stuff (or similar) and come out of it all kinds of pissy and hateful?

My advice to you: Spend more time with RP, less time worrying about your skills. It sounds to me like you simply have decided in advance that magickers have to be dealt with via the coded skills and cannot be dealt with any other way, and those magicker PCs have discovered this about your PCs and have chosen their OWN characters' survival over yours.

L. Stanson

[Jherlen]

On the other hand, a friend of mine recently told me how fast he could become confident enough for survival:  He said he branched 9 spells within 2 days of play time and nearly 1 day of it, he was linkdead due to power shortage.

Just something to note - that is good and intentional.  We want mages to get survivable and semi-powerful in a decently short time.  The reason is so that they will spend less time powergaming and more time roleplaying.  Yes, they have to practice their magick to get good, but it doesn't take too terribly much time to practice.  Generally speaking, mages are karma or special-app roles, so we usually trust the player enough to let them get that kind of power fairly quickly.

And by "that kind of power" I mean survivably-powerful, not take-over-the-world powerful.

I wanted to respond to this: though I have never played a mage myself, it's dismaying to hear their branch curve is so much shorter than a non-karma class' curve will be. I understand that we want people to be able to spend more time roleplaying, but I don't see why this should be true only for mage classes and not for anyone else.

It sounds almost as if it's permissable for a mage to be able to branch One Hit Pwnage Superspell in 5 or 10 days so that they can spend less time powergaming, but it still takes an assassin 20 or 50 days to be able to get backstab up to any kind of comparable power level. Yes, one is a karma guild and one isn't, but some players with karma will play nonkarma guilds, and some players without karma will be playing mages through special app.

Why not have the time it takes to become decently survivable be more or less the same for every guild?

[Jherlen]

One more small thing to add about mages now that I think on it:

I had a PC who for a few months was in the Allanaki militia. It was an enjoyable clan and there seemed to be a lot going on, and I got to participate in several RPTs and such. The problem was that most of these RPTs were oriented around something magickal or other, and depended mostly on the templars and the gemmed they were working with at the time. The warrior/ranger militia soldiers got to come along, but our role mostly revolved around standing around and guarding things, and watching the templars and the gemmers fool around with magicky stuff. It made me question what role the militia were really needed for, unless a random tarantula or beetle should happen across us, in which case we were basically just front line fodder.

It would be nice if, in the new game, there was a more symbiotic relationship between magickers and mundane classes, rather than mages being unquestionably more powerful and more ideal for certain tasks in most situations. I don't necessarily want to see their power reduced, but I'd like to see limitations placed on them so that they'd be most effective and efficient when working with mundane guilds as well. I wouldn't want to see the role of the loner mage or the hidden coven of sekrit mages eliminated, but I like the idea of mages being integrated into mundane society a bit if they wanted to truly be super powerful.

[bardbard#4]

Yep I agree, Jherlen.  It would be great if magickers had a whole spectrum of social integration.

But I think for that to happen, we have to seriously rethink what a magicker is.  Here's what I think should happen:

1) Erase all magick words from the helpfiles.

2) Don't give new magickers any ooc help in learning the spell words at all.

3) For elementalists, let the basic spells not require words at all.  Remember, they have some sort of physiospiritual connection to the elemental planes.  Why should they need words to cast their innate spells?

4) Broaden the range of initial spells, but reduce their potential function.  Spread these spells out randomly among magickers so that each is somewhat different.

5) To get the higher level spells, which are invoked by spell words, this would require interaction with other magickers since there are no words in the documentation or helpfiles.

I think this would adequately stratify magickers so that they can be integrated into various societies in a variety of ways.

[Rindan]

People are talking sideways at each other.  There are exactly two complaints on this thread.

1)  Magikers are too buff.

Nearly every response has addressed this point from one side or the other.  
2)  There are too many magikers.

No one has addressed this point.

Most people that complain that magikers are too strong are not really complaining that magikers are too strong.  They are really complaining that there are too many of the little fuckers, and they think that there are too many BECAUSE they are too strong.  They hope that if you just gimped magikers, people would play fewer magikers.

The issue isn't how strong magikers are.  I don't mind strong magikers.  I do mind how massively out of proportion they are to the rest of the player base.  I would be willing to take the bet that there are more magikers and mindbenders online in Armageddon during peak, then there are city elves and dwarves combined.

I don't mind strong magikers.  I don't find magikers killing people to even be all that much of a problem.  What does bother me is that the second you get six inches deep into a plot, magikers start pouring out of the woodwork no matter how hard you try and avoid them.  Seriously, I play the most boring mundane characters this world has ever seen, and sure as shit, as soon as I even sniff a plot by accident, I am up to my neck in stinking magik.

I don't mind the magiker plot here and there.  I don't mind the occasional secret magiker.  It doesn't bother me if these magikers can tear out my entrails and feed them back to me.  It does bother me that it is hard to find an even vaguely mundane plot.  I would merrily toss all of my karma if it capped off the magiker population at no more then 5% of the total active population.

The issue isn't the power of magikers.  The issue is that there are too many of them.  I really hope that 2.Arm finds a way to actively control the number of magikers running around.  A new found love and openness to magikers combined with absolutely no barrier to playing one is just going to make me a sad fellow.

[Tarx]

I had a PC a long time ago (years) within the Atrium.  Even within Allanak as an Atrium Host for months, I never saw more than perhaps two or three gemmed.  I never saw them cast spells.  I never saw them do anything with magick code.  I just saw them in the street.  I never left 'nak, because it was "dangerous" in the wild.  That's how I played that character.  Yeah, there was one freaky weird magickal occurence at one point, but it didn't affect my character, just someone nearby.

Fast forward a couple years.  I had another PC that was long-lived (over a year and a half before he bit the dust).  Well-traveled, city-hater that was involved with many RPTs and plots.  I recall some magick-related occurences over the course of the entire year and a half, but very few and far between the normal occurences.  

I guess I see the world a lot differently than it has been portrayed by other posters.  My characters knew to avoid magickers, so they did.  Hence, I can't really argue with "magickers are too strong" or "there are too many magickers" when I haven't seen either point proven with my own characters.

[Dresan]

I've had this character I'm on now, since August. She's been exposed to magickers of all types

This is the problem some people are trying to get at. ...

Like i said i personally don't care how powerful they are and to be honest i've seen alot more magickers die to mundanes then the other way around. Its true that unless you really provoke one, you can usually get out of it alive. However magickers and magick are supposed to be feared and rare, once there secret is out they'll be in trouble. To me though its not only the fact that there are more players playing magickers (and rather openly i might add) but that there are alot more magick influences plots right now. Of course this might just be due to the current times of the game...you know the end of the world and all. :cry:

[Armaddict]

Uhm.  Wow.  Lots of 'discussion' since the last post.

I have no problems with how magickers are role-played.  I have NO QUALMS...let me repeat that for emphasis...NO QUALMS whatsoever with how powerful mages are.  That is, to me, how they're -supposed- to be.  Mages are supposed to be big and scary, and they're supposed to be damn hard to kill.  They require certain measures being taken, and if you want to hunt one alone, you're -probably- putting yourself in a damn bad spot.  Not a good gamble.

I partially agree with LoD.  Well, mostly.  I think that the appearance of magick, the prevalance of magick, is just overdone.  My hope for it has always been that it would remain a rare occurance to actually -see- one cast.  The fear and wonder should be preserved.  I'd always hoped that the mundane character would still be the preferred method of play due to the vast array of opportunities available that were unavailable to magickers.

The last statement above is not meant as an attack against those who highly prefer to play mages.  I am just of the mind that it became too easy to solely the magick type, and I think it has ended up affecting the game.  On one hand, we now have those who feel forced to -hate- magickers of all sorts with all their being, and the polar opposite of people who get to see first-hand the usefulness of magick in a variety of situations.  I think the latter has become a little too common.

Now, PC's in the south almost always run into the gemmed all over the place.  When someone shows distaste towards one wearing a gem, like the documentation says, not only does the gemmer usually feel justified to rebel and spit in their face, they sometimes gain support from other commoners.  The documentation about how the gemmed are tolerated, not liked, has largely gone down the drain.

Likewise, magickers now find their way into every major plot.  They are ultimately useful in most situations.  They make things easy.  It's unusual to see missions by the military in Allanak that is not supplemented by magickers, and they even receive a large deal of credit for wins, which brings about the question...when magickers make everything easier, what is the role of the mundane?

Seemingly, it has gotten to the point that every major plot -cannot- be completed with only the mundane.  It requires magickal investigation or participation to overcome.  This saddens me, as it makes those of us who enjoy the mundane enter roles where we may be treated well, but we are used as a secondary to the new primary.

I just want magick to become something that the public mundanes do not need to see all the time.  I don't want it to be an omnipresent entity, showed through these gems that show up all over the place.  I want it to be extremely powerful, and to be -mysterious- because of that power.  If you use it in public, in front of the average commoner, who knows what will ensue?  In immediate effect, every commoner should likely be afraid.  But fear becomes a driving effect unless the power is great enough to overcome mass fear.  Otherwise, fear may compel a large group to take care of it.  And that's the situation I like.  It shouldn't be this passing thing that you acknowledge or show understanding about.

Recently, I've heard a lot more of 'They can't help what they were born as, they are a good person.'  I hate this.  This is not earth.  There isn't a notion of equality or empathy for something that is entirely different from you.  I liked where Onimantu said they are a half-demon.  They don't deserve, warrant, or provoke understanding from the average person.  They provoke fear and caution.  They are not useful objects to most.  They are a liability, something that could turn and unleash untold destruction on you.  They aren't something you want to go out of your way to befriend, you want to go out of your way to avoid it.

When we can finally play that out, the balance comes back.  You are immensely powerful as a magicker, but your role-play is limited.  You are living the being that most people will hate and try not to associate with.  You can harass and destroy at will, but find it hard to create friendships or live in synergy with anyone else due to their lack of understanding.

[LoD]

There are exactly two complaints on this thread.

1)  Magikers are too buff.

2)  There are too many magikers.

No one has addressed this point.

There is actually a third problem.

3.  Magickers are too often forced into roles and environments that encourage and almost mandate negative, hostile, and often fatal interaction with mundanes.

Imagine a time before the Cataclysm.  Tuluk and Allanak both tolerate magickers in their midst.  They are allowed to rent property, have families, practice magicks in temples, be employed, and lawfully exist within either city-state.

Let's compare them to an ant farm.  Occasionally one might escape and be found wandering on a kitchen corner, but for the most part they just go about their busienss quietly, keeping to themselves.  There may be 100 of them, but they aren't constantly in your face.  They have a home of their own, and little need or want of anyone else.  If one were to ask them if they thought they had an "ant problem" they would say no.

Now someone goes and destroys the city, er...ant farm.  Now the exact same number of ants are in existence, but they are all over the house.  They're on countertops, eating jello, crawling in bedsheets, moving through the curtains, all over the cabinets...everywhere.  They're in places they never were before (i.e. tablelands, tribal areas, etc...) and they are causing all kinds of grief.

Now, without increasing the number of ants by even one lowly critter, the very same owner of the house would likely say, "I have a HUGE ant problem!"  The only thing that has changed was the distribution.  Not the power.  Not the number.  The distribution.

This simple event has had an impact on the entire Known World.  The distribution of magickers has soared in areas that used to hardly ever see them.  People are being "affected" by magickers within cultures and parts of the game that never did before, and it creates the illusion of magickers crawling all over the woodwork.  

If magickers were again contained, given their own space within society, and made part of the normal makeup of the gameworld, my guess is you would have an exponential decrease in complaints about them.

-LoD

[Doppelganger]

There are exactly two complaints on this thread.

1)  Magikers are too buff.

2)  There are too many magikers.

No one has addressed this point.

There is actually a third problem.

3.  Magickers are too often forced into roles and environments that encourage and almost mandate negative, hostile, and often fatal interaction with mundanes.

Absolutely. That is why I'd like Rindan's idea from Reborn magicker thread taken to extreme, in effect of making magickers generally acceptable, without weakening them.

There is no chance that staff will deal with problems 1 and 2, as they have stated many times that there are no such problems at all. But I've not yet abandoned hope that they will direct magick into more constructive way, so magickers would have something else to do other then screwing mundanes.

[Dakurus]

It's a mix and match, of desires along with realities.

On one hand, we want players to be able to play whatever class they enjoy playing, as long as they qualify, with regards to karma/trust.

On the other, it's all of our jobs (players and staff) to try and bring the world alive along the lines of how it's documented. Doing our best to keep this environment consistent and in line allows people to better understand the world around them, and play their roles to their fullest.

In some ways, the two above can conflict.

Too many or too powerful of a particular class can very much effect a PC perception of the world. This can be true of magical classes or mundanes. This can also be true of preset roles, though we have control and can limit these.

You can easily search the GDB to find old threads about this, or about limits. I'm not sure a robust or successful solution has ever been formulated that while still a compromise, achieves most of the major goals. Because of that, it's a good discussion topic.

Some food for thought that might be used in a combined solution:
More robust/representation of non-PC forces to make things more obvious.
Allow the environment/documention/perceptions of the world to change as PC's do.
Create some sort of limits (overhead?) on various classes, or powers of classes (even a few very very good pickpockets can significantly change how the world works/feels)
Modify the environment/documentation to be more general to accept highest variable levels of classes or particular situations (more co-dependence, inter relation)
Others

[bloodfromstone]

Magickers cannot interact. Period.

My exact problem with 90% of magickers.

I like super powerful mages, but, as many others have stated, there are too many of them. Emoting pissing yourself and cowering gets old - really old - after the third time your character is involved in a super high magick RPT in which the city is nearly exploded and appoximately the fifteenth time of running into a spooky mysterious magicker. Maybe that is why people choose to draw and attack, spam walk away, or whatever reaction that always gets brought up when mundanes complain. Personally, I get pretty tired of roleplaying the secret mysteriousness and scariness of magick for the hundredth time...