Magickers Until the End of Time

[Bebop]

Vanth posed a question.

Okay so, to many magickers we no likey.  Would you be willing to give up your karma if it meant everyone else had to give up theirs as well?

I would (I have up to Krathi myself) - I totally would.  On two conditions:

1) Magickers were special app only (until the end of the game) and only even considered by those that had already had the karma.  Before it was turned off (not docked).

2) Special apps were responded to in no less than two weeks.

Mundanes FTW.

Damnit I SUCK at posting polls.  Final option was - no under any conditions.  But it won't let me add it. V_V

[bardbard#4]

If this happened, I would play a character.

-bb#4 quit in April because he was not enjoying the game.

-bb#4 is also stealing WP's way of finishing posts.

[mansa]

I don't think that karma is the problem.

I think the problem is the game plot itself, and what we are able to accomplish in this game that we play.

The current plot is the destruction of the world - somehow.

This means that we cannot create.  We can only destroy.

This extends to the thought that it's dog eat dog, and that we can outlast others if we're more powerful than others.

Which extends to character classes and which ones are more powerful than others...

Which extends to players making more magickers because they are more powerful than other characters..

Because people want to 'win' and last long.

Because this is a game.

Which basically turned this game into a PK mud.

[bardbard#4]

to append to what mansa said because he told me to post it:

Here's the thing.

The game is ending.

I understand that.

And i think it's good.

And it doesn't have to end in one gigantic magick explosion.

It doesn't have to end in a magick-themed scenario at all

But it seems that it's going that way.

Why does the final event in Armageddon have to be a big magick battle?

Why must the game end on some high fantasy aspect?

We want to affect change and progression on the world, and if we sort of know that the endgame is going to be around magick, then we have to make magickers in order to affect change.

That sucks.  That sucks giant mekillot testicles soaked in a creamy jozhal-jizz sauce with a nice chianti.

[Angela Christine]

I would be willing to have all the supernatural guilds shut down until the end, including a total moratorium on special apps.  No new mages at all, not even one, it is the only fair way.  Anyone currently playing a mage can keep it, but no new mages.  That would encourage anyone with a mage to be more discrete and responsible, because if he dies that's it.  The population of mages would gradually decrease, but all the mages left would probably have significant power.  Any additional mages needed can be NPCs.


I like mages.  It doesn't bother me at all if 50% of characters are mages, I think a 50% supernatural population can still be a low-fantasy game.  (Low-magick != Low-Fantasy)   It would be nice if the documentation was "updated" to give people more practical guidelines on social interaction in the current situation though.


However, Magipalooza does bother plenty of folks.  And current clans aren't really set up well for integrating mages into co-operative roles, which leads to an unpleasantly large portion of mages take on antagonistic roles.  For the good of the game overall, I would support a total moratorium on all new mages.









PS.  

Idea for mages:  Cast in private whenever possible.  If your mage does deal with other people, and moves around with a group in lawless areas, I would recommend bringing a tent.  If you want/need to cast a non-combat spell, do it inside the tent.  If you are casting on yourself, be in the tent alone.  If you are casting on another person (to heal them, or whatever) take in just the other person, and perhaps one witness or supervisor.  The unknown is always spookier than the familiar, even if the familiar is horrible, so try to keep people from becoming familiar with the casting echos.

[Akoto]

I think the issue is not with karma or special applications, but the fact that folks know the game's closure is on the horizon. Like it or not, that has affected perceptions. People want to play that elementalist/psionicist/sorcerer because, in a way, they see it as their last opportunity to do so.

As someone who has played many elementalists (my first character on Arm was a Vivaduan, actually) and a couple of sorcerers, I recognize that there's a lot of interesting stuff geared toward them out there. Those things likely won't exist in 2.0, and so I can't blame folks for making that decision.

I certainly see no reason to take away karma. People wouldn't individually have it if they weren't trusted to use it responsibly. As well, taking away karma/special apps to stop the "magicker problem" does disturb other things. What about desert elves, half-giants, halflings, muls? Will these vanish from the game as well, even though they can very realistically be as mundane as a bag of rocks? What about cultures (many played) which regard certain kinds of magick with some degree of societal value? Does that aspect of their culture vanish?

[Angela Christine]

And it doesn't have to end in one gigantic magick explosion.

It doesn't have to end in a magick-themed scenario at all
.

That is true.  The known world has been on the edge of total ecosystem collapse for centuries.  Part of that is magickally induced by sorcerers, but partly it is just too many people trying to survive off the available resources, especially the conspicuous consumption of the two super-cities.

Both cities depend on farming (though this is less obvious in Tuluk) but also supplement their needs with hunting and harvesting wild plants.  They are probably over-hunting and over-harvesting.  Biodiversity is low.  A few key species going extinct could start a catastrophic domino effect of extinction eventually creating dead zones for miles around the cities.  Once that happens, a blight on wheat or other key farm crops could kill the cities.  Without farming, the area around Allanak would have trouble supporting a few thousand people, much less hundreds of thousands.  People would either starve, or abandon the cities and strike out for the far corners of the wilderness looking for food (in either case, most of them would probably die.)

That would work well for the end of the world, because it would explain not just the destruction of existing civilizations, but also the extinction of all the Darksun inspired animals.


It isn't far fetched at all, Mayan civilization flourished from 250 - 900 AD, with large cities, complex architecture, and sophisticated mathematics, writing and time keeping.  Towards the end they had ongoing war, a collapsing agricultural system, over population, and possibly water shortages and other problems.  We don't know exactly what pushed them over the edge, but at the end they abandoned their cities within just a few months or years, and then much of their advanced technology was lost.  The didn't go extinct, they just walked away.  


Mayan civilization collapsed, and probably did it without any magickal interference.  The known world could collapse the same way.

[Yang]

I have pretty much grown so tired of it that I no longer have much incentive to play. Some people I've talked to seem to feel the 'epic' nature of the end is hardly worth playing in. I would absolutely give up my karma... in fact, I probably already have.

If I wanted a high-fantasy setting, I'd play any of the other 1000 muds out there. Thanks, but no thanks.

[Alberic]

The Maya cities of the northern lowlands in Yucatán continued to flourish for centuries more; some of the important sites in this era were Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Edzná, and Coba. After the decline of the ruling dynasties of Chichen and Uxmal, Mayapan ruled all of Yucatán until a revolt in 1450. (This city's name may be the source of the word "Maya", which had a more geographically restricted meaning in Yucatec and colonial Spanish and only grew to its current meaning in the 19th and 20th centuries). The area then degenerated into competing city-states until the Yucatán was conquered by the Spanish.

Um...nope. The ecological based collapse of the Mayan empire is widely debated and more likely only one of many factors. In addition, as noted above, many large cities continued to survive and, in some places, thrive. However, ecological collapse, plus peasant revolt against incredibly oppressive authorities, plus foreign invasion, plus mystery magickal shit would be far more interesting than some super sorcerer showing up and leveling everything.

[a strange shadow]

However, ecological collapse, plus peasant revolt against incredibly oppressive authorities, plus foreign invasion, plus mystery magickal shit

Wow that sounds really...... familiar. Gee. Hmm.

I think we should give the folks upstairs more credit.

[Angela Christine]

The Maya cities of the northern lowlands in Yucatán continued to flourish for centuries more; some of the important sites in this era were Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Edzná, and Coba. After the decline of the ruling dynasties of Chichen and Uxmal, Mayapan ruled all of Yucatán until a revolt in 1450. (This city's name may be the source of the word "Maya", which had a more geographically restricted meaning in Yucatec and colonial Spanish and only grew to its current meaning in the 19th and 20th centuries). The area then degenerated into competing city-states until the Yucatán was conquered by the Spanish.

Um...nope. The ecological based collapse of the Mayan empire is widely debated and more likely only one of many factors. In addition, as noted above, many large cities continued to survive and, in some places, thrive. However, ecological collapse, plus peasant revolt against incredibly oppressive authorities, plus foreign invasion, plus mystery magickal shit would be far more interesting than some super sorcerer showing up and leveling everything.

I'm not a Mayan expert, so I just skimmed a couple articles to brush up.    Everyone doesn't agree about exactly what happened, but that doesn't matter, since I was just using it as an analogy to describe non-magickal ways that A1 could collapse.  Sorry if that wasn't clear.

[Alberic]

However, ecological collapse, plus peasant revolt against incredibly oppressive authorities, plus foreign invasion, plus mystery magickal shit

Wow that sounds really...... familiar. Gee. Hmm.

I think we should give the folks upstairs more credit.

Perhaps some people don't know about anything because we don't play magickers so it is virtually impossible to get involved in the end of the world plot. And if you do, it is virtually impossible to survive.

PS: Sorry for jumping on you about the Mayan thing Angela. I'm pretty involved in the history department at my university and one of our local ultra-enviromentalists has recently taken to telling everyone about how the whole Mayan civilization vanished because of the environment so I'm still primed from debating her endlessly. So, again, my apologies.

[a strange shadow]

Assuming that those who are privy to the plots going on ingame must be playing magickers or psionicists to survive their involvement for any length of time is not only wrong, it's insulting. Please don't.

Thanks. Carry on with your thread.

[axismundi]

The Maya cities of the northern lowlands in Yucatán continued to flourish for centuries more; some of the important sites in this era were Chichen Itza, Uxmal, Edzná, and Coba. After the decline of the ruling dynasties of Chichen and Uxmal, Mayapan ruled all of Yucatán until a revolt in 1450. (This city's name may be the source of the word "Maya", which had a more geographically restricted meaning in Yucatec and colonial Spanish and only grew to its current meaning in the 19th and 20th centuries). The area then degenerated into competing city-states until the Yucatán was conquered by the Spanish.

Nice Wiki quote.

Anyway, why get rid of karma?  Just don't pass anymore magicker apps.  Centralize magicker power to those who survive.  If they're metagaming, they'll have a real fear of losing that particular character.  Magicker to magicker RP should get more intense.  Mundanes will become more realistically distributed.

[Gimfalisette]

Perhaps some people don't know about anything because we don't play magickers so it is virtually impossible to get involved in the end of the world plot. And if you do, it is virtually impossible to survive.

This, I do not agree with. It's harder to get involved as a mundane, but it's not impossible. And mundanes do not necessarily die any more easily than non-mundanes do.

[Vanth]

Perhaps some people don't know about anything because we don't play magickers so it is virtually impossible to get involved in the end of the world plot. And if you do, it is virtually impossible to survive.

Just to clarify: there is not one end of the world plot, there are many, and they include plenty of mundanes.

[spawnloser]

Vanth said what I was going to... I know for fact that there are multiple plots going on and plenty of mundanes are involved and more are being involved all the time.

Second, and this is directed towards those people that just bitch about the endtimes plot being magickal in nature... how do you propose to blow up the world without magick?  There isn't the technology in game to create a mundane bomb big enough.

[brytta.leofa]

And mundanes do not necessarily die any more easily than non-mundanes do.

Players being players, they just die in slightly more reckless circumstances. ;-)

[Troicha]

I just want to point out that what many people seem to be taking as a foregone conclusion, ie, that the end of the world will be magickal, isn't.

We might beat the magickers. Maybe.

Then the world will have a mundane end.

The world will end, yes, but WE AS PLAYERS get to choose how BY HOW AND WHAT WE PLAY.

[Fathi]

I really don't have a problem with the end of the world plots being magick-centric as long as there are still mundane plots going on for people who either aren't involved (yet) or choose to turn the other cheek.

When it feels like your only options are join up with magick plot X or start another mundane RPT yourself or just sit back and not be involved in anything, it can be very tempting from an OOC standpoint to want to ignore the documentation and get involved with magick or come up with a reason for your character to be okay with it because, really, who wants to be the guy left out of the party where cool shit is constantly happening?

Can you really blame players for wanting to be entertained?

[Nile]

I played Armageddon because there was a LACK of magick. I finally found a MUD where I wasn't going to be fireballed every couple of minutes. And even when somebody did do some magick, I could hate on them to my hearts content.

I don't really recognise the game I started playing any more. I can't wait for Arm 2.0....Things have to get better then.

[Dakkon Black]

I don't really recognise the game I started playing any more. I can't wait for Arm 2.0....Things have to get better then.

Lol, yeah right, when there are -no- karma restrictions at all.

[bardbard#4]

Vanth said what I was going to... I know for fact that there are multiple plots going on and plenty of mundanes are involved and more are being involved all the time.

Second, and this is directed towards those people that just bitch about the endtimes plot being magickal in nature... how do you propose to blow up the world without magick?  There isn't the technology in game to create a mundane bomb big enough.

Why does it have to be blown up?  Isn't that a little...I dunno...passé?

And haven't you ever heard of plate tectonics?  Earthquakes?  Landslides?

Magnetic pole reversal?

[spawnloser]

I played Armageddon because there was a LACK of magick.

It boggles my mind whenever people say something like this.  I'm not picking on you, Nile, but seriously... has noone with this opinion read the history page?  Much of the world-shaking events in the past were magickal in nature.

[Ocotillo]

Maybe for him, but I joined half because I loved the idea of a world where magick was actually mysterious and dark and wasn't entirely laid out for me on ten pages of a manual. While I can appreciate the people who are trying to keep the mundane parts of the game alive, I'm still looking forward to playing my first magicker.

[spawnloser]

Why does it have to be blown up?  Isn't that a little...I dunno...passé?

And haven't you ever heard of plate tectonics?  Earthquakes?  Landslides?

Magnetic pole reversal?

Okay... and who are any of these something that can be turned into a plot for us all to potentially be involved in.  They may as well just shut the game down instead of have it be something fun for us to do.

[bardbard#4]

I believe in the staff enough to come up with some cool huge plot that doesn't involve an atomic bomb.

[Nile]

I played Armageddon because there was a LACK of magick.

It boggles my mind whenever people say something like this.  I'm not picking on you, Nile, but seriously... has noone with this opinion read the history page?  Much of the world-shaking events in the past were magickal in nature.

I've read the history page, and I realise that many things were magickal. But it wasn't something my char would see or have to deal with on a regular basis...And when it DID happen, it was awesome.

Seeing magick used to be a really big thing for me, and I liked how it was rare and I didn't know shit about it. Now it just feels like any other fantasy MUD.

[Only He Stands There]

This means that we cannot create.  We can only destroy.

Completely false, as someone who's created quite a damn bit since the announcement of the end of the world and the knee-jerk reaction that followed.

This extends to the thought that it's dog eat dog, and that we can outlast others if we're more powerful than others.

Survival of the fittest? In Armageddon? Preposterous.

Which extends to players making more magickers because they are more powerful than other characters..

Because people want to 'win' and last long.

Because this is a game.

Which has always been the case. Stating that people want to "live long and win" is true, because people have ALWAYS wanted to "win and last long." Not many people make a PC with the intent to kill it off quickly, and as a matter of fact, I've seen more of these "throwaway" PCs since the announcement than before.

Which basically turned this game into a PK mud.

This MUD always had a high level of PK; newbies and long-lived PCs alike constantly die to X Magicker or X Raider or X Rinthi or X Psionicist. It's funny, because my current PC's been alive since before the announcement of the end of the world, and none of my close PC friends have died to magickers or psionicists.




My question is: why are people so mad that there are magick-centric plots going on? Magick is a crux of Zalanthas, as much as anything else is, despite it being "rare" and "frightening" and whatnot - it's as Zalanthan as sandstorms and templars. I wonder just what it is that you people are expecting - and as a mundane involved in numerous large storyarcs that may or may not be world-end related, I'd like to state that it's more than possible.

[Dalmeth]

My question is: why are people so mad that there are magick-centric plots going on? Magick is a crux of Zalanthas, as much as anything else is, despite it being "rare" and "frightening" and whatnot - it's as Zalanthan as sandstorms and templars. I wonder just what it is that you people are expecting - and as a mundane involved in numerous large storyarcs that may or may not be world-end related, I'd like to state that it's more than possible.

Because those magickal plots generally require any established organization to rely on the help of magickers.  It's the choice between relying on a good spear or the defiler you hardly trust that I feel is lacking.

[LoD]

I played Armageddon because there was a LACK of magick.

It boggles my mind whenever people say something like this.  I'm not picking on you, Nile, but seriously... has noone with this opinion read the history page?  Much of the world-shaking events in the past were magickal in nature.

You cannot associate the high-fantasy magickal figures in the game (i.e. Tektolnes, Luir's, the Dragon, elementals) with what the documentation implies regarding the low exposure of magick to the average Zalanthan character.  At the highest echelon of our gameworld, yes, magick has been used in frightening and devastating ways.  As you trickle down through the social layers, however, the presence of magick begins to dwindle more and more until it should be an almost unheard of and startling event when witnessed.

Missiles are a powerful and frightening weapon.  Top people in our government have access to missiles, know about missiles, have the power to fire missiles, and have used missiles in the past to destroy their enemies.  It has been a part of many battles in world history within the last few decades.

However, despite the fact that missiles have been used to accomplish goals during times of war and extreme conflict, have you ever seen one in your town?  Have you ever seen a missile up close?  Not on an Air Force Base tour, but an active missile ready to be fired at a target?  Do you have any neighbors that have one in their backyard?  Would you say that these missiles are a rare and mysterious object for most non-military personnel?  I would.  I'd say that I have a very small chance of ever encountering one unless I join an organization that is forced or expected to deal with threats that might require missiles as a possible solution.

There is a divide in what your average common character should expect to encounter and what the game has been allowing.  This divide used to be supported by a much less attractive set of beginning spells, a much longer road to spell progression, and an extremely fragile state for magickers through most of their lives.

Changes made to this system have impacted the gameworld in a very real way, and the players complaining that they used to enjoy the relatively low exposure to magick while playing their "regular joe" in a city-state are a part of that.  If you cannot recognize the difference between those two worlds, those two levels of gameplay, then it will be impossible for you to understand or sympathize with their plight.

If you've played for more than 5 years, however, you should be able to tell the difference.

-LoD

[mansa]

I've been thinking a bit.

I think that the elementalist classes should have a greater pick of the subclasses available.

I think that when you pick an elementalist, you should get more mundane skills.

In addition to this thought, I also think - as an elementalist gets more powerful with their element, and gets more spells - at that point, their mundane skills disappear, or diminish.  But this requires extra coding, and I can live without it.


This gives the elementalists class more things to do, which promotes more roleplay of their character and the background of their character, instead of forcing them to be locked into a temple.  They can remain hidden longer.

[Dresan]

I'm in agreement with Mansa.

Even allowing one more sub-class pick would help magickers blend in to society in an unintrusive way. The ability to do things is what defines you in a society and in the game and the moment people begin to realize that you can't even perform X or Y, then they begin to suspect something is up. Even if thats in an ooc way it really kills part of the mystery in the game.

Editted to Add.

However until a solution to what seems to be a percieved problem of there being too many magickal players is found then, its probably not the wisest idea to make magickers even more fun and easier to play.

[Maybe42or54]

This gives the elementalists class more things to do, which promotes more roleplay of their character and the background of their character, instead of forcing them to be locked into a temple.  They can remain hidden longer.

Or be more useful to the mundane populace and a happier world exists. Making a magicker a jack of all trades with kick ass spells does not sound like a good idea to me just for playability.

[mansa]

This gives the elementalists class more things to do, which promotes more roleplay of their character and the background of their character, instead of forcing them to be locked into a temple.  They can remain hidden longer.

Or be more useful to the mundane populace and a happier world exists. Making a magicker a jack of all trades with kick ass spells does not sound like a good idea to me just for playability.

But, making a magicker class available to do something -other than- cast spells makes the guild better.

Currently, Magickers are the only class that can know how awesome their spells are, based on the power levels that are visible.

This makes some people play Magickers with the intent to branch skills more, to reach the higher levels more.

The way that Magickers are set up - they already have a limited ammount of likely roles that people will hire them for.  I'm saying that if Magickers had better subclasses, they would remain in secret longer.

[Ktavialt]

I agree with Mansa about the mundane skills and them disappearing over time.  I think that it should be a random skillset with random levels of ability cap on various skills (ie. so folks don't say "oh he knows how to make swords and knives, but not spears, he isn't a crafter, he's a magicker!") but enough that the magicker can get by.  Nice idea.

[Malken]

How are you going to explain to your employer that you suddenly can't make knives or swords anymore, though?

[Mood]

How are you going to explain to your employer that you suddenly can't make knives or swords anymore, though?

...

mon un suk-krath fireball employer?

:twisted:

[mansa]

...

[mansa]

How are you going to explain to your employer that you suddenly can't make knives or swords anymore, though?

...

mon un suk-krath fireball employer?

:twisted:

Basically, yeah.  Once you reach a certain point in your "studies", you can't go back.  Or you just make them a sword out of fire.


I wish all classes were like this, actually.

[Agent_137]

It would be your own willful choice. You could either A: not practice your magick and stay a crappy subguild and a crappy magicker, but still hidden. or B: Grown in power and slowly grow in more obviousness.

that would be incredibly freaking awesome.

Because as it stands, it's like choice B was already picked for us, and if we wanted choice A, we'd have to special app.

[mansa]

I'm pretty sure a way to give more subclasses skills to Elementalists would be very easy to set up, currently.