Magickers Until the End of Time

[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.