Should elementalists be removed from the game, with sorcerers left in?

[Jingo]

I would personally miss drovians and nilazi if they got booted out.

Whirans on the other hand. We can do without them.

[Agent_137]

please junk them all.

having only sorcs would immediately make magick immensely scary and rare in reality, instead of just by the docs.

[Cerelum]

please junk them all.

having only sorcs would immediately make magick immensely scary and rare in reality, instead of just by the docs.

Sorcs don't start out uber scary either, all you'll do is have ash trailing newbies...least for a moment.

But truthfully, I think that elementalists just need to be stronger out the box, then they can portray the scary abomination they should be.

JaRoD

[musashi]

Elkros and Drov were added after the fact? I KNEW it looked tacked on!

http://armageddonmud.livejournal.com/

Some of the things in that journal frighten me. 

[jhunter]

I would personally miss drovians and nilazi if they got booted out.

Whirans on the other hand. We can do without them.

No we can't. They're my favorite elementalist, probably followed by drovians and then vivaduans.

[NoteworthyFellow]

I love Elkrans, I do, but I can see how the pseudo-element of energy could be a little bit of a stretch.  Drovians and Nilazi, on the other hand, feel right at home, to me, and I'd be quite upset to see them go.  I don't want to see Elkrans disappear, either, but I'd be less upset if they did.

[Jingo]

Yeah, I feel the same way about Elrkrans.

Though I do have a concept lingering at the back of my head for one.

[Lakota]

Elkrans are the coolest fucking magickers around. Nilazi are interesting as a concept but fail in practice. Drovians are severely underpowered (thanks, Sanvean ) and the other guilds just don't interest me. I'd be down with removing all magickers in favor of only sorcerors, but I know this will not happen, in this incarnation of ArmageddonMUD, or the next.

[KIA]

Given the choice, I'd play mundanes. Not given the choice, I'd also play mundanes, naturally.

I know there are people who swear by magickers and will play them time and time again. Just died? Make another magicker. Died again? Another magicker. That's my main problem, not that people play magickers, but that there is an abundance of them, and plenty of OOC knowledge floating around about them.

So I voted 'Yes'. Not HELL, yes, mind you... I know Zalanthas is a magick-weak world. I'd just prefer if it was magick-weaker. More plot time for the mundanes would result in vibrant political dramas and colorful characters. It would reinforce the culture difference between the major population centers. It would make confrontations with magick truly surprising, instead of leaving players (not all, but some) with a cheated feeling, because their mundane never stood a chance against all that high-karma alakazam. It would allow more time for the staff to watch mundanes and interact with them, supposing that currently, the high-karma classes and characters take a lot of oversight, cooperation and resources. That last bit might be inaccurate, but it seems so to me. More interaction with relative nobodies means that they have a chance to get karma where they have been overlooked. Staff has admitted that this problem with the Karma system exists.

I love to play mundanes, and I've learned to play in such a way that is exciting to me, rewarding to the characters that interact with me, in a style that (ideally) requires very little of that precious staff time. This style of play doesn't suit everyone, and I understand that. I try not to let it affect my attitudes of the karma classes, especially the aforementioned elementalists... but that can be challenging, so I empathize with the players who are frustrated by a system they don't understand, and that they may not be invited (for better or for worse) to play, themselves, and see what it is like.

Anyway, that's my piece. Thanks for listening.

KIA

[Pale Horse]

I'll chime in and say "no" to the removal of elementalists.

I'll chime in and say "yes" to the change in some of the docs (but I really don't expect that to happen), that would defines some magicker-mundane relations.

I'll even chime in and add that Eklrans are my personal favorite mage class, but as much as I am loathed to admit it, I can see why they seem out of place in the current environment.  From what I was made to understand, though,  through a correspondence with staff, is that Elkrans, Storm Mages, were around back when the world was more "typical fantasy like", so rain, storms and all that were common.  The weather and climate have changed, but the lightning-slingers are a lingering reminder of what the world used to be like.

[KIA]

I'll chime in and say "no" to the removal of elementalists.

I'll chime in and say "yes" to the change in some of the docs (but I really don't expect that to happen), that would defines some magicker-mundane relations.

I'll even chime in and add that Eklrans are my personal favorite mage class, but as much as I am loathed to admit it, I can see why they seem out of place in the current environment.  From what I was made to understand, though,  through a correspondence with staff, is that Elkrans, Storm Mages, were around back when the world was more "typical fantasy like", so rain, storms and all that were common.  The weather and climate have changed, but the lightning-slingers are a lingering reminder of what the world used to be like.

Static electricity is quite common in dry environments, including deserts. A sandstorm can build up impressive charges that look like the lightning you'd get in thunderstorms. I'm not certain that Elkrans are any more out of place than Vivaduans.

[number13]

Static electricity is quite common in dry environments, including deserts. A sandstorm can build up impressive charges that look like the lightning you'd get in thunderstorms. I'm not certain that Elkrans are any more out of place than Vivaduans.

Yes the above.  Also --> http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051003marslightning.htm

....

I voted YES on the poll because I'd want magic to be more mysterious, less common.  Also, I don't think elementalists have a healthy connection to the rest of the player base, in terms of interaction. Elementlists are either shunned/beatdown. Or, they overshadow everyone else -- stepping all over niches that should belong to mundane classes in the process.

Templars and nobles overshadow everyone else as well. But they (usually, hopefully) are driving plots, creating fun.  An elementalist doesn't have that responsibility, so I wonder why they have the superpowers.  (I acknowledge the grind to acquire those superpowers is terrible....)

If were up to me -- All magickers would be apped for the same way Templars and nobles are, would be just as rare, and only slightly less respected/feared.  All magickers would have a piece of the plot they are responsible for driving, and all magickers would start with decent amount of power possibly including a fuller range of mundane skills. 

Their power could be keyed into how well they are performing their assigned goals. An elementalist who goes too far off the script loses all of her magick.

[Lakota]

What, and take away the option for players to create and roleplay their own unique concept because they are now forced to take part in a plot that may not fit said concept? Huh? Seriously?

No.

[Clearsighted]

please junk them all.

having only sorcs would immediately make magick immensely scary and rare in reality, instead of just by the docs.

Seconded.

[FightClub]

I feel elementalist do nothing to add to the flavor of the game.  Do I fear an elementalist when I see him out around the city? No.  Why? It's not rare, something you see everything single day isn't going to make you cringe and shiver and shit your pants, doubt me, watch the ring movies in sequence, by time you get to the end, you're just begging for it to be over.  If you wanted everyone to treat magickers with fear it should be in game that all mundanes have a innate phobia of magickers, and a coded response, preferably flee, like stand flee because magicker #11245 walked into a commoner, non-magicker bar to chatty it up.  You want people to "fear" magickers in game, like the docs propose, although it's entirely obscene given the amount of magickers one pc will encounter in even a five day pc EVEN IN TULUK.  Want a suggestion?  Then preserve the one jewl of anti-magickers, Tuluk, have mind benders constantly surveying the surrounding area, and every time a magicker steps into the grasslands, scrub, Gol Krathu in whole, have their head explode like a mellon (BOOM) Now that's a suggestion.

In all honesty, I'm tired of being -haunted- by magickers, wherever I go, I can't hunt, rp, anywhere outside the gates of Tuluk, and man honestly I can't even do it inside, without some magicker blowing up winds of swirling magic.  How can you expect me to crap my pants, every single time.  You might as well add a shit your pants social, stares in struck awe social, silent scream social, just because I'm getting tired of doing the emotes, over, and over, and over, and over.  Get my point?  I know some of you are.  It's not scary, it's stupid, want to scare me, quit letting people buy them by the dozen.

Sorcerors, still scare me, if they were permitted in the same rarity, and elementalist entirely removed, I would love this game a lot more.

But it's not going to happen, because mages are this imm or another's love child, they don't want to see their love child go, nope, they'd prefer to see them trump everything, without any regard to balance.  Argument comes up over and over again that this game should be balanced, counter argument is that it isn't, because this isn't a pk mud.  If this wasn't a pk mud, then why do we have sixty people rerolling every week, so many people picking martial classes over crafters and bards.  This mud is a pk mud, sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken.

Regardless, my opinion, as well as everyone else, is moot.  What is, has, and always will be decided before we get a chance to have input.  Take Arm 2 for example, the world "we're in the process of crafting as the game goes along"  I stop and wonder why six thousand rooms for environments we've had no say in, city states we didn't organize, and races we didn't mate to produce are already being added.  It makes me wonder, entirely too much, if we have any role in this at all.  You might contest, "Oh well they've had submissions, let us design the rooms, the equipment, bleh bleh bleh." They had submission for areas, and races they already had outlined.  They did not say "Players of armageddon one, based on the fact that *blank* with be blown up by *blank* Write us an area that resolves what this will look like in 20k years.  Whichs begs me to ask will the culmination of all of our efforts and rp be summed up in a two line statue in the center of some city "Battle was here two thousand years ago, people died, nothing else remains."  I'd like to think not.

I can overlook what misgivings I have about the classes, races, ansi, color -- for the rare chance at an emotional scene here, something particularly beautiful there.  I'd just like to think there were more, and we'd quit classifying things as they were not.  This game isn't a H/S? Tell me you haven't mob killed for three weeks getting your parry up. Not a PK mud? Why do people continue and persist to  (that just because this mud is "harsh") take a two hour newbie out, walk him until he's exhausted and pk him for his equipment, to further his education.  This mud is full of hypocrisies, and I see them all too often.  I myself, am perfectly content with what I am, what I do, and I make no attempts to hide, sugar coat, or delude the fact that I treat much of this game like a hack and slash.

I'm still ranting aren't I, oh well, sorry

Anyway, however pessimistic I may be, I really do enjoy the game, or I wouldn't be playing it.  I love the staff, the interaction they bring, the effort they put into the game, I wouldn't be here otherwise.  I'm not cracking on you magickers, some of you are the best rpers I've seen, in all honesty, I'm just tired of seeing you, anymore I get more enjoyment out of seeing half giants trying to imitate hulk, or newbie warriors trying to quote conan the barbarian.  Long live arm, but please, for the sake of god, kill the magickers, or give me a class that's just as rigged as they are, so I can kill them all.  We'd all be in your gratitude.  And don't tell me rangers or assassins are excellent witch hunters, they're not, based with the variety of overpowered skills the assortments have, you can never be fully prepared for everything viva la witchhunter guild, if we can't be rid of the witches.

[Majikal]

And don't tell me rangers or assassins are excellent witch hunters, they're not, based with the variety of overpowered skills the assortments have, you can never be fully prepared for everything viva la witchhunter guild.

In a world of sharp sticks and bone swords.. the guy with lightning in his fingertips is god.


I love the elementalists, I think stretching out the spell lists and dropping out two of the quasi-elements (drov/elkros) to return those spells to the rightful owners would add to the much needed scariness of mages. If a change could be made to elementalists as far as improving them I beleive slowing down the skill progression and spell level progression. Would even be glad to see the skill lists get stretched out a bit more so it's linear (Skill 1 branches skill 2, skill 2 branches skill 3, skill 3 branches skill 4) and so on.

[Tisiphone]

I think if every single player came to their elementalists with a deep, thoughtful approach to magick on Zalanthas, its social and political consequences, and exactly what having your very own eldritch powers might do to people, magickers of all types are beautiful concepts.

I think that until everyone does that, no coded solution will do anything mroe than weakly encourage that sort of behaviour.

[Doppelganger]

I feel elementalist do nothing to add to the flavor of the game.

There is no guild, race or any other coded feature that adds to the game by default, all they can do is to provide opportunity for players.

I much agree with you that Armageddon is rapidly degrading to very basics of DIKU games, screwing decades of development.
The way elementalists are revamped has contributed its share to degradation and elementalists is where the problem currently peaks, but they are not problem themselves.
Remove elementalists and issue will peak elsewhere, among HGs and templars or among muls and sorcerors or, god forbid, among human and dwarf warriors. The later pair has less of damaging potential, but they are unaffected by karma, thus they have nothing to lose.

I would understand the idea of removing classes and damaging property if we had tried everything and nothing could help, but we have tried nothing yet, neither stick nor bigger stick nor human sacrifices.

[My 2 sids]

Personally, I'd like to see them left in game.. but, maybe redefine their role.  I think OOCly there should be a push for opening up a some more "mundane" type of magicker PCs.

For instance, I see the magicker guild (spec. the legal status in 'nak) as an opprotunity for players who may want to make an independent crafter or a social PC who has the mind/soul searching of a half-elf. 

To do this, in game, there should be an uneasiness (but not total stigma) attached to interacting with a gemmed magicker.  Like the docs suggest, some elementalists should be able to find employment somewhat easily:  grubbers can get mounts/ protection from including a <kind of> magicker in their grubbing party; people who don't want to spend hundreads on water from the templarate could take their chances with buying water from X-type of magicker;  Merchant houses who may not want to flat out hire magickers maybe can buy their crafted items.

Again, uneasiness sure -- but not all out stigma  PLUS opprotunities/ reasons for any typical PC to interact with magickers.

[Southie]

I think if every single player came to their elementalists with a deep, thoughtful approach to magick on Zalanthas, its social and political consequences, and exactly what having your very own eldritch powers might do to people, magickers of all types are beautiful concepts.

I think that until everyone does that, no coded solution will do anything mroe than weakly encourage that sort of behaviour.