Topic to discuss the coded protections in the city-states.

[Nyr]

A few questions:
1. If magickers from say Allanak want to plan attacks against parties within/surrounding Tuluk and coordinate with Staff, will this still be possible?

Depends on the plan, so I guess that one will be up to the players/staff in question!

2. Are these defenses impregnable or just 'really bad news' for anyone who wants to try something alone?

More the latter than the former.

3. In other words, if a large force of magickers attempted malarky against Tuluk, could they potentially succeed?

Define "large force."

I guess a good way to answer this is that no group of PCs alone can consider themselves (singly or all together) as anything close to powerful enough to provide a real challenge to either city-state, inside that city-state, and expect it to be a fair fight.  That's not to say that damage will be avoided, that people are absolutely safe, that it is impossible to act against someone on "their terms" in "their stronghold".  It's just going to be harder.  As it should be--having magickal ability doesn't trump a thousand plus years of battling against, utilizing, or enslaving that very thing.

[Dresan]

Does this mean it will be rarer to see visibly buffed magickers/gemmers waltz into the taverns to hang out?

[Delirium]

That's pretty rare to begin with. Or at least, I've never actually seen it.

[Ender]

And if you are seeing that, I'd report it ICly and wish up to inform staff that someone is wet and glowing in a public place so they can have the populace react accordingly with screams, pitchforks and torches.

[flurry]

Without knowing particulars, all I can really say is it seems perfectly sensible. The cities shouldn't be any more or less vulnerable depending on which PC templars are available, for instance.

(As for the visible magicks thing, as far as I've seen that's really rare these days, and when it does happen it's more in the realm of careless mistakes and not defiance of the law.)

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

I like what I've read so far. I'm with it ... I don't think specifics would hurt here, but by the same token, judging by Staff replies, we understand that the response isn't just some token echo with a instant kill involved, so as long as one has the chance to react to the world's responses I'm with it.

[Delirium]

As long as someone cautious, well prepared, and not attempting a suicidally direct assault on the city-state has a chance of achieving whatever subterfuge they're after, cool. If it's basically "lol, game over, you're busted", I'm on the fence, but it doesn't sound like that's the case.

In short, I hope that this has been managed in a way that will facilitate plots, instead of stymying them.

[The7DeadlyVenomz]

Anything that enforces realism in a playable way without requiring staff participation gets my ok.

[Delirium]

Yes, and I should clarify: I'm 100% behind the idea of Tuluk having more teeth against mages.

I guess it's just difficult to decide whether I like this change without seeing the code in question, and frankly, rolling up a mage just to find out seems a little, well.... I'll refer you to XD's tongue-in-cheek but entirely relatable post. Mostly, I'm remembering how insanely difficult it was to actually push any ongoing, active, war-related plots. My primary concern is that this is a step backward, rather than forward, in supporting sustained conflict.

But I just don't know enough to decide, so I will trust in staff's judgement! I am a player. I know nothing, Jon Snow.

[Lizzie]

Does this mean it will be rarer to see visibly buffed magickers/gemmers waltz into the taverns to hang out?

If they're visibly buffed, they probably forgot to check and didn't realize they were visibly buffed. Or, for some other IC reason, they knew they were buffed but didn't realize their buffs were visible.

Even before this change - if you had seen a visibly buffed mage walk around the city, your character would have some kind of IC reaction, and nonchalance would likely not be that reaction. Even if *your* character was a mage too.

[Desertman]

Yes, and I should clarify: I'm 100% behind the idea of Tuluk having more teeth against mages.

Yar, I am behind it for this reason if nothing else.

[Reiloth]

It seems like this is just a reflection of what would be in place ICly, but was not codedly. City-states shouldn't be frantically scrambling jet-fighters against every magick attack within their despotic sorcerer-king fortress. Sounds like this just updates the code to reflect the reality IG.

Really? I had the opposite take away: that the City States will now scramble the fighter jets automatically, without needing an Immortal to jump in to Lord Templar Oldface and expend time and resources fireballing Amos Potter.

Every time I've seen magick being used in the Cities it's always pretty serious shit.

The key word there is frantic. It seemed like, in the past, any tom-dick-or-jane Magicker could cause quite a ruckus in either city-state, purely because it was at a time when Staff weren't around to animate otherwise, or there wasn't code in place to make it impossible. So if it's just lining up the city-states with where they should be code-wise, it makes perfect sense to me.

Magickers shouldn't be able to waltz in / around Tuluk unless they are very powerful, and likely not for a very long period of time without drawing laser-sight beams on their heads. This includes if they are invisible/flying/whatever other magical effects allowed them to do things that were unbelievable, in consideration of the power base within the city-state.

Same in Allanak, except replace the laser-sight beams with dull-black-gem-beam. Pew pew!

[Reiloth]

A few questions:
1. If magickers from say Allanak want to plan attacks against parties within/surrounding Tuluk and coordinate with Staff, will this still be possible?

Depends on the plan, so I guess that one will be up to the players/staff in question!

2. Are these defenses impregnable or just 'really bad news' for anyone who wants to try something alone?

More the latter than the former.

3. In other words, if a large force of magickers attempted malarky against Tuluk, could they potentially succeed?

Define "large force."

I guess a good way to answer this is that no group of PCs alone can consider themselves (singly or all together) as anything close to powerful enough to provide a real challenge to either city-state, inside that city-state, and expect it to be a fair fight.  That's not to say that damage will be avoided, that people are absolutely safe, that it is impossible to act against someone on "their terms" in "their stronghold".  It's just going to be harder.  As it should be--having magickal ability doesn't trump a thousand plus years of battling against, utilizing, or enslaving that very thing.

Well put!

[Zoan]

Boo, hiss.

[i like me some ham]

I foresee gickers testing this theory. Just a heads up, if you felt like touristing either Luir's or Tuluk and weren't sure which one to pick.

[Molten Heart]

So theoretically, magick should still be working the same as it's always worked in Red Storm, Luir's Outpost and other civilized areas not part of the Allanaki Empire or Tuluki Dominion?

[Nyr]

Depends on the magick and the situation.

[i like me some ham]

Same thing being done to the allanaki farms? I imagine the npc copies are mostly the same anyway. The templars are unique. I wonder if that matters.

[Nyr]

You'll have to learn that one in-game.  Or rather, you could.  And additionally, it really isn't something that matters--if you feel it is working incorrectly you can contact staff.

[Zoan]

I'm too terrified to log in because of what I play. I don't know anything about this as everything about it is vague, and Armageddon has an absolutely unforgiving policy on forgiveness for death.

[Patuk]

After having prodded around about this for a bit, I can no longer say I think these changes are good. Someaspects I do like, but ultimately I think it's a detriment to the game.

[CodeMaster]

If you dress as a witch, will the system still work against you?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfKh80BHSnk

Just kidding, ahahahahaha...

[Norcal]

After having prodded around about this for a bit, I can no longer say I think these changes are good. Someaspects I do like, but ultimately I think it's a detriment to the game.

So far from what I have seen, there are some bugs that need fixing. Overall, as far as I can tell it is a serious nerf to certain types of gickers and not beneficial to the game. 

Arm worked just fine for 20+ years without this change. So what was going so terribly wrong to make it necessary?

[Patuk]

I've asked about it whilst wishing up about something else, receiving the reply that things are working as intended, so I'm going to assume there are no bugs and that the way things are now is intentional.

As for the reasoning behind all this.. I don't even know. It's one thing to make sure Amos the trollkrosian can't dash into the Tooth and massacre half of Tuluk's active players, but these changes go far, far beyond that. Harmful spells are not singled out. Magickers trying to wage war against the templarate aren't the only ones seeing a downside. Every citybound magicker without a gem in the game is severely penalised by this.

I really, really, really have no idea why these changes were made. The intent may be to make rogue magick something of the past, or maybe staff want to turn Red Storm into even more of a Magickville than it already is. I genuinely don't know. What I do know is that city-based magick is going to be a role filled by only the Gemmed. With how lacking in subtlety the new code is, I think people really are ought to be warned, as casting even a single spell inside any city's limits may spell your doom. I hate to be unable to elaborate on the details, as I really believe the gist would be common knowledge to any magicker, but because I want to keep my account I'll stay silent. At the very least, I think there needs to be a change to help_magick in order to reflect the new reality. For a line along the likes of this to be added would be enough: Due to their iron grip on their respective city-states, the templarate has extensive protections in place in order to keep hostile magick in force. Using magick will draw the militia's attention.

[RogueGunslinger]

I'm not really getting it because I haven't seen the in-game changes. I was just sort of imagining if you had active, visibile spell effect on you it would incite crim-code.

Which really isn't that big of a deal. But I suppose there's more to it could be annoying.


God this vagueness is irritating.