Reactions to the Witch Subguilds

[Delirium]

"in direct conflict with her experience" - so are you saying you're incapable of taking the virtual world into account?

Because if that's the case, man, elves are extinct!

[Pale Horse]

Despite what you may read on the Forum, or what might be said IG by players, the change was purely OOC.  Staff has already stated this and has not altered that statement.  I get that there is confusion about how to act to this IG, especially for those in a position to have greater access to or experience with magickers.  One day, there were plenty of people who could do X spell, but now there doesn't seem to be anyone capable of doing so to whom you can get access.  Not being able to comment on something like that, IMO, would be rather silly.

There are no "full" elementalists IG.  There are only magickers.  The magicker roles we used to be able to play have been removed from the grasp of players and remain a part of the virtual world.  The "acting roles" available to players for magickal play are now for sub-guild magickers.  On the "stage of play" on which PCs participate its still the same Performance, we just do not have access to parts/roles of such power any longer.  The glass ceiling has been lowered in this regards and raised in others.

Elementalists of Drov, Nilaz and Elkros still exist IG.  They are virtual roles until Staff hashes out how sub-guilds with these powers will look.  There has been no announcement made that this has changed, to my knowledge.  If there has been, please feel free to point it out or search for it at your leisure.

[azuriolinist]

I'm not sure how you got that the change was purely OOC.

Take this, from the original discussion thread for the update:

I'm curious as to if this will actually be an ic event or change.
Such as
"Magick is leaving the world in tiny bits but not really"
Or if it's just a completely pure OOC change of "People might notice IC eh, probably not"


I feel like theres some fancy plot potential there if its the actual ic thing, but the minute someone confirms it everyone and their mother would notice.

Consider a real-world scenario where a teacup is observed orbiting pluto in the readout from a fly-by satellite. It's down to the people on earth to react to this phenomena in a way that makes sense for them and they can deliberate and experiment as much as they want from their remote location. The chances of anyone ever coming to a proper conclusion, however, is remote.

To be less obnoxious - this change will be experienced IC. But we hope/expect players to have their PCs react and explore it in an IC way that makes sense for their PC. If you tell Vennant "hey barkeep I heard magickers are different now" he'll either not care, not believe you or throw you out. Similarly, consider that OOC knowledge of "guilds" and "spell trees" are only know IC as far as people (who lack the scientific method, are unreliable actors and are steeped in superstition) can experience them. The signal to noise ratio on what magickers could ever do, or what magick is should be such that for the vast, vast majority of people - it doesn't matter.

[nauta]

These types might notice a difference and want to explore why it seems so few (read none) of the demi-elementalists have been popping up lately.  Or why it is that the "insert elementalist here" types in their area of influence aren't quite up to what the older "insert elementalist here" types used to be able to do.

Here I think I'd disagree based on the assumption (1) and (2) are true. 

There were always demi-elementalists in the Elementalist Quarter, in the tribes, rogue-ing it up, and in Oash employ before the change.  We just never noticed them as PCs since they were never played by PCs (or staff NPCs for that matter).  But they were there.

Hence, you wouldn't (or shouldn't) have your character 'notice' that there are more demi-elementalists popping up lately.  By analogy, if no one rolls up a Drovian for a year, there still are Drovians in the Quarter.

Likewise, you wouldn't (or shouldn't) have you character 'notice' that there are no longer Krathis working up to snuff.  There are, they are just virtual full elementalist Krathis hanging out in the Elementalist Quarter.

On a final point about what we'd call demi-elementalists: whatever it is we'd call demi-elementalists, we'd have -always- called them that, even before the change.

That's, again, if I'm correct in my reading that this is a purely OOC change.

But the quote from Rathustra above makes me suspect it is not purely an OOC change.  That's what has me confused, I guess.

[BadSkeelz]

Kill 'em all, let the VNPCs sort it out.

[RogueGunslinger]

Know what i hate about magick? The syntax. Its so fucking annoying to have to set up aliases and variables and shit for them so i dont have to remember and type out those long ass strings of encantations.

I also hate grinding out the search for new spells words.

[Shoka Windrunner]

Know what i hate about magick? The syntax. Its so fucking annoying to have to set up aliases and variables and shit for them so i dont have to remember and type out those long ass strings of encantations.

I also hate grinding out the search for new spells words.

Oh yeah?  Rewind 15 or so years ago and sit down and try to figure out a new reach.  Gah.

[Raptor_Dan]

Gladly, if new reaches were put in. I mean, pfft, please. I'd remove some skills from permanently from my options forever, if magick were to have some new stuff put in. Technically though, that's kind of on me for not trying get it done.

[Miradus]

I also hate grinding out the search for new spells words.

My man.

>help symbol
   This command is used to display the mood, sphere, and element for a spell
that your character knows how to cast.  This is considered OOC information,
meaning we leave it up to the player to play out how their character knows this
information.  A mentor may have explained it to them, a parent, magickal
intuition, or even hearing it whispered on the wind.

Syntax:
   symbol [spell name]

Example:
   > symbol fireball

[RogueGunslinger]

* RogueGunslinger squints in disbelief.

Edit: How could I possibly not have known about that.

[Is Friday]

Maybe if you posted less and read more RGS, you wouldn't be such a noob.

jk

Kinda.

[Marauder Moe]

Wait, is that a real command?

[Delirium]

Yes it is. I believe it's a relatively new (in the past few years) addition.

[Hauwke]

Symbol was added not too long ago. It tells you the exact words required to cast a spell.

I used it a few times.

[Miradus]

It was added this year and I believe there was the usual round of GDB bitching and moaning about how it made mages "too easy" to play!

[Riev]

Holy shit I had no idea about symbol either.

Long ago I had a script written up for testing purposes, because most of my magickers believed their powers came to them from dreams, and a dream saying "You can fly, you can fly, you can fly" and not knowing I 'need to think happy thoughts' seemed backwards.

This makes that 10-15 minutes of frustrating puzzling slightly easier (though admittedly, I loved saying "OH MY GOD OF COURSE THE ANGRY PROTECTOR CAUSES SPIKES TO FORM, BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY!" (not really))

[Harmless]

* Harmless has been using the symbol command for a while and definitely knew about the change when it came out and ever since because they care about the issues surrounding mages and actually plays them.

This community will never "reach a consensus" about the changes because we have a lot of people on the GDB who are very vocal about their viewpoints, which are weighted heavily by their own experience, which seems to tip the balance of the argument towards their opinions, when really it is just a matter of who can post with the most clout/bravado/vitriol.

Among those of us who pay attention to what magick is looking like nowadays, I think we have some consensus, and it looks like we are generally unhappy that so many options are just unselectable now.

I know staff are always overwhelmed with work and all that but I think all players who actually have experience with the magick system, pre AND post changes, should submit requests to staff to give them some direct feedback about what these new subguilds allow and prevent and why that matters to the overall enjoyment of the game. Because most of our new experiences with the subguilds are <1 year old and we want to be classy GDBers, we can't submit our best arguments. In private discussions with staff however we can go into specifics.

Staff really should take this thread with a grain of salt. ( I know I don't need to tell stff this.) There are a lot of very vocal advocates and opponents both, here, who really haven't given the changes enough of a try to really know why they are as flawed or perhaps well designed as they are claiming. Their claims may read well but I have been looking at the patterns of responses here, like how my points about the ostracism shutting down meaningful RP were shut down and not really discussed, so that the conversation could go back to whether or not the new mages have as much PK abuse potential. Then someone else shut down an argument someone tried to make about how crappy it is to pick a gem voluntarily now because of the minimal benefit by saying "don't play the skillsheet, play a character." We aren't getting anywhere here because really there are personal preferences for against magick at play here, and the arguments people post are just to shape the world in the way they want it to be. That shouldn't be what determines our options available to us; we should base the decision to keep or remove content on what actually benefits the game, which can only be decided by analyzing the facts of what occurs in game.

So make those question requests, hear staff responses, and give them a more detailed basis to make whatever decision they make, people. Thank you.

/pitch

[nessalin]

The the announcement from June 21st, 2016:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg948620.html#msg948620

A 3 page thread about the change:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,51323.0.html

[nessalin]

Given the confusion about the command's existence, we'll add it to the magicker acceptance e-mails.

[Miradus]

Harmless makes a good post about the pk abuse potential of a mage, but I'll point out something I got in an email acceptance when I spec apped a half giant.

It was to the point of "you have a lot of coded power and we're giving it to you so that you can enhance other people's roleplay, not murderize them for your own jollies."

That comment stuck in my head longer than the half-giant lived (unfortunately). There are some roles here which are codedly a lot stronger out of the gate than other roles. You didn't put in the time for them to get that way. You put in time elsewhere and earned karma and now you're trusted with these high power roles.

When I play a role which has the potential to grief other players in some way, I want to grief them fun. If I lift a piece of jewelry out of your pack, I want you to be wondering who did it and to have some fun trying to figure that out, or some thrill trying to avoid it in the future. Spells should be similar to that, I think. Not an "I Win" button, but something that attaches to the plot in some way. I've had some arbitrary and unsatisfactory endings to some characters. I hope to not be a walking unsatisfactory ender for other people.

We're all storytellers here.

[RogueGunslinger]

The the announcement from June 21st, 2016:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,49825.msg948620.html#msg948620

A 3 page thread about the change:
http://gdb.armageddon.org/index.php/topic,51323.0.html

Apparently i knew and forgot. No surprise.

[Synthesis]

The only reason the thread looks "generally unhappy" is that "generally satisfied" players typically don't repeatedly post about how generally satisfied they are.  I only do it because I'm an argumentative bastard.

The people who cry the hardest, obviously, are the ones who are upset.

[Akaramu]

Or maybe most of the unhappy players don't visit the GDB anymore because they moved on, and would return to the game if their favorite roles came back. When I took a 3 year break I didn't even read the game related threads. All I read was the OOC section of the forum.

Only happy players frequent the forum or play the game. Which means... I'm basically a happy player? (spoiler: I currently play A LOT). I just have some concerns / feedback, is all. And in the long run I'll probably stay happy longer, and remain an active player longer, if more of the options I enjoy are available for play. Otherwise I might run out of options and lose interest at some point.

[Synthesis]

counterpoint:  I'm a player who "lost interest" who came back specifically to explore the new magick system

[Akaramu]

Good for you! I'm glad it's there. I don't remember a single person saying they want magick subguilds gone. They just want elementalist main guilds back in addition to subguilds.