Is Magic a broken system?

Everything about Illarion that fits nowhere else. / Alles über Illarion was inhaltlich in kein anderes Board passt.

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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

The rune system is fine, those spells have QWAN for a reason.
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Estralis Seborian
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Post by Estralis Seborian »

I think a temple/dungeon system with puzzles etc. that requires some exploration, thinking, roleplaying and maybe some teamwork (perhaps with other aspiring mages) would be a much better system.
I think this is consensus, solve riddles, explore dungeons, read in libraries, solve quests, bash some monsters and an archmage you are. Does this contradict the rune book approach? Not at all I think.

On monsters: Make some and we have more. But keep in mind that Illarion has quite a lot of monsters, but most are not spawned at every corner. Those who fought a Gorf (lower demon), a beholder, a rotworm and an ice dragon recently may raise their hands... So: Better spawns are needed!

On runes and all this stuff: I think the current spells need a general overhaul. If I were a mage's player, I would not take the current spells for granted.
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Pellandria
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Post by Pellandria »

Mr. Cromwell wrote: You point out the problem and just say ha ha ha? No wonder that the combined expertise of our mage players resulted in this mighty clustersmile being the way it is. :)
Yeah because the mages player had ~soooo~ much to say in the decission concerning the magical system...riiiiiggghhhtttt.


to the didea itself..is it possible to create obstacles courses aswell, as say every ten seconds a firestream moves across a few a certaint spot, burning everyone standing on it, or a room that has a pattern of pitfalls appearing and disappearing, that combined with valvesto turn and buttons to press and maybe a text puzlle here and there and you got a nice little magepage hidyplace.
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Ice dragon? Really? That's new?

Monsters I've seen ig that don't spawn:
Lesser Demon, Greater Demon, Rotworm, Drow (M & F), Beholder and I'm told the Dragon no longer spawns. If there are any more please send me them in a pm.

And as for "make monsters", as long as you aren't above recolouring monsters (which the existence of red skeletons contradicts, and possibly this new ice dragon although I've never seen that so I can't say) it would be incredibly easy to add a lot more monsters. Like.. a few clicks. Send me some sprites and I'll do it for you. So really, all that leaves which I'd like are ice blocks, ice walls, sand blocks and walls, very dark blue rock floor and walls like in a sea cave and some vine walls and I'll sit and make you a plethora of dungeons.
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Pellandria
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Post by Pellandria »

Yes the ice dragon is a simple recolouration of the fire dragon...but yet looks ten times better.
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Athian
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Post by Athian »

@Cromwell:

Your comments on the commotio spells are pretty much entirely wrong ^^ and or not really a problem in the long run.

@Estralis

I can see the benefits of idea of puzzling/questing/monster killing/rune booking. But i'm also wondering whats going to stop the over saturation of magic related items. Whats going to stop any mage/strong fighter from simply stocking and selling magic items? I don't think it really matters how many parts to a book there are. after thinking it over i can't see a way around such a problem other then people being punished for doing something that this new system has allowed them.

-----

Somehow the ideas are all there but it seems overly complicated. Having people stay motivated long enough to create, implement and balance this system seems like its going to be a lot more work then simply fixing the flaws in the current teaching system, OR providing NPC's for lower end spells.

I'd love to see some of these concepts involved in the game. Though I imagine the RPG section may become filled with newbie posts like "Need help for rune hunt, pt of six pls" and other such fun things. To that effect what in this system is actually, better or easier then the prior one? In the end it seems if your a newbie you'll still need to rely on several people to help you out. Considering our community isn't a HUGE, it will still bring frustration when all the strong fighters/mages aren't online to babysit someone through a dungeon and camp a monster drop...

Solving riddles will fall through quickly too because people will simply share the answers with others so they won't even have to think about it. even if we had 20-30 different it won't solve the issue of lazy people getting the answers from lazier people, and that kind of kills the whole point of riddles in the first place.

Long story short, good idea (new maps and areas are never a bad bonus^^) but think it'll end up falling through as fast if not faster then past systems.
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Not just riddles, but tasks to overcome. They should be fun anyway so you won't WANT someone to ruin it for you, not just stupidly hard that only 1 in a 100 people will manage to solve and then he'll tell everyone else how to do it. Also you may know HOW to finish a dungeon in 1 player rpgs but they can still take you quite a while to complete them. Hopefully we can manage to bring some good depths in puzzlesto the dungeons without Nitram having to code 9 million lines of code :P

Although I still don't know what's out of the question. I asked Nitram if he's able to do the classic ice puzzles (once you walk on one tile you keep sliding until you hit a wall/block) but he didn't reply. I guess that's one of the harder things to script. Pushable blocks would be nice too. And features such as: Burnable vines or sheets of ice, freezing a source of water and the water tiles in the room become ice to walk over.

Oh yeah and something else: We have snow tiles, couldn't we have a really light blue coloured version which is ice? And maybe a cracked ice tile?
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Tanistian_Kanea
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Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

Athian wrote:@Cromwell:

Your comments on the commotio spells are pretty much entirely wrong ^^ and or not really a problem in the long run.

@Estralis

I can see the benefits of idea of puzzling/questing/monster killing/rune booking. But i'm also wondering whats going to stop the over saturation of magic related items. Whats going to stop any mage/strong fighter from simply stocking and selling magic items? I don't think it really matters how many parts to a book there are. after thinking it over i can't see a way around such a problem other then people being punished for doing something that this new system has allowed them.

-----

Somehow the ideas are all there but it seems overly complicated. Having people stay motivated long enough to create, implement and balance this system seems like its going to be a lot more work then simply fixing the flaws in the current teaching system, OR providing NPC's for lower end spells.

I'd love to see some of these concepts involved in the game. Though I imagine the RPG section may become filled with newbie posts like "Need help for rune hunt, pt of six pls" and other such fun things. To that effect what in this system is actually, better or easier then the prior one? In the end it seems if your a newbie you'll still need to rely on several people to help you out. Considering our community isn't a HUGE, it will still bring frustration when all the strong fighters/mages aren't online to babysit someone through a dungeon and camp a monster drop...

Solving riddles will fall through quickly too because people will simply share the answers with others so they won't even have to think about it. even if we had 20-30 different it won't solve the issue of lazy people getting the answers from lazier people, and that kind of kills the whole point of riddles in the first place.

Long story short, good idea (new maps and areas are never a bad bonus^^) but think it'll end up falling through as fast if not faster then past systems.
good point here. (made bigger). Now i have suggested this a number of times and other then shooting down my suggested location NOONE has commented on this idea: NATURAL MAGIC ROOM. As I have said before there are many benefits to this:
1. Easy
2. Fast
4. It keeps the teacher, student relationship which I LOVE (I'm sure everyone has their own opinion on this)
3. It is VERY likely to increase the number of mages (which makes it easier to become one) which (as I understand it) is the ENTIRE reason this thread was started in the first place.

So what reasons are there to not do this?
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Vern Kron
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Post by Vern Kron »

Simple. It will be taken control of in seconds or destroyed. It also does not fix the other problems of the teaching system. So, no, this really doesn't fix anything. It just is a bandaid for the short term.
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Tanistian_Kanea
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Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

Vern Kron wrote:Simple. It will be taken control of in seconds or destroyed.
so make it from stone. you can't burn stone, and as far as i know that is the only way to actually destroy something IG.
how exactly would it be taken control of?
Vern Kron wrote:It also does not fix the other problems of the teaching system.

Ok. I missed something here. WHAT other problems?

Finally no one really knows how much this will actually effect the current balance (and that is what we are trying to achieve) it may be enough to bring balance.
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Azuros
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Post by Azuros »

Tanistian_Kanea wrote:
Vern Kron wrote:Simple. It will be taken control of in seconds or destroyed.
so make it from stone. you can't burn stone, and as far as i know that is the only way to actually destroy something IG.
how exactly would it be taken control of?
Vern Kron wrote:It also does not fix the other problems of the teaching system.

Ok. I missed something here. WHAT other problems?

Finally no one really knows how much this will actually effect the current balance (and that is what we are trying to achieve) it may be enough to bring balance.
To your first question:
A guild, town, or group with authority might decide to extend their reach to this area and close it off to others.

To your second question:
There's the problem of teachers and students both needing relatively high magic skills to teach/learn runes. There's also the issue of certain mages being unable to teach some runes at all because of imperfect attributes.
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Vern Kron
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Post by Vern Kron »

You can destroy it with GM help, and yes you can burn it away.

Problems:
Teaching is a very very slow proccess and the amount of teachers who care to teach, to the amount of people wanting to learn are totally out of proportion.
The amount of skill required to teach is too high.
And probably others that I don't know of.

Also, things can be taken control of rather easily. A cave is made. What does some one do? Put a gate infront of it with a lock. Control = taken.
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Tanistian_Kanea
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Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

Azuros wrote:
Tanistian_Kanea wrote:
Vern Kron wrote:Simple. It will be taken control of in seconds or destroyed.
so make it from stone. you can't burn stone, and as far as i know that is the only way to actually destroy something IG.
how exactly would it be taken control of?
Vern Kron wrote:It also does not fix the other problems of the teaching system.

Ok. I missed something here. WHAT other problems?

Finally no one really knows how much this will actually effect the current balance (and that is what we are trying to achieve) it may be enough to bring balance.
To your first question:
A guild, town, or group with authority might decide to extend their reach to this area and close it off to others.

To your second question:
There's the problem of teachers and students both needing relatively high magic skills to teach/learn runes. There's also the issue of certain mages being unable to teach some runes at all because of imperfect attributes.
For the town thing, this would mean the DEVELOPERS allow this to happen. Also, this should not be NEAR a town or guild in the first place.

Destroy it with GM help? GM's need to learn then when to NOT allow something. If a GM happened to allow this they should be SACKED!

Edit: Also the point of having a NATURAL magic room is that it is the LOCATION and NOT the buildings. anything like pillars would not have any real importance other then RP and atmosphere. it would not have "walls" or things like that.

Edit2: You could also say that "Because of the high amount of magical energies in the area anything unnatural is soon destroyed" Thus gates and walls would not be built.

Edit3: Edit2 would also explain why there are no buildings on the Sirani Islands. The only problem with this is the docks, which have to stay for technical reasons, otherwise someone could approach by boat, and land on the beach.

Edit4: The island on which resides the room could have a small map change to make the "dock" tile to look like a natural peninsula. The other islands would be unaffected because the magic would dissipate over large distances.

That attribute limit could also be quickly and easily removed.

But for all this negativity why not just try it? See what happens. Give it a chance. What is the worst that could happen? As for a location, why not one of the three Sirani Islands?
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Vern Kron
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Post by Vern Kron »

Yes. People would try to take control of it, and would have a right to. Thats the joy of rp.

Destroy it with gm help? Yes, that might be allowable as well, due to actions a character does. Once again, RP.

I do not see how walls are 'unnatural' since everything IG is made of stone and otherwise. Unnatural would be magic.

The Sirani islands have little to nothing to do with magic.

And why not do this? Simple:

We already have issues with characters controlling magic rooms, and then you want to add another one in that through reasonable rp could be taken as well. Not to mention the fact that if it doesn't work people will want it removed but those who own it will want it to stay, then we have a whole sticky situation in itself.
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Staff: Oh hi guys, we just gave you a teaching room that's accessibly by everyone so the teaching system can work properly.
Some absolute ******* who thinks that only the academy should be able to teach magic and doesn't realise that they're crapping up everything: #me BURNS IT DOWN
Staff: Oh well if he did that we MUST delete it!

And how the hell do you burn down an area of high mana concentration anyway? BURN THE MANA! BURN IT DOWN!

It's not the pillars which make the place a teaching room. All it needs is a few tiles in the ground to mark where it is.

And even if by some MIRACLE the very people who IMPLEMENTED this room allowed some ********s to burn it down, they'd get pked so much they couldn't speak common anymore.
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Tanistian_Kanea
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Post by Tanistian_Kanea »

Vern Kron wrote:Yes. People would try to take control of it, and would have a right to. Thats the joy of rp.

Destroy it with gm help? Yes, that might be allowable as well, due to actions a character does. Once again, RP.
Then the DM's will be to blame.

Unnatural as in: man made, TAMPERING WITH MOTHER NATURE.

The point is to make one that can not be "controlled"

This "room" would be "discovered" in someplace no one has found such a place previously.

If the DM's want to make it controllable then the fact it becomes controlled and it becomes limited again become ENTIRELY their fault. I am giving them options, ideas as to why something like walls and gates could not be built.
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Post by Azuros »

You've not yet addressed the rest of the problems.
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

Umm.. the whole point of teaching rooms is that you don't need any skills to teach inside them. If a town or guild takes over it we'll use it anyway. Maybe the Builder refuses to build near it because it's a registered site of environmental interest ;) .
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Post by Retlak »

Maybe you could just stop claiming smiling teaching rooms!

-Matt
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Mr. Cromwell
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Post by Mr. Cromwell »

I'm not opposed to creation of such neutral teaching place at all. I mean, if we can have some improvement in regards to the situation RIGHT NOW, then hell, lets go for it (especially since this is merely a small tweak in comparison to creating a new system).

However, I still think that on the long run, change away from the current method to a more reliable (especially on the long term) and fair method of magic-learning (such as what I suggested) should be taken.

@Alex:

I have a little hard time identifying your exact argument against the suggestion, mainly because what you say about QWAN is true even now, which means that the current magic system is "epic fail" (to quote your words) until the students get QWAN, which would not change the situation at all. Expect in regards to dependence to other players, in which I think that it would be a change for the better.

Regarding your second paragraph, I never insinuated that this system would be some magical tool which prevents old players from having any advantage at all. However, what is a bit silly in my eyes is that you shout "OOC INFLUENCE OLD PLAYERS" while ignoring completely the fact that new players would, in fact, be able to do *SOMETHING* on their own, which is a world of difference to the status quo. They'd be actually able to study magic and gain knowledge in this with their characters, even if they knew *zero* players, and this in my eyes completely, utterly, totally, absolutely trumps any argument against this system on the basis of "old player connection benefit[". Established players ALWAYS have it easier. This is not really a proper argument against the system, especially when we currently have one that disadvantages new players to the point where I wouldn't be surprised that we are losing them for good and gaining a bad reputation as a game/community.

Would you recommend a game where players tell you to wait for three months till you "maybe" get to compete against other applicants for the unreliable promise of having your character become a mage to your friends? I really wouldn't. :?

I mean, I read your third paragraph and wonder what the hell we are exactly arguing about anyway? All the things you mentioned there in the first sentence are more or less consensus by now.

As for one particular point you mentioned:

I don't consider you (or any other player for that matter) competent or qualified to be the RP-police. See "Case Matt". It simply is none of your business to decide who is using magic well, and who is abusing it. If someone is abusing the magic, you contact the staff. I made a specific and a rather (imo) good point against player administrated punishments long time ago in another thread, which I hope you remember. ;)

I mean, I expected a little more coherent arguments from you. As it stands, you're painting a bleak picture about ooc-old player advantage in a system that would shift vast majority of responsibility on each individual player, while at the same time ignoring the ooc-old player advantage that is 'really' ingrained in anything even remotely resembling a dependency-relationship between players (eg. a compulsory player teacher).

It's not my intention to take anyone's lollipop away, rather just create something that is not subject to the player-RP-police whims and general player unreliability. Something which the new players can get into on their own, instead of having ridiculous waiting times or popularity contests. Something which is little more for the have nots in this case, but with zero intention of screwing anyone over. Sure, this 'would' make teacher characters less important, but I hope the players can look at the proposal and see the forest from the trees, suck it up and agree to the common good of the game. :) ;)
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AlexRose
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Post by AlexRose »

It makes sense that there is a rune that, upon receiving it, all the real magic is unlocked. It's a great privilege to have bestowed upon you. If you played a mage you'd understand that the magic system works very well.

And I'm saying: A char with mage stats can't kill anything with no runes, so he needs to get KEL and RA/HEPT before he can kill a monster. And preferably MES PEN too. So first of all, if these were found with monster drops no new mage would ever learn them because he'd have nothing to pay people to get it for him with and noone to get it for him. And let me add that noone has yet said HOW you get pages other than monster drops. There's been a vague sense that you could get them from reading, but no system how. You read books a lot at the library and then it randomly says "This book for some unknown reason has a rune page in it and you learn a rune"? But anyway, let's assume you manage to get these runes without fighting monsters. Now you want some real spells, for which you need level 3 runes. The hardest ones to get in the game and sacred ones that get taught last because they're a big responsibility. Which I assume would therefore be dropped on hard level monsters. Monsters which most new mages would never kill with KEL RA (because that would require epic powergaming and then you'd still be shooting like 20 of them to kill one red, which would be attacking you at the same time). The ones that would pull it off probably wouldn't be able to kill such a large amount of them that they get a QWAN page, however. And they need 5 QWAN pages I'm to gather? So really, they need a fighter friend to get it for them. One who's already pretty powerful. How many new mage characters have quite powerful fighter friends? Seems the only ones that seem to also have another already well established character.

So now you have mages who can only cast a few spells, can't find teachers and want them even more now they've been given a taste of what it's like and don't have any other way of getting QWAN without waiting for several months befriending everyone they meet in the hope that one day the people they make friends with will be strong enough to help them get QWAN pages.

To me, that doesn't constitute a good system.
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Post by Retlak »

All of you need to stop suggesting things that would would all really want, and start realising that you can't all be happy and need to compromise somewhere in between. It's easy for everyone to type everywhere with "I beleive this rune would make sense, not this" or "These dungeons here will be perfect, but not this"


-Matt
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Post by Mr. Cromwell »

Clearly if there's no middleground between owning everything in sight and sucking, then there's something wrong. I mean, it works (suggesting you're the one who's owning) but it should work better.
- Runes are gained through studying books in libraries (perhaps as a function of stats+library research+ancient), quests, battling monsters and searching hidden dungeons. Moreover, they are mainly found in pieces which you copy down (except for ubermonsters which have a chance of dropping a whole book, or monsters which drop ready pieces) giving a function to parchment and ink.
I thought this paragraph gave strong enough hints that it's not just monster drops. You know, on the.. first post about the system? :P

If you really were under the impression that I'd suggest that mages should fight monsters for every single (rather, as I pointed out elsewhere, monsters would be a supplementary source of rune pages.. the intention was not that you'd sit somewhere collecting pages by killing reds) parchment, I am quite disappointed. If my intention was to suggest something as dumb, I'd do it with style:

A deadmatch arena, with two mages fighting barefisted to the death for a rune-book which a GM throws in the middle of the Arena. :P

Seriously: What you are pointing out balance issues related to the distribution of runes. Which can be, like, you know.. balanced. Studying, quests, puzzles, exploring dungeons, + voluntary mage teacher.. and monsters, all would be potential sources. Instead of not reading (;)) my posts, you could give a thought on 'how' you'd actually distribute the runes via these methods, if hypothetically getting a full rune from a teacher is no longer possible automatically?

By the way, as Estralis mentioned: it's not a given that spells shall eternally work the way they do now..
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Athian
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Post by Athian »

Mr. Cromwell wrote:Clearly if there's no middleground between owning everything in sight and sucking, then there's something wrong. I mean, it works (suggesting you're the one who's owning) but it should work better.
- Runes are gained through studying books in libraries (perhaps as a function of stats+library research+ancient), quests, battling monsters and searching hidden dungeons. Moreover, they are mainly found in pieces which you copy down (except for ubermonsters which have a chance of dropping a whole book, or monsters which drop ready pieces) giving a function to parchment and ink.
I thought this paragraph gave strong enough hints that it's not just monster drops. You know, on the.. first post about the system? :P

If you really were under the impression that I'd suggest that mages should fight monsters for every single (rather, as I pointed out elsewhere, monsters would be a supplementary source of rune pages.. the intention was not that you'd sit somewhere collecting pages by killing reds) parchment, I am quite disappointed. If my intention was to suggest something as dumb, I'd do it with style:

A deadmatch arena, with two mages fighting barefisted to the death for a rune-book which a GM throws in the middle of the Arena. :P

Seriously: What you are pointing out balance issues related to the distribution of runes. Which can be, like, you know.. balanced. Studying, quests, puzzles, exploring dungeons, + voluntary mage teacher.. and monsters, all would be potential sources. Instead of not reading (;)) my posts, you could give a thought on 'how' you'd actually distribute the runes via these methods, if hypothetically getting a full rune from a teacher is no longer possible automatically?
By the way, as Estralis mentioned: it's not a given that spells shall eternally work the way they do now..
Personally i don't find anything wrong with the magic system. Its really just as powerful as it needs to be. The only thing one can honestly fault is that magic causes harm at a distance so those whom oppose a magic character might get killed before they reach them. That exactly how it should be. magic folk have much weaker bodies then warriors, they need to be powerful or they will die.

Want to know whats really wrong? fighters with 3 willpower and 4 essence complaining that magic destroys them. They make the choice to optimize themselves to be ultimate FIGHTERS but no one forced that on them, so when they come into contact with there natural oppisite of course its going to destroy them entirely. Maybe some fighting characters will finally wise up and leave themselves at least a marginal amount of essence from which they can learn some resistance. If not then in the end its there own fault and they need to quit bitching.

What needs to be fixed more like it the fighting system in terms of damage done to unarmored enemies/enemies with no defensive skills. if your mage has no dodge or parry or tactics, 4-6 con and is wearing cloth clothing he/she should pretty much be dead in 1-3 strokes of a trained blade (more hits for the untrained warrior of course, but true master would be lethal close up)

anyway this isn't really about the magic system but the teaching system.


What i'm curious about is that the way you describe your system Cromwell A mage need only ever spend enough time in the library and he can find the same runes as the mages in the field. so what promotes a player going out into the questing world? The fact that an entire rune book might drop really pales in comparison to finding them in the safety of the library (not to mention they won't have to wait for any warriors to help them out, so the library will actually be faster). This seems to fall back to the original magic system of read book find rune, that we had ages ago which lead to an over saturation of mages. sure you've broken it down so that it takes longer, but it also takes no effort aside from Shiftclick-click-cap-log-repeat.

Monsters in the field pose all the same problems that Alex and myself stated. new mages won't stand a chance against them without any assistance. Thats not a bad thing, but too many runes too monsters and mage players still have player dependancy and nothing is solved.


I would suggest a mixed system (again). making easy/weak spells (runes that make the easy spells) obtainable through static means such as multiple part quests from NPC's.

The rest of the runes players learn through interaction with other players, as in teachers. If no teacher honestly will take the student then they should be able to make a Request via our GM's for runes which would only require something of a short ceremony.

How we split the runes between NPC obtainable and teacher obtainable could vary by consensus.

The following other changes would be benefical

A free teaching area (because as long as its in the open people can say whatever the hell they want about claiming or some other BS.Unless they plan to guard the territory 24/7 there isn't #$%@ they can really do about it)

or

lower the skill loss or remove skill loss from teaching runes. (I wouldn't complain honestly if i lost a level for every 2-3 runes i taught, but to loss 2+ levels for the two runes i can teach during the week is too harsh)

Either way whats going to happen it that the academies in question will have to attract players via RPG and not simply because of a static technical advantage.The Teaching room monopoly needs to be broken.

I see this as the only method that will make everyone happy. Those whom want some static learning ability that doesn't need to rely on a teacher get that. The teachers whom want to teach still get to do so. and the fact that one must find a teacher to advance into the highest realm of magic will help to acclimate and advance new mages roleplaying abilities rather then simply "giving" them all the runes and letting them loose on other players.
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Pancho
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Post by Pancho »

Just to bring up some arguments flying around in this thread:

"I do not want to beg a guild on my knees so they grant me to teach in their teaching room." Said by three people (Athian, Kaila, AlexRose) who obviously play mages that could teach people, if it weren't for the fact that they have no teaching room.

That'd be 9 more student slots.

"Let's make a freely accesible teaching room."

That'd help these 3 (or maybe more) people to play their mages again and teach people.

"Somebody can easily destroy it with GM help."

When was the last time something in-game with significant importance was destroyed with GM help?
From what I've gathered there's the Temple which nobody just walked up at and "destroyed" it.
There's a magical castle in Varshikar which nobody just walked up at and "destroyed" it.
What makes you think any GM would allow a building of such importance to a large aspect of the game (an acessible teaching room)
be destroyed just because some people thought it'd be a cool idea?

"That doesn't help. The ratio of people wanting to learn magic to the one of people teaching is out of proportion."

With this free teaching room 3 people would teach again, equaling in 9 open teaching spots for other people.
In a community that peaks at 30-40 people online at the same time 9 more student slots ought to be more than enough,
even more as this might attract other characters capable of teaching but not being able to because they do not wish to participate in what the guilds having a teaching room stand for.

Where do you take your numbers from? How do you deduct that there's an amount of magic students these 3 (or possibly more) teachers can not cope with?

Most of the people writing an application on the magic academy thread have long left the game again because they didn't receive any response (as someone said, the applications aren't read anymore, save are replied to).

I'll be honest, I'm biased about this topic due to personal experience (I want to play a mage too).
However after my first contact with the magic academy I don't get my hopes up too high.

It's actualy quite funny that people wonder why the academy is deserted as it is right now,
when those that try to get a character there get every resistance in their way they could possibly get.

I made a character and wanted to stay there asking to be granted to "research" in their library, see what happened:

Being greeted with "Tell me one reason I shouldn't blast you for treespassing on our island."
doesn't realy make you feel welcome.

After stating my request to see the library I get told "Only magic students and mages of the academy are allowed inside."

So humor me, I'll just join the academy then yes? "Sure if you find a mage willing to take you as a student."

Wait wait wait, I actualy came here so I could FIND one in the first place. Now I need one to be allowed to stay here anyway?

"Why do you even want to study in our library?" "Oh I need informations on <topic x>" ((part of my characters background story)).

"I'm sure you won't find anything about that in our archives." Yeah duh, I knew that aswell, I just had that as an ice breaker and possibly RP device so others would take interrest in my character. What was that you said about being original and cunning to woo some mage into teaching you? Stand out of the crowd and all that?

"Why should I trust you? What tells me you're not a Temple spy or one sent by Djironnyma?"

Woah woah wait, what? Sure, NOTHING can make you trust me, I know that perfectly well, but isn't it a bit paranoid to smell spys and assasins on any guy that comes to you? Do you even want people to rp in the academy. Yes? Well why do you make it that hard for them to get there then?

"So there realy is no chance you'd let me stay here so I might meet other mages that might know anything about <topic x>?"
-> "Well actually there aren't many mages here currently..." Well duh of course, if you keep people out that might rp with other mages so they just stand around bored in a big empty academy I wouldn't stay there either.

"Anything else or can I cast a portal to your home again?" Uhm... yeah whatever, send me away, I don't know if it's even worth trying any longer, obviously you've got some pretty secret magical devices in your dorm rooms and library so you can't just take people inside I understand.

So after experiencing this, I can figure why people like Athian or AlexRose aren't too keen on becoming a part of the Academy, they realy give the impression that they want to keep to themselves exclusively.
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Pellandria
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Post by Pellandria »

Lovely, when people have no idea what they talking about so..go ahead...here we go.
Pancho wrote: "I do not want to beg a guild on my knees so they grant me to teach in their teaching room." Said by three people (Athian, Kaila, AlexRose) who obviously play mages that could teach people, if it weren't for the fact that they have no teaching room.

That'd be 9 more student slots.
All of these three people play the game on and off again, leaving partly for months before they come back that means 9 disgrunteled students who blame the other teachers for not teaching them, not to forget that Kaila and Alex HAVE acces to the teaching room, so there is no excuse not for teaching, so yeah there goes your argument..useless.
Pancho wrote: "Let's make a freely accesible teaching room."

That'd help these 3 (or maybe more) people to play their mages again and teach people.
As said before the only one who would gain something from a free teaching room is maybe athian, if he would play constantly, the other ones have access and I know of no other Teacher, who has BHONA, but is not a member of any academy.
Pancho wrote: "Somebody can easily destroy it with GM help."

When was the last time something in-game with significant importance was destroyed with GM help?
From what I've gathered there's the Temple which nobody just walked up at and "destroyed" it.
Wow suprise, logical argumentation, really well thought....
The temple is not so easy to destroy, because it has natural aswell as artificial fortifications and several mages to boost, if you could break the temples defence, than you could probably ransack the place, but you need to get in to begin with.
Pancho wrote: There's a magical castle in Varshikar which nobody just walked up at and "destroyed" it.
The same thing as before, fortifications that need to be breached and defenders that need to be put down.
Pancho wrote: What makes you think any GM would allow a building of such importance to a large aspect of the game (an acessible teaching room)
be destroyed just because some people thought it'd be a cool idea?
Because it makes sense for many chars ig, either to reduce the accesebility, because it makes ~sense~ from the char perspectiv or because..well lets see..because its no freaking building with no guards and nothing and thus easy to destroy, maybe just for the sake of destroying things or on the other side just for people to claim it yet again.
Pancho wrote: "That doesn't help. The ratio of people wanting to learn magic to the one of people teaching is out of proportion."

With this free teaching room 3 people would teach again, equaling in 9 open teaching spots for other people.
In a community that peaks at 30-40 people online at the same time 9 more student slots ought to be more than enough,
even more as this might attract other characters capable of teaching but not being able to because they do not wish to participate in what the guilds having a teaching room stand for.
Allright I will be easy on you, because you are new, but that I should just answer with a *facepalm* picture and nothing more, but for the sake of the argument we repeat what was said before, you will free 3 teaching spots, that will be filled by a few people, who than leave or the teacher himself likes to leave the game yet again for a few months, the teaching is not a "here you go have 28 runes now go out in the world" its a half an year effort maybe even a whole if you want to be teacher, by than many MANY Newbies who don't like the game overall will have left the game...you might come here for the magic, but you stay for the game, if you just stay in the game because you want to learn magic...than I must say the game might not be for you.
Now you ask why..well its simple, you loose interrest in the game after you got your runes..and than we are at the beginning again, a pissed of teacher for wasting his or her time and a hundred newbies who hadn't the chance to get runes, because someone else blocked the spot.
Pancho wrote: Where do you take your numbers from? How do you deduct that there's an amount of magic students these 3 (or possibly more) teachers can not cope with?
Its what the past has shown us, even if we got 9 more teaching spots those will be filled in a few weeks, THAN we got more students that wait half a year, so your math is broken...because its not only 40 chars playing the game all night and day...
Pancho wrote: Most of the people writing an application on the magic academy thread have long left the game again because they didn't receive any response (as someone said, the applications aren't read anymore, save are replied to).
I once made the work to reply to the application from around the 30 or so people I wrotte to 2 only replied, that amount of work is beyond anything usefull and what do you want to writte anyway" ok we took a look at it..pull a ticket and hope for luck"?
Pancho wrote: I'll be honest, I'm biased about this topic due to personal experience (I want to play a mage too).
However after my first contact with the magic academy I don't get my hopes up too high.
Because you met me along with other people, but you mainly talked to me I will reply to that here, after all I don't see a reason why not, but first of all you should notice that you interrupted a meeting between several chars that wanted to hold a lesson, thus every talk naturally cuts as short as possible to get the rune lesson done.
Pancho wrote: It's actualy quite funny that people wonder why the academy is deserted as it is right now,
when those that try to get a character there get every resistance in their way they could possibly get.

I made a character and wanted to stay there asking to be granted to "research" in their library, see what happened:

Being greeted with "Tell me one reason I shouldn't blast you for treespassing on our island."
doesn't realy make you feel welcome.
Lets reflect the situation,. there were several hostile npcs walking around, naturally someone unknown will not be welcomed, furthermore after tresspassing is ~clearly~ not allowed, every tresspasser in the academy grounds can be thrown out if we want, seeing how you didn't care to ask for permission first, but just stood there, you should not be supprised to get such an question.
Pancho wrote: After stating my request to see the library I get told "Only magic students and mages of the academy are allowed inside."
Rules of the academy, decided on by 5 different people, a char who actually works to increase the security in the academy shouldn't act any different.
Pancho wrote: So humor me, I'll just join the academy then yes? "Sure if you find a mage willing to take you as a student."

Wait wait wait, I actualy came here so I could FIND one in the first place. Now I need one to be allowed to stay here anyway?
You can just be a member if you are a student, the academy is not for teacherhunting, you need to meet the teacher in the island or activly search for him or writte a dove...or just have pure luck.
Pancho wrote: "Why do you even want to study in our library?" "Oh I need informations on <topic x>" ((part of my characters background story)).

"I'm sure you won't find anything about that in our archives." Yeah duh, I knew that aswell, I just had that as an ice breaker and possibly RP device so others would take interrest in my character. What was that you said about being original and cunning to woo some mage into teaching you? Stand out of the crowd and all that?
Ohh please your background story wasn't even that great "I came in contact with item x and mysteriously lost my powers and knowledge" what do you expect people to think "omgawsh such a poor little halfing, come and have an artefact, maybe you can go trougth our most secret archives aswell, even trougth I do not know you".
Furthermore your char ~passed~ item x several times on his way to the academy, so yeah there goes your logical background story...down the drain.
Pancho wrote: "Why should I trust you? What tells me you're not a Temple spy or one sent by Djironnyma?"

Woah woah wait, what? Sure, NOTHING can make you trust me, I know that perfectly well, but isn't it a bit paranoid to smell spys and assasins on any guy that comes to you? Do you even want people to rp in the academy. Yes? Well why do you make it that hard for them to get there then?
Yes its paranoid...does it fit to the char ..yes.. so what we have here is maybe a pure bad luck, you met a char who is pretty secure about the academy and you are someone who wants to get into the academy, furthermore you first defend Djironima, even while you said before hand "yeah I don't know those other guys", so do you really think someone trusts someone who just comes up to you(allready making a rulebreak and "bringing" enemy humanoid npcs with them"), claiming not to know a sworn enemy and than yet defend them?
Yes I do want people to rp in the academy actually, otherwise I wouldn't have wasted months ig to work and gather ressources and furthermore I would not have wasted other months ig to make yet another building for/from the academy.

Why I do make it so hard, its not hard, but you just need to come up wth logic and with something that fits, you can't make people trust your char if they find something complettly unlogical about their story, even afterwards players/chars said that there seemed something fishy about your story.
Pancho wrote: "So there realy is no chance you'd let me stay here so I might meet other mages that might know anything about <topic x>?"
-> "Well actually there aren't many mages here currently..." Well duh of course, if you keep people out that might rp with other mages so they just stand around bored in a big empty academy I wouldn't stay there either.
Once again same argument, after several people not only tried to break into the academy and also succeded in doing so she won't just let anyone unknown in, would she know you and than you asked...than things would have been different.
Pancho wrote: "Anything else or can I cast a portal to your home again?" Uhm... yeah whatever, send me away, I don't know if it's even worth trying any longer, obviously you've got some pretty secret magical devices in your dorm rooms and library so you can't just take people inside I understand.
Now to get so low and not only cut real big parts of the discussion between the chars but also to "forget" to mention that the two students came out and actually tried to see what the holdup is, is pretty much speaking for yourself.
As I said I was under time pressure and still took my time with you to rp and get to know you, could have just shoved you into a portal and tell you goodbye, see if that kind of "aggresion" and "Ignorance" comes back, why would we even want to take people in, honestly if you try to rp with them, show them what they think might be wrong and then come back with "yeah that player didn't want me in and he goes against what he said before, even if I cannot proove that... bwaaa bwaaa", than I really think about just blasting the next one who asks me.....of course I won't do that.
Pancho wrote: So after experiencing this, I can figure why people like Athian or AlexRose aren't too keen on becoming a part of the Academy, they realy give the impression that they want to keep to themselves exclusively.
See, now yet again something widly amusing.

Athian blasted people allready for disagreeing with him ig, Alexroses Char threatens to kill you and allready killed people for coming close to Caelum, not to forget that he abused bugs to create monster in Trollsbane and scare/kill inhabitans, not to mention that he has access to the academy, but is to lazy to type a password in, so before you defend someone complettly unknown to you, you better get to know them first, because those their chars probably would simply have laughed about your "weakness" with loosing your gift after getting in contact with item x,...
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Post by Pancho »

Nevermind.

Obviously I suck and can go smile myself, thanks for pointing that out.
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Kaila Galathil Travinus
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Post by Kaila Galathil Travinus »

Just to clear the air, since the days the current council was formed at the Academy and Kaila was asked to join yet wasn't allowed to discuss anything oocly with a "fun-loving, thoroughly non-political char", I objected oocly to setting out some rules in "secret" without consulting all teaching mages. Basically I had a choice "follow your char's background or change it making her a political char" and elected the former. I have not had a good time playing a teaching mage and have only played her in the teaching capacity when needed and just occasionally. My "students" were the only good thing that I enjoyed. The academy was a BIG downside.

Will I begin to teach if I didn't have to follow some ig rules set up that IMO makes no sense? Possibly.... at this time I don't know anymore. All I am aware of at present is 1. The forced guilds that hover over teaching mages make it not enjoyable. 2. The need to PG in order to even teach a rune...at the same time PG is discouraged. :? 3. The msning, PMing, following around ig by "perspective students" and even talking to my other chars about wanting to be taught magic makes having a mage teaching char the pits. I am hoping some or all can be corrected.
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Post by Retlak »

Pellandria, stop treating newbies like shit. You're terrible for discrimination and you should start writing nicely and appreciate how Pancho has done a lot of research and made a lot of knowledgable points when it's only his second or third day playing.

You should at least save your sarcastic offensive comments for older players if you want to make yourself feel good, because then we can directly kick your ass and ruin your day in return like you do to newbies.

-Matt
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Post by Velask »

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