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The best everything
First of all I want to congratulate you guys on what you have here as a game. It seems to be really interesting and the most rp focused and weird (I mean that as a compliment) of all of IRE's games. I am coming from achaea where imo rp is... lacking. With that said, I still want combat and stuff like that so here is a list of newbie questions.
What are your top 3 for...
classes for bashing/influencing?
Races/statpacks/traits for bashing/influencing?
Classes for pvp?
Pvp races/statpacks/traits?
Classes for raiding?
Races/statpacks/traits for raiding?
classes/orgs/etc for fun?
organizations noted for roleplay?
Cities/communes?
Guilds?
Do you guys have orders?
Anything else I should know?
Thanks in advance!
1
(c) Iron Realms Entertainment 2012.
Comments
What is best race/stat/clan/guild for Influencing? The one with the greatest Charisma (currently HELP RACES, but could change any minute now).
What is best race/stat/guild/clan for bashing? Unknown, but Guardian archetype seems to work perfectly for me.
What is best FOO for BAR? Like I said, it could change tomorrow. Not each and every change is welcome, but the majority seem to be on the up-and-up.
Thanks for joining and happy computing!
As with all IRE games, what you get from them is connected to what you put into them. Everyone has a preference for what works for them. Our orders come and go, but they're pretty active here and there. Our design system is pretty painless as opposed to other games, if you're into that, and there's always ways for new people to get into leadership positions and guide where they want their org to go.
Because of the game design you can pick pretty much any class and still be a very good influencers (just some races won't be ideal choices). The choice order here is probably more like org > guild > race.
Celest is as "good" as Magnagora is "evil". Sure, angel-users are all bright and shiny until they're judging you for your actions no matter what they are, and you find out that Celestines/Paladins can't "judge" each other no matter what they do. Also that they're incredibly racist against viscanti and illithoid no matter how much said person works their rump off.
There's a lot of grey areas in Lusternia, and you can really roleplay it any way you wish, within reason. The Paladins even had a rule for a long while saying that finks are bad, and gnomes are good, so pages/squires aren't allowed to kill gnomes in Newton.
Rambling aside, my point is this: no org here is truly good or evil. Each one will bend rules when it suits them or furthers their goals. Some are darker and comfortable with it, and some are dark and have a nice coat of pastel painted over them.
The smaller list after that was for solo fights, which druids are somewhat better at due to sap and whatnot.
They're one of the bard classes, and as Celina mentioned they're excellent bashers, all bards are decent influencers, and if you take tarot they have amazing survivability and utility. Just ask Shaddus how Cantor PvP works, he plays probably either first or second most dangerous Cantor I've ever seen.
If you're looking for an all around hunting and pvp setup with a little influencing thrown in, you can't go wrong with a bard. Minimal investment for pvp in groups, plenty of group buffs, and so on. As Aerotan so politely mentioned, Cantors in Celest are considered pretty powerful.
As a disclaimer, I didn't really play a dangerous Cantor. I did however play one when they were greatly underestimated, helped give rise to another Cantor who was both a griefing raider and full of himself, and generally helped the skillset get some recognition and much needed buffs.
Second, to echo some of the comments above, I think your best bet would be to join a guardian or bard guild - so for Celest or Hallifax, that would be Celestines, Institute, Cantors, or Symphonium. Each has interesting skills, and I would definitely recommend taking up Tarot as your tertiary - you'll be super useful and loved for empresses. Of those choices, the guardian types probably have better survivability, but you'd be able to excel in any of those guilds.
Either way. I'll do full disclosure that I'm the Guild Administrator for the Institute, so if this sounds like a pro Hallifax pitch... then I'm not even sorry.
That said, Shaddus has a point that Celest isn't fully good, and Magnagora isn't fully evil. I do, however, don't think you'd enjoy Magnagora or Glomdoring. While all orgs have skeletons in the closet, Magnagora's power quest involves enslaving workers to work them to death in factories, and Glomdoring have bloody rituals involving baby sacrifices. I can't think of anything in any of the other four orgs that is as overtly evil.
Regarding the cities that appeal to you. While it's not entirely wrong to call Celest "good" and Hallifax "order", I'd rather say that Celest represents Religion, while Hallifax represents Science. Celest has a strong focus on religion, spirituality and the worship of saints and (demi)gods. Think the catholic church, except instead of the Holy Trinity, you have the five Supernals, who each embody the virtues of Love, Temperance, Courage, Justice and Light. Celest as a city gives easy room to play the role of a fire and brimstone preacher, a zealot of an inquisitor, or a pacifist hippie preaching love.
Hallifax on the other hand puts a strong emphasis on Science and Art. In the society as a whole, this means that there are several standards for decorum. You're expected not to be drunk in public. You're expected to be polite and restrained. And you're expected to be able to appreciate culture. Despite this description, you'll find that the city is actually a very social and warm. It's also easy to find a role as a fighter, artist, bureaucrat or scientist. You don't have to write books or plays, but the city pays stupidly well for them. And the city does prefer the studious, contemplative and reflective to the brash and hotblooded. Then again, I've managed to remain admin for a while, so even some hot-bloodedness can be appreciated.
When it comes to guilds, you mention that you want a guild that is like the Achaean monks. Good at everything. Unfortunately, you won't find anything quite as omnipotent here as the Achaean monks. When it comes to PvE, Celestines and Researchers are unfortunately far in the lower end of the spectrum. Celestines and Researchers have very little freely available bashing damage mitigation. They have a powerful offense, but they're defensively poor. You can mitigate this somewhat by picking up Healing as a tertiary. They're a lot more resilient in PvP, due to passive healing, active damage and affliction mitigation skills and affliction resistances. They're also good influencers as they have access to a charisma enhancing skill. So they're usually second to Bards in that regard.
Furthermore, Guardians (Researchers, Celestines and such) are very good at dealing out afflictions. Sort of like Occultists from Achaea. Lusternia doesn't have combat roles that revolve around palm-striking a monk so he can farchoke in boring stand-offs. All roles have a role and a chance to shine. While some may be delegated to Web and Damage duty, that's a lot more to do with level of skill, and less to do with a role.
So regardless of which class you choose, the class you choose will be wanted and useful in a combat situation.
I'll try to stay unbiased here as I explain my opinion on the difference between Celest and Hallifax in a combat context. Generally, the population of Celest is a lot larger than Hallifax, and correspondingly Celest has a lot more players interested in PvP. The current PvP atmosphere encourages alliances between cities, so a lot of conflict becomes a conglomerate of different organizations, but in individual events Hallifax tends to be under-represented. So, if you'd like to shine as one of the best in your class, Hallifax could be a good fit for you, but if you want to join a more established and active PvP city then Celest would have more to offer.
The cities also approach combat much differently philosophically. In Celest, prominent combatants are generally viewed as heroes, along with those who work hard to further the Light. In Hallifax, admiration tends to be for the best playwrights, authors, and scientific minds. I'm not sure if this is still the case, but Hallifax has a caste system which puts the military in the lower echelons of their society, and where artists and scientists are at the highest. So comparatively, Celest has this more passionate, religious crusader approach to combat, and Hallifax would consider combat a logical necessity for the sustainment of their society. But Hallifax has interesting RP around their culture as artists/scientists, so if you're willing to invest into that then you'd find yourself in a nice little niche community.
What hasn't been said about Celest is that a lot of its culture stems from merian history (lots of achievements in ancient times and an affinity for water) and its roots in the Holy Celestine Empire. Celest is like an organization out to prove itself, to overcome mistakes of their predecessors, and trying to right things in the world (despite shortcomings).
If you're looking for RP inspiration, I would highly recommend taking the time to read the Lusternia histories. You can find them here - https://www.lusternia.com/histories-of-lusternia - and I would start at Cosmogenesis and read on down.
There's also the part that nobody will force you to just focus completely on combat. The Pavok family line, for instance, is usually known for its members being warriors first and artists/scientists second.
In the end, of course, it is up to you and what you feel fits your character best.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.
However, the main problem is that it takes a balance to put up, and it doesn't last very long (it was about half a minute when I used it. Don't know if that's been changed). So in order to maintain it, you'll have to "waste time" to put it up. It's probably the single best defensive skill in the game, but I still feel that it's poor for PvE, and awesome for PvP.
Regarding the caste system, Hallifax still has Scientists and Artists as the highest caste, however you can achieve full city rank without writing a single book or create a single painting. If you do create enough quality works however, you can have your name submitted and considered for entrance into the highest caste. This is highly difficult however, so there are very few in that position.
And a final minor addition to what Kelly said before I give full agreement to it, you can find a lot of lore about Celest in the library. If so, they would be evaluated depending on the works they created. In other words, they would still have to produce something tangible. Instructions, teaching regiments, inspiring speeches. Things that can be submitted as books or plays at the stage. You don't have to write about temporal mechanics to be considered a contributor to Hallifaxian culture. In fact, I'll say that Hallifax could really do with more philosophy, music and warfare.
Or in other words, Hallifax could really use a Usagi Yojimbo.
I’m going to raise points and comment on what you and others
have said. This is likely to get a bit long, but it is completely up to you to
assign weight to anything that follows here.
@Asirnys Cities:
Celest and Hallfax both appeal to me.
I may get a few people upset here, but between the two you
could take into account that Celest will help underwrite you buying the
Lusternian equivalent of SVO. I believe Celest will get it for you for 80k once
you’re CR3 (which isn’t hard to get since all orgs here give TFs for
participating in events like domoths, defending, village revolts, flares,
etc.).
I liked Cyrene probably
best of all the cities.
Which org is most like Cyrene would be a huge debate.
Given what you’ve said, I would rule out Glom, Mag, and
perhaps Gaudi.
One of my complaints about the tutorial is that Gaudi gets
listed as the City of Chaos, rather than the City of Freedom. In some ways it
takes the place here of Ashtan. But even that is a bit misleading. Ashtan’s
history is based on occultists making demon pacts, and Infernals (yes they
started in Ashtan). Gaudi is about chaos in the way that Burning man light is
chaotic.
Hallifax is concerned with order more than good. They’re
good in the sense that evil breaks rules. They do have a strong sense of
writing if that appeals to you. But think more following the Law, no matter
what the law is over being good.
Celest is the city of Light and is the most like
Shallam/Targossas though probably with a bit of Cyrene tossed in. As in you can
play in Celest and take up a philosophy that supports good without overly
supporting the Light. This is somewhat true for all orgs, in that you can embrace
one of the several philosophies of the organization over the main philosophy.
Take Celest, you have the Light with big ‘l’ for Celestines
and Paladins, and Light with medium ‘l’ for cantors. For Tahtetso you have more
of a Buddhist knight plus light philosophy of self-enlightenment. But for
Aquamancers their philosophy is based largely or can be almost entirely on the
Plane of Elemental Water. Then you have the philosophies of individual gods
attached to an org. You could even toss in racial philosophies if you wanted to
depart some from the org philosophy.
My main in achaea was an Ashuran monk and I was a Tahtetso
monk in New Celest for years before leaving for Gaudi. In Celest Monks and
Paladins are generally the most tanky followed by tanky cantors (usually slower
eq brewmeister dwarves). Healing Celestines would be fairly close to Achaean
Priests. But, Celestines can instead of healing pick tarot and get a numb
skill. Magi wise Aquas with telekinesis would be the most tanky.
There are probably enough differences between Lusternian
monks and Achaean monks. Lusternian monks don’t get Achaean telepathy, they
give far more afflictions, nor do they have to stance. In some ways here monks
are more like a blend of Achaean monks and knights.
You might also look into entry costs for PK and hunting for
guilds.
It seemed more to be
about sitting at the city gates waiting for a raid to commence than any
substative roleplay.
City raiding here is very rare. It happens but in a
timeframe of RL months. Celest maybe two months ago raided prime (and that was
likely only due to a temporary suspension of defences for mag), prior to that
Celest and allies raided Gaudi (many many months ago), and a few incursions
into communes. Oddly enough communes get more prime raided than cities. Off
plane raiding is far more common here.
So I guess I am
looking for a good balance of cyrenian type roleplayers with eleusian type
combatants (I don't like ashtani type combatants because they're too
"lolraid" for me).
Every org has lolraid players and every org things some
other org has more of those. The players who don’t get those are those who
never see the raiding from the other side.
Some ideas for the
type of roleplay I would like to be involved in.
Those characters could exist in almost any org. I suppose
what I and others are attempting to convey is that Lusternia is grey and not as
black and white as it appears. Given your examples you’re leaning more towards
teachers and mentors, with that in mind you just have to decide what it is you
are bringing to the masses and what the response of the org you’re in would be.
If you’re in Serenwilde it could be a sort of Johnny
Appleseed where you’re bringing nature to the world. In Hallfax, it could be
playing a Lawbringer. In Glom, spreading the Wyrd to defend against the taint.
In Gaudi it could be bringing Freedom (or Enlightenment, or booze)….
@Shaddus: Celest is
as "good" as Magnagora is "evil".
You can even read a bit more into this then what he said. The
design of Lusternia seems designed that each org believes they’re in the right
and each has more than on example in their structure and history showing how
their philosophy has led to some ‘evil’ act. Celest (of old) as the good city/empire
wound up releasing the taint and attempting to oppress the other orgs. We could
go through all the orgs in this way.
So you probably want to decide on the philosophy of the org,
guild, and god you will follow (if you do) more than anything.
@Kiradawea . . . while
Hallifax represents Science.
Honestly, this is why I have never felt comfortable in
Hallifax. I am a science geek and Hallifax represents Science in the way that
Creationism is science. It just has always seemed to me that Hallifax was
designed by ‘artists’ defining science in some artsy way. Science is
anti-authoritarian while Hallifax is authoritarian. I would say that
Hallifaxians are Technology, but technology <> Science. /rant
@Asirnys
I would go back and reread Kiridawea’s post not that you’ve
seen other options. Other then my quibble over Science, she nails quite a bit
of the differences between Celest and Hallifax.
So, apart from the personal issues I have with Celest, I
would recommend Celest. AFAIK Darvellan is the newest and is very active
(meaning there is likely still good opportunities to advance in the order if
that’s interesting to you). Terentia used to be pretty scarce unless you were
high up, and it seems she either very inactive or taking a break. Carakhan
appears kinda MIA, but you could ask Neos about that.
Feynman talking about science and beauty sums up the union of art/science Hallifax lore for me.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh9NpxEB1Bw
Forgiveness is the fragrance that the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.