I'd like to see a metaplot that doesn't seem connected at first but then congeals into a whole, something so it's not suddenly the appearance of a new adversary, making people try to investigate the deeper mysteries or connections, for instance, events that seem unrelated but congeal into a whole at the end of the year.
I'd like to see some Ask Estarra videos, I think it's been a year now. I also think it'd be cool to have a summit about the game in the game like we've done in year's past.
I'd like to see less idling and isolationism and more player driven events. I'd also like to see more old folk. Old age is catching up to both my player and character.
I'd like to get into a misadventure at least once this year.
I'd really love to see some expansion of nature/fae magic.
I dunno, I feel like everything has been a bit high magic/science fantasy I suppose. At least a lot of the big stuff, it's really great and impressive, but it can feel like it fuels the grandeur of the cities.
So I'd love to see the opposite direction explored. Explore the natural world, the mysterious and primal powers that it holds. Maybe something to do with Kiakoda?
I'd love to see more goldsinks. I'm running out of ideas though...
Also, I'd second Svorai's notion above when it comes to "secret" areas. Surely the stone to Tosha has been twisted and turned so often it's now only a pebble...
I feel like as opposed to building new areas necessarily, current ones are built on or expanded. Although someone mentioned helping a village come together over a period of time, I love that idea. Perhaps tie it in with the current orphanage, but I'm not sure what you would want to do there.
iOS client that makes playing on iPAD comfortable. IRE games could get much more recognition if you do it right. I mean look at Gamebook Adventures series from TinMan Games. Gamebooks were dying breed, and GA series brought them back to success, all thanks to amazing engine and presentation.
There are few MUD clients for iPAD, but they are made for hardcore MUD crowd, not newcomers. And its a pain to play Lusternia on iPAD in default browser client. Specific iPAD client with artstyle, soundtrack and good usability would be awesome.
I feel like as opposed to building new areas necessarily, current ones are built on or expanded. Although someone mentioned helping a village come together over a period of time, I love that idea. Perhaps tie it in with the current orphanage, but I'm not sure what you would want to do there.
This new addition could be the expansion of a current area, and that's kind of what I was hoping what it would turn out to be. I just think it is funny that we keep discovering all of these hidden areas, yet nobody has thought to start building their own.
Could even make it a new year-end plot, where the city we've helped to build this whole time has become corrupted, and tries to use the seals to raise a vernal god, which weakens them, and then we have to defeat this place we've been building up... i don't know, just something different!
I'd really love to see some expansion of nature/fae magic.
I dunno, I feel like everything has been a bit high magic/science fantasy I suppose. At least a lot of the big stuff, it's really great and impressive, but it can feel like it fuels the grandeur of the cities.
So I'd love to see the opposite direction explored. Explore the natural world, the mysterious and primal powers that it holds. Maybe something to do with Kiakoda?
This is because everything IS high magic and science fantasy. Your inspiration for the communes should be Ringworld, not Stonehenge. Beautiful art and artifice created by a god-like elder race has fled long ago fled their creation, perhaps never to return. Half-remembered secrets passed down through the eras by ancient immortals who lived when the Gods still walked the earth. Strange and inscruitable spirits awakened for unknowable purposes, working with and against eachother in an ever-changing, ever-repeating, ill-understood but terribly fragile cycle vital to the world's continued existance. Great holes in the earth, blights on the land and cycles collapsed into unnatural rhythms hostile to life - each existing as a testament to the perils of failure in your sacred duties.
I'd really love to see some expansion of nature/fae magic.
I dunno, I feel like everything has been a bit high magic/science fantasy I suppose. At least a lot of the big stuff, it's really great and impressive, but it can feel like it fuels the grandeur of the cities.
So I'd love to see the opposite direction explored. Explore the natural world, the mysterious and primal powers that it holds. Maybe something to do with Kiakoda?
This is because everything IS high magic and science fantasy. Your inspiration for the communes should be Ringworld, not Stonehenge. Beautiful art and artifice created by a god-like elder race has fled long ago fled their creation, perhaps never to return. Half-remembered secrets passed down through the eras by ancient immortals who lived when the Gods still walked the earth. Strange and inscruitable spirits awakened for unknowable purposes, working with and against eachother in an ever-changing, ever-repeating, ill-understood but terribly fragile cycle vital to the world's continued existance. Great holes in the earth, blights on the land and cycles collapsed into unnatural rhythms hostile to life - each existing as a testament to the perils of failure in your sacred duties.
Er, I believe we are talking about two very different versions of high magic. I'm talking about a version where magic is all about drawing on distant sometimes even foreign entities, it's cosmic magic in lusternia, it's the power of the cities. Here it tends to develop along the lines of technological magics.
It's the difference between say... Aquachematics(as well as what we've seen of the other mage specs in the visions) and Wildewood.
What you're describing seems more like what I would call High Fantasy which is definitely the sort of setting that Lusternia is, I just feel that we seem to be having a tendency towards stories that are more scieney magic. (Think the Asura in guild wars)
I'd just love to see more of what you're actually describing, I'd absolutely love to see spirits gone crazy. I'd love to see non-euclidean areas that are not that way because of some magical accident but merely because the local forces like to toy with people.
I like areas like the Moon bubble, hifarae, verasavir, etc because of the style of story behind them. They feel more low magic (again like the ic low magic, not lesser just different), and that's the sort of story I'd love to see as a big epic event.
It would be awesome to see the Planes expanded a bit. They need a bit of love. Elemental is just an essence farm land and Cosmic is for good old style raiding. Be neat to see on Water a land of mists.
I just feel that we seem to be having a tendency towards stories that are more scieney magic.
That's my point though. Everything in Lusternian nature is artifical, technological, scientific, what have you. It's just a question of whether
it's relevently new (cities) or if it dates back to Elder God's crazy
bio-engineering projects. Even stuff like rocks and streams have been artificially uplifited into intelligent entities (ie. nature spirits) created in the images of their makers. And, as a result, the IC distinction between
high and low magic very fuzzy and not at all related to technology.
The
Moon Bubble has you building, charging and installing a satellite dish
(the moon dish) to contact the Moon Spirit. Hifarae has you (in the
sileni quest at least; I've not done the centaur spirits one) enter a
password (the flute code) in order to get into a glade, help a centaur
construct tools for his groundhog communications interface (the rattle,
whistle and berries), bind a book and operate a vernal artifact (the
sileni's spirit cairn). Verasavir has you constructing a wolf ghost
repelling device (a talisman) for the local spirit technician (shaman)
and then install (mount it in a tree) it for him. Then you fight a
golem. The Old Man Rock summoning quest involves you collecting stolen
components (stones) for an artifact (the menhir) by killing a
bioengineered animal designed to be an alarm clock (rockeaters). Even if
it's all made out of wood, it's still technology.
Meanwhile, on
the city half, Celest has most of their magical constructs in the Inner
Sea grown out of coral by sea fae. Gaudiguch has crazy animal breeding
programs and half their buildings are made out of chitin. Magnagora has
an animal breeding program as well, while also using a giant brain to
protect their city. Ladantine's secret to immortality is to store his
soul in a giant black pearl and use it to mind control fish so that he
can revive himself. Hallifax has their own "natural" bits that I'm not
going to spoil, if you look closely. The line between City Magic and
Commune Magic in Lusternia seems to be that City Magic is technology
designed, built and rebuilt by mortals while Commune Magic is technology
built by the Elders and discovered by or entrusted to mortals. And even
then there's a whole lot of overlap.
From an OOC perspective, the city vs. commune distinction definitely draws heavily on Romanticism vs. Enlightenment themes. But ICly, those distinctions don't exist the same way they do OOC. IC romanticists are revering things that are old or divinely created not things that are unworked or untamed..
PS: It sucks that English doesn't have a good replacement word for "natural" in the sense of 'untouched by artifice' but not in the sense of 'involving trees and birds and stuff not found in cities'.
Neutral area on Elemental/Cosmic, please! It would be interesting for a new elemental place to open that is caused by the mixing of Elemental magics by the mages. Too many people raided Air/Fire/Earth/Water, that their polarities became muddled, and this new elemental battleground formed.
I just feel that we seem to be having a tendency towards stories that are more scieney magic.
That's my point though. Everything in Lusternian nature is artifical, technological, scientific, what have you. It's just a question of whether
it's relevently new (cities) or if it dates back to Elder God's crazy
bio-engineering projects. Even stuff like rocks and streams have been artificially uplifited into intelligent entities (ie. nature spirits) created in the images of their makers. And, as a result, the IC distinction between
high and low magic very fuzzy and not at all related to technology.
It is very nice that you have such strong feelings about this subject. Though I find the arguments rather... poor. Yes, you can rip apart low magic and try to define it within the realms of science. However, all this seems to do is point out that the cities are utterly stupid.
There is no delving into the "why?" behind much of what you've said here, the technology of the cities is generally replicable and depending on how much it is pushing the boundaries of science often very much under the control of those operating it. There is very much a distinction between say Xion and the systems that run it when compared to Maeve, there is more to awakening a spirit for example than creating an artificial intelligence as seen with Sun. You can bet that Hallifax could investigate every square inch of the moon bubble, but they would never be able to replicate the effects of the ritual.
If we even look at the descriptions of the circles there are points where your arguments don't make that much sense. Reading through them, the sixth circle entry mentions that much of "nature" (excluding animal life) was created by Dynara (i.e by the creator god, whose creations would be considered untouched by artifice) and were latent with pure spirit, the awakeners sang to this to rouse the spirits. Everything about that paragraph seems to me like the spirits were something that were there already, the second paragraph comes off odd by then stating that they were created.
Now in a similar vein, how do the creators create? If everything in the world is made of essence and the creators mould aspects of the world into creatures, then are animals and the like perhaps just different bits of this essence of Dynara combined into another form? Does this mean that the collective soul is perhaps the result of the "right" combination of essences that form a similar pool of pure spirit? I mean the best Mugowumpois could manage after studying them since the first manifested was that there was a "special quality" about them, this is from a Thinker...
The best that they could manage with the technology of the Elder Gods is that they could kind of tell that one will form, but how to achieve that intentionally was beyond them. And when both types of spirits were formed it seems that they came with some form of personality, such as Sun being arrogant and rambunctious after awakening. Something that Xyl, potentially the greatest mind of all the elder gods seems unlikely to manage while the creators seem to be able to do it almost accidentally.
Now with cosmogenesis we know that Lusternia, along with the other worlds and planes of existence, pre-dates even the soulless gods. A big giant ball of essence that probably already had at least plant life on it given the description of the Artists.
So if we look at it like that with the Awakeners only really rousing a potential spirit and the Creators seeming to be more... taking what is there and reshaping it, then it seems possible that they are actually still very much a part of the great essence ball that is lusternia. Their natures perhaps influenced by that connection, lusternia(which has some sentience of its own) maintaining its balance in small ways, such as Sun's desire for Night (encouraged by Aslarn), the acceptance of the White Hart of the place of prey within the cycle of nature.
Extending that, it could even be argued that the very nature of the elder gods that lead them to be so defined within their circles could be part of her creation. She created those that would awaken the spirits of her creation, those who would create creatures that would become part of the cycles of her world, those that would draw out the beauty hidden within lusternia, and those that would protect it (warriors with strength, thinkers with knowledge, meditators with wisdom, and the leaders by bringing them together). Of course, at least as far as the elders go, the things that seem to go against this tend to have a source in Magnora.
Now ultimately this is really a very much IC argument to be having in response to me expressing that I would really like particular themes explored because I feel that there has been a focus on other themes for major things over the last few years. (well maybe even up to half a decade) The distinctions, delving deeper into the mythos, expanding on the differences between the low and high magics of the universe, exploring things such as "If the spirits so scientifically explicable why doesn't Hallifax have a massive monitoring station set up to track all data on them that they can provide?"
I feel that this would make an interesting change from Soulless Tech, Temporal Shenanigans, Elder Tech, Temporal Shenanigans. The 2009 fulcrux thing was kinda cool cause we learned a bit about the nature of the fulcrux and the elders, before that is was empire tech and attack by soulless.
On the more mechanical side, one thing I'd love to see is a defense-system a'la FirstAid.
EDIT: To clarify, a system that puts up defenses just like FirstAid clears afflictions.
While this would be nice, and could see people appreciating it, I do think this goes to far into what systems are for. Having curing/firstaid is great, because it allows you to heal when you are usually focused on something else. Defenses usually get put up outside of having to do something else, and I feel that having this may encroach a bit too much into system territory.
I.e. It's perfectly easy to stand still and manually put up defenses, it isn't always easy to sit there and worry about sipping, eating herbs, apply salves, and trying to fight all at once.
Replacing the generic messages from BEAST ORDER ATTACK <target> to a unique message depending on the type of beast (thunderbird, stag, mammoth, worg etc.) you are using.
I think there are some fun things that could happen with bards since they are derived from the voices of gods that were coveted by the soulless.
[-O< New bard tertiary for example.....
....like glamours?
Just noticed this and you were probably just trying to be cute but bards have fewer skill combination options that are just for them than any other archetype.
Their second guild skill is a monk tert, and then they only have two tert options.
Each bard guild has part of a skill set unique to them and then an option for taking an illusion spec just for bards or another shared tert.
Other guilds with only two tert options, warriors with 50 billion specs, and monks who have their unique kata stuff, stealth/harmony and the psy met tert.
So it would be kewl if the next new tert went to bards but we will just have to see.
I think there are some fun things that could happen with bards since they are derived from the voices of gods that were coveted by the soulless.
[-O< New bard tertiary for example.....
....like glamours?
Just noticed this and you were probably just trying to be cute but bards have fewer skill combination options that are just for them than any other archetype.
Their second guild skill is a monk tert, and then they only have two tert options. - Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't bards there first, thus making acrobatics a bard skill that monks got, too?
Each bard guild has part of a skill set unique to them and then an option for taking an illusion spec just for bards or another shared tert.
Other guilds with only two tert options, warriors with 50 billion specs, and monks who have their unique kata stuff, stealth/harmony and the psy met tert. - Bards have their unique music stuff.
So it would be kewl if the next new tert went to bards but we will just have to see.
Since bards already do have a choice with regards to tertiaries, wouldn't it make more sense to give them another secondary besides acrobatics? That would allow for more new combinations, in any case. That said, monks guilds are in exactly the same situation as bard guilds in terms of choices: You only get to choose between psymet and acrobatics, that is all. That some guilds have access to harmony and some to stealth doesn't widen the options for any particular guild.
Since bards already do have a choice with regards to tertiaries, wouldn't it make more sense to give them another secondary besides acrobatics? That would allow for more new combinations, in any case. That said, monks guilds are in exactly the same situation as bard guilds in terms of choices: You only get to choose between psymet and acrobatics, that is all. That some guilds have access to harmony and some to stealth doesn't widen the options for any particular guild.
I always thought it would be interesting and thematic for bards to have the choice of a Puppetmaster skill instead of Acrobatics.
That was my only problem with bard. The guilds I was in were not generally that great at combat (yes, I know, a good combatant will work well with most anything, but I'm far from that), but the skills did not have enough of an RP flair.
I would love to see Halli/Gaudi monks. I recognize that a higher population is probably desired before rolling out more guilds, but logic monks wielding protractors/pocket protectors and drunken monk fighting are just so full of win.
Shaddus peers at you over his steepled hands and intones, "Proceed."
You get the idea, maybe.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
Wasn't there an emotes suggestion thread? As well as a dreams suggestion thread? Someone should go remake 'em. Yes, someone...
The Necromentate's mind opens to you, and a grotesque, demonic figure appears in your mind's eye, screaming in torment: "THE DEMON LORDS CAN NEVER TRULY BE KILLED - GREAT IS THEIR POWER."
You shock a platinum-coloured geomycus with tales of terror bestowed on villages who don't follow Magnagora. A platinum-coloured geomycus slaps her knee and declares that, by the gods, Ptoma Hive should follow the Grand Empire of Magnagora after all! Shouts rise up from Ptoma Hive, as its denizens loudly pledge themselves to the Grand Empire of Magnagora.
Comments
So I'd love to see the opposite direction explored. Explore the natural world, the mysterious and primal powers that it holds. Maybe something to do with Kiakoda?
Also, I'd second Svorai's notion above when it comes to "secret" areas. Surely the stone to Tosha has been twisted and turned so often it's now only a pebble...
This new addition could be the expansion of a current area, and that's kind of what I was hoping what it would turn out to be. I just think it is funny that we keep discovering all of these hidden areas, yet nobody has thought to start building their own.
Could even make it a new year-end plot, where the city we've helped to build this whole time has become corrupted, and tries to use the seals to raise a vernal god, which weakens them, and then we have to defeat this place we've been building up... i don't know, just something different!
Er, I believe we are talking about two very different versions of high magic. I'm talking about a version where magic is all about drawing on distant sometimes even foreign entities, it's cosmic magic in lusternia, it's the power of the cities. Here it tends to develop along the lines of technological magics.
It's the difference between say... Aquachematics(as well as what we've seen of the other mage specs in the visions) and Wildewood.
What you're describing seems more like what I would call High Fantasy which is definitely the sort of setting that Lusternia is, I just feel that we seem to be having a tendency towards stories that are more scieney magic. (Think the Asura in guild wars)
I'd just love to see more of what you're actually describing, I'd absolutely love to see spirits gone crazy. I'd love to see non-euclidean areas that are not that way because of some magical accident but merely because the local forces like to toy with people.
I like areas like the Moon bubble, hifarae, verasavir, etc because of the style of story behind them. They feel more low magic (again like the ic low magic, not lesser just different), and that's the sort of story I'd love to see as a big epic event.
Or something working towards the, I believe, original intention of the ethereal plane.
I think it was mentioned at some point that it was going to be a reflection of the entire prime plane.
The Moon Bubble has you building, charging and installing a satellite dish (the moon dish) to contact the Moon Spirit. Hifarae has you (in the sileni quest at least; I've not done the centaur spirits one) enter a password (the flute code) in order to get into a glade, help a centaur construct tools for his groundhog communications interface (the rattle, whistle and berries), bind a book and operate a vernal artifact (the sileni's spirit cairn). Verasavir has you constructing a wolf ghost repelling device (a talisman) for the local spirit technician (shaman) and then install (mount it in a tree) it for him. Then you fight a golem. The Old Man Rock summoning quest involves you collecting stolen components (stones) for an artifact (the menhir) by killing a bioengineered animal designed to be an alarm clock (rockeaters). Even if it's all made out of wood, it's still technology.
Meanwhile, on the city half, Celest has most of their magical constructs in the Inner Sea grown out of coral by sea fae. Gaudiguch has crazy animal breeding programs and half their buildings are made out of chitin. Magnagora has an animal breeding program as well, while also using a giant brain to protect their city. Ladantine's secret to immortality is to store his soul in a giant black pearl and use it to mind control fish so that he can revive himself. Hallifax has their own "natural" bits that I'm not going to spoil, if you look closely. The line between City Magic and Commune Magic in Lusternia seems to be that City Magic is technology designed, built and rebuilt by mortals while Commune Magic is technology built by the Elders and discovered by or entrusted to mortals. And even then there's a whole lot of overlap.
From an OOC perspective, the city vs. commune distinction definitely draws heavily on Romanticism vs. Enlightenment themes. But ICly, those distinctions don't exist the same way they do OOC. IC romanticists are revering things that are old or divinely created not things that are unworked or untamed..
PS: It sucks that English doesn't have a good replacement word for "natural" in the sense of 'untouched by artifice' but not in the sense of 'involving trees and birds and stuff not found in cities'.
The best that they could manage with the technology of the Elder Gods is that they could kind of tell that one will form, but how to achieve that intentionally was beyond them. And when both types of spirits were formed it seems that they came with some form of personality, such as Sun being arrogant and rambunctious after awakening. Something that Xyl, potentially the greatest mind of all the elder gods seems unlikely to manage while the creators seem to be able to do it almost accidentally.
EDIT: To clarify, a system that puts up defenses just like FirstAid clears afflictions.
While this would be nice, and could see people appreciating it, I do think this goes to far into what systems are for. Having curing/firstaid is great, because it allows you to heal when you are usually focused on something else. Defenses usually get put up outside of having to do something else, and I feel that having this may encroach a bit too much into system territory.
I.e. It's perfectly easy to stand still and manually put up defenses, it isn't always easy to sit there and worry about sipping, eating herbs, apply salves, and trying to fight all at once.
Since bards already do have a choice with regards to tertiaries, wouldn't it make more sense to give them another secondary besides acrobatics? That would allow for more new combinations, in any case. That said, monks guilds are in exactly the same situation as bard guilds in terms of choices: You only get to choose between psymet and acrobatics, that is all. That some guilds have access to harmony and some to stealth doesn't widen the options for any particular guild.
Shaddus peers at you over his steepled hands and intones, "Proceed."
"THE DEMON LORDS CAN NEVER TRULY BE KILLED - GREAT IS THEIR POWER."
You shock a platinum-coloured geomycus with tales of terror bestowed on villages who don't follow Magnagora.
A platinum-coloured geomycus slaps her knee and declares that, by the gods, Ptoma Hive should follow the Grand Empire of Magnagora after all!
Shouts rise up from Ptoma Hive, as its denizens loudly pledge themselves to the Grand Empire of Magnagora.
Emotes? (sort of, not really)