What do other players think about the suggestion that each city/commune eventually have its own Pools of Remembrance for its newbies?
Obviously this would be a long term project, but re: Xenthos's point, I'm a bit miffed by the clear/murky binary in general, and I think it's especially unsuited to Glom newbies. What I like about Lusty is its shades of gray. Gloriana Forest, for instance, could appear in very different renditions in various cities/communes' pools, sometimes tainted, sometimes not. Different societies in Lusternia not only remember/revise the same events very differently but often experienced them from very different perspectives while they were happening. The mechanics could remain very similar, but varieties in flavor could introduce a lot of nuance.
We could be losing something precious by making newbies think Lusty is about choosing between light and dark. Esp since historically the "light side" actually did a lot of morally questionable things, whereas choosing the light pool has you only doing saccharine deeds. Meanwhile the murky pool quest occasionally comes off as cartoonishly evil. No real internal logic is given to explain why some people support the Taint; they just seem crazy and/or homicidal.
Well, the Taint Cloud officially did make people crazy and homicidal. Once Kethuru's animating will was gone things changed. That's why I don't particularly have an objection to the pools, because it was a period of time where things were very different and a Soulless roamed the land (and the Glomdoring as it exists now was a looooong way in the future).
I was a little iffy with one part of it, specifically that the justification for needing the air stones on the light side was "Oh, the archmage won't talk to you unless you're an Aeromancer." and I was like, "Uh...not only am I an Aeromancer, I'm Chairman. Can't I just Windwalk or give the Secret Aeromancer Handshake?". Granted, this Archmage wouldn't know me from E'rrik Lars, but it feels like adding a line about some Aeromancers being corrupted and her only trusting HER Aeromancers might go a long way toward fixing this.
I would recommend that for the part where you help the Centaurs against Brennan that there be some command that you need to enter on the dark side to have the four harpies summon him. ie: It's possible for you to accidentally mess up the light side by summoning all four harpies before killing any of them.
I'll also echo the influencing frustrations, there either need to be more of the relevant 'mancers/gorgogs than needed or the influence timers for them need to be shortened a bit. I play at the crack of dawn my time, but I was still following close enough on someone's heels that I had to twiddle my thumbs for about half an hour.
In the event that all six orgs get their own 'pool', having the Gaudi/Halli ones be set during the Paradox<>Crucible sundering might be cool, since that's a period where the two orgs were isolated and most fiercely in conflict.
That's why I don't particularly have an objection to the pools, because it was a period of time where things were very different
Very true, I wasn't saying "get rid of the pools" or "rewrite history," my point was that the Pools pick a particular time period which is very binary and doesn't correspond in important ways with the nuance of the orgs nowadays, which could make newbies think Lusty's rp is more limited and black and white than it actually is. So if in addition to the Pools there were newbie quests to tell each org's origin story, they should be org-specific to do justice to that nuance.
Like Luce suggested, I was thinking that the 3 phases of each org's own pools could take place in a variety of different time periods, depending on the org.
Undead are bad go
kill them, save the refugees and fix up my mirror.
2. help the
centaurs
Help the mages out
and watch old celest do their anti taint thing
OK fairly standard good guy stuff here go save people and work against the undead guys to stop them doing bad things.
Murky side is:
The undead are
good and we need to steal this guys mirror because yay undead are
great.
Screw the centaurs
lets murder them and help this undead guy get his items and turn some other people into undead.
Lets help this
earth mage guy fix his machine and have tainted fun.
The intro to me feels
like its setting me up for a situation where the games mechanics are focused around Celest with Serenwilde(light) Vs
Glomdoring with Mag game(taint).
It's well written in itself but the into is going to be very jarring for newbies once they reach the organisations.
If I was a newbie the
intro would be pretty jarring coming out of and into the actual
organisations where this message doesn't really jell.
It'd be cool if there was an intro that fitted into each organisations roleplay and situation.
A thought occurs to me: Rather than six distinct pool reflections, having a transition quest that moves from the Pools as they are into the org might be less jarring.
ie: Bobrocks the newbie geomancer finishes empowering the Engine and is HINTed to then TOUCH the tainted MIRROR added in the collegium area, which transports him to the moment after the triple-sunder combo when Taint became taint, and shows how Magnagora reforged itself from the house of Prophecy to the Engine of Transformation, while Nu'bi the Aeromancer is HINTed to SIT ON the CHAIR of Indoctrination, which takes him to a point in history when Hallifax was still time-locked with Gaudiguch, culminating in a quick blurb when the avatar the newbie is following is vitrified just before Chairman Adom greets those who helped free the Beacon from the prison.
Given the theming it seems a pretty opportune place for instancing, it's pretty frustrating running into other people and having to wait. I think I was doing the opposite side of the Gloriana stage to someone else and it was really buggy as a result.
The lore is brilliant, seeing the Taint cloud etc. It's hard to imagine how it'll come across to newbies but I enjoyed it. In fact, there are bits there that I think are appreciated better with knowledge of the Basin.
What's the downside of leaving it open to everyone regardless of level? We don't tend to get many griefers and they don't tend to target newbies anyway.
It inspired me to investigate the machine on the Arysian Isles (Oblob's pitcher puzzle was fun) and Malacoda. Gorgogs next. Thanks!
The idea was to remove the PORTALS and create POOLS which would be where you can do these new quests as well as pools to go to your city/collegium/newton/etc.
Comments
So many quests have mastermind - to the point that it seems it is overused. If a quest can have a puzzle part to it, it will probably be a mastermind.
Obviously this would be a long term project, but re: Xenthos's point, I'm a bit miffed by the clear/murky binary in general, and I think it's especially unsuited to Glom newbies. What I like about Lusty is its shades of gray. Gloriana Forest, for instance, could appear in very different renditions in various cities/communes' pools, sometimes tainted, sometimes not. Different societies in Lusternia not only remember/revise the same events very differently but often experienced them from very different perspectives while they were happening. The mechanics could remain very similar, but varieties in flavor could introduce a lot of nuance.
We could be losing something precious by making newbies think Lusty is about choosing between light and dark. Esp since historically the "light side" actually did a lot of morally questionable things, whereas choosing the light pool has you only doing saccharine deeds. Meanwhile the murky pool quest occasionally comes off as cartoonishly evil. No real internal logic is given to explain why some people support the Taint; they just seem crazy and/or homicidal.
Like Luce suggested, I was thinking that the 3 phases of each org's own pools could take place in a variety of different time periods, depending on the org.
From a quick review of it:
Light side is
Undead are bad go kill them, save the refugees and fix up my mirror.
2. help the centaurs
Help the mages out and watch old celest do their anti taint thing
OK fairly standard good guy stuff here go save people and work against the undead guys to stop them doing bad things.
Murky side is:
The undead are good and we need to steal this guys mirror because yay undead are great.
Screw the centaurs lets murder them and help this undead guy get his items and turn some other people into undead.
Lets help this earth mage guy fix his machine and have tainted fun.
The intro to me feels like its setting me up for a situation where the games mechanics are focused around Celest with Serenwilde(light) Vs Glomdoring with Mag game(taint).
It's well written in itself but the into is going to be very jarring for newbies once they reach the organisations.
If I was a newbie the intro would be pretty jarring coming out of and into the actual organisations where this message doesn't really jell.
It'd be cool if there was an intro that fitted into each organisations roleplay and situation.
I think I was doing the opposite side of the Gloriana stage to someone else and it was really buggy as a result.
What's the downside of leaving it open to everyone regardless of level? We don't tend to get many griefers and they don't tend to target newbies anyway.
It inspired me to investigate the machine on the Arysian Isles (Oblob's pitcher puzzle was fun) and Malacoda. Gorgogs next. Thanks!