My Proposal To Fully Unlock Alteration/transfiguration/whatever You Call It Once More

[Aelu / Rel (Combustionary) 1535]

Cripes.

 

So I should have to work to get stuff in a Minecraft fantasy role-play server? I sincerely thought this was a game, and the fun was in being creative and exploring possibilities. Trust me, if I wanted to go work on something that took 1-6 months, I'd go buy an electric guitar or a book on C++ (Admittedly both of them would take more time than learning spoopy lotc magic, and also my estimate for the time it takes to learn magic is MAT era, but hey whatever). 

 

People should be able to skip the journey if they want, because sometimes people have **** to do in real life that prevents them from funneling ludicrous amounts of time into a minecraft server, and, t'is a minecraft server.

 

Why should we cheapen magic as a whole in order to cater to you?

 

By your logic, I should be able to make a dwarf and be the king on day one. Skipping the journey, after all. Or maybe found a new noble house? The process of getting followers is ever so tedious, you know.

 

And once again - It's not about taking 1-6 months. It's about finding a teacher, and having them claim they taught you. That's it. If a player is unwilling to put in even that much effort, they simply don't deserve to have the magic.

[Lago 2569]

Let's not pretend the MA system worked. Ski and Cruz axed it for a reason, and it wasn't so they could get magic.

[Aelu / Rel (Combustionary) 1535]

Let's not pretend the MA system worked. Ski and Cruz axed it for a reason, and it wasn't so they could get magic.

The MA system didn't work, but that's not what many of us want. I, personally, simply want to see some regulation. Minimal gating so that a character can't just wake up one morning as a master mage and say he learned in a dream.

[Cappy 1599]

Let's all stop pretending magic is a higher form of role-play that requires special privlege or knowledge to role-play correctly. The fact is, it isn't. It's not special, it's just another form of role-play. Let's apply the same argument to other aspects of role-play. Without learning the intricacies of hand-to-hand combat (let's say, swordplay) from someone in-character, you aren't permitted to wield a sword in PvP. Without months of experience toiling in the mines, you aren't permitted to mine ores because you aren't skilled enough. Unless you've been role-playing practicing your speechcraft in the mirror for months, you can't convincingly lie in-character.

But wait, magic is restricted because you require special knowledge to role-play it? Nonsense. Many people don't properly grasp the concepts of basic physics and anatomy, and yet we still emote fight each other. I'm sure very few of our numerous in-character master-swordsmen are actually skilled (or even learned) in real life swordplay, yet the basics of swordplay (swing, stab, block) are well-understood enough that you don't need advanced knowledge. And magic is the same. The basic premise is "wave hands, stuff happens". The fine details such as how the magic is channeled, the source of the magic and what colour your aura is are frankly unimportant. What's important is that it's fun role-play.

If you'd rather someone commit to boring role-play that follows every guideline by the book than someone practicing magic that brings enjoyable role-play that follows the basic premise of their magic, then frankly you're too stuck in the old ways and you are the reason magic has grown stagnant. Magic should be about creativity and having fun, not reciting a bunch of rules over and over in your head to make sure you don't break the obscure "don't cast this magic 8 times in a row after having a bath during a full lunar eclipse" rule.

Role-playing something for a long time doesn't give you the right to be better than everyone else. Sorry, that's called elitism. Someone who just joined should be able to pick up magic and create fun role-play with it, even if they don't understand the full ins and outs of the magic. If they're doing it wrong, tell them that. But if you do it in such a way as "I've been doing this for 396 months so listen up because I'm right and you're not", expect to be ignored and have no impact. That, or scare them off for good. I certainly wouldn't want to join a server where a whole bunch of people are at my throat for having fun with magic because I didn't follow the preset lore by the letter, even if they did. Such an attitude quickly scares off newcomers to magic.

If someone's making overpowered weapons, enchants or wards, that's what the mechanical standard and PvP default are for. Deal with them like any other powergamer. Powergaming magic is no different than powergaming anything else.

Did you know there were more magic powergamers when magic was restricted? They were called tier 4 and tier 5 users.

[Sebasgann 232]

100% locking

 

Cappy the system will be preventing players from mining, everything will be balanced with the skills plugin. You don't know magic? good, you don't know magic, now go learn it. You can't mind diamond? Of course you can't go practice on clay and stone. Players will have to level their skills, by using a wooden sword practicing until they've gained enough experience to be effective with a real sword, then later good enough to wield the greatest of swords.

 

You won't have to know intricate RP to know how to use a diamond sword since you can just practice, but it's essentially teaching yourself. But in terms of magic there is lore, and an intricate system that is being developed for the players.

[Cyndikate 2302]

 

. If they're doing it wrong, tell them that.

Like I stated in another thread, simply telling them they did it wrong, and teaching them to do it right isn't that simple because Magic is already so complex on LOTC. If we tell them how to do one thing right, there's always something that they're doing wrong. For everything I'm teaching them, there's one other thing that I should teach them.

 

If they went out and found an IC teacher, then they'd know what they're doing from the start.

 

We should lock it up to protect new players and new magic users.

[mmat 7461]

I've always said to lock all offensive magic to almost everybody except the main antagonist/protagonist. Like fireballs and lightning strikes, etc. It should be a unique thing. Non combat mage subtypes would be unlocked totally.

[Cappy 1599]

Like I stated in another thread, simply telling them they did it wrong, and teaching them to do it right isn't that simple because Magic is already so complex on LOTC. If we tell them how to do one thing right, there's always something that they're doing wrong. For everything I'm teaching them, there's one other thing that I should teach them.

If they went out and found an IC teacher, then they'd know what they're doing from the start.

We should lock it up to protect new players and new magic users.

Magic isn't that complex. You don't need to follow arbitrary lore to the letter to produce good role-play. The fact it is so complex is one of the deeply-rooted issues with the entire way magic works on LotC, which is why I fully support a magic lore wipe. If we stopped hammering magic out to a science and let magic role-play be role-play and deal with it like every other kind of role-play on the server, we wouldn't have these "it's too complicated" issues. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the concept of fantasy can understand what magic is, regardless of whether it's coming from the void, the spirit realm or your ass.

Now, if you wouldn't mind responding to the actual topic of the post instead of cherry-picking arguments, that would be great.

[monkeypoacher 6994]

Magic isn't that complex. You don't need to follow arbitrary lore to the letter to produce good role-play. The fact it is so complex is one of the deeply-rooted issues with the entire way magic works on LotC, which is why I fully support a magic lore wipe. If we stopped hammering magic out to a science and let magic role-play be role-play and deal with it like every other kind of role-play on the server, we wouldn't have these "it's too complicated" issues. Anyone even vaguely familiar with the concept of fantasy can understand what magic is, regardless of whether it's coming from the void, the spirit realm or your ass.

Now, if you wouldn't mind responding to the actual topic of the post instead of cherry-picking arguments, that would be great.

 

praise cappy

[Aelu / Rel (Combustionary) 1535]

With the upcoming magic plugin, fully open magic will literally turn all combat magic into little more than a pvp commodity. We all saw what happened when golden staves started shooting fireballs. It took about five minutes for a non-mage to use it in pvp, and five more for them to write it off as a 'hand cannon'. Making magic fully open means every army will be comprised of a hundred soldiers who 'dabble in pyromancy' in order to justify having a fire spell to use in PvP. And as fun as it would be to see the Fire Nation rise on LoTC, we can all agree that the rp would begin and end at the line "Player casts fireball!".

 

I don't want to 'block' players from becoming a mage. I don't want to say "You're too new a player for this". I want to see magic stay as magic. I want it to be something that takes a bit of effort to get, but not a prohibitive amount. You don't need to follow everything to the letter to be a good magic RPer, but you can't say a player who was properly taught isn't more likely to be better at Roleplaying the skill.

[Cappy 1599]

Why should magic take any more effort to get than anything else on the server? It's not special; we need to get out of that mindset. That kind of thinking is a relic left from the days of the MAT. Just like you can pick up a sword and say "I'm a swordsman", anyone can do something mystical and say "I'm a mage". If you don't believe that, you're part of the reason magic is stale.

[Jistuma 1995]

Cappy, a lot of things need efford, example, obtaining ranks in guilds, towns, nations. You don't just make a character and decide you're king of X, or commander of, you have to become it.

Oh, and cappy, if you haven't noticed, most magic breaks mech standard, it has lore for it, that is why it has lore for it, and guidelines etc.

[Aelu / Rel (Combustionary) 1535]

Why should magic take any more effort to get than anything else on the server? It's not special. Just like you can pick up a sword and say "I'm a swordsman", anyone can do something mystical and say "I'm a mage". If you don't believe that, you're part of the reason magic is stale.

 

I'm afraid I don't believe that. Magic's staleness isn't because of that, it's because it's been rendered useless. Proof of that? Look at really the only magics that people care about anymore. Nobody bats an eye when they see a pyromancer. A shade or a necromancer? They're  unusual. They're interesting. They can do more because they have standards.

 

A sword is a swung piece of metal. It's straightforward, though even in the past, we regarded day one master swordsmen as powergamers. But does it make sense for an illiterate child to pick up a book, look at the first page, and suddenly be able to read? Does it make sense for a man to look at a farm, and suddenly understand everything about farming?

 

The game doesn't begin and end with mechanics. The reason magic is dull now is because, for the open subtypes, there's no point in adding 'flair'. What can a pyromancer do that can't be accomplished with pvp, these days? When magic was locked, a high-tiered one could burn something, (don't confuse this with griefing, I mean slight damage) and create rp. These days? We can't allow that, else every raider would suddenly learn it in order to harass people.

 

A magic that can do something interesting? Necromancy can create liches, for one. They can have places corrupted (Just a month or two ago I saw a large bit of the druid grove corrupted as so, it was pretty interesting). Would the staff allow this, if the magic was open? Would the LMs want five new liches popping up every day? Or every town getting it's fields drained of life?

[Cappy 1599]

Cappy, a lot of things need efford, example, obtaining ranks in guilds, towns, nations. You don't just make a character and decide you're king of X, or commander of, you have to become it.

Oh, and cappy, if you haven't noticed, most magic breaks mech standard, it has lore for it, that is why it has lore for it, and guidelines etc.

There is a difference between a role-play position and your character's proficiency in a certain skill. Refer to my response to Relgard about the instant learning issue.

Magic doesn't break mechanical standard, because it can be represented in mechanics through a sword. You can role-play your magic how you like and simply use a sword, because magic is no more powerful than an equally skilled combatant with a sword. Hopefully magic users will get a wider variety of options with the up and coming magic plugin (Soon™), but you can already represent it with mechanics.

 

I'm afraid I don't believe that. Magic's staleness isn't because of that, it's because it's been rendered useless. Proof of that? Look at really the only magics that people care about anymore. Nobody bats an eye when they see a pyromancer. A shade or a necromancer? They're  unusual. They're interesting. They can do more because they have standards.

 

A sword is a swung piece of metal. It's straightforward, though even in the past, we regarded day one master swordsmen as powergamers. But does it make sense for an illiterate child to pick up a book, look at the first page, and suddenly be able to read? Does it make sense for a man to look at a farm, and suddenly understand everything about farming?

In a fantasy world such as ours, magic is suppose to be common place. There's nothing wrong with it being widespread. Why should people bat an eyelid to see a mage in a fantasy world? Please explain that to me. Once again we return to the flawed idea that magic is "special". And I reiterate, this is a mindset we need to do away with.

The "restricted" magics are perhaps more interesting because they keep their magic restricted through in-character methods, not out-of-character ones. The only reason they're "locked" is to prevent metagaming to obtain said magics.

If you think all there is to swordplay is swinging a piece of metal, I'd love to see you try it based on just that knowledge. There's just as much to learn about the intricacies of swordplay as the intricacies of magic. And that fact is while we do not have a fair (as in, holds every player to the same standards) and mechanically-verifiable way to measure a characters' skill (like, say, a skills plugin), it is up to a player to decide what their character is skilled in and the rate at which they gain proficiency in such a task. This applies to all skills - farming, swordplay and magic alike. That is why, currently, anyone can pick up a book and become a mage overnight. because anyone can pick up a sword or hoe and become a swordsman or farmer overnight. That will (hopefully) be rectified when a skill plugin arrives, but until then those standards will apply, and they will apply to everything.

[Aelu / Rel (Combustionary) 1535]

In a fantasy world such as ours, magic is suppose to be common place. There's nothing wrong with it being widespread. Why should people bat an eyelid to see a mage in a fantasy world? Please explain that to me.

Once again we return to the flawed idea that magic is "special". And I reiterate, this is a mindset we need to do away with.

The "restricted" magics are perhaps more interesting because they keep their magic restricted through in-character methods, not out-of-character ones.

If you think all there is to swordplay is swinging a piece of metal, I'd love to see you try it based on just that knowledge. There's just as much to learn about the intricacies of swordplay as the intricacies of magic. And that fact is while we do not have a fair (as in, holds every player to the same standards) and mechanically-verifiable way to measure a characters' skill (like, say, a skills plugin), it is up to a player to decide what their character is skilled in and the rate at which they gain proficiency in such a task. This applies to all skills - farming, swordplay and magic alike. That is why, currently, anyone can pick up a book and become a mage overnight. Because anyone can pick up a sword or hoe and become a swordsman or farmer overnight. That will (hopefully) be rectified when a skill plugin arrives, but until then those standards will apply.

Why should magic be common? How does it being a fantasy world justify that?

Magic is rare in Lord of the Rings books. Magic is rare in some Final Fantasy game universes. For every fantasy universe where it's commonplace, there's another where it's rare and coveted. Just being a 'fantasy universe' does not justify it being one way or another. People certainly batted their eyelids at Gandalf, no?

Sure, right now a player can pick up a book, and became a mage, but why should we encourage that? Please, give me an example about how unlocking magic has done anything but increase quantity at the expense of quality. What good have we done by turning a previously useful and interesting skill into a different way of saying "Draws his sword (PVP)"?

 

And why can't the other magic types be locked by IC reasons? I don't want another lengthy OOC process like MAs, I want magic to require you actually learn it IC. Look at the Alchemy plugin - Threads with the recipies were removed, so obviously the staff wanted players to have to work to become better with it. The same applies for the emerald-enchanting system. If we can't just wake up and be masters at what is described as magic in a bottle, why should we be able to wake up as masters of magic?