Let's Talk; The Magic Plugin & Magic in General

[501warhead 1796]

Alright folks! Here we go.

 

So earlier in the month I released an update wherein I made a bold promise. 

 

Magic

• Beginning the final stages of work for public release in Nexus 1.2

 

Now, those of you who have been present for a while will know that the magic plugin is one of those long standing things that has been promised many times but never actually fulfilled. Now, that's not for a lack of effort! On the contrary, I could probably release the magic plugin at the time of this post with a simple command and the MAT would be able to distribute sub-types to everyone who needed them and we would have a functional magic plugin. With this in mind you may be asking yourself what is this about, then? Well, to put it simply as of about a week ago the project has been scrapped.

 

Some of you I know will jump for joy, while others will simply go "?". I shall explain why here, and I want to know your opinion on this matter as it's something that I (considering this is actually the second nearly finished magic plugin I've made) hold important as it's something I feel the server should have.

 

First; the simple statement that explains it.

 

Our magic lore currently does not and will not ever be capable of supporting a plugin that meshes with lore and is friendly, easy to use, and enjoyable to use.

 

As a Developer the latter half is very important. It's part of a set of standards that have been in play since we began development of LotC with projects such as Personas, Banks, Shops, etc. Accessibility and Simplicity is one of those core principles we wish to encourage over most else, so that a player who has never been on LotC before can use the plugin without any prior knowledge of anything other than Vanilla Single Player. Developing with this mindset means there is little excess to deal with, players don't have to memorize a ton of commands, we develop with a straightforward goal and we achieve said straightforward goal. For all intentions this development mindset I (personally) feel is the best.

 

This mindset is currently at complete odds against any form of "magic plugin" that we can produce.

 

Our Magic Lore at the time of writing I would consider to be one of the worst things I've ever encountered and it took me in the realm of five years to realize it. I've always known it, to be fair - it just took this long and for me to see it for what it was to actually realize what the issue is. There is no particular person, group, or piece of writing to blame - it's just what is considered the "standard" when it comes to magic lore. We don't see a system as broken and needing a change - we're so deeply rooted when it comes to Magic that no one wants to admit that it currently is a massively malfunctioning system that cant sustain itself. The Norm is to, when we're bored of old magics or dissatisfied with them, make new ones and continue to add on to the great list of magic lore where old magics go inactive and die and the new ones live a short lifespan before dying again or the current generation dislikes it. At this stage it has become, to my perspective, a cancerous mass that has continued to grow and grow and now has rooted itself too deeply for anyone to see anything wrong with it.

 

Magic suffers from over complication, excessive quantities of lore, and a lack of continuity (meaning a lot of lore in some ways conflicts with each other, breaks each other's lore, or completely ignores other lore).

 

Now the question of the day; Why does this not work with a magic plugin?

 

Here's the general gist; Guild Locked magics are the bane of the Magic Plugin. Guild locked magics add such a level of complication to writing a magic plugin that it blows my mind. It takes what might be an elegant system and completely busts it down into the dirt and throws away all the hard work. Catering to guild locked magics is on the near end of impossible because suddenly you have these questions; How do I make it so only x group gets x magic? what if x group dies off, all my work is in the gutter. How do I integrate MAT? All of these questions run through my mind as soon as guild locked is on the table or a group wants part of the plugin to themselves specifically. I could perhaps have an elegant learning system which allows for any player to be able to learn spells and then suddenly half of the spells I've written (which take a lot to write per spell) don't get learned by this system. Not only this but with a constantly changing topology of magic it becomes impossible to keep up with new magics and continues to go down the route of something we're trying to avoid as much as possible but sometimes have to do; mechanics disconnecting from lore. I'll talk about that in a second.

 

So the question comes; "Well, screw the magic plugin then right? Why do we need it? Our system is fine as it is."

 

That's just the thing; The system has proven that it actually doesn't work. Look in the recent past; just how many changes have we done to magic to "fix" it recently? We've gone from having a MAT to having no MAT to having a semi-MAT to having a full on MAT but it still hasn't fixed the issue - Magic is not relevant. Magic is only relevant within certain groups and outside of it the influence is non-existent on the world. This is what these systems aimed to fix. Hell, I was part of designing at least half of them - I remember clearly why we were trying them. They don't work. We theorized so much about "well if it was locked then people would treat mages better!" And while yes, this has occurred it isn't nearly enough. Instead of becoming more relevant magic has faded back into the halls of the secluded and while some might be open to newer players a vast majority of these magics are locked for the single reason that they are too complicated for a new player to roleplay correctly. That in itself is on the end of ridiculous.

 

Furthermore, another point to be made is that currently a player who logs onto the server and doesn't want to care about the complicated mess of our lore doesn't have to. Due to PvP default, at the end of the day players who don't understand the lore don't have to understand it. However, let's say we do implement a plugin that uses current server lore. This player gets obliterated by for example a shade and has no clue what a shade is or does. They decide they want to be a shade or they perhaps just want to check out the lore to see if they have any weaknesses and halfway through the mess that exists they can't even understand it. Player that wishes to understand them fails and then just tries to probably unsuccessfully avoid x shade and then decides "this is bullshit" and bails, and the other player that wishes to be a shade doesn't get the lore and the current shade base rips him apart and he says "screw this".

 

So, next solution. "Man, screw that lore! Just make something that doesn't care about the lore."

 

Now we've circled back to the big issue; the disconnect mechanics have with lore. So, skills already do this as some might have noted just because supporting each character's RP with mechanics is on the end of insane if not impossible to reasonably do. However! This is not something we wish to encourage as it begins to break down after a stage where mechanics and lore might war over something and there is no clear winner. We don't wish to break down the servers theme even further with plugins that disconnect from lore, but in situations like this it's actually so difficult to work with existing lore in some cases.

 

So, why make this? This is more to draw attention to the problem at hand and announce that the Magic Plugin is scrapped and will remain such for now at least. In the future we might try again with a different perspective, but for now it won't continue. I also want to hear your opinions - What do you think about this all? I'm not proposing any changes so don't pitchfork me about "wanting to remove mat or wanting to unlock magic" or something, I merely put this out as food for thought.

 

 

tl;dr - Magic plugin is scrapped because LotC's magic lore is terrible and impossible to work with, I would like opinions on what you think.

-- 501warhead, Lead Developer

Edited October 31, 2015 by Why.

[Merkaken 516]

I'd hardly consider the lore terribly. Hard to turn into a plugin, sure, not it's most certainly not terrible.

If you can't make a magic plugin, then you can't make a magic plugin. Not a big deal, I suppose.

[Wrynn 1349]

Honestly, the magic plugin would just turn LOTC into a pvp server.

Edited October 31, 2015 by Wrynn

[501warhead 1796]

I'd hardly consider the lore terribly. Hard to turn into a plugin, sure, not it's most certainly not terrible.

If you can't make a magic plugin, then you can't make a magic plugin. Not a big deal, I suppose.

The issue is it is actually such a mess right now - When you have moments in time that you have the stereotypical necromancer arguing on a point of lore that he shouldn't be harmed by holy magic you've got a lot of fantasy setting issues where things really conflict. It's a jumbled mess that has kind of just spiraled out of control and while certain players "understand" it enough (I hold myself at this threshold being a magic user for just over 3 years) I fear that the current system is way, way, way too extreme.

[DISCOLIQUID 2702]

Yeah. Magic lore is a big mumbo of taco meat. I think it's beautiful though, so meh. I never wanted a magic plugin.

[GodEmperorFlam 3447]

Magic plugin would have been detrimental to PvP, thank you for stopping the project. We lag enough in warclaims. Now imagine fireballs and other things flying around in that mess.

[501warhead 1796]

 

Honestly, the magic plugin would just turn LOTC into a pvp server.

That's the easy excuse to fall back on but it's clear there is an issue present. We consider Combat to be a core part of LotC both in Roleplay and Mechanically - however only about half of our combat is represented in a way that half the playerbase cares about. The other half of our combat system is entirely text and can easily be ignored which, in the current state of things, is fine in the end.

 

Yeah. Magic lore is a big mumbo of taco meat. I think it's beautiful though, so meh. I never wanted a magic plugin.

As mentioned above - it's honestly just a big mess. I don't think it's healthy, while the existing playerbase wants to cling to it's magic systems because of how much has been put into it I don't think it's healthy or beneficial to the server's life as a whole.

 

Magic plugin would have been detrimental to PvP, thank you for stopping the project. We lag enough in warclaims. Now imagine fireballs and other things flying around in that mess.

 

Having no idea what goes into the server's CPU consumption I thank you for taking the time to give me your insight on how much a plugin would contribute to it. Basically, don't try to bring up points that you can't back up.

[Lunar 442]

Can we have the duel plugin back instead?

[DISCOLIQUID 2702]

-

 

What then, do you propose? A lore re-write? No, a new player may never grasp the intricacies of soul puppetry, and trying to explain to _xSmallhand111x_ that because a creepy man managed to get a hold of his blood he is now melting because a doll of candy made in his image is rotting will likely never make sense, but what is the solution?  

[501warhead 1796]

Can we have the duel plugin back instead?

No idea what happened to it's source.

[Bloodnight 170]

 

Magic plugin would have been detrimental to PvP, thank you for stopping the project. We lag enough in warclaims. Now imagine fireballs and other things flying around in that mess.

 

Having no idea what goes into the server's CPU consumption I thank you for taking the time to give me your insight on how much a plugin would contribute to it. Basically, don't try to bring up points that you can't back up.

[Aelu / Rel (Combustionary) 1540]

It currently seems like a coherent magic plugin would have had to make the magic lore less interesting, which wouldn't be a good thing. PvP's fine as it is, I suppose. Magic lore as well.

[Paleo 298]

I agree fully, magic is a mess only few people care about. Other people simply avoid it cause they don't feel like dealing with it. LOTC's magic system makes magic a rather useless tool.

Welp, bummer we couldn't get the plugin.

[Telanir 6975]

I can confirm this is why we've never had a magic plugin.

 

Lag is hardly a problem, I made a plugin that affected the server almost negligibly, but that isn't the problem at all.

[Merkaken 516]

I'd hardly consider the lore terribly. Hard to turn into a plugin, sure, not it's most certainly not terrible.

If you can't make a magic plugin, then you can't make a magic plugin. Not a big deal, I suppose.

 

The issue is it is actually such a mess right now - When you have moments in time that you have the stereotypical necromancer arguing on a point of lore that he shouldn't be harmed by holy magic you've got a lot of fantasy setting issues where things really conflict. It's a jumbled mess that has kind of just spiraled out of control and while certain players "understand" it enough (I hold myself at this threshold being a magic user for just over 3 years) I fear that the current system is way, way, way too extreme.

Ahh that makes sense. Yeah it can get confusing and sometimes just flat out annoying. I do still enjoy learning all the lore and such personally, however.

Edited October 31, 2015 by Soresan