Mid-December Lore Update

[GodEmperorFlam 3447]

Mid-December Lore Update

With the Lore Games drawing to a close soon (details can be found here: click me), we’re going to be opening up magic apps once again for certain magics.

 

The first wave will consist of the evocations and arcanism, both of which we do not feel will be changing all that much. The new app form will have a question regarding if you understand that the magic you’re picking up might drastically change soon, so please do not be surprised if it does in some regard.

 

The evocations and arcanism are picks that Story will also be making sure remain. While some attempts have been made, there are some that are lacking and I will be reaching out to those communities to make sure that something solid is produced with Story assistance.

 

Likely changes for evocations and arcanism include: limiting freeform in combat, but allowing for heightened freeform outside of combat by removing overly restrictive red lines that the old evocations had. Arcanism will likely have a foundation piece that dips into all of the fields, and then will have additional slots available for those that wish to pursue it further. Arcanism already has a lot that it can do, which carries it out of a simple one slot magic, but not enough for it to warrant a full fledged 5 slot type deal. I’m guessing a full set-up will be a 2-3 slot magic, depending on how fleshed out each field is.

 

If you are in the Lore Games Discord, I will be making a few new chats for this to revitalize discussion and will also be assisting with it myself. These chats will open after the weekend, on the 16^th. If you wish to be apart of that and aren’t in the discord, this is the current invite: https://discord.gg/Q6dEHh3 

On an unrelated note, Zarsies is currently looking for input on the Pantheon Project, and we are holding a small writing contest for voidal submissions. You can read more about both of those here: Pantheon Link + Void Link. I encourage people that are interested in both voidal magic and Aengudaemons to give these threads a read, and if you want to actively impact the server in terms of the void, try your hand at the voidal reagent/bond submissions.

We are also making some changes to how lore reviews are done. A big complaint regarding submitting lore is the long wait time for it to be reviewed. Due to the amount of projects Story writers have on their plate, the traditional method of needing people to vote is difficult. As we need to give people ample time (generally a week or a week and a half) to vote, and usually we can only have a handful of pieces up for a vote before people get overwhelmed. This causes the lore reviewal process to only be able to handle 5-10 pieces in one go, which usually lasts 1-2 weeks depending on how long the discussion for the vote lasts.

 

As such, I am doing away with tradition and moving forward with a much more efficient method. Currently we are using it on most of the submissions that are currently sitting there, aiming to get through the backlog that has piled up. This method will be having a few dedicated people vote on the lore with a member of Story management (i.e. Me/Zarsies/Killmatronix) overseeing things. Management will look at the opinions of the few dedicated people who have voted, and we will decide if the piece passes or not. So far this method is a lot faster, as we’re able to blaze through pieces without having to wait for a majority of the team to give their input.

 

In order to make sure that everyone on the team still gets a say, the votes will be open to anyone if they have the time, but it will not be mandatory for everyone. Similarly, the vote results will still be shared with the rest of the team so they can see the process behind the decisions being made, and they will have a period of time to raise any concerns they may have.

Similar to the above, we have streamlined the process behind submitting edits to lore. You can read more about it in this short guide that covers the process: click me.

 

This may seem like a fair amount of documentation, but it really will speed up the review process significantly. How? Because when people make edits to the lore piece directly, we have to scour over the entire piece and make sure no other edits were made and have to find the edits that were made so we can see if they work or not.

 

But with this method, we can see instantly what edits the person wants to make and why they want to make them, allowing us to give feedback instantly. This should be beneficial to all parties involved.