DISCOLIQUID

thanks!

damn i already wrote this

Try to learn Kani. Good luck!

Day 100 in the Vortex. @FlemishSupremacy is the only player managing to Vortex craft Vortex Tier 5 Vortex Goods. Every day she logs in with over 15 minecraft alts combined from a pool of my accounts, Wolfkite's, and their own. She can Surge Kill you in one Surge Click. New players are personally Vortex calling Nickrocky's IRL Vortex phone to beg him for more energy. Vortex microtransactions are Vortex approved to reset your own energy bar for 99c. Sham404 has Vortex Joined the Development Team using a custom in-game Vortex recipe that Vortex sets your Vortex Pex to Tech. People are still Vortex begging in OOC chat about how to Vortex use the Vortex Loamy Soil Vortex Dropdown Menu.

You're right, but I've never seen a single feedback thread not get locked when people start calling each other smooth brains on it. My concern is not one thread.

Thanks, Devvy. Despite this being a bit confusing and giving me bad flashbacks to Nexus, I do appreciate that the higher levels of staff are still showing us that they're interested in helping people understand rather than outright dismissing us as heretics against the new plugins. As we transition into the full Vortex, we will only have even more questions. What I do not hope to see is a continued divide between those who do not have complaints and those who do have complaints about the recent changes.

Big difference in being able to chop wood for ten minutes and having to stare at an ugly UI while clicking through crafting options. Who cares about 'applewood'? I don't. Vortex was supposed to allow us to access unique crafting options, not replace the entre base substrate of minecraft. You can say it's a minecraft problem, but honestly Sham this is like the 10th time I've seen you write "Sounds like an X problem, not a Y problem,". Vortex problems are Minecraft problems and vice versa now that Vortex is our 'crafting plugin'. Also if it was a Minecraft problem, why are we all playing Minecraft? What's changed is not the base game, it's the injection of new plugins that are changing how we have to spend our time. When I was talking to Nickrocky what excited me the most about Vortex was that it was easy from the Developer side to change. It had an API to allow for on the go rewrites of its items & their crafting materials. This means that we can modulate how much restriction we want, and how many Copper Needles people need to grind out before we're able to actually make useful gear. You seem to think that people don't want the end goal of Vortex, Surge, & Nodes: economy, crafting intrigue, and interesting PvP. But that's wrong, we do want those things, we just don't want to have to jump through bad hoops gathering meaningless materials that don't even have a lore basis. What is Applewood? Is that in lore somewhere? No. No, it's just a fake crafting ingredient made up to add another stepping stone to good creation. Same goes for Copper and Tin Runescape mechanics. I like the actual use of some of the materials, and I think the node plugin is good, but for fucks sake the UI on these crafting benches is hard to read through, and right now all the materials are literally right next to each other. You know what's nice about minecraft? You can literally just dig down because the whole world is made of materials that can be used. Doesn't feel like these materials are going to be spaced out well, and I can already feel my blood boiling in the future as I Vortex Gather Some Vortex Nodes only to be Surge PvP'd as they get Vortex Camped into Vortex Oblivion. And the most annoying thing is (not about Vortex) but about people who seem to take every single complaint and want to spin it away as if it's something we should just ignore. Why? Why should we ignore the obvious and painstaking annoyances in the plugin just because you don't seem to be bothered by them? Especially when people are saying that this is going to be bad for new player retention who might not want to MMO their way to the top. So many people just think Vortex is going to be magically good just because it's not a dumpster fire to their eyes, and they are quick to insult and bash those who are disappointed with how things are unfolding.

What's contradictory? Are you sure that you are not talking about two different groups complaining about different problems? What are the later stages of Vortex? What assumptions are being made? What does 'getting good' mean? Isn't 'getting good' the problem that people are talking about, with this producing a wide range of differing skillcaps for players based on their own ability to commit time & energy to Minecraft? Sorry! Just feels like you completely missed the points that everyone was saying, and just scrolled down to bang out a lil' snarker +1 'gitgud' post, truly something this server could use more of! If that's not the case, please reply to this comment with a more expansive opinion that can actually be interacted with.

My complaint is that I like playing Minecraft, not this. (Reserved for more)

A good balancing, though I don't know if the electromancer potions need to be outright removed. Ultimately they are extremely combative, but they also supply an interesting way to harness electricity in character. I am glad to see a 2 emote need placed on drawing and hucking a potion.

Neat idea! Well written. 🙂

haha yeah i did it today earlier!!! plus you can still use your enderchest for some storage in the meantime

Minecraft is an easy game, and making it complex isn't necessarily good game design. The economy arises as things get more difficult to acquire - ST items, edited goods, books & quills, leather. By adding artificial difficulty to the game, it becomes harder to gather items. This will cause less people to gather these items, as the game-world takes OOC time to navigate. In turn, these items become somewhat valuable. Valuable in minas, skins, other items, sure. But what you lose by adding a strict economy is freedom. You force a player to decide if wood-cutter or cook will be their profession class. This pushes players away from the 'use your brain to role-play' and more towards 'use our custom interfaces to role-play'. People can only sell what they have extra time to gather, people can only buy when they have extra money to spend. You say our farms are communist, and that there's no merchant RP on the server because you can just get what you want. Let me counter and say that if you can't get what you want to sell it, there will be even less merchant RP on the server. Most people who engage with professions plugins are just doing it to get the items they want personally, and then after that an even greater amount of time must be donated to the server in order to gather enough goods to then sell ''profitably''. You seem to have an issue with people being able to gather resources as they need them in-character, but I think you are forgetting something important. People use OOC time to get Minecraft items to facilitate their role-play. The plugins we're adding are going to add real life time-limits to the ability to roleplay as a merchant or woodcutter. Now, instead of just needing a skin and a small store (easily sustainable by voting), you need to upkeep your material gathering & profession skill in relation to others or be pushed to obscurity. And if voting to make money goes away too, we are forced to spend our time on this server doing professions in order to make minas, not role-playing. The plugin can facilitate some level of immersion, but those of us who have less time are not going to be able to afford these items or want to sell our items we gathered. Why will the items be so expensive? Because they will be inherently tied to their creator's own OOC time, and so they will be valuable both in-game and in terms of out of game time. So what will happen when items take more time to gather, cost more inherently, and are parted with at a lower rate? In addition, access to money drops at the same time? Hmmmmm. The problem is the buyers. In truth, there is plenty of merchant RP on the server, what we lack is a playerbase with any level of cooperative imagination. There are stalls in every major city that don't have anyone roleplaying behind them. They have cheap goods, available in bulk. You might look at this and say the issue is the abundance of goods. It's not, the issue is that many players are unwilling to roleplay in order to buy something. The stalls will be filled with vanilla gear or Vortex gear either way. Sitting in a store and selling items doesn't go well. People will walk to the abandoned shop if they can buy something for a half a mina cheaper. If you still think that the problem of no merchant RP will be solved with Vortex, consider this. It's just not valuable enough to role-play in your store when you could be out gathering. Perhaps you need an item to continue gathering, though. Are you likely to stop your mechanical gathering, turn to role-play mode, and bash out an hour and a half of RP haggling? Absolutely not. I saw it during Nexus and during Aegis and during Asulon. You will continue on your path of engaging with the plugin, laser in on what you need mechanically, and buy it from an auto-store. But we all know that everyone has thousands of minas. So why are they acting like cheapos? Maybe people don't like to wait to get their items, and most of the time the buyers aren't interested in your little merchant thing. Despite having the resources to create economic roleplay by being active buyers of goods, most role-players don't bother typing it out. The issue is not a lack of people willing to play the merchant role, the issue is that buyers simply don't want to play the buyer role. They would rather get it themselves or pay minimally for it. So what will you have? Not more merchant RP, but a higher level of engagement with the plugin. As aggregate item rarity goes up, doing shitty bandit RP becomes more valuable. There's no point griefing someone whos bad items you could gather from the cloud temple resource pits in half an hour. Even a merchant going from city to city is unlikely to have to deal with the worst of the worst in terms of robbery RP right now because their items simply aren't worth that much OOC time. They may be worth a few thousand minas at most, chump change honestly. But ohoho, when you can take 128 hours of OOC plugin-work out of someone's inventory by stealing it through terrible gameplay? Then it's incredibly valuable. All of a sudden, you can OOC'ly circumvent having to pay or play in order to gather items. You avoid the hassle of needing to slog through persona cooldowns. This pushes people who are merchants to have to spend even more time gathering PvP items, places the highest burden of loss on them, and drives up the amount of miserably bad bandit RP (read, 95% of bandits). Also, powergaming does exist in PvP. A person who is in high school and can spend however much time they want gathering better gear and practicing minecraft PvP is a powergaming PvP'er, and it's just as unfair and boring to lose to them too. Last Thoughts Now, Vortex is coming out and there's nothing that can be done about it. I'm fine with that, as the tech team has said they won't be changing too much of vanilla minecraft gathering, and that only special goods will be locked behind persona-cooldowns. Hopefully this will still encourage people to go out and chop wood to sell it, because a world where no one has time to gather and sell goods on this server is going to be bad. Nexus was miserable because it restricted access at the vanilla minecraft level. I am confident that Vortex will be much better though, and likely will avoid some of these negative issues I have laid out. That said, I just want to warn that putting your faith in a plugin to restore a semblance of working economy just might not pan out. I think it may bring some value to committing to OOC'ly clicking at blocks and calling it lumberjacking, but actually encouraging economic role-play? Call me a cynic.

"Tanith shouldn't ha' gotten beat down by Ostromir! How grim to subject such an elderly Elf to even more violence! Lord knows she's had enough."

I’ll keep it simple, homophobia RP is honestly the best RP on LotC and we should not let just any old joe be a homophobe. Only the cut and above players who have the 200 IQ necessary to completely rip homophobia on brand right out of IRL Catholicism, but also go out of their way to write pages on pages of homophobic content that’s virtually indistinguishable from IRL hate speech should be allowed to RP the god-sent immersion fulfilling necessity that is the decade long rich history of anti-gay LotC RP. We should bring Villain Applications back and make those who want to better our server with their high quality twink-bashing rhetoric apply publicly for their genius level role-playing talent. This is because we simply don’t want just anyone to stumble into our server and think anyone can post entire manifestos of anti-xxxxxxxx content. No, truly the homophobic RPers are the last bastion of immersive content creators on this God-forsaken furry lib-left cesspool of identity obsessed narcissists who can’t seem to understand that this isn’t the real world so that’s why I have to treat them the way I think the real world does to them, just like I should in a fake world about fake lives. Otherwise, what might we think, that I was a f*cking bleeding heart moron unwilling to literally mimic the top-tier roleplay strategy of acting like a n*zi? Gosh, couldn’t be me! Please gents, don’t ever stop bashing those gays (but in a fake way that reminds me of the real way but it’s fake because we say it’s fake)! And remember, if you’ve ever ever ever taken RolePlay too seriously that someone beating you to death in the game for being gay somehow reminds you of real hate crimes against gay people, then you should probably just log off. You clearly don’t have the stomach for the dedicated & grueling work that is immersing each and every one of LotC’s players in a political climate virtually indistinguishable from a mid-tier reddit board. Godspeed fellow haters! Let’s see those VA’s return so we can do the right work of homophobia roleplay today with the polish and sheen such a smart form of make-believe deserves!

, To the Denizens of Helena & the Greater World, The Cauldron of Khem is recruiting those interested in the craft of alchemy & the collection of rare goods for studentry under the tutelage of Grouch Carrington. Our goal is to maintain & curate accurate alchemical knowledge, while keeping the public interested and aware of the trade of the humble Alchemist. For these reasons, the Cauldron of Khem is seeking the next generation of alchemists, and a potential five students shall be selected from the applicants. In order to apply, a package must be delivered in person to Grouch Carrington, containing the following goods & documentations: 1) A Book of Identification containing your name, home address, general hobbies, impressive feats, and best life advice you have heard. 2) One adfectio stone, one focus crystal, and ten notable herbs from Arcas, a music disc (any) 3) Sixteen Eggs, some Shampoo & Soap, a few charcoal blocks, a bucket of milk, and 64 glass bottles 4) One Letter of Recommendation from someone of a different race (not sub-race) 5) An item of great importance to you, and an explanation. Packages will be accepted and reviewed for quality, though the entirety of the applicant’s nature will be fully accounted into acceptance of the Cauldron of Khem. No special value is placed on nobility, nor innocence of character, though all applicants must be honest, forthcoming & convicted, with faith in cooperation. Heretics & Mages Need Not Apply!

you live on in our bladders

“None can doubt that Annabelle is one of the most talented & driven merchants around!” Grouch laughs, remembering the old days of a vacant building.

Hate & Fire! Darkly lit water lapped at the shoreline of the basecamps near the seized lands of Al-Faiz. The steady folk there, armed & militious, drew their lots on either side of their incursion’s strategy; platoons to serve as a distraction, and a covert sapper force. The overt platoons mark their maps for the border of Al-Faiz, their ears soothed by the sea’s patterns, and hearts pumped with red fear. The militia of descendants took up their arms, primed their baubles, and huddled together in their shared boat-ride. Some chewed with anxiety on bread, pacing around their sagging deck in absent-minded rumination. When the wooden hull bumped the shoreline, there was a long pause as the militia made their headway into The Korvassa. Those blasted looping roads doubled back in on themselves in the sea of blackened ground, and those marching found themselves without guide or clarity for hours. The furtive group stalked horrors pasted together with blood, walls of gore, and distant lurking monsters in those maddened fields until they found their mark. The towering gates of Al-Faiz and its blackened shores had been swarmed with hedonistic demons glutted on their own cruelty. Taken citizens of the lost city were corralled together in low cages, made to work for those whipping fiends with no soul for mercy. Dotting the shore were nightmares untold; gorillas as large as watch-towers, each coddling a cannon the size of a ship’s, primed with living ammunition of exploding imps. And more, upon those stolen walls of Al-Faiz lurked pyromanic imps, offering their aide to the hulking demonic Cannon-Masters that dragged up such damned weapons of war. These artillery-wielding fiends stuffed their fortifications with cannons, and bleated chants idolizing carnage & terror. With fetishized care for their monstrous deeds, the Inferi were ready to unleash their own Hell upon the encroaching descendants. Those at the beach could hold only distant hope that their mission would not be in vain. Battle at the Gates of Al-Faiz, 1786. Dimly lit water lapped at the shoreline of the basecamps near the seized lands of Al-Faiz. As the battle of the night drew on and on, the dim thunder of cannon-fire cracked and rolled across the waves. These dull, relentless thuds drew the ears & eyes of worried onlookers who prayed to multitude gods for the safety of their elected militias. The glint of the sun brought the truth of dawn. The beaches were stained with fire, death & terror manifest in the strewn bodies of those abandoned by others forced to flee. Those rays of light shone down the high walls of the corrupt Al-Faiz, and its jutted architecture gleamed in firelight; a curled smirk mocking that hopeful few who watched from the shorelines. The tyranny of thieves was not so easily usurped!

“Wow, I’d do that!” says Grouch.

PART 1 – REAGENTS Megrolind Dust Megrolind is a pinkish dusty like substance extracted via a multi-step alchemical process. Larimar Larimar is a turquoise stone found in the clear, warm-ocean biomes shores, and can be collected via a simple pick. The stone is notable for its rich variation in colors and patterns, though all harkening back to that soft blueish green. When collected, ground up & extracted, it produces some basic alchemical symbols. These symbols can be collected for alchemical use through mundane, earthly, or aquatic extraction methods. Reducted Nightsap By boiling nightsap for hours on end until only the most heady psychoactive compounds remain within the goop, a new reagent & symbols can be harvested. This flakey resin can be mixed with aqua vitae and left to cure for six narrative hours in darkness, to form reducted nightsap out of the powder. This is extracted via the mundane extraction methods, resulting in a handful of this bleak dust. PART 2 – POTIONS Draught of Reflection Tier Two, Requires ST Signing, Common Recipe This alchemical solution, and most derivatives, must be imbibed on an empty stomach, or the effects will fall flat. Those who drink it will find it easier to reflect backwards on memories & emotions of the past, but with no direction or orientation. Memories will flood back in great detail with no pattern to their arisal in the mind, and those seeking a specific memory will fail utterly to grasp it. Thusly, the alchemical formula must be augmented in order to orient an imbiber towards a specific recollection. If desired, the imbiber can allow the effects of the potion to wash over them at the height of their experience and bring them to a catatonic state of vivid reflection on their past experiences, though without any ability to navigate these strange remembrances. The nature of the potion allows it to be a transformative mental experience, potentially renewing old grudges or allowing grief to pass from a lost lover. These post-consumptive mental changes are up to the discretion and role-play of the imbiber, who are encouraged to use this potion’s consumption to add new depth to their emotional roleplay. Larimar Laments Tier Two, Requires ST Signing, Rare Recipe When Draught of Reflection is mixed with extracted larimar & some other symbols, it turns a burbling, sky-blue. This potion constantly drains the top of its precipitate downwards, streaking like tears to the bottom of the vessel. The effects are similar to that of the Draught of Reflection, though at the peak of the visions & thoughts brought on by Larimar’s Laments, the imbiber of the potion may fully embrace the potion and become subject to all manner of mournful memories manifesting in their psyche. These memories would be much easier to sort, and the imbiber would remain in a quiet, solemn stupor for up to a narrative day. This state forces the consumer to confront forms of sadness & grief within themselves, which results in one of the following long-term mental effects after the initial potion effects end. These four effects will last from anywhere from an OOC day at minimum to permanently if role-played that way, at the OOC discretion of the imbiber. 1. Amnesia; Completely forgetting their saddest memories 2. False Joy: Ignoring all sad emotions and presenting an extreme façade of joy 3. Paranoia: The belief that those who are showing sadness are attempting to manipulate you 4. Paranoia: The belief that everyone is trying to learn your most personal woes The nature of the potion allows it to be a transformative mental experience, potentially uprooting old grief or altering someone’s view of sadness & joy. These post-consumptive mental changes are up to the discretion and role-play of the imbiber, who are encouraged to use this potion’s consumption to add new depth to their emotional roleplay. Sanguine Rush Tier Three, Requires ST Signing, Rare Recipe Another derivative of the Draught of Reflection, the Sanguine Rush requires a mixing with Blood Lotus. The effect is volatile ecstasy. The mixture would turn the color of folly, a sickly, pinkish-red. The drink fizzes and foams upon mixture with saliva, making the imbibement a messy process as frothy pink bubbles dribble out of the mouth of any drinker. Despite this, once one begins to drink they will feel compelled to continue consuming until full up on the brew. One measure acts as a single meal replacement in this way. The effects are not like that of the Draught of Reflection, as the imbiber is driven to acts of mania & childishness, disregarding long-term effects of their behavior for one OOC hour, or a full narrative day. While this will not drive an otherwise reasonable imbiber to outright cruelty & violence, it may lessen their inhibitions enough to commit acts they otherwise would not. The following mental effects grip the character for one OOC hour, or a full narrative day. 1. Ignorance: The incapability to think about the context or intent of your own actions. 2. Mania: A boundless energy & enthusiasm, the dysfunctional disregard of limits & barriers. 3. Impulsiveness: The inability to regulate one’s behavior past a first instinct. 4. Narcissism: A prioritization of one's ego or self-esteem above facts or social implication. Fear Gas Tier Three, Requires ST Signing, Rare Recipe Fear Gas is like a smoke-bomb. When released into the air, this sweet pink gas causes serious alarm & delusions in the minds of those who inhale it. They will smell something similar to a bakery but be flush with anxiety in the mind. While the mental effects of fear gas are confusing to say the least, they do not drive all rationality from the minds of those poisoned by it. These anxieties & fears are not enough to outright force someone to flee if they intend to remain stalwart, though they easily dissuade the weaker-minded. Once inhaled, the effects last for one narrative hour, or 8 emotes. One or more of the following mental changes overtake the mindset of those poisoned, though always one that makes sense. For example, claustrophobia would not overtake the mind of someone in a large open field. 1. Claustrophobia; The fear of enclosed spaces, the belief that you are trapped & unable to escape. 2. Delusions of Centricity; The belief that danger will center you unavoidably, the belief that the universe is targeting you 3. Hallucinations of Past Trauma; The current situation & traumas of the past begin to overlap in visual distortions or auditory confusion 4. Paranoia & Mistrust; The belief that your peers & their flaws will endanger you specifically Gas of Apathy Tier Two, Requires ST Signing, Rare Recipe The gas of apathy is a peculiar tool in the emotional alchemists grimoire, & one that also works similarly to a smoke-bomb. The odd exception is that the gas released is nearly transparent, lingers in the air, smells of nothing, and drives those ‘poisoned’ by it to experience an emotional flatness. The mental effects of the gas of apathy are not discomforting and for those inside & under its influence are merely robbed of various emotional expressions. Once inhaled, the effects last for one narrative hour, or 10 emotes. One or more of the following mental changes overtake the mindset of those poisoned: 1. Nihilism: the belief that life lacks a point, and that nothing is worth caring about. 2. Flat Affect: A slow or non-existent reaction to an emotional situation like the loss of a friend or winning a race. 3. Pacifism: A desire to disengage with complex or violent situations and focus on simple or peaceful tasks. 4. Compliance: The belief that obedience is easier & preferable to resistance Synchronicity Potion Tier 3, Requires ST Signing, Rare Recipe The strangest emotion potion by far is the chunky red smoothie-like drink that is the Synchronicity Potion. This potion is consumed by groups of two to four imbibers, who must shed mortal blood together into liquid mana to form the potion’s base. Their coagulated blood is then infused with megrolind dust & many other reagents to form this mind altering substance. Once consumed at the same time and within the same room by the group of two to four imbibers, they will all experience blinding pain in their heads along with a compressive feeling on their chest. These debilitating impacts will last for two emotes, or ten narrative minutes, before a chilling feeling goes through the neck & back of the spine, and the potion’s psychoactive nature takes over. The emotional sensations (though not the explicit thoughts) such as anger, grief, joy, or needs of each of the members in the group can be felt by one another. These alien experiences are fleeting as the individual’s body returns from borrowed emotion to normal mood over the course of one emote, but can be tuned into if desired, allowing the group’s members to key into each other’s experiences. This synchronicity lasts for one narrative day (1 OOC Hour). During this time, any wounds inflicted upon a single member of the group will cause equal but fleeting physical pain to every other member. At the drinking of this potion, the individuals vote once each for an overall influence to impact the synchronous group, rolling randomly in case of a tie. [/roll 4] 1. Efficiency: The group works together through mundane, non-violent tasks such as mining or tending a bar with keen precision, sensing one another’s needs on the wind, and not needing to verbally communicate to order tasks. 2. Catastrophe: The group’s unresolvable psychological bond forces them to experience each other’s irritations & flaws, preventing teamwork and breaking down shared activities into miserable conflict about one another’s overlapping egos. 3. Occult: The group’s shared affinity for the magical & abstract ways of life come through, causing them to expertly perform religious or occult ceremonies. In magical rituals that require a roll to determine their result, this effect adds a bonus of 1 to a single roll if every member of the ritual has imbibed the potion. 4. Revelation: The group’s need for truth & acceptance comes forth, pushing each member to compulsively reveal themselves to one another. Lying during this time as an individual is painful, and obvious to the other members of the imbibing group. Once the two hours of potion effects are up, all members collapse and vomit up the potion, ending all shared connection with one another. This can result in a few after effects, any of which are picked by each member of the group to role-play for one OOC day after. 1. Social Isolation: The imbiber experiences a strong desire to avoid all social contact. 2. Abstract Obsessions: The imbiber’s mind loses ties to the sensible, looking for divine prophecy & occult pattern wherever turned. 3. Serenity: The imbiber experiences a calmness & simplicity in the singular nature of themselves. 4. Loneliness: The imbiber experiences a profound need to share social space with others.