squakhawk

re-read the options dummy

Hey guys, First off, apologies for the delayed response, we needed some time to put all our thoughts together. We understand that many of you are curious, confused, and/or frustrated by the Administration’s recent decision to ban Twi (Twinndolin) for Community Guideline Violations. We’ll try to shine a bit of light on our motive and overall reasoning behind the ban. Let's just start with this brief preface. We, the Administration, are always working tirelessly and try our very hardest to ensure the best for the community and server as a whole, considering everyone who helps build our collective narrative. From time to time, decisions need to be made to reflect that ideal, and sometimes like in this case, the community doesn’t understand how or why we possibly made this decision. This occurs especially in cases where a lot of evidence is submitted under the mutual understanding of confidentiality which cannot under any circumstance be broken. In every report, we do our best to see the full context of the scenario, and have actively kept up to date with reports (new and old) to make sure we have the full story and all the developments. In regards to Twi's ban - over the last several months their actions and behaviour have shown us reason to be concerned. Before the conception of what is now the modern-day Celianor, Twi made it their goal to establish their own High Elven player group. Towards this end, they would do whatever necessary to see their ideal achieved. Instead of establishing their own Settlement and starting their group's journey there, they opted to attempt to coup Haelun’or instead. The prospect of taking over a pre-existing Nation with all its players and perks was all but too alluring. Their intentions however remained the same. They wished to create their own High Elven community. Thus, they would plan to take over the Nation and had intentions to change it quite considerably. They intended to replace all the Haelun’orian culture and structures with that of their own. They wished to take over a community they weren't part of and rip it down, possibly leading to a considerable part of the playerbase leaving altogether. Towards that end, they even asked their friend oocly to infiltrate the nation and to hand it over to themselves. While the Administration does not permit bias toward any nation, we do care deeply for each individual player group, and if something would threaten to wipe out their existence as Twi had stated multiple times, this is a problem. This leads to some of the more publically problematic behaviors Twi displayed which were extremely worrying to anyone with roleplay in their best mind. However we gave Twi the benefit of the doubt; that they did have roleplay at heart, and that perhaps the evidence we had at the time for their OOC motives was out of context. We agreed to move past this and give them a chance to establish their own community with every support we could provide. After this, modern-day Celianor, the one you all know now was established. This seemed like a great thing for the server as a new group, very different and unique from the Haelun’orian one was created. As time went on, the activity numbers started to climb and climb. However, despite this, Twi still would engage in several ooc plots to suit their agenda. OOC threats, ramblings on destroying various nations, their cultures, their playerbases, both in target of an unrelated handful of people and their characters, and simply (with quote) because they could. Twi stated verbosely how they would not stop attempting to destroy other playerbases to the best of their ability until they were stopped by Administration/Moderation, and would then continue to push the limit. Twi was not alone in this, and for months had ranted about these goals to wipe out multiple playerbases, using their own as a platform to do so. Within the last month, Twi stated in three separate chats sent to Administration that Celia'nor was simply a means to an end to destroy every playerbase which might have displeased them. These are serious accusations we received, and while this behavior was perceived in both OOC chat and Forum posts alone from earlier this year, this is unacceptable. If we wish to move forward as a roleplaying community, we cannot have leaders dedicated to trying to swing their weight in game to abuse and ego on people OOCly. There should be no excuse for what is practically quoted, if not directly quoted, above. There should be no excuse for wanting to push limits and destroy playerbases for amusement or to prove some point. This community is driven by roleplay. Let us be clear- this is not, nor will ever be, any form of roleplay we condone. They would harass members of the Vale and Haelun’or publically pre and post the war, constantly trying to get them to join Malinor through bullying, OOC pressure, blackmail, and other means. When they refused, Twi stated their intention to then conquer them. They’d mention this constantly oocly about how they wanted to destroy them. This need to destroy communities and harass their players off the server, is without saying, unacceptable. The harassment of these players and nations, to make them conform to their demands is against our Mission Statement of Roleplay First. By acting with all these ooc plots with no roleplay intention, driven entirely by ego and manipulation, it is clear that they don’t care for any of the other communities and just want to exert OOC pressure onto other players and destroying their communities whilst manipulating their own into being a platform which enables so. This attitude and mindset is counterintuitive to roleplay and one that a player shouldn’t have. Yes, many players would like to see a community die, but this obsession with killing off several landed communities for simple purpose of 'I could', is damning in it of itself. Thus, the Administration is confident in our decision to issue this indefinite CGV ban, which we had all agreed upon. When being banned for something this egregious, with a ban level this severe, appealing should not even be a thought within a players mind. We hope that far down the line if Twi can reflect on the actions that lead to this and can come to appeal successfully and return to the server with a greater focus on Roleplay, rather than OOC anger and manipulation of their own community and others with an extremely anti-roleplay sentiment.

This lore has been denied. You will be sent a forum PM regarding the reasons for denial within the next 24 hours.

"Honk shoo" snored Lucian Horen, with his blue and white striped pyjamas and nightcap. The old Renatian slept peacefully for once within that land he loathed of formerly caw-in traitors. "Honk shoo" he snored again, rumbling throughout the old home. The old man never quite knew peace, and such a long one was unfamiliar to him. He recalled days riding alongside the Black Reiter Company. Honorable men, he thought, as within his dreams he pranced along merry fields of ponies and old familial figures who mattered greatly, such as Augustus or Antonius, two close friends. He even saw a little Godfrey the Third slay down a small little Haenseni man, shooting him with a bow and arrow which caused the little Haenseni to giggle and laugh like a child. What a lovely land with sunshine and rainbows, gayly did he laugh riding amongst his compatriots. Wars won by The Legion, wars won by repeated-turncoat vassals and bipolar backstabbery which came from nowhere in the empire he loved. A mercenary was a petty thing which influenced none. An excuse for Reivers to make a living, whatever it is they ate. In any case, he slept happily with his teddy in hand, whilst they were probably dead or locked away. "Honk shoo."

I FORGOT CARBARUM HOLD ON

Hey guys, Squak from the Story Administration here with an update to various Story Materials. Over time the ST have noticed a good deal of imbalance and incongruence between many of the story materials. Some shine brightly and are highly coveted, while others are held back by dated writing, mechanics, or lack of theme. The goal of our project, Materials: Reforged, was to thematically enhance and give each material a purpose. Rather than having certain catch-all materials or materials which lack a purpose or direction, our goal was to amend, add, and enhance each material. Balance kept in mind, we've worked out interactions with each material to help it find its place. Down below we'll be explaining our view of each material, and the changes which have been made to them specifically. Be sure to check the lore pieces for each material individually for full, detailed changes rather than these summaries here. If you have an outdated item which has old mechanics, feel free to /sreq with a new item for signage for an ST to pick up. Hope you enjoy! Material Changes Lunarite Lunarite has long been a material we've appreciated as something simply coveted for its design. Without changing that thematic, there have been some inconsistencies regarding its properties, and questions which frequently come to re-appear. As well, with a nice quality of life change, we've decided to implement the following. -Lunarite will now have complete resistance to rust from both natural and unnatural means (ie: magic, alchemy), a trait which is lost upon alloying. The exception is with Frost Salts, in which Lunarite will double the normal durability of a Frosted item. -An oft overlooked part of Lunarite lore is the idea that it does not cast or mold well. We’ve placed this in the lore itself and in the redlines just to make sure it is visible. -Lunarite forging is no longer knowledge/teaching locked, due to its simpler nature. Carbarum Carbarum is a piece we are mostly happy with, particularly rare given it's mythical nature. We didn't see much point in changing many things, however, one thing was mentioned. There, by technicality, was a way to Sharpen Carbarum which was not written in the lore, where it very well should have been. Not wanting to exclude mechanics of a metal, from the metal's lore, we've included it within the main lorepost. -Clarified the nature of Carbarum Sharpening, how it can be done, and what can be done. Arcanium While not commonly viewed as a noded material, Arcanium is something we threw in this project as a means to clarify some inconsistencies in its redlines. Likewise, we aimed to clean up the lore given its somewhat dated nature. I wrote the piece, and it pains me to view it. -Arcanium lore has been clarified on the nature of previous enchantments, voidal and not. We have clarified Arcanium cannot be enchanted with anything but voidal magic, and any enchantment (voidal or not), will be overridden when sent through Arcanium Forging. -We've removed references to Arcanism in the lore, given its currently shelved nature. -We've added special Arcanium Forging properties, inert and active, to Voidal Feats. Voidal Eminence, Voidal Artificery, Scions, and Voidstalking all have their own aesthetics and abilities. Check out their specific lore pages for more details. Ironwood Similar to the above, Ironwood has not been traditionally viewed as an ST material given its mildly mundane nature. We've mostly left the lore untouched, however we’ve added some things which will increase quality of life for Ironwood crafters by removing signatures on non-combative Ironwood items. In addition to this, we have added a cost for Ironwood weaponry and armor to justify an ST Signature. -Ironwood items now require an ST signature only when utilized for weaponry, armor, or shields. Trinkets or other goods are not ST Signed. -Spelling errors in the lore have been fixed. -The "Chemical Mixture" is now specified to add [1] Earth Sign, [1] Air Sign, [4] Vigor Symbols, [2] Endurance Symbols, [2] Balance Symbols and [3] Agility Symbols. Volatite and Boomsteel Boomsteel is a material which has been neutered over the years. A lot of its thematic potential has been replaced or overridden by other lore or materials. It became apparent that the most basic voidal enchantment was better than Medium Density, Low Density lacks some oomph to its power, and High Density has been entirely thematically replaced in a superior way by Daemonsteel. Its weight/strength are outclassed by Carbarum in every way, leading to Boomsteal becoming a sort of nothing-burger of a material. Rivaling Thanhium for the most changes, Boomsteel has been significantly overhauled to add a ton of flavor and theme to the metal and to make it more versatile in its uses. -All weight differences between the three densities have been clarified and quantified instead of gated by an arbitrary race mechanic. -Low density boomsteel now has an explosion of flame in addition to its shrapnel/concussive explosion. -Medium density boomsteel now no longer has a duration limit on its flame effect, meaning one may have a medium density boomsteel item aflame until it is manually quenched or doused. In addition to this, medium density boomsteel cuts or slashes may cauterize- causing an intense burning pain alongside the attack. -High density boomsteel now has a "Thunderclap" effect, which adds a heavily concussive effect to its strikes or a rebounding-effect to armor. Both are difficult to wield or use. Eidola and Construct CAs cannot wield it given its intense vibrations, while Ologs as well cannot wield it due to the intense and sudden sound that occurs. Blows with a high-density boomsteel weapon are heavier, and blows against armor still wound the wearer- but can potentially stagger their attacker. There are a lot of working bits and pieces to this addition, so be sure to check out the lore piece. Dracanium Dracanium is a piece we did indeed look at with some curiosity. We do hold some regret that it's so difficult to get a hold of. Despite a couple Dragon events on this map and the last, the majority of what we see is still coming from duped items as well as reforges of previously signed items. While we plan on having more Dracanium later in this map, we're going to look into implementing it in other ways somehow to better allow Azdrazi to have their cultural smithing. The lore overall we don't have much problems with, and thus has remained unchanged. -Dracanium is unchanged. Thanhium Thanhium has been a hot topic as of recently and suffers the issue of being a sort of catch-all combat metal. It's highly secretive in nature, and both in use by and against mages in tandem with magic; which is antithetical to the purpose of the metal. It's effective against magic things, and non magics, while the original point of magic absorption is completely missed with the point of the lore. With this, we've applied some significant changes. -Thanhium will absorb and overheat if on the person of someone using any form of magic or enchantment. If one has an enchantment in one hand, and a Thanhium item anywhere on them, the enchantment will fail and the Thanhium will count as absorbing it. -We've clarified the nature of magic absorption (E.x. do multiple thanhium items stack, answer being no), along with how many spells can be absorbed for the raw form and the refined form. -We've made Thanhic forges much more thematic and important as to why they are actually used, and have removed the random chance to fail Thanhic forging. -We've added an ET-Only line regarding a radiation-like effect when in high concentration areas of Thanhium. -We've added a "Unless otherwise stated" weakness on Thanhium, which states it is effective against all magics, CAs, and Feats. -We've removed the frostbite and limb disabling effects, which have been moved to Frost Salts. -Redlines are now red and the lore has new formatting. -Thanhic forging ingot-counts are now standardized with the rest of forging as per the Material Compendium. -Clarified to look within lore when in magically-dense areas (Hearths, Tears, Hollows, Etc.) for more details. Azhl Azhl is another piece we've been interested in looking at given its somewhat underutilized nature, even though it exists as a purely combative metal with little purpose elsewise. It is one of the lesser used materials, yet one of the most common to obtain. However, with the recent Rewrite we feel that we'd like to see how it performs before applying any changes. -Azhl is unchanged. Frost Salts Frost Salts are a material which has been kept highly secretive, and plays an important part in this map's founding lore. Despite its smithing technique being incredibly simple taking after mundane forging techniques- it has become increasingly gatekept- which was not the original intent of the material. -Frost Salts are no longer knowledge locked, and are not required to learn in roleplay to utilize. -We've clarified Frost Salt's interaction with Lunarite. -The durability of a frosted weapon has been raised from 6/3 to 8/4, depending on the metal used (See the lore for more details). -The frostbite & limb disabling effect from Thanhium has been moved to Frost Salts, and wounds from Frost Salt weapons are now more painful and brutal. Aurum Aurum through the years has received poor treatment given many CAs unrightfully have written out an Aurum weakness: where it now lays as a metal exclusive to work against one CA- Ghosts. Realistically, Aurum should work on any manner of creature with its soul altered. Thus, we've decided to add into Aurum another catch-all weakness clause, and to address which CAs may need changing in the future for those with specific anti-aurum weaknesses in lore. -Aurum now has an "Unless otherwise stated" weakness clause to clarify Aurum is an effective counter to any non mundane CA-Creature, unless otherwise specified within that specific creature's lore. -Aurum is now stated as non-effective unless puncturing or otherwise wounding one of the listed above. Increasing searing pain is relative to size, thus, pin-prick tests are ineffective. Wrap-Up In short, we're looking forward to seeing these changes in action and to what they may change moving forward. Personally I'm excited to see some of these new effects at work and a new variety at play where depending on your situation, or your culture, or your preference- there is no wrong choice in any of these. Most metals are fairly effective against one thing or another, and there's a lot of options as to how a situation can be approached. --Squak & The Materials: Reforged Team

If i recall correctly on the later stages of Almaris, the World Team leadership at the time wanted to move all roleplay out of Cloud Temple and into cities- thus why The Library was removed, and shop stalls hadn't been a thing since Atlas. I think aswell given it's complete inaccessibility in the map, hubs were inevitable, but that's a flaw in the map itself being poorly designed for mechanical movement and distribution. On various threads/discords I see people advising CT be thrown into the sky and off the map, what are your opinions on that?

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lora&display=swap'); @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=PT+Serif&display=swap'); #custom h1 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 32px; } #custom li { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 2; font-size: 16px; } #custom h2 { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 24px; color: #3586b5; } #custom h3 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.5em; font-size:18px; color: #448db8; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: dashed; } table.center { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } #custom p { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } strong {font-weight:bold;font:inherit;} #custom td { font-family: 'Verdana', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } wassup beijing, Before our next map-dev meeting we want to look into a few further topics to bring up and discuss, and one of them brought up was transition-builds and road-concept. Transition Builds refer to builds coming with transition. The way a "City" is put onto the next map. For reference, for both Arcas and Almaris, nations were given a world-save of their starting tile, and built off of it- then pasting it in during the Temp-Map. Road-Concept refers to our basic thematic, ideas, and goals for roads. Most maps have the iconic "King's Road", which is one road that leads from CT to all other major settlements- expanded upon as necessary in the future. Arcas had a twist on The King's Road, with a circular road that ran across the most proximal part of the map. While not necessarily the case next map as we haven’t discussed where CT should be, on or off map, these are still valuable things to consider. With the recent Freebuild thread and discussion in the discord, there's been a few curious ideas thrown around. Ideas on how builds should be transferred, if they should be transferred. With the soon-coming Paid-LC in tandem with PurchaseFly, how should we implement cities? What should our maps roads look like? Transition Builds While the team has no official stance, or really true preference in which we're leaning (As we are to soon discuss it as a group), the only thing that can be said in firm is the idea of builds conforming to the land is something we'd like to see. Rather than setting flat bricks on terrain like Helena, a city which can shift with the terrain and work with it, rather than against it. This is not to say we don't want to see terraforming- it would just be an interesting idea to have cities which are iconic for their layout and design which fits toward their environment, rather than environment fitting to them. We've found this can create a somewhat narrow angle of areas of the map, and things can be relegated easily to "Oh, that's an Example-Nation part of the map, and not worth our time. Another thing to look at is these builds coming onto the map themselves. Many were uneasy at the start of Almaris when grandiose, luxurious cities were pre-prepared on the land before they even arrived on it. Many spent their final weeks on Arcas not necessarily involved in Inferi, The Eye of Man, or others, and primarily focusing on toiling away for the next map. We saw in the Freebuild thread a few people thought of having a “Colonization” period at the start of the map which would have players focusing on building, acquiring resources, and building their community rather than having it practically teleport from one place to another. What we mean to ask is, how should this be done? What are we looking for ideas/opinions on? -Do we have transition builds pasted-in on release? Is there some delayed "Colonization" period? Are they built using gathered resources & LC? -Do we want map terrain to be conformed or designed around certain nations/cultures/playergroups? Would we like groups to pick and embrace or adapt these environments and terrain? -Furthermore, while this is a topic of far-later discussion, what do we want to see for map transfer in it of itself? Are nations pre-presented plots, or given a map to work on? An open query, since we aren't setting in final decisions here and now for what will come months and months later. Road-Concept While designing a few ideas, as stated long-before we plan on taking after the design principles of Anthos, and the philosophies of ShiftNative. Far ahead of his time, the guy was down to earth and understood the mechanics in which "Player distribution" is attributed. We can look at previous maps, and see some issues. For Atlas, we can see here that Atlas struggled with length. While central parts of the map thrived for their easy access and short run times, Belvitz, Renatus-Marna, Haense, Gladewynn and Kadarsi as a few examples- farther-flung edges of the map died out and could often barely sustain activity. Fenn and Warhawkes reached double-digit run times, Dominion aswell was difficult for it's time served and Krugmar was often difficult to reach and in a rather vacant part of the map in it's iterations. Full Image Red = Main "Ring Road", King's Road, with speedboost and signs. For Arcas, we can see that Arcas was great in equally distributing runtimes. Between all the major nations of the consistent map, the runtime never exceeded 5 or 6 minutes, the shortest being Sutica which sat around a 4 minute speed-run time without a horse from CT spawnroom. Given how lovingly we all probably recall the southern roads being the Mad-Max of the LOTC Canon, sometimes it was a bit longer. However, what we also saw was an almost "relegation" of other parts of the map to an infinite death. While freebuild and a forever-unused event island were on the outskirts, islands such as The Queens Isle or Korvassa were unused for the majority of the map outside of fringe settlements- albeit, one did bloom to notable fruition, Talon's Grotto. The difficult we see with the Arcas map design, is if there is a ring road system, that must be the majority of the map it circles around. Given, you are creating a ring in which acts effectively as the lifeblood of the server- anything beyond it is difficult to reach, while anything closer has a clear advantage. It is awkward, particularly when map-design comes into play and having to maintain a wingspan distance from each other nation. Full Image Red = Main "Ring Road", King's Road, with speedboost and signs. Yellow = Added/Additional roads made over time or to specific nations/settlements. For Almaris, we mostly see the effect that Almaris is "Divided" into four different pieces. While Hubs are a different monster entirely to tackle, the map has no central circulatory road. Each road is isolated from another, and the map feels as if it's split into portions or pieces, not acting as a whole functional unit. While a band-aid fix could be applied to add in these roads between hubs, there reaches a point of excessive runtimes. We saw this map a competition to "sit" on hubs, settling as close as possible to have the shortest runtime- and thus, the greatest route to player visitation. This precedent of having a fixed-distance from Hubs was broken a bit into the map, and we are seeing the repercussions of so manifest in various ways. On the inverse, nations which would otherwise be punished for not having quick access, such as Haelun'or, suffer from the lack of a walk, with at one point a five minute ferry- something just longer than simply boating there, and far too long of an effective balking time. Full Image Red = Start-of-map "Main" roads, Nation roads. Yellow = Additions/new nation/settlement focused roads. Golden stars = Hubs. What have we got in mind? Taking again after Anthos/Asulon, we've taken a look at their road designs, successes and flaws. Ideally, a road should reach most parts of the map. If not most, the most geographically accessible- somewhat like an artery, where smaller roads may branch off to reach each piece. You might say, "Well, Atlas did that.". Indeed, they did. But, they took the artery in the most literal sense- a simple, up-and-down path which everything branched off from. It's uneven, and encourages again, access of primary activity toward the middle. While this middle-activity-race will never quite be solved, there's a few ideas in mind. To begin, while hubs were somewhat poorly implemented this map, at least by some opinion, they could serve a purpose. Rather than acting as access to "different parts" of the map, perhaps they would better serve as effective checkpoints on the same road. Imagine if Atlas didn't have just the central CT. CT, where it is, up in the sky, it doesn't matter. But you had easy, hub access to points a bit north and a bit south, along that central line. Rather than drawing the "Spawn" at the halfway mark, what if spawn were drawn at 1/3rd and 2/3rds? More evenly spacing out where players can begin, more evenly spacing out where activity is drawn from- as well, keeping the option that hubs give of getting you closer to your desired destination, if you aren't just wandering about. Take this map as example. A Shiftnative piece (if recalled correctly). With the Golden Star acting as spawn, not too shabby- but we can see some areas of the map are not only harder to reach, but are a farther run. The top right of the map is borderline inaccessible unless you are directly going there- it can be troublesome. Now, let's change that a bit. Now, Orange and Gold star are Hubs. While some parts of the map are still favoured by proximity to a hub, that "outer reach" is vastly shortened. There is no exceptional fringe, as most parts of the map now generally have a ease-of-accessibility. For "Starting roads" on a map, this isn't so bad- additional roads can and will be made, probably to start and probably throughout the map's lifecycle. But to serve as a definitive core of transport, this is a good start. Now, there is a problem with this some may see. Frontiers are cool, frontiers are interesting- We agree, I agree! This doesn't remove that possibility to exploration, for untamed lands which often will go most of, if not the entire, map without major settlement. And that's fine- maps are not meant to be utilized for each square inch of land. What we're looking for is not that- but for the possibility that there is no disadvantage for settling in a certain area or place, and being deemed "Too long a walk". While speed-roads, horses, and Soulstones help greatly in player movement, roads are the tried and true and work with a lot of our systems. It only makes sense we have maps that work off those thoughts. What do you think? Here are the main questions we are considering and really want pointed feedback regarding. There’s only so many ideas a few people can think of alone, especially when it’s things many staff members no longer experience the way the “Average Chad RPer” does. -How can the location of Cloud Temple affect not only the design of roads and settlements around it, but the experience of those moving through it? -What potential exploitations or failures are there in using Travel Hubs in Map Layout? -What role should Travel Hubs play in the experience of the player? Should they be mini-resource hubs, spawn points, roleplay areas, "Noob Friendly" zones or even shopping zones? Do they have any place other than for faster travel or equal connection to spawn? -How should roads be established and connected? How should new roads be managed? There is a great utility in having a pre-established road network that is simply automatically expanded with new settlements, though it could limit potential RP freedom to have roads entirely staff managed. So let us know what you think! We're eager to hear back on your guys' thoughts since these are pretty complex topics with a lot of weight on what they can mean. We'll be meeting soon after the most comments roll in to discuss our thoughts and scan over these ideas here. Looking forward to reading the comments and discussion, Squak & The Map Development Team

Is ten minutes not enough time for somebody in the city to notice the combat and join so? I'm curious as to how the timeframe lines up With the inverse, what about trying to perform crp, or villainy of somekind, and you enter combat with one person. Someone stumbles upon them a good deal in, and afterward goes to inform others or calls in for others to join, well after it's started- thus prolonging it and heavily disfavouring attackers If in a nation's square, and Combat cannot be addressed within ten minutes, how does this differ from say, Mechanical PVP which doesn't have a time limit on engagement, and is over much quicker? If combat cannot be addressed within ten minutes, what's to stop people from continuously joining just because they 'happened' upon it? This isn't primarily to prevent metagaming or birding, it's simply to balance combat from becoming an infinite match of people stumbling in, making the initial combatants completely unrecognizable from who may come later. Just picking your brain and getting your thoughts, not against the opinion or idea of change I just want to reason your logic against that of these rules

I think you're misinterpreting the rule, which is intended to limit speech directly, not emotes. I've clarified the wording to make this easier. Reasoning is that we've had many instances, bad faith or not, where people emote paragraphs of dialogue in combat which often will lead to frustration from one side or both. It's odd to imagine someone belting out four lines in a single sword swing, or to relay extensive information of some kind in the same timeframe.

good ideas, i'll see about throwing something that addresses this issue in

Original: You may only move four blocks per emote. You may not mechanically run away from roleplay combat without it being possible, and having emoted prior and awaited for a reply from the opposing party. If this breaks out into a chase, you may then run a /countdown once all parties are ready (3 minute wait max). No movement may occur after these emotes until the countdown is completed. The runner may not fight back or be assisted, the opposing party reserves the right to down and revive them, then continue the roleplay as if they are bound. You may only make one major and one minor action per emote. A minor action is an action that does not directly affect the outcome of the combat, whilst a major action does. For instance, a minor action would be drawing your sword, a major action would be dodging/jumping out of the way or attacking. Another example, aiming a bow or taking an arrow from a quiver would be minor actions, whereas notching it, drawing it back, and releasing it are major actions. If you must go AFK for 10+ minutes during conflict roleplay, no additional parties may join until 10 minutes after the AFK player has returned. Update: Renamed from "Roleplay Combat/CRP" to "Balance-Default Combat" 1) You may only move four blocks per emote whenever performing an action relevant to combat. This includes swinging a melee weapon, blocking an incoming strike, aiming a ranged weapon or preparing to throw a projectile as well as casting certain magics. 1A) This also applies to characters on the receiving end of an action, such as being tackled, shot or hit. 2) You may only move eight blocks per emote when your character is solely focused on sprinting. 3) You may only move eight blocks per emote whenever performing an action relevant to combat whilst mounted. 3A) This also applies to characters on the receiving end of an action, such as being tackled, shot or hit. 4) You may only move twelve blocks per emote when your character is solely focused on riding a mount. 5) You may fall any distance in one emote. 5A) You may drop up six blocks vertically and continue action unhindered. Dropping up to nine blocks will result in a stumble, reducing movement to half for one emote thereafter. Dropping up to twelve blocks will result in a broken leg, reducing movement to one quarter for the remainder of the combat and thereafter until healed. Dropping up to fifteen blocks will result in serious injury and a character becoming incapacitated or unconscious atop broken limbs. Dropping up to eighteen blocks will result in a character’s death. 5B) Characters can drop an additional three blocks if landing in water or a haystack that is three blocks deep or more. 6) You may only say one sentence (approximately fifteen words) of speech in character per emote whilst combat is ongoing. 7) You may not relay messages to characters outside of shout range in combat. This means the use of couriers, messenger birds and other forms of long distance communication are prohibited. 8) When a character leaves a combat scenario they are unable to return until the ongoing combat has been concluded, as agreed by both sides, nor may they leave and rally others to join the combat roleplay they were not otherwise present for. Exceptions can be made to this if both sides agree. 9) Combat is considered “Locked” 10 minutes after the beginning of combat, preventing others from joining unless both sides agree. 10) Surgery and other medical procedures beyond first aid cannot be performed in combat. 11) Combat roleplay does not adhere to mechanical standards and instead follows common sense logic. For example: your character can not pull a boat out of their pocket even if there is a boat in your minecraft inventory. 11A) The sole exception to this rule is with regards to special items used in combat like weaponry, potions and magical objects that must be in your mechanical inventory where appropriate to be used in combat roleplay. Rational: Updating combat rules to be more expansive based on moderation verdicts and observation/player request relating to full implementation of CRP Default onto the server. Will be observing and testing extensively to see if changes are required over next couple months.

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lora&display=swap'); @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=PT+Serif&display=swap'); #custom h1 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 32px; } #custom li { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 2; font-size: 16px; } #custom h2 { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 24px; color: #3586b5; } #custom h3 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.5em; font-size:18px; color: #448db8; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: dashed; } table.center { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } #custom p { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } strong {font-weight:bold;font:inherit;} #custom td { font-family: 'Verdana', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } Hi everyone, With the advent of Honor based CRP Default, for a long time both Moderation and Story have wanted to work on combat rules to replace our antiquated, and very abuseable system. With fixed movement, we found that there would be things such as infinite chases. With no detail of vertical play, we found issue where there was no solid definition on climbing and falling. Another complaint we've found by majority with the CRP rules, has been the issue of a lack of a CRP Lock - that without so, combat can drag on far longer than intended as more and more combatants get involved. While Honor-default based CRP remains unchanged, this system replaces the prior issues the CRP rules had, with a rename to clarify the difference in system. What are the changes? As with any of our recent Administrative changes, these are subject to change and modification based on wider testing. However, we have added a good deal of changes to multiple aspects of combat. Below, is The Short, and The Long. The Short -CRP is having a name change, from "Combat Rules" to Balance-Default Combat Rules. This is due to the fact that these rules are not applying to Honor-Based CRP, unless the combatants involved would wish to use such a system, or are forced to by moderator. -Balance-Default Rules have differing levels of movespeed based on certain conditions, such as being upon a mount or sprinting. -Balance-Default Rules now account for vertical play and actions, such as falling -Balance-Default Rules account for speech in emotes, and limiting so -Balance-Default Rules account for people leaving and returning to combat, and a 10-Minute Combat Lock -Balance-Default rules clarify the limit of medical roleplay within combat -Balance-Default Rules clarify mechanical v.s. roleplay standards of weapons and items The Long (Spoilered) I've went ahead and compiled a list of lores which may need changing in accordance to the rules. Most specifically, ones which affect hard-block counts, rather than generalizations. Lores which state something akin to "Halved" or "Doubled" movement will likely stay unchanged, but ones which reference block-amounts specifically will see rebalancing. Make sure to join The ST Discord and check the ST-Audit-Log for updates. Looking forward to seeing these in action, Squak

That's something the team has overall showed an interest in, we haven't delved too much into the topic yet but (personally) this might be what im endorsing.

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lora&display=swap'); @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=PT+Serif&display=swap'); #custom h1 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 32px; } #custom li { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 2; font-size: 16px; } #custom h2 { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 24px; color: #3586b5; } #custom h3 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.5em; font-size:18px; color: #448db8; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: dashed; } table.center { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } #custom p { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } strong {font-weight:bold;font:inherit;} #custom td { font-family: 'Verdana', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } Hi everyone, I mentioned recently in a forum post that we're going to be releasing our first Your View in the coming days. With this post, I both want to establish what exactly Your View is, and how it's going to be done. Map Development has discussed Freebuild somewhat extensively already, and brought up points and counterpoints which we want to list below. With this post, we want to have responses that are unique to each player's perspective. Tell us your story, tell us your justifications and tell us your why. Tell us what makes sense to you. In the next few days after the bulk of responses have rolled in, we'll work together on coming up with a decision we're all happy with. Looking forward to some awesome blog posts, all in good spirits. Let's brainstorm on this. What is the topic of discussion? What is "Freebuild"? While some may find this redundant, there are players new to the server from Almaris, and perhaps even from Arcas, who are unfamiliar with the idea. Freebuild, put shortly, is the concept that there is open space (limited or unlimited) in the world where players can simply place and break blocks to their heart's content. This is how earlier maps functioned; the last map with an unlimited Freebuild being Atlas, 6.0. With this, the (hand-wavy) rule was that one could really build or do anything so long as it was a minimum distance from another build, akin to fifty blocks. You can visit Atlas on the Museum server (/Museum) to get an idea of how this looks! Arcas also had freebuild, but in a limited sense. With this, all freebuild was relegated to the far west portion of the map, separated by a river. This area was known as the Wildlands. You can also freely investigate how this looks, on the Museum server. What are the points and counterpoints Mapdev have discussed? While build standard is something to take into account, obviously roleplay always takes precedence first. What we discussed was that it seemed to be an issue of not only retention, but of interaction. With Arcas, we can reflect on limited freebuild and its issues. One of the main ones we found was run times. The Wildlands were far from spawn, and a large portion of the road to them did not have a speed boost attached to it. Unless a player had stowed away on a soul pillar or bought their own, there were long run times between Cloud Temple and The Wildlands. From observation and self-attestation, this would lead to burnout and players simply leaving due to sort of playing a watered down, worse version of SMP. Note that this was with Resource Pits, which for the most part eliminated resource scarcity. This led to many half-finished, incomplete, or broken builds which the World Team at the time had gone and redone many of to keep a beauty standard on the server; even if those structures would never get used again. A majority of a player's time in The Wildlands would be spent away from roleplay, and thus, is something we dislike—although this could certainly be attributed simply to the map layout of Arcas, or a fault of what a "limited freebuild" does in general. With Atlas, we can reflect on a multitude of issues with beautification, but once more, that's not our priority. There was a lack of cohesion, and an abundance of abandoned builds which would clutter land and often sit dormant for much time. With exceptions and gems like Holm or Belvitz, there certainly is merit to a naturally spawning community. We still, despite the downsides we’ve spoken of, recognize the unbeatable upside of player freedom. Freedom to build—which is something that we seem somewhat interested in as a concept, some adamant that it should certainly be included in some manner. There were suggestions, such as the old "Tents" plugin of yore or even a revamped version of the Charter plugin to permit autonomous, "limited" freebuild in a sense—however both were met with their criticisms. While interested in the prospect of introducing freedom to build in other ways, we still want to explore if Freebuild is an option that we can, or should, consider. In short; Limited Freebuild Thoughts: -Permits potentially excessive run times -Painful in tandem with resource gathering -Overall harm to player retention and activity, “Noob death trap” -Closed off, often little roleplay outside of the individual -Significant work/hassle for staff on build quality and land usage Unlimited Freebuild Thoughts: -Overall harm to player retention and activity, albeit less than Limited freebuild -Closed off, often little roleplay outside of the individual -Significant work/hassle for staff on build quality and land usage Goal: Freedom to build, which does not necessarily mean freebuild, but may include so. How should I post? What should I post? Post your full thoughts in any manner that's easy to you. Video format, google doc, or just on this forum post here- something that we can easily digest and discuss as a group. As well, feel free to discuss any alternatives or suggestions that come to mind—this is freebuild and freedom-to-build oriented, but if you have an idea such as a plugin suggestion, or a ruleset of some kind which may help, please suggest so. Any suggestion, thought or critique is a good one. We're simply looking for constructive ideas to consider for 9.0. Looking forward to your guys' responses, let's get to work. Thanks, Squak & The Map Development Team

Self-Teach/OOC Oversight Clarifications Changes: [16.4/OOC Oversight Edit] -One may learn magic, for select magics (see: Self Teaching), which fall under the umbrella of "OOC Oversight". With this, a student and teacher must still roleplay connection to the magic, and the student is required to self-roleplay lessons to see progression in the magic. OOC Oversight requires permission from the teacher to perform, and aswell, must be marked on the student's Magic Application. aswell as [19.1/Self Teaching addition] -For magics in which one can hold an accepted Teaching Application, but is not required to have a Magic Application (see: Self Teaching), the player who holds the Teaching Application may put themselves on their own app as a student by contacting the ST. Then, they may progress through their magic at an accelerated pace, each tier taking half as long as typical (rounding down if instances apply; such as from 7 days Tier 1 -> Tier 2, rather than "3.5", the player would instead simply do 3 days.). Self-roleplayed lessons are unrequired to progress. Rationale: 16.4 Has already been in place, functioning as a lore rule, without being included in Lore Rules. It did not make sense for a semi-hard-to-find post to have rules applying over lore, so it's been included in the rules section and will be updated in tandem with Self Teaching. 19.1 is an addition which was added by the Self Teaching team to remove some frustration from niche scenarios and better allow flexibility in MA/TA holding for select magics.

@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=Lora&display=swap'); @import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css2?family=PT+Serif&display=swap'); #custom h1 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 32px; } #custom li { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 2; font-size: 16px; } #custom h2 { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size: 24px; color: #3586b5; } #custom h3 { font-family: 'PT Serif', serif; line-height: 1; margin-bottom: 0.5em; font-size:18px; color: #448db8; text-decoration-line: underline; text-decoration-style: dashed; } table.center { margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto; } #custom p { font-family: 'Lora', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } strong {font-weight:bold;font:inherit;} #custom td { font-family: 'Verdana', serif; line-height: 1.6; margin-bottom: 1em; font-size:16px; } Hi everyone, I mentioned recently in a forum post that Map Development was in its earliest stages. Following that, we're confirming here that indeed the next map is underway. Welcome to Map Development, which is taking a new approach to map creation which will be significantly more involved, drawing on lessons learned from years past, and innovative, new ideas from our experiences with this map as well. Map Development is going to be broken into 3 main stages. The first is the “Discussion” phase. During this phase we're laying the groundwork for next map, and verbally discussing what we want to do and how we want to do it. Considering our previous successes and previous mistakes, how can we improve? What can we do to make the best quality of life changes? How can we, as players, better serve one another to make a memorable and mutually enjoyable experience? During this discussion phase, we will occasionally be reaching out on the forums with some hotly contested issues or things that are better addressed with a more broad opinion. The first of them should come within a couple days of this post. What is phase two and three? Past the discussion phase, phase 2 will be our proper "Working" phase. During this the majority of development will occur with worldpainting, lore writing, and plugin development. During this phase, we harken back to the days of fondly remembered ShiftNative and how he would host map development streams. That's something we're quite fond of and something we'd like to see more. Players will be more openly involved with map development rather than a seclusive 'cult like' nature to it. Phase three will be our “Polish and Implementation” phase. During this, we'll be doing our teasers, trailers, graphics, transition events, advertisements, and so-on. This phase will be where we really get to show off our work and get players, new and old, applied and not, excited about logging onto the server and seeing what's changed. What can we expect? What is the mission for next map? I want to note we won’t be seeing the new map until, at earliest, 2023. We have years of history at our backs. Lord of the Craft is defined by the extremely unique experience of player history defining the server's culture and modern day. Every decision is crafted by a player, and every memorable moment, crafted by a player. We really want to emphasize that for this map. Focusing on player interactions impacting the world and fostering memorable moments, as well as a further improving culture around conflict and roleplay; we want to create an experience that harkens back to maps of old. Our roots and our traditions make Lord of the Craft what it is. Innovation and new ideas are great, but without player freedom to Roleplay and shape the narrative, they are doomed to fail. We want to introduce a map that is Roleplay centric, and caters to having less roadblocks in players’ experience. Less frustrations and less waiting, with more movement, more roleplay, and more time spent doing things you enjoy. Long run times, a convoluted tile system, a difficult-to-achieve resource system, monotonous crafting and an impossible building system; we want to create an experience where players are without hindrance. We want to create a system in which players aren't discouraged from taking big steps, and where players are capable of doing whatever they may put their mind to. We want to create an experience which puts one thing before all else. Roleplay. Things you can expect next map are a smaller map, more diverse and topographical biomes which flow more naturally together, map lore which is utilized within a year of launch (which we have not seen for many maps,) systems which cater to players and player convenience without staff roadblocks or restriction, and more. Techs have been working fantastically on plugin development in the last couple months, and we want to keep that going strong. Staff right now is in an extremely strong and capable spot; working all together, we can make the next map one which we can confidently state that we are proud of. Before, during, and after its launch. How can I get involved? I want to begin with the fact that map development is not a staff-restricted thing. Map Development will be welcome involvement on two main fronts. Forums, and our Discord. Everyone will be able to access the forums, and contribute to discussion and thought with our posts. These posts, Your View's, will focus on players submitting thoughts, criticism, comments and ideas on systems or topics which we want to gather information on. This can range from anything as small as "How was Arcas' ringroad?" to as large as "Should we even have a tile system?". We want to gather thoughts from all players, be they jaded boomer or bright eyed noob. Everyone's opinion is equal and valued. We also have the Map Development discord. In this, we have individuals focused on certain parts of map development- people working on lore, people working on builds, on assets, on worldpainting, and on systems development. Importantly, upon this project, everyone is equal. Even Administration. Everyone on this project has equal say in what they think should happen, how things should be. There is no place for nepotism, no chance for a "cabal", no chance for the wants of a few people to overrule the wants of the many. That is one of our founding doctrines for the development of next map. If you're interested, reach out to any member of Administration or Map Development and state your interest. Map Development's new members are added in by recommendation, and approval from other members of the team. If you haven't been reached out to, worry not. Currently there are about ~15 people on the project. Ideally, we'll double that number by phase 2. There are many members we have in mind as prospects, fantastic additions to map development who can provide invaluable feedback and hard work onto the team who will soon be added, or added when their particular skill set is called for later in the process. We’ll aswell be implementing a Map Development chat in the Main LOTC Discord for a bit more casual communication. In any case, if you are interested in lending your help and support to the server as a whole, I highly recommend joining staff under whatever branch you see yourself most fit to. In the end, we all want to see a map which is fun. We want to have a map that is memorable. A map that is without trouble from the first day of its launch. While hiccups are expected, to have a map which people dread from the start is a mistake, one which we all want to avoid. Thus, our new direction. A direction which favors roleplay, which works for the players, which is without frustrating roadblocks and restrictions. We want to create something incredible for this server we all enjoy. More posts to come, cool shit on the way. Looking forward to it guys. Take it easy. Thanks, Squak & The Map Development Team

Ign: squakhawk Disc: squak#8441 32, venclair (i simp for the venclair skin)

Sand looks forward to taking many of the artefacts as gifts from his old friend and his journeys ...

Welcome! Looking forward to seeing you around 😊

"Shelf it shelf it shelf it shelf it" (Spoon, 2022) References/Citations Spoon, K. (May 2022) "Spastic Rant" Teamspeak, 4th Ed. Retrieved from G2P.

absolutely reccommend this. However, make sure you're a part of a military, and not just a piece of it. I started the server in the Renatian Legion back in ~Nov 2018. It's a fantastic way to sort of have a "Starting position" in the world. You get access to some buildings, gate doors, some basic gear and if you're lucky lodgings in a barracks. It's a great way to start getting to know people. Do gate roleplay. Sit in the gate and do basic checks on allowing people in and out of the city. Get to know other characters and saying things as simple as "Ah, welcome to _city_ , what's your name? place of residence? any weaponry on you? reason for visiting?" Your "Papers Please" roleplay will see your anxiety generally begin to dispel on roleplaying. The reason I say it's bad to be a piece of a military is that nations in the past would assign you to grinding or other menial activities which detracted from time spent roleplaying. Some people liked it, I kinda did. But just say "Oh well, instead, how about you put me on patrol with someone?" in RP, that way you can do stuff like that. It can be hard to approach people and there can be even more anxiety when you're afraid of them ignoring you. But as you rp more and more, that anxiety will generally begin to fade and dissipate. I did RP in the Renatian Legion up until ~July 2020. I highly recommend military rp in an active city. Great way to make friends ICly and OOCly. Best of luck and happy roleplaying.