squakhawk

just providing clarification Shamanism was a powerful magic in it's most recent write when it was accepted. It was given to both Orcs and Darkelves as to have 2 grandfathers for each subtype would be more than the orcish playerbase at the time. Aswell, it was a majority-"dark elf player" made-rewrite, and thus, roughly half or less of the grandfathers went to darkelves. I won't argue semantics, but by example, earth elementalism with four guys could create 402,000 blocks of dirt/cobblestone out of completely thin air. Sure it was noncombat, but there is nothing today with the potential to perform like this. Might nitpick a bit, but Storm and Metal elementalism were frequently brought to the st as powergaming by both players and moderation- but it wasn't. It was just written that way. And we were alright with that. Strength was a problem with it, sure, but it's not like it's an st-sin to have strong magics or CAs. We'll move onto the reason why it was shelved. Shamanism went through a ~6-8 month activity trial period, as with every magic. As with every magic, the trial expected there to be an equal number of TAs from non-grandfathers as there were to grandfathers. Example, you make "magic", and you, and one other, are grandfathered. Between you two you have ten slots to teach. That is expecting, in 6-8 months time, to have two students who make a TA. It is the bare minimum requirement. No shamanism sect met that except Witch Doctory. Of all shamanism sects (Elementalism of Air, Fire, Water, Earth, Metal, Storm, Farseer, Witch Doctory, and Lutaumancy), only three of these sects (Witch Doctory, Farseer, and Earth Elementalism) ever had a student progress past Tier 3. Tier 3 took just under a month to reach. Of thirty-five people connected to Shamanism in the activity monitor period, only three MAs ever made it past tier 3, after 6-8 months. Now it might be teachers fault, indeed; but the teachers aswell had grandfathers reallocated 10(+, I stopped logging after the tenth as Management's mind was practically made) times, which indicated that in ten individual instances, people holding shamanism could not hold a TA. On average, a new person was being grandfathered into Shamanism every 18 days, and the activity of the magic did not change whatsoever. Now moving on, maybe it's the activity system's fault. Maybe we shouldn't measure activity of a magic. Maybe even if it's only four or five people who don't teach others, we should still have it on the server. It's there that the ST fundamentally disagrees. A magic held by four or five people who are unmoved in any effort to share it or use it outside of personal advantage/gain (as we singlehandedly saw) does not add to the server. There is no mysticism to it, there is no specialness to one guy having the power to move mountains (literally) and only he has the ability to do it. You can too, maybe. I'll admit it was a bad time for shamanism. The orcish playerbase was a nightmare and as always the darkelves were in a state of limbo. There were a few players permanently banned and/or TOSd who happened to carry Shamanism apps/TAs. However, it is unmistakeable, that the ST had tried every exhaustive method to get any life out of this magic. The entire thing should have been shelved except Witch Doctory, as only it was able to get two TAs after 6-8 months. But we didn't do that. We knew it'd be unfair, and it'd be a spit in the face to all the effort those who really tried to put in that work to go to nothing. So we kept the three supportive types of Farseer, Witch Doctor, and Lutaumancy, made even more grandfathers/fast-track learning, and amended every issue in the lore which might've potentially hindered the activity, working with the shaman community that remained to fix the problems. Just wanted to clarify that the shelving prior and all the backend-effort that went with it was with merit, and reason as to why it was shelved. While I won't say no, I do discourage a (elementalism) rewrite as I cannot see a rewrite progressing or working on a fundamental ground. Harsupexy is incredibly well made, and while Farseer and WD do hold some issues, are both well written magics aswell that can be amended/added to in fixes. Lutau's pretty good too, and it's aesthetic is what's kept it alive.

Lairs Rework Changes: -Lairs may now be 75x75 -Lairs may now be placed anywhere, with a 300 block min. distance from another lair, settlement, or nation. This may be optional if granted PRO/RO permission. -Lairs may no longer upgrade from Lair to Settlement. -Lairs have been re-oriented to magic/creature groups and lore-oriented orders and guilds. -Lairs now have an effective "Charter" which is signed to add a proof-of-concept to the roleplay that the area shall be used. -Lairs now have special rules regarding warclaiming them. -Clarified Lairs themselves may not participate within war unless being warclaimed or within a nation's tile which is being warclaimed. -Edited the questions of Lairs to better suit their new nature. Rationale: Adding increased size aswell as removing the heavily-arbitrary limit on where Lairs may be placed. Aswell removed settlement upgrade due to a history of so being overall negative for the group involved within the lair. Changed lair rules in accordance with the new Bandit/Mercenary Camp settlement-types that have taken it's niche, and re-oriented Lairs to a more roleplay heavy settlement type. Added a "Charter" signing which is honor-based and not measured or limiting, simply serving as a method of who to expect and people to contact. In the previous system many lairs would apply with often the same listed players, who when contacted, did not know they were put on a lair app. A more concrete "Signature" now will affirm lair activity, while not limiting people to "X amount of signatures on lairs" or "You may only apply for one lair", etc.

This lore has been denied.

Story Builder would be most likely to be involved but its a process which involves a lot of work and trust, even coming onto the project. Just letting you know to be ready to put in that merit. Feel free to apply whenever you'd like if you're interested however.

Anthos is acting as one of my main inspirations for map design theme, it served as a much more natural looking and feeling map. Elevations that didn’t change from Y:50 to Y:300 within a hundred blocks, biomes to match what made sense, and without an ungodly unused stain akin to Arcas’ snow island or Almaris’ volcano-lands. Usable land is one thing, but fantasy, thematically correct and natural land will exceed it in every way. There’s a lot of lessons to be learned from just the last three maps alone- Almaris, Arcas, Atlas. I want this one done right.

@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, You’ve probably seen the writing on the wall. Over the past months, we’ve delegated World Team duties & members to our other teams. And so, as of now, the team is officially disbanded. So which teams do what now? Who do I go to for former World services? Who will build our map!? More on that below. Map Art? Community Team Setting up Banks, Auctions, Ferries, Pillars etc. Moderation, though soon automated Setting up Regions, Evictions, PROs Moderation Team Treasuries? Landscars? Moderation Team What about Settlements/Mercenary Camps Moderation Team Node placement, and activity? Tech Team Event builds? Story Team Lairs? Story Team Build Pastes? Community Team, though see below. What are plans for the future? Automation. Lots of automation. With the help of our gorgeous Tech Team, we will simplify acquisition of Bankers, Auctioneers, Ferries, and Soulstone Pillars. Same goes for pastes. Very soon we will replace build-pasting with Paid-LC. For the odd case-by-case pastes, the Administration will handle those—for example Lairs, Settlements, and Nation Builds/Rebuilds. This won’t cover small-to-medium things like keeps, boats, vassals, and so on. Why remove the World Team? We’ve got a tradition here where we rotate in a new map every few years. So the idea was—we might as well have a team responsible. But it turns out, not everything can be solved with a team. Mapmaking is a chaotic and dynamic process—it just can’t be bound by the static nature of a team structure. No matter what we try each year, WT suffers intense burnout, rank turnover, confusion, and disenfranchisement. In this case, the ‘team’ idea is directly at odds with our decade-old culture of mapmaking on LotC. Over the years, there’s always been a leader to herald new maps. Sometimes a team lead, often an administrator, but never the same person—and always a ragtag group bound through mutual passion. Even after the WT existed it still came down to this formula. As for the group itself, World Team is a bureaucratic black hole: top-heavy, full of paperwork, and little impact. The minute it was born, other teams could dump vaguely map-related minutiae into it. What we have now is neither a team, nor bound by ‘World’. Highly motivated & talented people got lost in the web of busywork and had to pour the lion’s share of their time into tickets, docs & spreadsheets. The existence of a team with an unclear objective (and a name no less grandiose than World) meant each year we invented a lot of duties to try and justify it. This is a major conflict with our Mission Statement. So for this reason, the team is disbanded and its members now hold distinguished places among the remaining big four. As we’ve piloted this the last few weeks, we’ve seen a huge boon in productivity, motivation, and communication. No more middle-men, odd quotas, or google forms. How are we going to develop the next map? “Next Maps” have been an awesome way to try new systems and new ways to roleplay. They still are. But, there’s this misconception that the World Team led the new-map-process—and that this was somehow exclusive. The truth is, the Next Map has always been ushered in by a group of individuals bonded by common interest and sturdy but unforced leadership. Maybe it is possible to coax a monolithic team structure to cough up a map. But we just don’t see that we’re going to get a new map this way. It wouldn’t be a timely nor quality map—do we want our next map to be a product of obligation or passion? This is LotC’s culture behind the Next Map. It is a collaborative shared dream that dances not only between teams but beyond the staff too. New maps touch everything we do, demand the most talented and enthusiastic people, and are the heart of the LotC experience. So what’s happening for the next map? It’s going to be delivered by multiple teams and many talented individuals who have shown an interest. Planning and early development will begin in the coming few weeks. Overall, This was due for some time. The transition has been a bit slow and frustrating—but this wasn’t a case where we could just ‘rip off the bandaid’. The WT needed to be partitioned respectfully and thoughtfully, as it had many bright individuals who needed direction, and also duties that will continue to get attention. In the end, we’ve seen reason to be happy with this change. Things are done expediently and in good spirits. Event builds, as example, are completed faster than ever. Story members and builders collaborate more closely and efficiently than before. Sure, we had some troubles with paste errors (such as pasting over chests), but the Tech Team worked rapidly to fix this and now prevent pasting over locked/un-evicted chests. Less staff roadblocks, less red-tape, more cool shit to come. Cheers everybody! Thanks, Squak & the Admins

Amendments/Additions implemented into main lore post. Thank you for your submission. Moving to correct subforum to prevent redundancy and clutter.

This Lore has been accepted. Moved to Implemented Lore, it will be sorted to it's appropriate category soon. Please note that if this is playable lore, such as a magic or CA, you will need to write a guide for this piece. You will be contacted regarding the guide (or implementation if it isn’t needed) shortly.

Lore has been shelved and moved to the appropriate subforum. Changes applied.

This Lore has been accepted. Moved to Implemented Lore, it will be sorted to it's appropriate category soon. Please note that if this is playable lore, such as a magic or CA, you will need to write a guide for this piece. You will be contacted regarding the guide (or implementation if it isn’t needed) shortly.

This lore has been denied. Although well intended and written there are parts of this lore which thematically/fundamentally don't make much sense; such as the powersource being a sort of vague, undefined thing. The spells are a twist on illusion while the team has appreciated are somewhat thematic, don't seem to add much to the server or any notable community at the time; it's sort of barebones and leaves question as to what it might add to the server, is simply all. In any case thank you for your submission, take it easy.

This lore has been denied. Changes sent in feedback, awaiting application and resubmission.

This lore has been denied. Direwolves already have a usable piece within the Beastiary, please use so.

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

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

This lore has been denied. ooooouuuu hhhhh elden ring......

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

This Lore has been accepted. Moved to Implemented Lore, it will be sorted to it's appropriate category soon. Please note that if this is playable lore, such as a magic or CA, you will need to write a guide for this piece. You will be contacted regarding the guide (or implementation if it isn’t needed) shortly.

Always wanted to grill with him. Pour one (a Danimals) out on the keyboard for him.

Changes Applied

This Lore has been accepted. Moved to Implemented Lore, it will be sorted to it's appropriate category soon. Please note that if this is playable lore, such as a magic or CA, you will need to write a guide for this piece. You will be contacted regarding the guide (or implementation if it isn’t needed) shortly.

Changes applied.

This Lore has been accepted. Moved to Implemented Lore, it will be sorted to it's appropriate category soon. Please note that if this is playable lore, such as a magic or CA, you will need to write a guide for this piece. You will be contacted regarding the guide (or implementation if it isn’t needed) shortly.

Changes Applied