Voicechat Notes - 13 November

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Zombilicious
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Voicechat Notes - 13 November

Post by Zombilicious »

The Big News:
Uhm, so. The uhm. The whole Caer Ioan thing had an interesting reception, and the feeling that Rias got was -- first of all, he knows we're excited about the faction stuff, it isn't going away, but it seemed like the general consensus was that, "Oh, okay. So people are excited to go to the other faction, but everyone's like OK, Alorin is insane but I still want to go to Caer Ioan." and this was both largely player views and also character views.

So, he wondered if maybe it was too niche in that regard based on Alorin's talking points and things that were discussed by her. There were also some concerns about conflict, which people seem interested in the concept of the conflict and people were excited and stuff, and there were concerns about why are these two factions aggressive toward each other. The more he thought about it, it does feel like he's trying to come up with reasons to justify the conflict, and it didn't seem like it was flowing well. The underlying reasons weren't solid and weren't resonating with people; people seemed to want to see how stuff would play out but weren't interested in participating with the whole Nethery stuff, there was no drive to be part of it.

Because of that, Caer Ioan won't be the other primary faction; it will still exist and be there and have its purposes and feel, it'll be an outpost instead and you'll have to work your way in with them because they're insular and stuff. They'll still get involved with things and you can still befriend them and stuff, and it will house a society (we'll also have Morhollow, which will house the Wyrvardn).

Instead, we're going to have Mistral Lake as the other faction, and the Dominion; this will work better because it's going to be a lot more natural, the Dominion is an established place, and Mistral Lake is already built out and exists. It has an established place in the lore, and the conflict will be a lot more believable. You have the Dominion who are there taking over land and conquer and force their ways on others, compared to Shadgard who are firmly against these views and resist them expanding, and don't want to be assimilated, they want to be free and independent.

Obviously Shadgard on its own, they can't defend against the Dominion, Shadgard is small compared to the Dominion who have a standing army and multiple settlements, but the Dominion is all the way in the north and somewhat overextended. They can't just send their army to conquer Shadgard because they're trying to maintain their holdings up north, so it will really be the players vs. the players instead of having the Dominion sending their armies down.

The Dominion is a large faction relative to the Lost Lands, but it is still a Lost Lands faction; they don't have countless armies or power, but they aren't a huge empire or army. They are not Rome. They want to be Rome, but they are not yet Rome. Don't overestimate their size! The Dominion is mostly north of the playable area, and where the forces are concentrated, outside of player-accessible areas. Both factions will have NPC support during conflict as well.

Part of this also includes that Shadgard cannot stand against the Dominion. When the Dominion wants to go to the south, Shadgard cannot stand against them by themselves; it would be a Hail Mary kind of thing. While the Dominion thinks they aren't particularly interested in the south, they may at some point change their mind. As Shadgard sees them showing more interest, this may push Shadgard into reconsidering their involvement with the Republic of Exiles; Rias really wants to get the Republic more involved and have more of a presence, because the Dominion really has far more presence and acknowledgment.

It will still be more personal Shadgardians vs. Mistfolk, there will also be opportunities for much larger conflicts between the Republic and the Dominion. He doesn't want it to ever overshadow Shadgard and Mistral Lake as their own thing, but he would like to be able to bring in the larger factions to do things sometimes.

Other things that influenced this decision: Clok still existed, and he didn't want Cogg to be a carbon copy of Clok; the absence of Clok makes him less hesitant to bring stuff from Clok into Cogg. He doesn't want to lose those things, and he does get permission from the builders of areas in Clok to add them to Cogg. Now that it's shut down, he wants to bring more things into Cogg because he misses a lot of those things, and wants to allow others to experience them as well.

TL;DR, Caer Ioan will be an outpost that people can visit and will still have a place in the world and people can still get "in" with them and be friends with them, and it's a base for a society. The new prime faction area is Mistral Lake, backed by the Dominion.
Q: Are there any folkloric/mythological accounts of impressive feats of the occult in Aradian cultures that are particularly well known, that you could share with us? ie - "A druid once willed an entire forest to life", or "This sorcerer had a million-ghost army, it was wild."
A: There is definitely a sorcerer in the central Aetgard region that did a bit of independent "kingdom building"/"conquering"/"liberating" (views depend) that people will learn about more, but people have definitely heard rumors about this sort of thing. Other than that, he does not currently have specific examples, but he thinks it would be fun to share in lore study stuff.

Q: "They say there's a hidden village in Nuum that appears once only 13 years!"
A: The original city that Nuum founded, the quote "City of the Gods", and their powers are gone and nobody knows where it is. People like to go out and search for it and die because they're searching for something they can't find.

Q: What does "voidglass" look like? (which also probably answers: what does "voidglass black" look like?)
A: It's obsidian-ish. Spookier, darker, eats sunlight but is glassy. Sort of like Vanta black (except that guy is a jerk, don't applaud him). Voidglass was an accidental holdover from working on a different world, but it works here, so it's staying.

Q: What are the plans for differentiating Treasure Hunters and Rogues in the future? Right now they're incredibly similar, with Rogues only getting 1 extra ability (Tactical Dodge) and then skill caps being varied but fairly similar.
A: The rogues are going to be more about being sneaky, stealthy, stealing people with a soupcon of skullduggery (the 4S Club); they won't be assassins, those are Nightblades, but they will have sneakier ways of getting involved in combat involving artifice and stealth. Treasure Hunters will be more about locks, traps, and repurposing trap parts for various things because Rias really loves that idea; they will also be better at exploration stuff, but he's working on figuring out how to do that. He also wants to give them a means of arcana that they've discovered through their study of their arcane traps and things.

Q: Affinities, attributes, and skill ranks all seem to affect the duration of occult abilities rather than increase their potency (with one exception I know of, group vitality, sorry if there are more). Are we likely to see more abilities acquire additional effects and augment at certain skill/affinity levels, or will this be handled differently (via say, guild ranks)?
A: Rias loves the idea of adding buffs and potency and stuff to skills and abilities. The easiest thing was to say "OK, these things all affect the duration.", that was easy to code in, but he definitely would love to have it involve extra things people can get -- either due to class specialization, or skill thresholds, or affinities.

Q: I have assumed that it is intentional that hands cannot be raised to the highest warmth level because gloves, mittens, gauntlets, and the like all occupy the same slots. I've tended to think of it as an indicator tool when one's hands get cold before everything else it is time to go inside. If everything had the same warmth level, one would take more cold/energy damage at once for the same warning, but it would also happen later. That rambling preamble finished, is it actually intentional that hands cannot get to the highest tier of warmth presently? Is there any interest in an inner-glove layer and an outer-mitten/gauntlet layer?
A: First of all, he's going to go with that as being the reason. The actual reason, he has a difficult time envisioning them being worn together. Some kind of layering for gloves would be good; he likes the idea of being able to line them with something to increase their warmth. He doesn't have a crusade against hands getting to the max warmth level.

Q: What would one learn from reading 'Sources of Arcane Power'?
A: It would be similar to Monsters Beyond the Diagrams. It's theories about and documentation on experience with where power is coming from. There'd be theories about the monsters beyond the diagrams, stuff about leylines, about drawing power from immortals, from being granted boons from immortals, drawing from natural sources like the leylines, etc.

Q: Are there "places of power" for arcana like nether wells for sorcery?
A: It sounds like the answer is yes, those things do exist in the world! Some are attuned to things differently, too, not everything will be weird in all places.

Q: Are any places like that currently coded in?
A: Sadly not. It's under the Arcana Is Woefully Underdeveloped Umbrella. He was working on it at one point but then got distracted, as Rias does.

Q: I noticed on Aphraen's wiki that "she" is used when referring to Faewyr views of Aphraen; Aphraen is referred to as male in all other descriptions. Do the Faewyr view him differently?
A: It is deliberate, it's not a typo. Most people believe Immortals have a fairly fluid gender; they may be generally one gender (Iarel, Vodr), but cultures may interpret them differently based on things they do/ways they act. So the Faewyr view Aphraen as female, whereas the Viali view Aphraen as male. The others don't really care; they go either way. Aphraen is currently the only Immortal who is described in this manner, aside from genderless entities like Aranas.

Q: How will affinities be handled? Will they be trained separately, or trained up as you use certain abilities?
A: Affinities will be happening on their own. You won't specifically increase them; it will be increased based on what abilities you use and skills you use, and Staff will be able to go in and adjust them to reflect your character when it comes to non-action-bound affinities. There will probably be a cooldown to a degree, also, so you can't just spam-raise affinities.

Q: When I've envisioned affinities in games, it's like the triangle in video games where it sways. Will it be like that, or a flat percentage?
A: They'll all be percentages. As one goes up, the others will go down, so you can't have all the affinities. He's still deciding if he wants it to be an All Affinities Affect One Another or categorized. Affinities are supposed to be small, supplemental things, not core things that require being 100% in something.

Q: More literary hype! There's a library book called 'Welcomer's Treaty: On Tensions Between Viali and Fasa' which throws up all sorts of questions for me. I imagine it refers to historical border disputes with Viali landowners mentioned in the wiki. Was Ivial considered Fasa territory prior to the arrival of the Viali refugees? Do the Fasa have reserves or sites of sacred/cultural significance within Ivial? May they roam freely as a condition of the Treaty, or what were the terms?
A: When they started out, the Fasa were like "OK, this is the land.", not necessarily their land, just the land. No one owns the land. When the Viali showed up, they had a different view on the land; the Fasa were nice (thankfully) and the Viali weren't conquerors hoarding gold, spreading disease, etc (thankfully), so they had a good relationship and the Fasa were willing to help them settle and let them exist there. They weren't necessarily "Oh hey, this is your land forever." because to them, the land is just the land. They weren't used to people coming in, setting up, and building walls; they're nomadic, so they move around as they need to generally. There have been tensions because of how the Viali think compared to how the Fasa think, landowners versus laissez-faire Love The Gaea; the Viali wanted more land and the Fasa eventually were like "Hey, dude, stop." and they had minor wars over it. Thankfully, they worked things out. The Fasa are allowed into Viali land, unrestricted, and there probably are sites in Ivial, and there are enclaves of Fasa who live in Ivial, probably around important sites. The King generally says "Don't be jerks to the Fasa.", but individual Dukes and Counts might view it differently.

Q: Are there any historical records, for example in the library, that can give us a clue as to the identities of the armies in the Night Meadows? e.g. Based on their Red and Gold insignia and horsehair helmets?
A: Not yet, but there will be lore studies dropped about that stuff in the future.

Q: Why can't we drink from pools and water sources out in the wilderness and in explorable areas?
A: Oversight! Report when found, yes.

Q: As of 2019 cooking was being worked on. What's up with that?
A: He wants to overhaul it, but it takes more work, and also he's easily distracted.

Q: Can you boil water?
A: It's assumed in cooking recipes. You can't just boil water.

Q: Canim when?
A: When they happen.

Q: Are there any plans to implement making alloys in bigger batches?
A: That's considered a bug; he's not specifically trying to prevent people from making multiple ingots.

Q: Will wyrmscale armor made with red/brown/green/sand scales be repairable by NPCs? A PC leatherworker I spoke with required scales of the same color but they're not easily obtainable.
A: That was one of the things that occurred to Rias, that it would be problematic for other colored scales. There was some other stuff but Zombi missed it, she apologizes.

Q: Small weapons, like a fist, dagger, etc, don't work while on horseback though, their current reactive abilities do. Bug? Feature?
A: It's an oversight, so probably a bug.

Q: Was Shadgard around during the Aetgard Kingdom days, or was it founded post-plague?
A: It was a curiosity during Aetgard, a small settlement that popped up around an inn for people who came to see a statue and the cliff dwellings and stuff. It wasn't a whole lot more than that, but people eventually gravitated towards it post-plague Aetgard for safety.

Q: So. Not to knock that I'm having fun, it makes me worried about "group intended" content like the new quarter. Need to crash soon, so it would be a definite concern of mine for QnA. Not being encouraged. Clok was awful for that. I'm worried that group content won't be encouraged, and that it will be a case of "get to this skill, or need a group." Or that stuff focused on being made for groups, isn't as attractive as the alternative solo content.
A: He doesn't feel that every new content area needs to be pushed as group content, obviously you'd want to group in a place with more mobs and stuff. We could have things drop more treasure and stuff? He'd be open to ideas to help improve group combat encouragement things.

Q: Obvious question for me is, would we be able to ally with rebel forces within that place, rather than ally with the Dominion directly?
A: He doesn't want to split the player base up more than half, so there won't be more than two factions for now. If it evolves that way, or the player base grows large enough, maybe. People set on leaving already, you can go to the Dominion. Caer Ioan will make a statement about how they felt that Alorin's campaign was responded to by others.

Q: Will the concierge of the rook Parlour be making a return in the Mistral chapter?
A: Yes! Yes, it will. The Warlocks will be able to hang out in the back area of that, Edwena will be there still to talk to people. Dunham will also be there to keep the riff-raff from going further into the parlor.

Q: Will Blackwater undergo changes during this time? Is that going to be one of those points of conflict?
A: Blackwater will make things interesting. Things could start happening there; we'll see, as things go on and progress. He has no specific plans for changes in there but it is a Dominion site that's way out of Dominion territory, so there are potential plot points.

Q: Will extremely anti-civilized societies or factions open up, like the Dunwyr or Hyra?
A: If you mean by open-up like be joinable, no. They'll be around, and be doing stuff, the Dunwyr in particular because they like to go out and cause trouble. Those will never be joinable, though, they really aren't the types to take in new members who aren't born into the fold.

Q: Bowtruckles when?
A: Bowtruckles he wants to come back, but he wants to name them something else because of HP bowtruckles and he doesn't want that kind of confusion. They'll be some kind of scarab instead.

Q: Will there be a pro-resen outpost?
A: You never know. One could pop up.

Q: What is Mistral Lake's view on the nether, resen, and other similarly dangerous things?
A: They like sorcerers. They love 'em. That's part of the controversy; the rumor is they're hunting down thaumaturges and squashing them. They use things like specters who openly float around and stuff, as watchers. They have the Pales, who everyone assumes are nether-enhanced/brainwashed/etc people. They also have occasional big, giant oakheart Gollums made out of wood which work like siege units and stuff; they're nether-animated. Resen, they don't like it. For canim, it's complicated. They're willing to utilize them if they can maintain control, but they're still treated very warily.

Q: Will the Harbingers be housed in Caer Ioan or will that be a separate society?
A: TBA. Harbingers will, at the very least, have a place to do their thing and hang out and get tasks and stuff in the Dominion; the Dominion is supportive of the Harbingers, they're happy to employ those types of folks in their work and certain Harbingers also make excellent agents to go out and put the fear of the Dominion into people (like the Harbingers of Aranas).

Q: Can you be just a Harbinger of all the Dark Lords, or do you need a specific patron?
A: No, you can definitely be a Harbinger who's down with the Dark Lords total instead of just specific ones. They're trying to get more acknowledgment and representation, which will empower those immortals and in turn empower their Harbingers.

Q: Will neither touched still come with Caer Ioan?
A: Yeah. It'll come out around the same time as Caer Ioan; Caer Ioan will be the place for people specifically seeking out becoming nether-touched, definitely. That won't be exclusive to Caer Ioan, however; you can become nether-touched in other places.

Q: If you're very anti-Dominion, but you want to move there to undermine them in their own territory, is that a reasonable justification for moving?
A: You would definitely have to be careful about it; if they find out, they won't just look past it. It'd be tricky, but yeah, ultimately. As part of the established lore, there is an established resistance for people who want to play that angle. It would be tricky, but if you're consistently sabotaging their efforts, they're likely to find out.

Q: Will there be a less lawful nether-approving society? Or one which is less order-bent?
A: If you mean a major primary faction, probably not. He doesn't want to build a major primary faction for every lifestyle; there's plenty of people in the Dominion who don't want to be there, but there's also a bunch who aren't super lawful who are there because it serves them or it's worth it in some manner to them.

Q: Will we see the other sentient mob things hinted about previously, or is that going away with Caer Ioan's faction status?
A: We'll still see potentially possible things that the question-asker is asking about.

Q: I'm not sure if it's an appropriate question for this specific chat, but I heard somewhere that warlocks were unlikely to get animation or necromancy as an ability in the future, is that true? I would be sad if this is the case, even if they aren't strong I'd still love to have them.
A: Warlocks will definitely be getting animates. They might have more limitations than they did in the Other Game, but they will definitely be getting animates, including the version that never got put into Clok, which is Gollums.

Q: Are there plans to have a recruiter akin to Alorin showing up at Blackwater logging camp so people can get the official sales pitch?
A: Maybe, there are plans for GMs to come around and make sales pitches, yes.

Q: Will we be RPing our ability to enter Mistral Lake, or will it be more freeform since it's more widely known?
A: It's still going to be RP-in to start out, but a quicker transition to normal. NPCs will be available to be ahold of, or will get ahold of people so people can trickle in. Early Access New Faction, though it won't go on for a really long time, it's not super-elite. It's just a controlled roll-out of it, rather than just everyone disappearing at once.

Q: Where do Faewyr raid? All coastal areas? Do they go inland on rivers? How big are the raids and the fights? Do they burn down large settlements? Etc.
A: It depends on the Faewyr; some clans are all about raiding and are super nasty and destroy and pillage and rawr. Others are less nasty and go in and say "Give us tribute and we won't kill you." and then leave in relative peace. Some clans are entirely ocean-based, with no real home; they're constantly on the sea. It's mostly on the ocean, and coastal settlements.
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Karjus
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Re: Voicechat Notes - 13 November

Post by Karjus »

Just wanted to say thank you for the notes to those who take them every week as well as MCing for those who do it!
- Karjus

Speaking to you, XYZ says, "Never bother to wash it. It gets dirty again anyway."
Speaking to XYZ, you say, "I hope you don't treat your ass the same way."
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Rias
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Re: Voicechat Notes - 13 November

Post by Rias »

For reference, here is my list of speaking points I wrote up regarding the change of the second primary faction from Caer Ioan to Mistral Lake/Dominion:

- [ ] Caer Ioan's specific schtick didn't seem to be especially well-received both in-character and out
- [ ] Even the people who were clearly planning to move factions seemed to think Alorin sounded pretty crazy and were moving -despite- her, not -because- of her
- [ ] People seemed more interested in going to CI because it wasn't Shadgard, rather than being interested in CI and their schtick specifically
- [ ] It was perhaps a little too niche with its "the world is changing, embrace the nether" stance
- [ ] There were concerns about -why- there would be particularly prominent conflict between Shadgard and Caer Ioan. People were more interested in the potential for conflict, but weren't especially on-board with Caer Ioan's specific reasons, or couldn't be convinced that there was a compelling and believable reason for the conflict between CI and Shadgard to be so constant and significant

- [ ] Thought this over a lot and talked with the staff team, and I decided that Caer Ioan was not the best option for the primary second faction.
- [ ] It will remain an outpost
- [ ] Will be minor, like New Emberlight
- [ ] Will house a Society base, like how Morhollow is going to house the Wyrvardn
- [ ] Will still have significant parts to play in the world, events, politics
- [ ] People can get reputation with this faction while remaining part of one of the two primary factions

- [ ] We will instead be going with Mistral Lake and the Dominion for the second faction.
- [ ] Mistral Lake is already built - utilizing existing assets is always great
- [ ] The Dominion is an established faction with a clear place in the world, politics, general player knowledge, etc.
- [ ] Faction conflict with Shadgard will be natural - Dominion wants more territory, Shadgard does not want to be Dominion territory. This simple baseline reason itself is enough for conflict, to say nothing of the additional differences in politics and ethics and all that
- [ ] Dominion is primarily focused in the north and is in fact having some trouble retaining their holdings there at the moment. The south is considered small potatoes to them currently. Dominon will not be able/willing to just send its forces to help PCs with in-game conflict, keeping the in-game conflict primarily between player characters (and fair)
- [ ] Also, the Dominion may not be as huge as some people are thinking it is. They don't have massive legions spanning the horizon. Their "big faction" status is relative to the Lost Lands, which is still largely ruins and scattered settlements of Plague survivors. This isn't the Roman Legion or Napoleon's army.
- [ ] The threat of the Dominion will help push Shadgard toward the Republic and lead to interesting events that way - Shadgard wants to retain its complete and total independence, but it just may not be practical to keep refusing alliance with the Republic if the Dominion starts looking south (which they will)
- [ ] Will lead in turn to potential greater conflicts beyond "one town vs one town" - the occasional bigger conflict stories/events between Dominion and Republic would be awesome

- [ ] When CLOK shut down it:
- [ ] Removed my urge to make things in COGG deliberately different for the sake of not being a carbon-copy
- [ ] Removed my hesitation to pull certain things over for similar reasons
- [ ] Made me want to preserve things from CLOK in COGG so they won't be lost forever and so players can still explore/experience them, Mistral Lake being a big one
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ocayucos
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Re: Voicechat Notes - 13 November

Post by ocayucos »

This is exciting news, I loved Mistral Lake in CLOK! It almost makes me want to side with the Dominion... however, I'm also really excited to see that the Republic will feature more seriously. I have never liked Shadgard that much, don't smite me, but would be make sense to be part of the Shadgard faction as a supporter of the Republic and not Shadgard specifically? I know I would still have to use Shadgard for my main town, I'm fine with that, I usually bum around in New Emberlight already so I'm used to having to go to another town for training and stuff.
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Re: Voicechat Notes - 13 November

Post by Rias »

Sticking with Shadgard due to being Team Republic sounds like a sound plan to me, yep.
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