Q: Does the Growth ability have an impact on the foraged output of a room?
A: It does cause things you can survey to grow back faster.
Q: The room description for the South Courtyard Path in Stormholdt Castle mentions a public inn visited by 'travelers and merchants' as well as residents. Will we get to see more of the settlement in Stormholdt at some point?
A: Yes, it's a place Rias wants to expand and add more flavour to. There will be additional things to see and visit, including the inn.
Q: Does the eastern gate of Stormholdt represent the Lost Lands' north-eastern border? Could you give us a broad hint as to what lies beyond?
A: It's definitely an area that will be opened up eventually. There's some potential for spooky stuff over there.
Q: Does the Vitality ability have an impact on items produce in a room? (IE: foraged goods, fish, hunted critters, goods produced by animals, crops)
A: (T: I wasn't around when/if this was asked and don't have a record of it, can anyone recall the answer?)
Q: The Vitality ability draws from surrounding Druids pretty heavily. Presumably, the Vitality ability is drawing from natural spirits or similar entities, but one, what distinguishes a horse from a normal human in this case, and two, what distinguishes a Druid and a normal human in this case?
A: It is generally assumed humans are separate from the primal link that connects the rest of the world, hence why they need to be trained into that link via Druidry.
Q: Any chance we could get different types of Brigandine/Ridgeleather gloves and boots, I.E. spiked/plated knuckles, metal-toes etc?
A: Perhaps, sounds like special merchant goods. Rias doesn't want to do spikes, specifically, since people would be expecting extra damage. But cosmetic differences are always fun!
Q: Curious for any info about how exactly intuition effects skills.
A: Rias is going to pass on that for now, mostly! It helps with catching bugs. And with splashing defence.
Q: Is it intended for PCs to be able to just put punctuation over the Pendant Network as a way to circumvent not speaking over the Pendant Network? ex: "esp $laughs ..." or "esp !"
A: No, he doesn't love that. There are plans to make it not possible in the near future; you need to say something. Feel free to use speech to convey the same feeling, expression etc. The pendants aren't just sensitive to sounds like microphones, it's about intent and communication.
Q: Any chance for damaging-but-non-lethal weaponry for sparring? (e.g. wooden swords, blunted spears, that sort of thing)
A: It's been long requested. Having sparring equipment that reduces the chances of further wounds is a good idea.
Q: Will we ever have a way to engage in "safe combat" for those of us who want to engage in a way to give someone a shakedown IC and rough someone up a bit without the threat of crushing in their ribcage and killing them, etc? Just a different sort of combat mode that doesn't result in lethal blows but still allows you to hurt the other person.
A: Yes, he's wondering if there might be a way to do this. As hilarious as he finds it, he can understand that a way to not kill people by accident would be desirable.
Q: Do enemies regenerate energy?
A: By default, yes, unless specified otherwise. For example, nethrim don't. At least, they shouldn't. A phantom doesn't have a biological generating energy for them; they're presumably getting energy from somewhere else. We can assume that nethrim reconstitute over time. For the purposes of the game, we're not going to depopulate the graveyard (but then you might also say "Hey, we can't stop the whole woods from going crazy, or stop trees being turned etcetera). It's okay to roleplay this weird situation, but the nethrim mobs are going to have to keep spawning so people can keep killing them.
Q: Prism: 'A not in character related question, but a question nonetheless. Rias, what kind of music do you jam to when you’re getting creative?'
A: Rias uses music to keep himself focused, depending on the task. Without anything in particular in mind, if he's just doing coding stuff he'll default to synthwave. Usually something that isn't particularly loud or something without lyrics.
Rias talked a little bit about what he's been working on lately. He's been trying to opportunely knock out things that will be appreciated. He does want to get mistral stuff done so that people can finally be a part of their preferred faction, but fixing little tiny things people ask for feels pretty good.
(Some discussion of a glyph that can give players extreme negative skill ranks in stealth/perc. Rias says he may have to revisit this as perhaps --175% stealth shouldn't be a thing).
Q: Is there an analogue for ectoplasm in COGG, or is it just Nether? I know you've mentioned spirits and spectres being different before, but is there a word or material for what non-nether related spirits is made of?
A: No, there isn't a name. But it is a thing; not all ghosts are necessarily nethrim. Players might share ghost stories about the spirit of their great great grandpa, or whatever. That's fine, you wouldn't have to assume that was nethrim-related. It might be possible for spirits to eventually be nethertouched through some means.
Q: A questions someone sent me "Gaelwood/ other new materials when?"
A: Gaelwood should probably happen at some point soon. It will probably be an event. There will be new scale types, but not wyrm scales.
More ambient messages in the wilderness was discussed, more birdsong (yay). Prism has ideas about bird hunting.
Q: Next lore dump on lore items when?
A: Rias does love those items and wants more. It's next on the list for the quick dopamine fixes.
Q: Can lore items currently be found in lockboxes? One of the best things about charmseeking is that you can find really niche, rare things that give glimpses into the lore of the game.
A: No, but that could be cool to do, to have lore items in the treasure system.
Q: Do the constellations that were for Madrim and Atros on CLOK mean different things on COGG?
A: Rias wasn't that keen on including them because they were created by somebody else. Yes perhaps they're still lore-relevant but not necessarily mainstream, or maintained. Rias hadn't thought about them honestly. He had beef with the name Atros.
With constellations generally, if players want to assume that constellations have the same general connotations (like the plough being associated with the harvest, etc) in COGG, that's okay. He's not going to stop you. One of the reasons he stopped working on constellations though, is that he didn't want it to just match up with real-world astrology. He didn't want people worrying about it not matching up.
Q: Oh, is there any plans to ever time out people who are afk too long? Sometimes people are just afk for days and days, and it's kind of... awkward to just ignore or comment on people who never move.
A: It's a bit weird when that happens, but there are no current plans.
Q: Anything other than Mistral Lake that you're working on that you're excited about?
A: Apart from Mistral it's otherwise been kind of all over the place. He's been trying to make a more streamlined customisation merchant thing that helps merchants keep track of the queue and helps customers put in requests rather than doing it through tells.
Q: Elemancy is no longer a thing, yes? I believe I've heard you mention they (Nuum) are focused on Arcana now?
A: Elemancy is not really a thing any more. The occult is more of a privileged thing for Nuum rather than a commonly taught thing.
Q: Is the "we don't need no immortals" attitude still a thing among the Nuum?
A: As the Nuum will tell it, they've learned what they need to know from the immortals. They've served their purpose, and now the Nuum will become greater. They're trying to stop people thinking about the Immortals and have them concentrate on exceeding them.
Q: There was mention previously of an in-character theory (as evidenced by one of the shelving books) that glyphs draw power from eldritch horrors; how does this fit with the Nuumic "we don't need no immortals" attitude? Do they have a different theory?
A: It's one of those theories, people just don't know. The Nuum, they kind of see Arcana as their continuing mastery over the occult, as they tell it. They do have occultists that can do things without arcana diagrams. It's rare, but they have those people. They want to pass on mastery of these things so that others can do them as well, for the good of society.
Kaiju asked how many people in the VC had actually played CLOK. Rias really likes that there's a balance of people who hopefully enjoyed/loved CLOK and people that are completely new. It's good to get two different perspectives of the world, looking at why things are differentfrom/similar to the previous game.
Q: Are the Nuumic still super pretty with fancy eyes due to magic? Or some other cause?
A: They do seem to have unusual qualities such as their eye colour, and they seem to be beautiful people on average.
Q: What do Nuum think of other forms of the occult, particularly sorcery and bardic words? Assuming the 'we don't need no immortals' thing is still in-place, I imagine they don't care for Druidry, but the Nuumic philosophy seems to have some overlap with Rhun's 'we are the immortals now' teachings?
A: Words of Power fit in pretty well with Arcana. Sorcery is less common. It is more controlled and out of the public eye. He's sure that Druidry is a thing, but it's not especially prominent. They're on the track where they believe they've learned everything the Immortals have to teach and have ascended to the next level; they consider Druidry another tool in their toolbox. The prevailing theory is: this is a power and we are controlling this power, it exists and we can use it. We've observed this, figured it out and now we can do it for ourselves (rather than drawing on an entity).
Q: Perhaps more controversially, are slaves still a part of Nuumic culture? Is the little 'trivia' bit about bad students being made into slaves and pretty-eyed slaves being elevated true?
A: Yes, they're still a thing.
Q: How frequent are the innovations that the Nuum are creating? How common is it for them to either discover something new or improve on something existing?
A: He wouldn't say it was especially common. It's going to be tough for them to do. Much of what the Nuum are doing is done by the higher-ups; they're not sharing what it is they're working on. Occasionally they reveal a new project, putting it out there to improve an aspect of society (civics, military, etc.) Yes the Nuum have a high opinion of themselves, but it's not all a lie, they are verifiably improving on things sometimes. They are very prideful generally speaking, as you would expect as they're making this attempt at becoming/exceeding the gods. There's certainly going to be some desire for power, but that's not all it is; the Nuum are not just saturday morning, predictable villains, they want to learn about how the world works. There is, however, a lot of government control.
Q: Are the Nuum copying or creating?
A: Rias can't give a certain answer here. It's always going to be up to people to speculate or determine for themselves. Are the Nuum just hacking things together, or figuring it out for themselves?
Kebyet was lifted into immortality by someone else, rather than "becoming" an immortal by discovering the secrets of immortality. She is now considered to be up there and learning things, elevating herself from there.
It was suggested by a not-Rias that perhaps the Nuum are trying to pull information from Kebyet, as their woman on the inside.
Q: Can we get stats on a few of the new trees
A: It's just done by a script. He can add some things, sure.
Q: Any chance of Redwood
A: "Oh yeah..."
Q: If someone cuts up a bunch of floorboards that have been written over with a glyph, what happens
A: "Oh God." [Amendation from Serity: 'should probably also clarify that that answer was "it doesn't work lmao" IIRC']
Rias was asked if he'd read Marcuson's thread about making artisans a society rather than a guild. Yes. He's not yet sure what to do.
