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Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Tue Sep 03, 2019 10:54 am
by Kiyaani
Going for something a little different this time around as people are asking more questions about crafting and skill processes that either may not have helpfiles, or may need further explanation. Some of the answers below are from players - go team!

General Skill:

Q: So can I just dump skill into something for as many points as I have? Where does practice come in?
A: You can only have a skill up to 25 above your practice level. So you'll have to practice it up. Combat skills are limited further than other skills and only allow you to currently apply 10 points per level. Others are limited only by available skill points to spend and the practice level attained.

Q: Can a physiker use therapy on themselves?
A: No. Just as real therapists would need to see another therapist for treatment.

Q: Would lore and linguistics help read runes, or mostly languages?
A: Arcana for arcane diagram glyphs, if that's what you mean. Those you find out there that aren't part of circles on the ground might be language or lore.

Animal Husbandry:

Q: How does one practice animal husbandry?
A: You need farmland, fencing, and an animal shelter for the animals you want. It takes some setup to get going, then you get practice from shearing sheep and milking cows and stuff like that I believe. I know Toxtli has been helping farmers get started by building the things they need.

Q: Wait but what if you already have farmland/ do you need to get a separate one?
A: You can use the same land to both grow crops and raise livestock as long as you have the proper facilities to house the animals and fencing to keep them in. It should be noted that structures for animals will take up space on the farm and may reduce the maximum crop field size you can make. There may be plans to extend farms later on to help mitigate this.

Q: Where does one get animals for their farm/ranch?
A: You can get animals the same place you rent your land from - Town Hall Department of Agriculture. When you purchase an animal there it will automatically be sent to your farm. It should not let you get animals you don't have facilities for.

Mining/Smelting:

Q: The BBS said we smiths didn't need to shape bars anymore, so how does this apply to recipes that need bar thins/shorts?
A: Molds will have a limited number of uses soon(tm). Please report any recipes that still require thin/short/wide/long bars - they shouldn't anymore.

Q: I wanted to smelt some limestone iron and try metalworking, the recipe info is saying all sorts of bars though are needed, so what if my lil ingot aint got the guts to do the job? And isn't an ingot metallurgy? It says metalworking needed. So how can I tell which recipes are mold/worked?
A: You can cast an ingot if you have a mold, but you can also forge one from metal that doesn't cast well. Casting doesn't require recipes, because you're just pouring it into a mold.

Q: So instead of metalcast ingot, I'd type hammer bloom make pure? It'll make a bar?
A: You want to hammer it and make it pure before you work further with it, to get all the impurities out of the metal. Then you'll do hammer bloom make <recipe name> to make various things from it once you know the recipes. If you type HAMMER BLOOM by itself, you'll see all your options based on the recipes you know.

Q: What I'm confused by is some of the recipes look like they'd be cast, like forks or sling bullets?
A: They can be made either way. The recipes are for the hammered metalworking version. Casting doesn't require a recipe. A good way to tell is to note that the recipes you can learn there are under the "Metalworking" category, which is hammering/forging.

Q: So pommel, crossguards, grips, then the blade. they all sorta click together? Maybe the pommel is a bit fancy/uneeded for certain blades?
A: For sake of uniformity, we're assuming they all need a pommel.

Q: How do I single out traces from barrens at the market?
A: List search traces, list search trace of iron, list search traces of copper, etc.

Q: Where can I learn to make more advanced bladed weapons?
A: Advanced blades is an ability you can learn at the same place you learn metalworking recipes.

Q: I'm not understanding how to prevent pig iron. I bought a thin bar from the market to heat up and hammer and it turned to pig iron, but the wiki said it wouldn't overheat.
A: A bar of iron has already been processed from ore. Did you put it into the smelting furnace? That should only be used for extracting ore from powder. After that, put pieces in the forge to heat up. They should get red-hot in the forge, but not any hotter, and you don't have to pull bellows or anything for it - just wait.

Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Fri Sep 06, 2019 12:13 pm
by Kiyaani
New thing that may or may not be a permanent change (especially as it's a lot more work for me) - Q/A will still be covered, but now some answers may include links to previous discussions/answers/articles rather than more elaborate explanations every time - especially if answers are player-provided or result in long discussion. This is not meant to discourage people from asking things freely in OOC chat, but with the population growing it's definitely getting harder to keep track. I want to make sure that people get "official" responses if they desire them while not limiting this thread to only things answered by Rias - though often, the player responses are spot-on anyway.

Please continue to utilize your peers, the wiki, and the forum's handy "search" feature. If I don't post your Q/A here, it may be because there was just too much to sift through and I missed it. It may also have been part of a longer discussion and so either condensed or left for what it was. If you feel there was something very important discussed in Discord that I missed, please make a post about it in whichever board is most relevant.

Thanks,
THE SCRIBE

No-question-related Answers:

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General Questions and Lore

Q: Oh so Rias, random question. If you have so many things to do, how do you ever decide on what to do first? Do you ever just look at the huge list of things to do, and stare indecisively?
A: I have a Trello list that's vaguely prioritized, but when players are actively talking about something that usually gets me wanting to do that. I'm easily manipulated. And other times I just get an idea in my head that's not on a list anywhere, and want to do it, so I do. I'm terrible at project management, but I like to think my passion for this project in particular and therefore rate of work makes up for the "chasing butterflies" effect at least a little.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: Do you think the Barter-Town Outpost will make a return, or something similar?
A: Yeah, we can throw a few little barter opportunities in there. It was a little wonky, but definitely neat.

Q: Do pendants wear out after a time?
A: Yes.
Related links:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8&start=10#p451
viewtopic.php?f=9&t=154

Q: Why is it with esp, the grey thing is there/ Why not just "esp a white entity says" or "esp a silver-blue entity says" Why the random grey there? Just curious.
A: Grey is the ESP channel you're tuned to and broadcasting/listening on. You can potentially tune to other colored channels. Some organizations might have their own private channels. A neat Company (player-run organizations) service might be to pay a specialist to set them up with their own ESP channel.

Town Life and Travel

Q: So question. You know how when the game actually gets released, we're all being sent elsewhere and not Shadgard? Is that city much different from Shadgard? Can we go there now?
A: The only way to get there currently is to die. The city is a port town. (summarized)

Q: How will travel between Shadgard and Porto work?
A: The way I'm envisioning it is that there will be options. Travel the main route, which will be rather time-consuming, and possibly have a "no return for X amount of time" point so people aren't zipping between what are supposed to be very very distant geographic points. There may be various shortcuts or alternate routes based on skillsets: climbing, swimming, trading (exclusive secure merchant route!). And then an occasional option to take a stagecoach or ride along with a caravan where you essentially AFK a while and eventually end up at the other place - for a significant cost.

Q: How will Shadgard change?
A: Shadgard is going to be closed down for a while upon release (to force people to get used to Porto) and, when re-opened, will be significantly less well-equipped. More of an outpost and rest/trade point than a town with full amenities.

Q: If Shadgard is stripped down, why would people still travel there?
A: To get exclusive goods there, to trade, to use it as a local resting spot while visiting the various areas around it. And there are plenty of areas out that way with interesting things or important resources. Probably best to hang out in Shadgard for a few days while you gather than to travel all the way back and forth all the time. I'm hoping to have a few other little outposts out there for similar reasons: Trade route destinations for people with the Trading skill and acquisition of unique goods.

Q: So trade-routes will be a thing?
A: That's part of the reason for the various trade outposts. For doing little trade routes like that. And capitalizing on various tragedies and emergencies to sell scarcity items at a massive, extortionary profit. And of course there's going to be the one eccentric adventurer/trader who only speaks a weird language that has to be learned via the Linguistics skill but sells super rare ingredients and components and scrolls and the like.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: Why are my crops withering? How does the farming system work with seeds?
A: It may have been a crop that didn't grow well in the current temperature conditions. Some crops will grow in the cold season, others in the warm season, others in-between. When you EXAMINE or ORDER a seed and you have some Farming skill, it'll say which conditions the plant will wither, stagnate, grow, or flourish in. And by the way, there are some fantastically hardy plants that do grow in the dead of winter freezing conditions. So farmers don't have to suffer any downtime just because of some pesky cold.
Related links:
viewtopic.php?f=21&t=65
https://cogg.contrarium.net/wiki/index.php/Farming

Q: How do I know if my mining skill is too low to find iron traces?
A: You'll find some eventually, you just need to mine through all the barren stone first.
Related links:
https://cogg.contrarium.net/wiki/index.php/Mining

Q: If my bloom isn't hot enough to hammer, do I reheat it in the forge or the furnace?
A: Forge. Then it's guaranteed to get red-hot but not go molten (and turn into pig iron). Forge will never heat anything beyond red-hot.
Related links:
https://cogg.contrarium.net/wiki/index.php/Metalworking
https://cogg.contrarium.net/wiki/index.php/Metallurgy

Q: How do I get rid of impurities?
A: You always want to hammer impurities out of a new bloom. Hopefully it was originally heated in the furnace with a lump of charcoal. Otherwise it's pretty much a lost cause to hammer out impurities. You can still use impure iron, it just won't end up a good product. Still can get experience and practice from it, though, in case you ever accidentally forget.
Related links:
https://cogg.contrarium.net/wiki/index.php/Metalworking

Q: Is armor forging going to be a separate skill?
A: Just specific armor recipes, I think. Maybe an ability to put some of it together? I don't know

Q: I wonder, is there a place one can buy, an animal shed, or must it be built by a kind soul?
A: Kind soul required. Plans to eventually allow for lower-capacity versions to be built by NPCs that can then be fixed up to full capacity by a PC builder, just because we don't want to invalidate those who have invested points into Construction.

Q: Will it be possible to decorate handcarts and/or wagons with things to personalize them? (Suggested options: Skulls human/animal, antlers, furs, lanterns, skull lanterns, painted with designs/colors, strings of teeth/ears, strings of flowers/herbs, tree boughs, traditional frontier decor, etc.)
A: You can hang lanterns on them. I should make skulls work, too. I'm generally of the opinion that skulls are super tacky (hence the skull store I made on CLOK that was not-so-subtly mocking the whole skull fetish thing), but skull lanterns are at least practical.

Q: Can we get headwear with antlers on it?
A: Ooooh, and it grants a bonus to anyone using a grapple-like ability on you! [Not actually answered, but I do appreciate this idea].

Q: Can people craft pendants?
A: Nope, but they're found often enough in loot that there should be a pretty steady supply as long as people sell them (why wouldn't they?). Unfortunately not every occult secret in the world can be cracked as easily as "I have 700 arcana skill and examine the item to see how it works to reverse-engineer it." The occult is called that because it's generally not well-understood. There's already a supply coming in through people finding and selling them, so I think we'll be all right. Crafting is a huge part of this game, and one of the founding design goals. That said, I reserve the right to deny the crafting of certain types of items. And there's something to be said about some nifty items being solely acquired and provided by means other than crafting. Having the pendants be non-craftable means treasure hunters have a type of item they can rely on for an income, rather than production being taken over by crafters.
Related Links:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8&start=10#p451
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8&start=10#p495

Q: Can pendants be customized at least?
A: Customization, yes. Crafting from scratch, no.

Q: Can you raise language skill?
A: Not yet.
Related links:
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=228#p697
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8&start=10#p451
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=8&start=10#p703
Character Creation

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Guilds, Societies, Companies

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Combat-related Mechanics

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Arcana and Glyphs

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Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Tue Sep 10, 2019 4:08 pm
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

*****

General Questions and Lore

Q: Are Dunwyr are a thing in Cogg? Dwaedn are a thing apparently.
A: I tried to say Dwaedn weren't a thing in COGG, but then Bjorn threatened to throw me off the mountain. Dunwyr are also a thing, yes.

Q: Druidry was genuinely one of my favorite systems on Clok. The commune mechanics, we're among my absolute favorite things. Will that change in COGG?
A: The commune thing was super cool. Very neat way to tie the druidy community together. It'll definitely be around in a very similar form. Considering how some of the druidy stuff works, though, I'm imagining many druids benefitting from sanity therapy. Communing with the inhuman does things to you.

Q: Do tuning crystals still exist?
A: Tuning crystals aren't a thing anymore. You buy a channel attunement as a service, and the duration for that is temporary. It was a cool thing, but it came to the point where most people didn't trust their own networks because they knew some derp would hand out tuners to whoever.

Q: Wait, so the technology for crystals are a well known enough thing that they don't need an arcanist/warlock to do this sort of stuff?
A: he tuning is done by members of the Twilight Eye organization, whom are top-tier with pendant lore. Hence "A Twilight Eye representative hands you a catalog ..." I feel like putting the ability to do tuning into the hands of PCs would be just as bad as the ability for people to buy and hand out tuners.

Q: So there won't be any private channels?
A: I'm sure we can make that happen somehow.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: Is there an easy way to collect your things from your corpse if you die?
A: You should be able to just "get x" to get it from your corpse. I realize the retrieval of items from one's corpse is being tricky at the moment, trying to figure out a good fix for it

Q: What's the command to brand items you've made?
A: The MODIFY command, specifically MODIFY BRAND.

Q: I love that an occultist's signature is essentially their ESP color. Is there a cooldown for changing colors?
A: No, but I plan to add one.

Q: If my character's sanity is extremely low, will it still go away with time?
A: The more extreme levels of insanity don't go away on their own.

Town Life and Travel

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Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

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Character Creation

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Guilds, Societies, Companies

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Combat-related Mechanics

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Arcana and Glyphs

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Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Thu Sep 19, 2019 3:54 pm
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

*****

General Questions and Lore

Q: Do we have Outriders here?
A: In the lore, yes. Also keep in mind that a lot of Shadgard is still in its outdated form, and we won't be staying there much longer.

Q: When the reset happens will I lose my items?
A: There won't be an item reset. Just current skills (not practice levels), and guilds/classes. P.S. Not to say I won't reset something else if I realize it's necessary, but I can't think of anything else that would need resetting. In the case of having lockpicks after a guild reset, they'd be useless to someone without the skill to use them, so I think that's okay.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: Can anyone make a campfire?
A: Yes, campfires are no skill required.

Q: Does morale do anything yet?
A: It acts kind of like luck. Higher levels can let you take the better of two rolls on a skill check. Lower levels can similarly make you take the lesser of two rolls. It's a fairly subtle though, so no need to worry too much about it if you find it bothersome to maintain.

Q: How do I check who I've allowed on my farm and find syntax for adding and removing access?
A: The access command.

Town Life and Travel

Q: Do items eventually clear from the general MARKET if they're not purchased after X amount of time?
A: Excess is cleared down to a point.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: Are there no qualities so far other than terrible and average?
A: Correct.

Q: Is construction trainable right now?
A: Yes, it's in the sawmill.

Q: What can construction actually DO right now? Can you build buildings, or...?
A: It's primarily used for making farmland stuff. Fencing, animal shelters, etc. Also furniture. That [buildings] would still fall under construction, but I'm not sure how much I want to allow as far as making actual buildings. I always worry about the "town is uncool" effect when it comes to player building. Then we have the too-many-towns-and-hamlets effect again, times ten. Everyone being scattered out across the land instead of kept together and interacting in a hub.

Q: Can you get by being constructive with only Masonry? If Construction can make buildings. I want to mainly be involved with building things that are stone. I'm not looking to get into being a lumberjack.
A: I plan to add stone fencing and shelters as well.

Q: You can also do handcarts with construction, I think?
A: Yessir.

Q: There an expected timeframe for how long we could expect bees to arrive after putting some beeswax into a new beehive?
A: It's chance-based over time. More is better - more beeswax/honeycomb means greater chances of attracting a scout. I should put a cap on it, though, so bad luck doesn't leave you beeless forever.

Q: Is there a place to buy hinges other than the market?
A: No. Someone go poke all the metalworkers to stock up the market! Making hinges may not be the most glorious work, but it's in demand.

Character Creation

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Guilds, Societies, Companies

Q: What kind of druid scholars are these going to be?
A: As far as their feel and place in the scholar guild, they're probably going to be the more active and adventurous types. Their whole thing is the wild world of nature, so I figure they get out in it as much as possible, unlike the other scholar classes which are more than happy to be sitting in a dark chamber surrounded by musty books. Kind of like how Rangers are to Adventurer. For adventurers, they're the most apt at combat and likely to be out in the danger zones. Druidy scholars will similarly be more kind of geared to dealing with the dangers out there in the wild. Not that there can't be some who are more comfortable sitting around in the relatively placid places and not particularly fond of physical activities and exertions, but they'd be the less common type.

Q: Is scholar the only way to get druidry?
A: No, but that'll be the main way to get the widest array of druidy powers. Still deciding on who else to give druidy things to. Rangers, most likely. Maybe a few for socities, like Dwaedn Wyr for example. But I don't want societies to be "join up to get a bunch of cool powers" groups, so they may just get a few focused things.

Q: Will other druidic type societies like Dwaedn Wyr-types have access to commune?
A: Oh yeah, I'd love them to have Commune.

Q: Did you decide for sure if Rangers will get druidry access?
A: They will! Just not as much as the Scholar druid class.

Combat-related Mechanics

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Arcana and Glyphs

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Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Wed Oct 02, 2019 11:04 am
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

We're back in Porto! There should be in-game messaging explaining.

General Questions and Lore

Q: Are there lanterns?
A: Not yet.

Q: Will I be able to write books and publish them in-game?
A: There'll be a means of submitting material to the library, so you can write up your own stuff and put it there for others to read. But you have to get past the picky quality assurance process first!

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: How do we get paid from consignment at the market?
A: If someone buys what you've consigned, you'll be prompted every time you pass through to CHECK on what you've put up for sale. Doing so will tell you what's sold and you'll collect the money.

Q: Is there a sorta 'my' syntax available to help with targeting?
A: "My" should work for targeting syntax. [If it isn't, please bug it.]

Q: Is there a way to buy multiples of an item, or do i just buy it then order it again?
A: If you type ORDER by itself, it'll give you an example of quantity ordering. Syntax is ORDER <item> QTY <#>.

Town Life and Travel

Q: Out of curiosity, is there an area with forageable grass near Porto and I just haven't surveyed in the correct places, or is that still in transition?
A: Oooh, forageable grass for feed. Hrm. Not yet.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: Are cutlasses one handed or two?
A: Uno.

Q: So the 20/200 for the cutlass recipe, that's 20 recipe points but 200 skill yeah? Then why is dagger blade in dark red with 15/0?
A: You need to be learned in ye old mysticalle artes offe blaydesmitherery. (Need to take the Advanced Blades ability).

Q: Do molds break after multiple uses?
A: Not yet.

Q: So, metallurgy, since it's a pour n play, how does skill affect the results?
A: Smelted items are average at best. Downside to EZ mode mass production. Plus side of the skill - you can potentially whip up some nice alloys and/or materials with special properties. Special metals are something I'm very excited to implement. We'll have plenty more than the mundane metals + celestium.

Q: How do I brand my crafted tool or weapon if it has multiple components?
A: When making tools/weapons, brand the blade/head of the item before putting it together. I have a to-do item to make this possible after putting it together in case you forget, but for now you have to do it before.

Q: Can ropes be tied off to assist other climbers on this, Rias?
A: "On this" being on this game? Yes, ropes can be tied atop a climb as long as there are trees or another type of anchor in that room to hang them from. Then people below can scamper up (or down) the rope with more ease than climbing that sheer cliff. The rope does take stress each time it's used and will eventually break, though. So don't think you necessarily have to invest a ton into climbing - as long as you can fight off the lone wolf syndrome and get the courage to ask someone else to climb and lower a rope for you.

Q: Will rope ladders also be a thing for those who are weak and cannot climb a regular rope?
A: Rope ladders, yes. They'll be more resource-intensive to make, but very handy for that no-skill-required climb. Disclaimer: Won't work for every single climb ever.

Q: Can you tell us anything else about potential druidry abilities?
A: I didn't mention it in the post, but I also have a lot of uh ... semi-shapeshifty stuff in mind. No turning into wolves or bears or anything, but various temporary body modifications to emulate certain useful animal properties is a big part of how they get their "buffs". And going overboard with such things will be bad. Maybe don't turn yourself into a horrendous patchwork mutant. It's not good for the body nor the mind.

Character Creation

Q: Do our tattered beginner clothes (which are wool) still keep us warm or do we need to replace them right away with new pieces?
A: They're not any less warm. Though it's getting colder, so I really should add those clothes that were suggested.

Guilds, Societies, Companies

Q: What will the crafting guild be like? What kinds of abilities might they have to benefit joining that over another one?
A: Crafter guild ability example: "Heigh-ho: Sing a jolly mining song while you pick away at stone for an increased chance to dig up diamonds by the score, a thousand rubies - sometimes more." P.S. Not really. Craftytype guild will include convenience facilities and tools, access to some exclusive crafting recipes and methods, probably various Boring Bonuses to quality and the like. This isn't to say that you need to join this guild to do any crafting at all. You can still be a swordsmith if you invest the points into the right skills while being in the Warrior, Adventurer, or Scholar guild. You'll just miss out on some exclusive extra-spiffy stuff. Just like you can take basic combat skills and abilities and still fight, without being in the Warrior guild.

Q: Will physickers be able to cure poisons and deal with herbal remedies?
A: Yeah, herbs will be a significant part of various cures and tonics and whatnot.

Combat-related Mechanics

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Arcana and Glyphs

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Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Mon Oct 14, 2019 6:12 pm
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

*****

General Questions and Lore

Q: Are you ever going to incorporate potentially dangerous forageables that are technically edible? Like mushrooms/etc. It'd be nice for instance to have very similar looking types of mushrooms that require Herbalism or Bushcraft to distinguish from things that'll make you sick.
A: 100% yes.

Q: Are there going to be more types of animals for farmers?
A: Eventually. I should bring around an Octum livestock merchant, with some less-common critters.

Q: How do you feel about repairs and the economy? Do you feel it's a way to keep skills relevant and riln flowing?
A: That's the hope! And hopefully people realize it's less to be an annoyance to them having to occasionally get their stuff repaired, and more about keeping crafters employed.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: How do I get rid of all prompts or remove the compass?
A: OPTION 5. If it's easier to remember, you can do OPTIONS PROMPT and OPTIONS COMPASS.

Q: How do I buy more than one of a thing?
A: If you type ORDER by itself, it'll give you a syntax example for ordering quantities.

Q: How do you get the things you see when surveying out in the woods? Like this moss for example.
A: If it's a tree, you FELL it. If it's a plant, try FORAGE. P.S. If you're just interested in edibles, type FORAGE by itself without specifying. It'll look for anything that's obviously edible (berries etc.). The moss you found is not one of said edibles, unfortunately.

Q: How do I increase morale?
A: You can type HELP MORALE to see some examples of things that will help. The easiest would be: next time you log out, do so while lying in bed in an inn room, so when you log in next time you get a "comfy sleep" morale bonus. (There's a minimum time, so you can't just log out and right back in). We can also poke more physickers into being more active so they can give you motivation therapy.

Q: Does doing work depress your character?
A: You mean like doing crafting processes and stuff? No. If you type MORALE you'll see what has affected your morale recently.

Q: Will we be able to set a character's likes or dislikes to affect morale on a more personal level?
A: I've considered that, and it's been discussed a few times. Pool some ideas and post them on the BBS!

Q: Do I need a medic to get rid of frostbite?
A: Yeah, we'll have to prod some physickers to log in and take care of that for you. NPCs will take care of flesh wounds, but other stuff requires a PC.

Q: How do I see what the different terrain types mean?
A: You can use the ENVIRONMENT (or ENV) command to see them in more detail.

Q: How do I pay for more rent in advance?
A: You can just rent again. It'll add onto what you already have.

Q: If I run out of rent on my farm will I lose my stuff?
A: If you run out of rent, your stuff will all be there when you re-rent.

Q: Along with that, are animals capable of living longer periods of time while starving (just able to produce anything)? Just thinking about potential trips in the future where I can't be super attentive.
A: Yeah, animals don't die of starvation. They just stop producing stuff as you said, and will take a litlte while to recover their morale after being fed again.

Q: Is there a particular limit for livestock occupying a particular building, or a way to get rid of certain livestock without becoming the local butcher (which could be neat in its own right)?
A: Animal shelters do have a capacity. Hang on, I'll add that to the examine output. As for selling them - no way currently, but that's a good idea. To-doed!
***This has been done.

Q: If I want to keep things out in the wilds, is that possible without losing them to the janitor?
A: Hide some in various places for future use. Hunter's caches! P.S. You can HIDE <item> to hide it in the room, without having to hide yourself first. You can interact with hidden items that you can see mostly as normal, too, without having to retrieve them/pick them up. It'll reveal it to others in the room if you do, though. That includes doing something like hiding a barrel, and then stocking it up with stuff.

Q: How do I get my mailbox number?
A: Use the MAIL command or INFO.

Q: Can weapons and tools be dissasembled or something?
A: Not currently, but it's planned for future implementations of salvage and repairs.

Town Life and Travel

Q: Is charmseeking in?
A: Yes!

Q: Is charmseeking once per day?
A: Yep, once a day (per eligible room in town).

Q: Do I need a costume to charmseek?
A: Yes. There are several for sale in town.

Q: How do I charmseek?
A: Have an open container in hand, wear a costume, and type CHARMSEEK in any eligible room in town.

Q: The weaver workshop doesn't sell clothes?
A: No, it's just a workshop. Try typing LIST APPAREL at the market. And LIST DYE if you want to spiff up your clothes with nifty colors.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: Can I learn cooking yet?
A: Not yet.

Q: Where do I get farm fencing?
A: You'll need to pester a PC to build some for you. Posting on the marketplace board is a good way to get ahold of one. Don't forget to include your mailbox number so they can contact you.

Q: Do I have to be aware of anything about crops before planting them?
A: When ordering seeds, pay attention to the info telling you how different temperature conditions affect them. We're getting into the colder season.

Q: Where do I get water for my farm?
A: There's a well near the farmland. It takes quite a long while to do, but you can also use the DIG command on your farm to dig a primitive well [on your rented land]. I recommend recruiting some friends to help dig and make it happen faster.

Q: Are you still planning to have a reset?
A: Yes, there will be a reset of skills (but not practice levels), abilities, and guild affiliations once I take the game "live". Which I was hoping to do this month, but life got busy here and there. When that happens, since your practice levels (nor experience level) won't be reset, you can skill your previous skills right back up virtually instantly without needing to re-practice them.

Q: Will construction quality play a role in future things?
A: I was thinking construction skill could affect animal capacity for the shelters. Not by a ton, but a nice little benefit for a quality animal shed over one someone just banged together. With the option for higher-skilled people to upgrade an existing. And then I can have it possible to buy animal shelters if no PCs are around, but they're low quality/capacity, so you still have a reason to hire that PC with Construction skill to upgrade it when you find an opportunity. Also considering how I can evilly make primitive wells have some associated dangers, and then it'd be in your best interest to hire a construction person to build you a well structure over it. So it's not just a big deep hazardous open hole in your land waiting to swallow up some unsuspective victim.

Q: Is construction limited to wood?
A: Construction isn't material-specific, so both a wood and a stone variety could be possible. Heck, a brick variety too, with bricks made by a potter.

Q: Will structures take damage over time to give construction-skilled folks more to do?
A: Yeah, maintenance will be a thing. So builders won't have to rely on a constant flow of new people (because this will likely remain a pretty low-population game).

Q: I'm not getting skill in construction from building campfires, but it's the only thing I know how to make. Why is that?
A: Go to where you leraned the skill and use the RECIPE command to learn to build some stuff. Campfire is available to everyone and doesn't count much for practice.

Q: Where do I get tinder?
A: You can forage for tinder. And you can chop large branches into medium, medium into small, and small into kindling.

Q: Is there a place to get food for livestock?
A: Well, you can buy stuff they'll eat (animals aren't as picky about hardtack), or you can look into searching around out of town for where you might forage stuff they'll eat.

Q: Do I need a skill other than locksmithing to avoid traps in boxes?
A: Just locksmithing. If you're still starting out skillwise, you have more of a chance to overlook them. And now I want to add those new trap types I have in the pipeline ...

Character Creation

Q: Would it be possible to automatically disable some of the options?
A: I need to put in that character creation prompt asking if a screen reader is being used, to automatically turn those things off.

Q: Are there some helpfiles on what to do to start out? How do I know how to begin after character creation?
A: You start with a few tasks to get you situated - use the TASK command. There should have been a prompt to do so on your first login. I'll make sure that's still working.

Guilds, Societies, Companies

Q: Is the new library on Porto side of the world in now?
A: There's a new trail to the Library of Qamar, in all its undescribed glory - but at least you can scholar it up there. It's quite a ways out there, at South Rim Trail. I'll work on some kind of minimal local chapter for basic skill training in Porto D'esilio tomorrow.

Q: If someone wanted to focus on polearms as a primary weapon, but wanted to have a playstyle similar to duelist or maybe even nightblade, is there a particular specialization that will have abilities that capitilize on that, or is that probably something more for berserkers/marauders? Seemed like a lot of the abilities for duelist/nightblade (like armor chink) were focused more toward smaller one-handed weapons as opposed to a big ol' skewer.
A: Hmmm. Yeah, they're more geared toward precise/finesse stuff than big weapons. It would still be possible, but you'd not get as much use out of some of the abilities.

Combat-related Mechanics

*****

Arcana and Glyphs

*****

Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2019 6:03 pm
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

*****

General Questions and Lore

Q: Who are the Liberi?
A: Another lore article to write, and some lore studyables to place! (This was done: https://cogg.contrarium.net/wiki/index.php/Liberi)

Q: Question of the day, if one is fishing in a river, do you give thanks to Nereia, Goddess of Fisherman, or Naia, Goddess of Rivers, her angsty younger sister?
A: Nereia's a patron to those who go fishing at sea. Not so much river or lake fishermen, who would turn to Naia.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: Why do people sound muffled on the network if it's telepathic?
A: Assuming you're a CLOK veteran - it's not like it was in CLOK. It's literally taking the sound of your voice and transmitting that over ESP, not your thoughts. That's why tone/speech/language apply, as well as the muffled sound if you've got something muffling the sound between your mouth and the ESP receiver.

Q: How do I loot my own corpse?
A: You should be able to drag it. You can just GET <item> to get them from it. I realize it's finicky and annoying. I need to fix that item recovery process.

Q: What does morale affect?
A: Type HELP MORALE to see what morale does. If we had some phsyickers with therapy training around, you'd get some help from them to help with post-death morale and sanity woes. They've all gone into hiding, though.

Q: Whats the command to ask NPC's about rumors or whatever again?
A: Ask them about "chat".

Q: Does anyone know if you have less roundtime the more well fed you are on something?
A: Nutrition status doesn't affect roundtime. If anything, eat too much and end up lethargic, right?

Town Life and Travel

Q: I can't examine this charmseeking item. Is it broken?
A: Some of the charmsought stuff is buggy when you look at/examine it - working on a fix.

Q: Is any charmseeking loot going to be studyable?
A: Si.

Q: What are the negative effects of Frostbite, if any?
A: HELP FROSTBITE will impart that knowledge (alternatively, look it up on the wiki).

Q: I remember Somnium having a Trophy thing? Like biggest caught fish or something? I see a Trophy room in the Inn, and wondering if I am misremembering things.
A: Oh yeah, I should add the fishing record board! That was a fun little thing that could allow people to compete. It displayed daily, monthly, and all-time records.

Q: I keep running into a flooded market when trying to sell fish. Is there something else I can do with them until cooking is in?
A: I just recently turned spoilage back on, so that shouldn't be an issue for long. Gone are the days when you could fill a vault full of eternally-preserved fish. The end of an era.

Q: If an item doesn't have a market price can I still sell it?
A: You can always consign things with your own price in the meantime.

Q: Will we be able to craft our own workstations or will we always have to do things in town?
A: My worry with personal workstations is then people hermit away and never see each other.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: There a command in place to continue unfinished tempered clay shaping?
A: You should be able to just SHAPE <target>.

Q: Will established bees return to the hive if you harvest everything out?
A: Smoked-out bees return to their origin hive as soon as the campfire is gone, no lumps of beeswax or other attractants required.

Q: Is there a list of material that can adequately make bowstring, or is it limited to thornleaf cordage (of which... I'm not sure where there's forageable thornleaf outside of the Shadgard area)?
A: I'll look it up and list the common materials in the recipe info. Give me a few. And correct: Thornleaf doesn't grow around Porto D'esilio. Alas.

Q: I think a lot of the questions I usually had were things like what items could be attached and affixed together that aren't necessarily recipe items learned via skill points (which, I'm beginning to realize the struggles of having many recipes across many skills...)
A: I'm trying to make recipe info more informative, so suggestions to that effect are always welcome.

Q: Is Linguistic training in yet?
A: No linguistics training yet.

Q: Can weapons and tools be disassembled or something?
A: Not currently, but it's planned for future implementations of salvage and repairs.

Q: Is the smelting system similar to Clok? Can I take an Iron object, chuck it in a furnace, and with enough iron objects get an Iron bar?
A: No, just ores (for now). Maybe once it's possible to disassemble multi-component items.

Q: Is there a place where one can learn the secret, ancient art of cooking?
A: Not quite yet. Still working out a few last-minute things. And throwing in some more recipes.

Q: I still never figured out where to get worms. Do I need bushcrafting?
A: Go somewhere with dirt or sand and use the DIG command.

Q: Is there a way to toss a fish back? Just drop it I suppose?
A: Drawing in bounties from rivers that rush,
the fisherman's ever at peace
He pulls in his prey, all throughout the day
with hopes that his luck will increase.
When one day a visitor comes to his side:
his sister's young daughter - his niece
She frets at the plight that caught fish face that night,
and so he is moved to RELEASE.

Q: Would it be possible to get some toolkits? I was just thinking of the little toolkits folks started out on Somnium with, and I loved the box of fishing supplies. I don't really have a reason for it, other than it was just nice.
A: Those are good crafting recipe suggestions!

Q: How do I get patients to practice medical?
A: For medical and tending patients, go to an infirmary and use the MEDICAL ONDUTY command. You'll then occasionally be assigned patients, and you'll also use house supplies (bandages, needles, unguents, etc.) so you don't need to provide your own. You can make some decent riln doing medical work while on-duty (the patients pay you when you use MEDICAL REST after all their wounds are tended).

Q: Is there a way to earn riln with the Animal Husbandry skill before you can afford your own farm?
A: For animal husbandry, on my to-do list is tasks to help NPCs with their animals to make some money and get practice that way before you're able to get your own farm going.

Q: Do you need to take on other skills to be able to do Animal Husbandry - such as Construction and Woodworking?
A: I will say one thing I'm trying to push for is people helping each other out. Don't be afraid to rely on others for things you need but don't necessarily want to take care of yourself. We have an active character who does construction that can help with your structures, if you don't want to be a builder yourself and just want to do it for the purposes of supply yourself for animal husbandry.

Characters

Q: I have a question about skill resets - when that happens. Will we need to re-purchase the skill points even though practice levels will not reset or will the trainers let us skill back up to where we were in things we want to keep without re-buying?
A: Yes, so there will be a riln cost in that sense I suppose. Take it as a tradeoff to not having a wealth/inventory reset!

Combat-related Mechanics

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Arcana and Glyphs

*****

Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Tue Oct 29, 2019 10:27 am
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

*****

General Questions and Lore

Q: Where can I get a pendant if mine wore out? They're not at the post office or town hall.
A: Pendants are for sale at the market. Always worth a look there when you're looking to buy something.

Q: Does opaque mean it's out of charge?
A: Opaque means it's full. Clear means it's empty. It gets more faded and tranlucent over time.

Q: Is there a way into Tarueka town? I can't seem to climb the gate.
A: viewtopic.php?f=37&t=213&p=667#p667

Q: How adverse are Khaldeans as a whole against the occult? Treated with skepticism and distrust but utilized as a tool unlike a hammer or scythe, entirely avoided by almost everyone as the cultural taboo runs very deep, something else?
A: It's a pretty deep-seated social taboo, but an occultist in Khaldea wouldn't suffer any actual legal ramifications or anything. Just be generally ostracized. I should also note that this taboo doesn't extend to belief in Immortals, as I think I've seen some assume - Khaldeans believe in the Immortals, albeit after their own fashion. I've been excited to put it in their article and actually post it. I do think it's bad enough, in some areas, that those in authority would find excuses to make bad things happen to someone who was known (or even heavily suspected) to practice the occult. Not everywhere, though. A lot of Khaldeans are generally pretty chill, even about things they dislike. I don't want to paint the wrong impression, so just to clarify: They're not going on witch hunts or anything over it. Maybe some rare exception who's a particularly zealous occult-hater, but they're generally content to say "occultism is silly and foolish and yes of course we're still a little bitter about thoe whole thing in Nuum where our ancestors were oppressed just because they didn't have 'special gifts'". Again: They're pretty chill as a culture. And why waste time running around chasing occultists when you've got books to read?

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: Is there any way to label a container?
A: Buy a label from the general store or post office, write on it, then attach it to the container.

Q: Will that replace the object's other labels?
A: It won't replace the words in the object's short description, if that's what you mean. It'll just add to it.

Q: Have you thought any more about making options to toggle for soundpacks?
A: I'd be happy to accommodate, preferably in large chunks at a time. If you get a big list or something going on the BBS, that would be good. Then I could knock a bunch of it out at once.

Q: How fast does sanity recover?
A: Slower the worse your case is. There's a post by someone offering discrete therapy on the town board.

Town Life and Travel

Q: How do I return a bank note to my account?
A: You can DEPOSIT your bank note.

Q: How do I differentiate if I want riln instead of a bank note?
A: Try WITHDRAW <AMOUNT> COINS. (Or "riln". Either works.) Also, tip: Just like you can do WITHDRAW <amount> COINS, you can also do WITHDRAW <amount> NOTE if you want notes for smaller amounts of money than the default 5000.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: My fishing line keeps breaking. Is that related to skill or rolls?
A: Well, line wears down just through use, not specific to failed rolls. And now I need some special material that makes extra-durable fishing line.

Q: Are fish region-specific? Are some fishing spots more challenging?
A: I'll set up some more areas with specific types of fish, so people can start out at the easier fishpond instead of a constant risk of losing to the bigger river or ocean fish.

Q: Is it possible to make dye?
A: Not currently.

Q: What can I do with fir bark?
A: It's used to make tannin, a necessary component for tanning leather.

Q: I'm trying to crush the bark to make tannin, but it says I can't or shouldn't crush that.
A: If it's the fir bark, it needs to be ground in a mill to be turned to tannin. Type HELP TANNIN for info.

Q: Can blacksmiths repair stuff yet?
A: Nope.

Q: Have you had any thoughts on how you want repairing to work? And what you want to be repairable? And how laborious/time consuming you think it will be?
A: For metal, probably start off with a simple "heat it and hammer it til it's looking good" process. And requiring a bit of the same type of metal in bloom or ingot form if the damage is particularly severe. Maybe require disassembling the pieces first for larger repair jobs.

Q: Is cooking in yet?
A: Nope.

Q: Does increased skill in things like woodworking decrease the amount of time it takes to process an item?
A: Skill doesn't increase woodworking speed, but that might be a future thing. I do want to avoid it being too fast, though - I always get a little discouraged when people start churning out mass quantities of crafted items which then devalues them, both monetarily and just in peoples' minds.

Q: Will I be able to customize descriptions if I get high enough skill?
A: I do plan to have a certain skill threshold in a craft grant the ability to request custom descriptions. There'll be an approval process, but that way you all can make some truly unique items with your own unique style.

Q: Construction is really slow to level. It would be neat if you could study diagrams or plans at the sawmill as an added way to gain skill.
A: Ooooh you know what... That's a good idea - I can see constructiony people poring over diagrams and IKEA instruction sheets, yeah. Construction needs a minor overhaul anyway. It's pretty silly how it's just a single build action and vwoop, there's the structure. I plan to put it on the auto-repeating model like other crafts, including the practice from each repetition.

Q: What do the numbers mean after a recipe listing when checking what can be learned in any given location?
A: The first number is the amount of recipe points it will take to learn. The second number is the amount of skill required to learn it.

Q: Why would I need to learn to make a body towel if there are no bath houses or beaches?
A: Fashion. Also to... oh man, I am so making it so you can TWIST a body towel and then SNAP people with it.

Q: Is my woodworking skill what causes crooked branches?
A: No, most branches on a tree are just considered too crooked to be used for crafts that require straight ones.

Q: What can I do with the crooked branches then so I don't feel like I'm wasting them?
A: Once I place a cooking area, it'll probably be appreciated if you use them to help stock the ovens with fuel. Using them to make campfires to produce charcoal is another good use for them.

Q: Will places with ovens/hearths/fires have woodbaskets we can add to?
A: Yes, they'll have firewood crates for convenient extra fuel stocking.

Q: Does learning a craft use as many resources as it did in CLOK? I felt like I was deforesting the planet to learn to make bows and I never even got very far!
A: There's still a grind involved, but it's less than CLOK's. Some still need some looking into - apparently tailoring and construction practice up really slowly. Bows are a higher-than-zero skill requirement woodworking recipe, so it'll take a bit to get there from scratch, yeah. I do prefer having an initial investment period with the crafts.

Q: How does fletching work? The fletch command doesn't seem to do much.
A: You just ATTACH the fletching to the arrow stave. The FLETCH command is obsolete - I'll remove it. CUT a feather to split it into two fletchings. You'll need three per arrow. You also need string/cordage to do the attach step. I should implement that hoof glue recipe and have it use that instead. I feel another helpfile is about to show up!

Characters Creation

*****

Guilds, Societies, Companies

Q: There a way to check the max skill allotment of a particular specialization? I recall you can view them before you choose a specialization in your chosen guild (for specialization-specific skills), don't recall the same command working after you choose, or if there's a way to look it up elsewhere.
A: Other than just seeing the maximums in your class-specific training area, no. I could add it to the wiki/helpfile info.

Combat-related Mechanics

Q: Does woodcutting affect melee rolls somehow?
A: Some profession skills can go partially toward attack. Axes for woodcutting, pickaxes and mattocks and sledgehammers for mining, farm flails and hoes for farming, etc. Not defense, though, so don't count on parry.

Q: Does dual wielding do anything extra?
A: There is no benefit to holding two weapons at once, no.

Q: So there's no dual wield style of combat at all?
A: There are some planned tactics that will be learnable via the warrior guild to use off-hand weapons, but they aren't implemented yet. So as of now, no - no dual wield at all. On that note: You can do a lot of things without a free hand. You can stow items directly from the ground/a container, you can eat items from within one of your worn containers, lots of crafts search for needed tools in your worn containers and on the ground. I've tried to tone down the need-an-empty-hand woes.

Arcana and Glyphs

Q: How do I activate an arcane circle? Do I just step in?
A: If you look at the description of the Occult Diagrams ability, it mentions using the beldi glyph as an activator. Circles need some kind of activatory glyph, such as beldi, so they know under which conditions to activate. Beldi is the simplest one, meaning it'll activate once someone steps into the circle.

Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Tue Nov 05, 2019 11:46 am
by Kiyaani
No-question-related Answers:

*****

General Questions and Lore

Q: Any new materials in the current projected pipeline?
A: I have a few extraordinary metals planned, but recommendations on more (what their bonuses and drawbacks might be) is always good.

Q: How strictly is the OOC vs CHAT channels appropriateness enforced?
A: No punishments or anything, just try to keep it in mind, and don't get surly if someone reminds you!

Q: Will bugs sent from character-specific rooms still relay information appropriately to the staff?
A: You can send a bug report from anywhere. It records the room it's sent from, but that's not important if the bug itself isn't room-specific.

Q: Why are you always sending me to the BBS to post when I'm discussing ideas fluidly on OOC chat?
A: A lot of stuff that's been posted has ended up being implemented. When I tell people to post, it tends to be because I'm interested and want to have reference material once I have a chance to look at that area of development.

Q: I'm a little worried about posting on the BBS because I feel like my ideas aren't fully developed yet and I may just go on a posting spree that's not fully coherent. Is that a problem?
A: Be more scared of your ideas going unspoken, or forgotten in ephemeral chat remarks! I'm not saying don't chat about them here (OOC), but when you have a real solid concept or group of ideas going, definitely post it somewhere it can be referenced in the future.

Q: If I wanted to suggest some new herbs or crops that might have special benefits associated with them? Could I request special properties for real life crops or should those kinds of things be fully made up?
A: When it comes to things with special properties and effects, I tend to want to use made-up ones rather than basing them on real-life, so I don't have to argue with smartypantses who say "but IRL this thing doesn't have X properties, it -actually- has Y properties instead". Short answer: I prefer to use made-up herbs for special herby effects.

Q: Does furniture janitor? I want to be able to leave crates for storage in common areas.
A: If it's not a permanent/ungettable item, it's subject to janitoring. Farms are jannitorproof, though I hope to add item loss risk once I add general-purpose storage sheds to construction.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: How do you transfer liquid from one container to another?
A: Try the POUR command.

Q: Does how much you wear affect how fast you get hungry?
A: How much you're wearing does not affect how fast you get hungry. Type HELP NUTRITION (or look up "Nutrition" on the wiki). Anything that weight encumbrance causes to take more energy will require more nutrition to restore said energy. Restoring energy = hunger. Climbing and swimming will take more energy the more encumbered you are, so I suppose the answer to the question is technically "yes".

Town Life and Travel

*****

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

Q: Is there any way to recoup skill points prior to the reset to use them in something else or some kind of skill decrease option with slow returns? Also when the reset does happen I think you said practice won't reset. So will we have some skills we tested but don't want that are empty but just have practice forever? Is that going to affect our ability to spend points?
A: No skill unlearning at the moment, and no, practice points don't count toward overall points spent. I can add a way to clear them at some point for people who are annoyed by seeing points in something they don't use anymore.

Q: What is a lithic and can they be foraged?
A: A rock that can be knapped. Yes. Type HELP LITHICS for more information.

Q: What is fatwood?
A: Fatwood is used by clever bushcrafters to make a pine-knot torch. Which I really want to go and make in real life one of these days, after looking into that crafting recipe.

Q: How do people who aren't specialized in Physiking practice Medical skill?
A: Very carefully.

Q: Do all component parts of a weapon need to be "fine" to produce a "fine" end result?
A: Multi-component item quality is the average of all its components.

Q: When fancy metals come in are iron/copper like we're using now going to be metals that aren't used except as parts in fancy alloys? Or are the common metals going to be iron, copper, bronze, steel, and everything else ultra rare?
A: The plan is to have a scale of the made-up metals. Some fairly common, and will thus likely become the standard because who will want to use peasant iron or steel or bronze when a fancy made-up metal is readily available? Then some that are "fairly rare" as in more challenging and time-consuming to acquire, but not limited to manual GM release. And then the ultra-rare only-released-manually-by-GM stuff.

Q: Do you see the "peasant" stuff being useful for specific things at all?
A: Iron and copper and the like? Yes, I'm a big fan of alloys, and keeping things from becoming obsolete. Iron is still going to be valued for nethrim-slaying, since sunsteel and celestium are going to remain very rare. Copper and bronze are going to continue to be good for cost-effective casting/mass production, but as far as innate properties that make them exclusively ideal for some thing or other ... uh ... if I can think of something?

Q: Will home-cooked items give more of a bonus than a morale and RP boost?
A: Cooking's going to be a good source of morale boosts (well-cooked food), as well as some foods that can grant buffs. Not sure what those buffs will be at this point, but I do want it to be more than RP and morale.

Q: Speaking of cooking though... does a cooked food get a new expiration since it's technically a new item? So like... if something is about to expire could you use it to cook with and it would be good longer kinda like IRL?
A: Correct.

Q: Is there a way to check the percent of branches left on a tree you're currently stripping?
A: No.

Q: How does the forest system work? Will people be able to plant trees to help re-growth?
A: Stuff grows to fill available space. Those stumps are still taking up space, so new growth won't happen until there's a way to remove them.

Q: Are people with construction going to be able to improve existing buildings or do the buildings have to start out better than average quality to benefit from higher skill?
A: I think building upgrades will be a thing. Probably with some kind of restrictions, like not upgrading a terrible building into an exquisite one - you'd probably have to just demolish and build from scratch.

Q: Will we be able to make beds eventually?
A: I'll add beds when player housing is a thing.

Q: If beds come in can we make down comforters with all these chicken feathers we have now?
A: Oooooh ... to the to-do list!

Q: What are your thoughts on capping feathers produced on a farm? I seem to have an excess and often throw them away.
A: Maybe I'll have them go into the associated animal shelter, and cap out at a certain amount. I should do the same for eggs.

Q: Is there a way to tell what kinds of foods an animal will eat more specifically? Rabbits say they will eat fruits and vegetables, but not all seem to apply. Will they eat biscuits too since that seems to be the generic food for animals? What if there aren't enough crops on the market to feed them?
A: They will not eat biscuits. These are a fantasy breed of rabbit I made up, so you won't be able to depend on real-world rabbits to determine what they'll eat. Best to go by the information you're given when you order one. There are some seeds available for crops they'll eat, and there's stuff you can forage (or get someone else to forage for you) that they'll eat as well.

Q: Can you name livestock?
A: Yes, you can name any PC or NPC.

Q: How many sections of fencing do you need to fully enclose a farm?
A: It depends on how big the farm is.

Q: Will there be more varieties of animals coming around for general use or will we have to rely on occasional merchants?
A: I'll add some more variety to the mundane livestock soonish.

Characters Creation

*****

Guilds, Societies, Companies

Q: Do we have druids yet?
A: Nein. They're a reclusive lot, so I'm having trouble convincing trainers to face the social anxieties of setting up in a guild to offer training.

Combat-related Mechanics

*****

Re: Questions from Discord - Ongoing Thread

Posted: Wed Nov 20, 2019 7:49 am
by Kiyaani
General Questions and Lore

Q: I'm having a hard time finding a balance between making riln and getting what my character needs to fulfill their concept. Some skills seem really intensive to raise, but I can't seem to afford to pay someone with the skill already raised to provide the service I need. Do you have any suggestions?
A: Suggestion: Spend the time using the skills you have to earn the riln, instead of building up the skill on your own. [It comes down to a] one-time riln investment vs spent skill points that are forever.

User Interface and General Gameplay Mechanics

Q: Is there a line in survey results that shows knapable stones?
A: No, you need to know where to look for them. "Look near rivers" is the common advice.

Q: How do I fill my pot with my bucket?
A: Use the POUR command. Tip: You don't have to put all the ingredients in the cooking container. It'll grab them from wherever they are in your inventory.

Q: How do you put out a flame source?
A: EXTINGUISH or DOUSE.

Q: Is there a way to see what's in a room at a glance?
A: SURVEY to see what you can potentially forage and such, or CONTENTS to see the items in the room.

Town Life and Travel

Q: Does Porto have a bathhouse or anywhere to bathe or wash clothes that isn't a public fountain?
A: No bathhouse. Wash basins are provided in inn rooms, but I could see Porto having a bathhouse.

Skills, Professions, and Crafted Items

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Characters Creation

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Guilds, Societies, Companies

Q: Will there be artisan based magic?
A: Did you have something in mind for artisanly magic? Here's the part where I tell you to compile them and post them on the BBS.

Q: Is there a cooking guild out there?
A: Cooking would fall under the artisan guild once that becomes a thing.

Combat-related Mechanics

Q: Is there a way to auto-draw a weapon?
A: WEAPON MELEE <item> to set your default melee weapon. It can only be auto-drawn from its type of weapon container (scabbard/sheath/haft-frog/whatever).

Q: Have you decided what you want penalties/bonuses for armor skill to be yet?
A: Nope!

Q: Can you explain the armor classes?
A: As far as the game's concerned "heavy" is the rigid stuff (rigid leather/cuirboilli, metal plate, wood plate), "light" is the highly flexible stuff (cloth, soft leather), and "medium" will be the in-between hybridy stuff. Heavier but still relatively flexible stuff. Chainmail, brigandine, maybe scale. To generalize: Light armor has lighter protection levels, lighter stealth penalties, lighter durability, and once maneuverability/reroll penalties are implemented will have lighter levels of said penalties. Heavy armor has heavier protection levels, heavier stealth penalties, heavier durability, and once implemented, will have heavier base reroll penalties. Some more specific differences: Heavy armor has a chance to provide extra damage reduction via "glancing blows", particularly to those who learn abilities to really focus on that. And uh ... I don't think there's a lot more than that, actually. The logic behind differences of soft leather vs rigid leather is that soft leather is soft and rigid leather is rigid? I'm honestly not a combat guru by any means, so I may be overestimating the differences between the two applications in armor.

Q: What's the difference between armors of the same category?
A: Mechanically? Amount of damage reduction (varying by damage type), durability, armor chink chance, and weight.

Q: Bone and wood armor would be cool. Any consideration there besides for masks?
A: The main qualifier for the heavy category is going to be whether it's rigid enough to be reliably used as a means of deflecting, not just absorbing, blows. I don't know that we need a ton of types - right now there are only 2 in each category. Chitin armor could be a lighter "heavy" class armor though.

Q: How is hard leather considered heavy armor though?
A: You know what? How about this: "Huecatn leatherworkers and alchemists have come up with a unique solution that causes leather to become toughened and rigid to the point that it can be fashioned into what essentially amounts to a less-durable plate armor"