Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Built on a lake, shrouded in unnatural fog, and under the law and protection of the mysterious Mistveil Keep. Was once the seat of the now-dissolved Mistveil Dominion.
Kalista
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Kalista »

are the ducks and muskrats in Mistral Lake supposed to fit in coops/hutches? cause right now they both say nothing about what shelters they need and I can't buy a duck with a coop already built. I think some others want to start raising them, but can't as well. if not, are there plans for other shelters in the works?
Staz
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Staz »

Any chance of stingnettle being able to make bowstrings like thornleaf? It would mirror Shadgard's resources better, but also a stingnettle bowstring sounds cool.
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Delphine
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Delphine »

Obligatory OMG THE NEW WORKHORSES ARE SO PRETTY squee.

And I recognize what you both are saying, Jerc and Rias. I honestly didn't think of it from that perspective and was more coming from the angle of, "Ooo fun occult room." I rather like Lexx's suggestion and I think that would be a nice compromise. Us filthy Nightblades can just trek to our class study room over in Stormholdt or that other place if we really want to get our knowledge on.

AND NOW, FOR MY TANGENT
I do just want to go on a tangent for a moment, if anyone wants to buckle in and take a ride with me. Rias' mention of not wanting Mistral Lake to be a "no-brainer" choice for certain classes made me think of this. As it stands, given the initial release of ML, Shadgard is for the most part the "no-brainer" choice unless you're playing a character who is banned from Shadgard or just REALLY wants in on the Dominion RP. There are fewer "hunting grounds" near to Mistral Lake, there are more people in Shadgard to RP with, Mistral Lake is in general a rather long walk from almost everything except Valeria (and don't get me wrong, I love being able to skip off, slap some Liberi around, and then go back to my inn room to idle all in the span of ten minutes.) I imagine this will sort itself out eventually, as more areas are released and things settle into a sort of equilibrium. This isn't the point of my tangent as those are just normal growing pains due to the recent release of a new town.

But there is one character concept that I could not in good faith recommend starting in Mistral as it would be a "no-brainer" to house them in Shadgard instead, given the greater convenience, and I just wanted to touch on that for a moment: that of a newbie blacksmith. I'm going with newbie as I'm not referring to a person who already has an established group of friends who can aid them in getting their latest alt experiment off the ground faster than someone entirely new to the game could. Shadgard not only has a steam crusher (and just a side note, this isn't me asking for a steam crusher. ML doesn't have steam power. We don't need a steam crusher as it wouldn't make sense for us) but it is also fairly close to the iron mine. I think these are both fine things. It makes sense that Shadgard would have more interest in an iron mine being close at hand than Mistral Lake would. Mistral Lake has a tin mine rather close and this is thematic, given all the Pales. You don't want to give a poor Pale an iron blade.

However, let's take a hypothetical journey. You're a newbie ML blacksmith. You want to try to do most of your work in bronze for the sake of being thematic or simply because you recognize that bronze is more durable than iron and probably the better choice for your tools if you wanted to forge your own tools or simply because, you know. There's a tin mine RIGHT THERE. Why wouldn't you use bronze. You don't have a handcart as ~40,000 riln (trying to average between the ~35,000 and ~45,000 I usually see for handcarts these days) is a bit of a prohibitive cost for a starting character. That blacksmith would have to mine the copper, crush the stone by hand, make the copper bars, walk on foot to the tin mine, mine the tin (but you can't take too much with you at once as you have no handcart so this is just whatever you can stuff into your various containers, so... six large blocks of stone at once?), walk back to ML, crush the stone, make the tin, make the bronze. But wait! You have to metalcast bronze. And to do that, you have to have an object to make a mold out of in the first place so that you can metalcast said bronze. So now you have to trek across the map, on foot, to the iron mine and rinse and repeat, taking back your meager spoils. Whatever you can carry in your bags. Finally, you can forge an iron hammer head so that you can make a mold of said hammer head so that you can then at last cast a bronze version. EDIT: It has been pointed out to me on the Discord that a person can make a copper version of an item to then make a mold off of so that they can metalcast the item in bronze and I apologize for that! I thought copper and bronze were both too soft to make certain things and had to be metalcast. But I'm still leaving this post as written as the pains of trying to collect iron as a newbie in ML still stands.

Of course, they could just forgo bronze and stick to iron, forget those Pales. But it's still the same bit with having to walk on foot across the map and just collect what you can carry and then walk back. A blacksmith starting in Shadgard, however, has a much shorter walk and the use of a steam crusher to make collecting iron a good deal less painful (though still annoying without a handcart, I'm sure.)

As I bring this tangent to a close, I suppose the point I'm trying to make is: I appreciate the spirit of not wanting to make either Shadgard or Mistral Lake a no-brainer for certain people as a starting location, but despite our best efforts, there are still going to be situations where this is the case.
Last edited by Delphine on Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:58 am, edited 1 time in total.
You think to yourself, "I am surrounded by idiots and petulant children."

You experience a sudden flash of insight, as though you have an increased understanding of who you are.
Staz
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Staz »

Delphine wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:50 am Finally, you can forge an iron hammer head so that you can make a mold of said hammer head so that you can then at last cast a bronze version.
I really appreciate the depth of your comment but I'm going to be THAT pedant and point out that you can forge hammer heads from bronze. :P

I think it would make sense to have Mistral's mine give more than one type of ore, just with a very high rarity. Maybe one in every fifty copper ore, you get an iron ore. Maybe there's a permit you can buy to mine in a different wing if you have sufficient points in blacksmithing or mining. Maybe you have to pay for the permit in a weekly quota of iron or something. Surely there is a way to balance it.

I understand the drive to have it essentially mirror the facilities of Shadgard, but it's good to note that the needs of the people who settle there are different from people in Shadgard due to geography.

Also, maybe there isn't a steam crusher, but Mistveil has sorcery so would it not be possible to have the same mechanics apply to a glyph-powered crusher, or perhaps some sort of tricksy little ore-crushing forge familiar?

Actually, if you had a glyph powered one, you could have it require the attention of an arcanist periodically instead of running out of steam...
Last edited by Staz on Fri Nov 18, 2022 12:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
tulpa
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by tulpa »

It's not a vast trek to the iron mine from ML, is it? I haven't counted the leagues.

Bronze is still probably less time consuming to produce than iron ingots because it doesn't require you to mine very much tin at all, in comparison with the material you produce. The copper mining is the bulk of the work, I'd say.

You can also CRUSH ore at the mine with a sledgehammer (not as heavy as it sounds).
The steam crusher is a nice little perk, but it doesn't save *that* much time, versus crushing by hand.

But really mining in the non-copper mines without a handcart isn't a very efficient process, regardless of which town you're in. Newbie players can make a fair amount from casting copper items alone, to begin with.
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Delphine
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Delphine »

Staz wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:58 am I really appreciate the depth of your comment but I'm going to be THAT pedant and point out that you can forge hammer heads from bronze. :P
Can you really? I remember reading that bronze was too soft to forge and needed to be cast.
Staz wrote: Fri Nov 18, 2022 11:58 am I understand the drive to have it essentially mirror the facilities of Shadgard, but it's good to note that the needs of the people who settle there are different from people in Shadgard due to geography.
I think the spirit of my post may have been lost. My point is that these facilities won't mirror each other and so, despite our best efforts to try to ensure no one town is a "no-brainer" starting location, it still will be a "no-brainer" starting location to some.
You think to yourself, "I am surrounded by idiots and petulant children."

You experience a sudden flash of insight, as though you have an increased understanding of who you are.
Frisbee
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Frisbee »

This is going to be a bit irrelevant to the current topic. I preemptively apologise for the tangent.

I tried weaving stingnettle into cloth just now and the final product was "some pale-yellow sheep stingnettle cloth." It's rather funny, but I figure it's also worth posting up here since it pertains to flora from that area and it's likely to be seen and corrected.

Thank you.
Stop putting watermellons into the first thing you see that looks like it can hold a watermellon. It is most rude, because you'll only make them feel like they don't belong.
tacos
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by tacos »

I'm at the watermil in mistral and, the only thing I see for a description is "[Mistral Lake, Watermill Interior] (InUr) Warm
A few people are milling about the area. The area is extremely noisy.
The area is warmed by a lit wood-burning stove." I'm not sure why my screen reader isn't seeing the usual stuff in the mill.
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Delphine
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Delphine »

Hullo! So this is the room:
[Mistral Lake, Watermill Interior] (InUr) Warm
The roar of flowing water is overtaken by the sound of turning machinery and grinding stone. A huge wheel that can be seen just outside the small window turns slowly with the sheer power of the river, and overhead the interlocking cogs, gears, and chains of various sizes spin and whirr, connected to a large millstone that grinds anything poured into the metal hopper above it and depositing the resulting powder or meal into the circular bronze basin below.
A few people are milling about the area. The area is extremely noisy.
The area is warmed by a lit wood-burning stove.
Also here: Duskgaze (moderately-armored, sweaty, bloody).
Obvious exits: out.
(With you in it, of course.)

I asked Tacos and it sounds like they have brief mode on. Since the wheel and hopper and such isn't also listed as items in the room, I wonder if that's causing some sort of interference? Other users of screen readers might need to sound off here because I don't know how the screen readers handle words that are highlighted. (For us sighted folks, items like the wheel and hopper are highlighted in a bright shade of green to alert us to the fact that they are something you can interact with.)

EDIT: They can type look hopper and stuff and see it, but it seems like since they're not listed out as separate items, it's causing problems for screen reader users who have brief mode on? That's my uneducated guess.
You think to yourself, "I am surrounded by idiots and petulant children."

You experience a sudden flash of insight, as though you have an increased understanding of who you are.
Navi
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Re: Mistral Lake initial (and rather bare) release!

Post by Navi »

You will want to turn off option 10. It will change the colored text in room descriptions so that it has the hashtag symbol, (#) in front of the words. I thought this might be the case, but didn't know who to contact in game. Hope that helps.
wander without wanting, thrust into lands unknown. the shadows shift and change, and the worlds with them.
I'm not a soldier but I'm fighting
Can you hear me through the silence?
I won't give up 'cause there will be a day
We'll meet again
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