Darkstarr's Release 9 Impressions + Release 10 Plan

Greetings Avatars,

Release 9 was another large push forward on combat with over 50 new skills and a new PVP Team Mode. We were able to get a lot more data on combat, balance, and skills. Obviously we have a lot left to do to get balanced, but the framework is solid to work from so we are pleased with the progress.

As always, the community continued to create some incredible events like the PVP tournaments, Welcome Quests, theatre productions, mazes, and a host of other activities big and small. Again the foundation you are building shows what an incredible community we have with this game. Congratulations to all of you for that.

R10’s main purpose is stabilization, performance, polish and testing. Additionally some tasks that were pushed from R9 will get worked on. We will post a Q4 schedule update sometime after the beginning of R10.

RELEASE 10, September 25 - 28 2014:

• Stability: Updates to item architecture, characters, and other systems will hopefully improve stability and prevent characters from getting into bad states that prevent logging in or loading maps.
• PVP: The Team PVP arena and possibly the Open Team Arena will be modified to support spectators.
• Combat Skills: Players now will start with a default deck equipped that is the sum total of your “spent” skill points. You can modify this deck simply by adjusting your skill points, no need to open the deck building interface. Additionally a few more combos and a small handful of new skills will be available.
• Magic School Naming: Magic school names are changing to more thematic names:
  • Thaumaturgy (Life Magic)
  • Necromancy (Death Magic)
  • Atenism (Sun Magic)
  • Lunaism (Moon Magic)
  • Gaiaism (Earth Magic)
  • Theurgy (Air Magic)
  • Tempestry (Water Magic)
  • Sorcery (Fire Magic)
  • Omnipotence (Focus)
• Scenes: The Ardoris Castle areas will open up to make that city complete. We are also going to experiment with a Challenge Level to test scaling difficulty for combat against AI.
• Creatures: An updated version of the wolf and our first dog (the Rottweiler) will appear in the game.
• Crafting: Adjustments will be made so that characters who were scaled up or down during character creation will animate properly with crafting tables. We will also add another round of visual effects to tables that do not yet have any (Milling, Carpentry, etc.)
• Overworld as a Real Scene: The Overworld map will move to a real scene. This will allow us to easily add features like animating avatars, full user interface access, etc.
• Visual Effects Polish: We are going to work on various environmental effects (smoke, steam, falling leaves, etc.) to get them working better with lighting.
• Character Customization: At least one new facial feature will come online. Additionally an update to how we handle hair and facial hair will add layers, transparency, and animations.

Release 9 is dead! Long live Release 10!

Sincerely,
Darkstarr aka Starr Long

 

Most of these are great, but I do have concerns about a few:

• Atenism as a name for the Sun Magic obviously references Aten (or Aten-Ra) of Egyptian religion. I don't think its a good idea to reference real-world sources like this. Naming the sun and referencing it directly would be better, or using a generic term like Theosophy.
• Lunaism for Moon Magic is also an obvious Luna (moon) reference, and by proxy the Roman goddess, but New Britannia already has a named moon, Daedalus. Daedism, or Daedalism, would be a better name.
• Gaiaism is also obviously from Gaia, the Great Mother, which is named for our Earth. New Britannia would have their own ties to the earth, and Druidism is probably the best fit, although Chthonic would also work.

Otherwise, great choices, and looking forward to R10!

 

Where is the Chaos school?

 

If this were based on names of forms of divination, it would be easy. Pyromancy (fire), Aeromancy (air), Hydromancy (water), Geomancy (earth) or Lithomancy (stone), Heliomancy (sun), Selenomancy (moon) or Sciomancy (shades and shadows, though normally referring to spirits), Necromancy (death), life I guess would have to be something like Theomancy, Chaomancy (chaos). Solarism and Lunarism are also obvious alternatives, too.

But I guess they're avoiding that because these are too narrow focuses. Mesmerism could also be used for moon magic, I guess, since the abundance of spells like "Fascinate" which rely on hypnotic magic and the idea of the trance of the moon.

I don't know, it would be interesting to think about whether there are any stand-out names, because these three kind of bother me, too. :/ I don't know if there are, though. :/

Looking forward to R10.

 

I like the names. Sorry for the obsessive posts earlier in the week. I didn't realize it until too late.

 

I really see no issue with drawing from earth (where many avatars hail from). Daedalus is the proper name for the moon, however it is still a moon, not a Daedalus, and therefore Moon Magic/Luna (Latin for Moon) Magic seems appropriate.

I really see Druidism as being more about nature than earth and Chthonic strikes me more as underworld than earth.

I like latin schema. Unfortunate that Terraism sounds political but you can pull from multiple languages to find something that works.

Atenism does already have a direct meaning but it doesn't bother me. One could try to use Sol, Solism, Solinism, Taiyoism, Iliosism, Sunnaism, whatever.

But again, Aten would have referred to the disk of the sun at one point and it's just been adapted. There is no reason an avatar couldn't have dropped their native language word for sun which was adopted in New Britannia because they liked the sound of it

 

WoWoWoWo

Fantastico amigos and amigas !

 

I agree that the three 'planetary' names disturb me, as I believe they come from 3 different, 'Earthly', cultural sources (Egyptian, Roman, Greek). So I, too, would rather see them from a "New Britannian" single-source.

As for the 'focus' name...although there is a philosophical bent which says that all power arises from self-control, there are too many, and too powerful connotations which attach to 'omnipotence' (echoes of Deistic potency) for that to feel right.

Instead, why not use 'Temperancy', 'Moderatiancy', or 'Contantiancy'? All Latinate roots for the concept of self-regulation.

 

Its not the fact that they come from Earth culture that bothers me, its that the names themselves feel a little clunky. :/ Anyway I'll think about it.

Maybe Conjury, because you're summoning demons and stuff? Or maybe that's not a broad enough description to include things like shapeshifting and confusion spells and so on.

Sun magic maybe Hierophancy, because of spells like Enlightenment and a focus on revealing knowledge and making things present?

Augury is another big type of magic, though I don't know what school it could ever apply to. The Oracle practices Augury.

Wizardry? :/

 

I'm not sure why we need new names for the schools / I see a connection with to the opening cinematic but at this point it seems to add an unnecessary new layer of semantics - that may just confuse people more than the benefits of "added value" to the games' lore.

 

It does not matter to me which school you choose or what the names are, you will all taste delicious in a pie or a stew! Muhahahahahah!

 

I think more particularly, the issue is that you want the name of the school to easily translate into an impressive title. So, mages who practice Sorcery are Sorcerers; mages who practice Theurgy are Theurges; mages who practice Tempestry are Tempests, etc. The titles "Atenist", "Gaiaist" and "Lunaist" just don't sit right with me. Its not a matter of Earth lore, its that these aren't very good titles for a mage to have.

Now, many of the elemental magic titles that are being taken from U8 really aren't straight from Earth lore. Sorcery has to do with demonic magic, not fire; theurgy is divine magic, not air magic. But they're impressive titles.

So it just sounds better to me to, say, call a practitioner of sun magic a "Hierophant" (example I used from Hierophancy, don't know if its the best one) than a "Atenist".

 

Will there be new schools at some point like mental or the ability to combine schools like ice and death or desth and air to share effects itcwould add more creativity and uniqueness to mages

 

Theosophy to me means more 'study of divinity' than specifically relating to solar magic. A connection can be made, but perhaps not exclusively.

That said, I agree that Atenism sounds very 'real world.' Would it be better for SOTA to create its own solar and lunar mythology, and name the magic schools after that? After all, we learn other things in runic. Why not new magic school names based on game mythos.

 

What if they add more spells over time that can be found through discovery?

 

They are already called Lunar Rifts, I don't see why it would be an issue.

 

+1 for Redfish - concerning the "user" / practitioner naming convention

 

This is a good point. Ever wonder why we step into New Britannia and understand the language?

Something could be significant regarding our translation as beings into this world. Not translation of the language, but our essence being translated into this new realm.

Shouldn't we have an understanding of what they are talking about when they refer to the moon? For example if Lunaism was called Daetalism wouldn't that be odd for some new player? Sure Daedalus is the name of the New Britannian moon, but being "translated in essence" to the realm of new Britannia might be more than just giving us physical form. What if it gives us a bit of understanding as if we were partially from there in a way. Sure runic might look odd to us, but some how we are between two realms (possibly).

To me it seems to make sense that we would understand terms that we might be familiar with as players to give us this type of experience. Regardless if one term is Egyptian, one is Roman, etc. the world should be strangely familiar, and be strangely foreign at the same time. At least that's how I picture it.

EDIT: Regardless if they stay with those terms or change them, it seems good that we can sort of relate to these terms, and it is also good if somethings remain a little confused. So I don't think we need to be strict in anyway regarding these terms, except that they are somewhat familiar and somewhat new.

 

I second earth magic to be called Druidry. Druidism seems forced to me. Druidry rolls off the tongue.

 

All spells should require reagents.