Brainstorming Astronomy Events & Influences

@Beaumaris had a cool suggestion.. that we as a community come up with ideas for what astronomy events should be.

So I thought it'd be fun to kick it off.. right now there are basically two types of events.

1: Planetary alignments.. There are major alignments with 3 or more planets.. and what I'll call minor alignments of 2 planets.

Now all major alignments happen at the same time during the day.. at the moment (and I'm hoping this changes) that is at noon.

Minor alignments normally wouldn't be that interesting BUT.. if you mix in the virtues.. interesting minor alignments would be..

Red & Purple
Red & Orange
Blue & Purple
Blue & Green
Yellow & Green
Yellow & Orange

I call these interesting because the first planets in this list represent the principles which are part of the virtue related to the second planet. So an interesting 3 planet alignments would be..

Red, Blue & Purple
Red, Yellow & Orange
Blue, Yellow & Green
Red, Blue & Yellow.. and by extension, Red, Blue, Yellow & White.

To me these would be the most significant planetary alignments and any other combination.. even a 7 planet alignment is kinda meh.

2: Constellations

Constellations can't cross each other but they each represent a virtue, principle or Order & Chaos. So a planet crossing a constellation of the same virtue should be significant..

Any of the previously mentioned alignments in relation to the appropriate constellations would be even more significant.. ie Red, Blue, Yellow, White & The Ankh would be the ultimate event related to Spirituality. Red, Blue, Purple & The Chalice would be the ultimate event related to Honor etc.

So that all brings up the question.. which events should have what kinds of potential in-game effects? So just a few of my thoughts here..

It seems that magical schools are already set up to align with virtues.. even if only by color.

They've set up Truth, Love & Courage to related to magic, archery and melee respectively.. and also respectively these principles have been associated with stats.. Int, Dex and Str.

XP boosts and skill bonuses seem like obvious effects.

Crafting bonuses.. such as unique properties seems a popular idea.. but what would those properties be?

Unique combat & magic effects might be interesting.

Unique harvesting conditions.. ie certain things can only be found at a certain time is also an interesting idea.

Does anyone have any specific suggestions for any particular event or event type?

An easy way to do it may be to associate a particular effect to each planet and constellation and whenever one is involved in an alignment that effect is active.

 

Part of it will help once we know what the "forsaken virtues" will be. I'm honestly thinking they will be more the generic 8 that we see in the magic circles (Life, Death, Fire, Earth, Water, Air, Sun, Moon), as I really don't know if they will be able to go back to the Britannian style Virtues with the whole EA/Ultima bit.

It would make a fair amount of sense given that knowledge of the virtues themselves has been "lost" for a long time, they may end up modified somewhat (*wink wink, nudge nudge*) to avoid certain entanglements. Again, more of the stuff I'm very much interested to see more about when the story aspects start coming out.

 

They already are basically using the Britannia virtues. The constellations are all Ultima virtue symbols. With the exception of the 3 new ones.. Ethical hedonism replaces Infinity, and then there's Order and Chaos.. all the other systems are straight out of Ultima. I don't have the impression that EA can do much about the virtues.

 

@Bowen Bloodgood
We could brainstorm, but should we not also assume that Port has already determined what they want these events represent? Surely they have reasons in place for the alignments already....

 

To hear Richard talk about none of the events have been designs yet. He talks about discovering events and then they'll put stuff in for them. Up until now he's only even thrown out examples of what might be.

 

I think planets/constellations could potentially effect the types of creatures that spawn. Maybe certain super sized daemons or dragons will spawn based on constellations. Daemons so large that they show up on the map! =O Then if that super large daemon walks up to a town and touches it, it will attack the enire town. Major reward for the team of brave heroes who save the village!

 

So basically special encounters.

 

Yes special encounters! Maybe when one of those planets line up in a certain way, people who live on one of those moons will fire a cannon at our planet from their moon when the cannon ball hits, a door on the ball opens and the people from that moon come out. =O Not aliens or anything just human beings from another world that talk and dress differently. Perhaps they carry some gems or materials that can only be found on teir moon.

 

Has anyone timed the orbits of the planets yet?
All I can find is this vid by AvatarAcid, which is nice, but gives little clues to each planet's timings.

If not, I think it's ~Time~ for some stopwatch star gazing...
~Time Lord~

 

Check out the forum area Firelotus Tavern / The Library / Scholars of Novia

Short answer to your question.. yes.. yes someone has.

 

I had hoped that the DEV's already had at least an idea of what the planetary events will do to/for us. If they haven't even got their ideas down yet for each one, then I'm going to go out on a limb and say that we probably shouldn't expect to see any of them until well into Ep. 1, possibly not even until Ep. 2.

From the impression I got from Richard about how impactful these events will be, I would have to imagine that they will not just throw something together in the next couple months in between finishing everything else that is at the top of the must-do list for final release.

Also, since they're toted to be something spectacular, I would think they have at least basic ideas of what they want to happen for at least a few of them... or else why make such claims?

Not trying to argue with you Bowen... you know more about this games astronomy than probably everyone (including most DEV's). I just hope that you are wrong about them not having any ideas set in stone yet. That would mean that we are a long way from actually seeing any events happen. And, if the first few alignments go off without any cause/effect... that would be a major disappointment.

Having said all that... I'm all for the point of this thread and helping come up with ideas for alignment events and influences. I just think that if they DEV's do have some ideas already penciled in, it would be helpful to at least know that is the case and if so, which alignments are already in the works. That way we can concentrate on working on those that need the most help. If/when they respond with that info, I will revisit this thread and try to contribute with some ideas for them.

 

Several examples have been given in the past so they must have some ideas. But it doesn't seem like they calculated what would happen when.

 

Wish could connect some stuff to locations to.
Easier to decide what will happen if you both know When and Where.
Could the constellations tell where?

 

Astronomy events or astrology events

What about the position of planets in respect to the moon, or in respect to the sun?

Will the planets only represent virtues, or also perhaps elemental magic, of which there are 8 schools + chaos?

 

The keen observer will note that the magic schools also have color associations. Though claiming that water is somehow tied to Honesty might be a bit of a stretch but you could make some interesting connections. Fire - Valor.. Life - Spirituality, Death - Humility, Sun - Sacrifice etc.