Crystalism Changes

This makes me mad, and I'm not even a Magi. My house lost probably over 10 million facets because of this, and I'm sure others lost a huge amount as well. Since we sell them in shops, I have to ask, was the server lag really so bad that we had to be penalized 500 million gold worth of inventory?

ANNOUNCE NEWS #4035                                     (01/24/2014 at 03:20)  
From   : Tecton, the Terraformer
To     : Everyone
Subject: Master crystals, folding, and refining.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In an effort to reduce paperwork (ok, virtual paperwork) and prepare for some upcoming changes to 
cities and houses, we're pleased to announce an overhaul to the way master crystals and refining are 
handled! The details of the changes are as follows:

* Magi now have a personal tally of facets that they can refine from a master crystal, which 
replaces the single massive pool shared among all house members. There is a hard limit of 5,000 
facets per person.

* Houses that own a master crystal still have a pool of facets, which is increased by 1 facet for 
each pearl folded in by house members. These facets can then be allocated to individual house 
members by those with the CRYSTALS power (which is assignable by the house leader). There is a hard 
limit of 200,000 facets in the communal pool.

* The number of facets per pearl folded in has been increased.

* Personal facets can also be transferred between house members with GRANT <person> <number> FACETS 
while standing at the master crystal.

* HOUSE CRYSTAL(S) has been expanded upon, allowing house members with the privilege to:
   * HOUSE CRYSTAL STATUS   - Show details of the house's communal pool.
   * HOUSE CRYSTAL LOG      - Show additions and withdrawals to the crystal.
   * HOUSE CRYSTAL ALLOCATE - Move facets from the communal pool to a house member.

* We have "reset" all existing master crystals to reflect these changes, so everyone who is magi 
class and a member of a house that owns a master crystal has been given 50 facets to get you started.
 Every house pool has been gifted with 10,000 facets.

Penned by My hand on the 25th of Glacian, in the year 645 AF.
«13

Comments

  • Oh. It seems like crystalsbrief doesn't work any more, and crystal log doesn't show in brief format, thus making this system cause more (virtual) paperwork for the players!
  • The part of me that is still magi just died a little.

    I have undressed a god.

  • The part of me that's still Magi went, "Finally they removed an outdated mechanic so that multiclass will work for a city."
    image
    Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."

  • What's the point of having a bigass crystal if you're not gonna use it in all honesty?
    image
  • All that really says is that people obsess over weird shit, and I'm saying that as I organize my scripts so they all go in alphabetical order.  If you don't use something except to make it bigger, then there is no point to having it.  Did it have any point beyond the "big number" mentality or was there a practical point to having one that big when you didn't actively use it except to make it bigger?
    image
  • edited January 2014
    Except it was probably to alleviate server workload on top of the stated reason.  That's an "overall better game" in my opinion.

    Plus, y'know, the big ol' city/house overhaul that's coming in.  Groundwork for that, and thus, necessary.
    image
  • TharvisTharvis The Land of Beer and Chocolate!
    i agree with @Nizaris here, this sudden forced change wasn't very good, houses should have atleast gotten a little bit of time to do something with the excess facets instead of just getting a "hey, we did this, deal with it"
    Aurora says, "Tharvis, why are you always breaking things?!"
    Artemis says, "You are so high maintenance, Tharvis, gosh."
    Tecton says, "It's still your fault, Tharvis."

  • edited January 2014
    Except it was probably to alleviate server workload on top of the stated reason. That's an "overall better game" in my opinion.

    For you, because you don't care.  Of course you'd take an extremely marginal improvement in Tecton's administrative burden over something that you care nothing about. 

  • Yes, because I don't care about Magi house e-peen.
    image
  • Tecton is clearly my alt.
  • I don't understand what point you're making.  You seem to think that using the word "e-peen" is a useful contribution somehow.  All you're really saying is that you don't care about the things that a reasonable chunk of the playerbase do.  E-peen is just another word for reputation in the game and really, that's all anyone cares about in Achaea.  It's *everything*. 

    So it's not your e-peen, fine. But it matters to a lot of people and, I say again, messing with that for a marginal server improvement is a dumb move.  That's the core point, that I don't really think you're addressing.

  • It's just the way they implemented the change, causing the Houses to lose what they feel like as being years and years of investment. Nizaris' idea of placing a hardcap on 200,000 and keeping the facets as they are currently until they drop and meet the hard cap through natural decline sounded like a solid one, and I don't know why the Master Crystals were instated with a laughable initial facet count.
  • SkyeSkye The Duchess Bellatere
    Old magi houses like the Kindred, Warlocks, (RIP) Crystalline Circle, had some pretty strong rules set in place for refining etc. Maybe it's because I've played Arcanist before, but I personally found the care and maintenance of the Crystal to be part and parcel of Magi RP. I always imagined the MC as something like a nuclear reactor or a ticking weapon of potential mass destruction that the House safeguards for potential use (which still makes me wish that Shallam had been blown up at least partially by the Circle nuking their own Crystal to kill the Dalamyr)

    The practical point to the large facet accumulation is in the event that you wind up being stuck in say... a long term war, the leadership might (at its discretion) open the facet reserves to magi to refine at will without folding. It also adds a buffer to your MC in the case of breakins where some enemy magi gets to refining your MC, they won't total it completely.

    Personally I would've taken it in the other direction and put a decay rate on the MC like Icons except there's no upper limit, just a general degradation of facets over time. I mean, if the magi in general are fixated on folding, then you may as well add a little purpose to it. >_>


  • @Jarrod: I understand that argument, and I dunno maybe you're right about the number of people who care but I think you're wrong.  I did a good stint in an old magi House and the vast majority of the House members would have been pretty pissed I think.  We'll see I guess.

    @Skye: Totally - the MC was one of those huge things that everyone had to care about - like an Icon that actually mattered.  A threat to the MC was the one thing guaranteed to get every single member of a mage House off their asses and RPing/working.  Who knew that it wasn't Felisse we had to worry about, it was @Tecton all along.

  • I kinda feel like people are missing the good parts here. It's impossible to overwithdraw, so you don't even NEED to check it anymore. Furthermore, no more MC raids (thank you, admins. So, so much).

    Am I really the only one who sees those and thinks "Hell yes"? Sylvans lost 50K refines, that nobody was ever going to use anyway, because we had a refining policy. Now, we no longer need that. Our Magi get more refines per pearl, and the House will still get the facets it would otherwise gain (could refine 6 per pearl before this).
    image
  • Alrena said:
    Am I really the only one who sees those and thinks "Hell yes"?
    Definitely not, people are usually more vocal when they're upset than when they enjoy a change!
    image
    Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."

  • Obligatory statement that the Merchants pay people who add facets. I still have to check the logs, and removing brief seems like an oversight.
  • I completely agree with Jarrod's opinion on this - it's a good change that could have probably been done a little better if they tried.

    However, I also think that the Houses with MCs that lost massive amounts of facets (and thus time, work), should have been compensated.  It's not like IRE to be fair to people, especially when it comes to taking things without warning... but in this case, those facets represent hundreds, or probably thousands of hours of work - and it would take all of a few seconds for the admins to give them some form of gold or other means of compensation for it.  Do they have to?  No.  But should they?  I think so.
  • Rispok said:
    Obligatory statement that the Merchants pay people who add facets. I still have to check the logs, and removing brief seems like an oversight.
    You give me 5 credits and a copy of what the new output looks like and I'll give you a script to do it for you.
    image
    Cascades of quicksilver light streak across the firmament as the celestial voice of Ourania intones, "Oh Jarrod..."

  • edited January 2014
    I like the new change, even with having played a Magi before. There's really no use frothing at the mouth over it because it's not going to suddenly revert back. Might be coincidence but Achaea's lagging has cleared up for me (granted it might just be a lucky few hours).

    There's a thread, it's down in the sewers called "Ranting Menace" which is specialised for thesefrustrations.
Sign In or Register to comment.