Reading some old topics (like this one by Dinkybarrel) referring to the current situation between Mhaldor and Oakstone/Eleusis has been thought-provoking. In my boredom, I even constructed a little geographical .gif while trying to sort all the interplay of conflicts. Even if you buy-in to the opinion that calling out Nature as an enemy was a mistake; given that Concoctions is so necessary to survival for all classes, confronting Oakstone is kind of a suicide mission and the situation we're in now is a foregone conclusion.
I play a forestal in Hashan and the incentive to support Mhaldor from a roleplaying perspective is strong. From what I can tell, Hashan was founded by Twilight and was or still is a city of independent and sometimes shady characters.
When I look at how the cities are spaced out around the continent, it almost makes me wonder if the ideologies are intentionally opposed by the game designers. If that is the case, then Sartan's event that promoted Mhaldor versus Eleusis conflict was perfectly in step with this distribution.
Things get a little messed up, though, since Cyrene and Hashan have never really had any reason to hate each other as far as I can find in the Histories.



1 Ashtan vs. Shallam (historically the oldest conflict)
2 Mhaldor vs. Shallam (ideologically the most obvious conflict, Good vs. Evil is timeless)
3 Mhaldor vs. Eleusis (Red fog destroys Nature - a mistake? Or not?)
4 Eleusis vs. Hashan (the construction of Hashan destroyed a lot of forest)
5 Eleusis vs. Ashtan? (is there precedence for this?)
6 Mhaldor vs. Cyrene (recent conflict? or historical?)

Anyways, as Des already highlighted in his Idea topic, and countless others have said repeatedly, in order for any city to have a sustained conflict with Oakstone or Nature or Eleusis, there has to be an alternative to Concoctions or harvesting has to be unaffected by Oakstone enemy status. If it was a mistake for Sartan to create an anti-Nature stance, maybe it was one that will eventually force the hands of the game designers to fix some of the problems with how the Nature organisations are set up.

I like this thread.

I really don't understand what your trying to say. Or you proposing that something be changed for cures. "there has to be an alternative to Concoctions or harvesting has to be unaffected by Oakstone enemy status" Or change how Oakstone works?

I mean its informative, but I don't know what to do with the information?

It makes no sense for any organization to be able to strip away the ability to harvest or make concoctions.

Necromancy is a skill directly gifted by the Evil divine, the source of their essence, so it makes sense that Evil would have some way of regulating or stripping this skill from another individual that is using it to agress against their goals.

Devotion (refer to Necromancy above, substituting Evil for Good)

Now enter scene random forestal. Forestal Bob has sided with Evil because he's a follower of the seven truths, not because he hates nature, so bad RP doesn't come into play. He just so happens to be skilled at being able to harvest plants and make myriad elixirs from them. How can this ability be stripped? What sense does that make? The ability to pluck a potato out of the ground and make a stew out of it isn't something gifted from a divine, it's a skill that's learned.

That makes as much sense as Mhaldor being able to strip away the Forging skills of a rogue, or Cyrene being able to strip away your ability to create a Rune because you left the Wardens.

Forestal skills aren't directly fed to them from a divine in any RP or real sense of understanding like Good and Evil are. No organization should have power over such.

Remove this ridiculous Oakstone power and all of these god awful ideas of how to get around it that are running rampant across the forums. That's the solution to all of this.

In Achaea, nature is a semi-sentient force. It's possible for the plants themselves to not allow someone to harvest them.

Bellwort Str: 0 Con: 0 Int: 0 Agi: 300000 ?

IT'S OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAAAAAND!

No, really, even in Achaea herbs aren't sentient like that.

Nature as a whole, however is. So make concoctions a general skill and allow Oakstone to strip imprinted groves and animals. After all, those are direct gifts of nature, unlike... knowing how to pick plants.

I like the image of a forest enemy going along in the fields and trying to pick a daisy, but having it run away.

I was a little annoyed that the Divine forced Mhaldor into more direct conflict with Eleusis/Oakstone. In order for that to really be viable, I think you either have to remove extermination and forest enemying so the conflict is strictly ideological, or else create an alternate class of alchemists or something so that curative shortages aren't a side affect of the conflict (yes, I know, not happening).

Good vs. Evil and Nature vs. Chaos make more sense to me as overall story lines anyway.

Right, that's my point of view too. A few of us are discussing this actually.

I offer my general to Soludra, Amrylin, and Eurulis at this point and time.
Thank you.

What'd I do?

Also, yes. Concoctions needs to be made a general skill, otherwise we're gonna have to put up with Lupus going "But you can't do that! It's an event! I don't care how much they blighted Nature!". Not that blanket enemying all of Mhaldor would actually put it in a much worse position than it is now, especially not if the Ebon Fist has been doing the whole resource collection thing.

In all seriousness, though, if concoctions is kept tied to the forestal classes, forestal RP will always be given the shaft because concoctions is just that needed. I like my suggestion, and don't think it'd be difficult to play but, you know, it's my suggestion.

Yeah but if you put concoctions as a general skill, you also have to deal with these issues:

- Everything would be harvested out even worse than it already is.

- The market would become saturated.

- The three current concoctions classes would have to have a replacement skill.

I don't see how that whole mess would be any more pleasant than making a new 'dark forestal' or whatever that they seem unwilling to do. I just don't think this would be feasible or even satisfying.

Answers in bold.

Eurulis suggested that, at some point, plant growth would be increased, and I don't really see any downsides to that.


It's being discussed by a few of us enterprising players. Whether or not it's approved, it's fun thinking one up, anyways.

EDIT: Bah, ninja'd by Eurulis. XD

Re-coding concoctions as a permit skill and coding and balancing two or three complete new class skills for forestals (which will probably involve modifications to the other class skills forestals have already, since you would be replacing a completely non-combat-relevant skill with something else), they might as well just code in a new class. I'll bet it would be much easier, and I think that's a MUCH better solution overall than making concoctions a trade skill.

Also, this is kind of a nit-picky objection, but I don't think making concoctions a general skill is a good idea because it's the best way right now for people to make in-game credits if they don't have the money to buy them ooc.

Right now, people with ooc money buy arties, but they still have to spend ic gold on herbs and concoctions unless they want to play forestals. So people who don't have ooc credit money can make a decent living and build up some credits in-game by being a forestal. It's far and away the best way to play if you aren't going to be able to buy ooc credits.

If you make concoctions general, you will be essentially removing that ability because everybody who has ooc money is going to buy a concoctions permit and won't need the poor concoctionists. Some of them might be lazy and buy their herbs and elixirs anyway, whether they have the permit or not, but they'll be doing that buying from people who are already rich enough to own the concoctions permit.

So anybody who doesn't have the money to buy ooc credits is essentially screwed unless they straight up bash or fish them up because most of the other class-based saleable skills like forging and enchanting are pretty crappy.

Maybe this is a really small concern, but Achaea is already oriented to people who have ooc money and I don't like things that will make it even more difficult for people to make credits the hard way.

I can only agree to this entire post.

Why should Eleusis care if Hashan expanded their territory that long ago. They were punished by Lupus who sent werewolves in, and I don't see the point in punishing a new generation that had NOTHING to do with the original decision to expand Hashan.

Moving away from the Oakstone arguments that have been hashed and rehashed in a thousand other threads, (At least one of which is still on-going in the Dais) I'll try to respond to Minosha. To answer your question, (I think it was a question) I would agree that the Garden intentionally places city ideologies opposite of each other. With some exceptions, every city has reasonable cause to dislike or even hate every other city. It's natural for alliances to come together when convenient or necessary, but I think the existence of long-term, stable alliances is something unintended by the game's developers, though that's not necessarily bad.

I'll just run through the basics for each city. Explaining the specific history and details of each would take hours. (And could be done in-game!)

Ashtan has an obvious enemy in Shallam, but also an obvious enemy in Mhaldor. Ashtan's 'freedom' runs in almost direct anathema to Mhaldor's 'oppression', and Chaos, itself, is something that doesn't really agree with Evil. I can't see where Ashtan would have any problem with Cyrene or Eleusis, but those two cities have fair reasons to hate Ashtan, so Ashtan would of course respond in kind.

Shallam has its obvious enemies in Ashtan, Mhaldor, and to a lesser extent, Hashan. These cities are built around, or at least have come to represent, ideologies that oppose Good. Shallam might not dislike Cyrene or Eleusis, but both of those cities may take issue with Shallam's assertion of "Join the Light or become the enemy".

Mhaldor obviously opposes Shallam and Eleusis, but it should, as stated above, oppose Ashtan because of differences in ideology. Mhaldor has and does cast suspicion on Cyrene, as a city re-founded by a Shallamese on principles borrowed from Shallam's constitution.

Eleusis has excellent reason to hate Mhaldor and Ashtan, for Necromancy's and Chaos' harm to Nature. Eleusis also has a fair cause to dislike Hashan and Cyrene, as both of these cities tore down prominent forests prior to their construction.

Hashan I don't see as 'hating' anyone, but they should expect enmity from most, as their founder, Twilight, was a feared and hated enemy of most. Also, there's the 'Kharon Empire' that claimed dominance over Sapience. The Kharon might be gone, but grudges don't always lift when logic dictates they should.

Cyrene's founding literature says to be wary of the "Evil, Dark, (Twilight) and Chaotic" so it should naturally oppose those three respective cities. It might have to oppose Eleusis, having torn down the forest spirit Propasia's forest (Did it have a name?). It could be said that it should avoid Shallam, since it was founded to escape Shallam's conflicts, but with the rather one-sided state of the game at present, I'm glad that's not the case.

So, over all, just about every city can find a justifiable reason to hate every other city. As above, this is to promote the sense of 'epic' conflict, intrigue, and storytelling in the game. I'm sure the Garden didn't expect nor wish to see a constant, endless free-for-all across Sapience, but they certainly didn't want to 'hard-code' cities to be allied to each other by placing their ideologies too close to each other.

Not this.



This.



But it can't work due to the geographical location of Ashtan and Eleusis. In the figure. You SAW the figure, didn't you?

I'd think they'd crumble more when you pick them, than refuse to let you pick them.
Doesnt' that make more sense?


I'd have to agree with this post.


I agree with this post also.

I also hate the idea of a "dark forestal" or whatever I keep seeing cropping up in the ideas thread.

There are a few ways I thought of. The curative part of the plant being destroyed or rendered unusable when you try to pick it is the best way for it to explain all plant types in all environments though. That's still "not allowing someone to harvest them".

I'd go with the forest recognising the touch and forcing the bud/plant to crumble as it's picked, turning to dust.

Making harvesting useless, in effect, pointless too.
Just as good as a "You can't harvest" witout the "How does the forest remove my memory"

Now I'm confused. Aren't we basically saying the same thing? And where does losing your memory come in?

Oh, never mind, making you forget how to harvest.

I think we are actually
I was just suggesting an alternative to "forgetting".

Hashan was founded by Twilight, true, but modern Hashan is related to Him in the same way Ashtan is related to the Infernals.

Nature vs. Chaos is fairly contrived.

Oakstone sucks in more ways than I could possibly list, but the conflict right now is so far in Mhaldor's favour - both in terms of players involved and game mechanics - that I couldn't even hope to do justice to how stupid it is without boring even myself.

I love the idea of a "dark forestal" as far as playing a role goes. Game mechanics aside. The Darkenwood event where Twilight and Gaia (I think? Or Demeter? Somebody correct me if I'm wrong.) merged essence & Orina and ... starts with an X I think ... basically procreated the dark forest full of big nasty spiders and...
Yeah. I like that.

But that's Dark not Evil. Which, in this game, are different. Twilight is Hashan and diametrically opposed to Cyrene, not Eleusis.