Terraforming Updates - June 2013

Shirszae

@Achimrst And a *wink, wink* for those like me who don't    @-)

Achimrst

Shirszae said:

@Achimrst And a *wink, wink* for those like me who don't    @-)

Wait what!?...I feel like I'm missing something, but if I drink coffee now I will be stuck awake all night and forced to talk to the person who sleeps in my bed....

Tecton

Cooper said:

Tecton said:

Cooper said:

On a scale of one week to 'Ships Are Coming Soon(tm)' how long is 'down the road' for multiclassing?

Closer to the latter than the former.

But...that's like...at least 5 years then

We're working on Tecton timeframes.. not Sarapis'  :-\"

Seriously though, it won't be this summer, it might be this year, it will definitely be before 2015!

Sasiya

Seriously.

There is a 'disagree' button on the forum but no 'agree' button? There is such a huge difference between liking something and agreeing with it!

^_^

/agree @Achimrst

Jonners

I just hope that these terraforming updates become a monthly or bi-monthly thing. Would be nice to plan major events like class changes around things like this.

Mishgul

I just bought a new pitchfork and I need a reason to use it. 

Korben

Tecton said:

• Splitting off some (or all) tradeskills from class skill sets (and adding new class skills/abilities to fill in the voids).
• Expanded rewards for bashing, beyond gold and experience.
• [...]
  
• New challenges for bashers and questers alike, both on land and at sea.
• Taking our class system to a new level with Multiclassing: players will be able to retain knowledge of multiple class skill sets, allowing a fluid switch between known classes without starting over at inept skill level.

SQUEE.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to make a tinfoil helmet. Tecton must be using orbital lasers to read my mind.

On the subject of multiclass, class identity, and RP:
A lot of people pick their class, and then build their character from what is established about the class. This is acceptable if you're new to RP, but it's backwards. First you define who your character is as a person, and then you add class (and race, and city, and House, and Order) on top of that.

To take an example from AGOT (a setting whose strength is precisely its characters), Thoros and Melisandre are both priests of the Red God. In Achaean terms, same class, same Order, same House at some point in the past if not now. And yet they're vastly different characters.

Tirac

Sorry EF, blademasters are coming my way after multiclass. VADI!

Hayte

Tirac said:

Sorry EF, blademasters are coming my way after multiclass. VADI!

You can have our BMs after you pry them from our cold, stinky, dead fingers.

Peak

@Tecton if forging is going to be revamped/tweaked, does this alter our agreement to make me the best (mortal) forger?

Synbios

Hayte said:

Tirac said:

Sorry EF, blademasters are coming my way after multiclass. VADI!

You can have our BMs after you pry them from our cold, stinky, dead fingers.

But...your hands aren't stinky at all. They actually have the lovely smell...of...chloroform...zzzzzzzzzzz...

Cadrik

Tecton said:

To help make combat more accessible to new players, we'll be providing a basic combat system for users of our HTML5 client! This will be an open and freely modifiable trigger package that can be easily tailored to suit even the most advanced combatant.

Oh dear lord thank you. Combat is rather difficult when you have general inability to write code without causing explosions. :P

Mishgul

I'd be happy to help with that actually if needed.

Naisar

Hmm, you know what's something to tackle with multiclassing?  Races & traits.  Unless there's something added in to help with that, there's going to be some natural limitation going on.

Sasiya

Re @Naisar:
Grimoire of Adaptation and Gem of Transmutation should solve that, though?

Naisar

I strongly disagree with a 2000 credit investment being called a solution.

Chryenth

Korben said:

To take an example from ASoIaF (a setting whose strength is precisely its characters), Thoros and Melisandre are both priests of the Red God. In Achaean terms, same class, same Order, same House at some point in the past if not now. And yet they're vastly different characters.

Fixed that for you.

Cautiously excited for... all of it, really.

Sasiya

Naisar said:

I strongly disagree with a 2000 credit investment being called a solution.

Seems like the obvious solution would be to reduce the cost of these artifacts, then.

Antonius

Having potentially sub-optimal traits for your secondary class would be a way to limit its effectiveness in comparison to your primary one, so I'm not entirely convinced that's a problem that definitely needs to be solved. Could even disable major traits entirely if you wanted to go down that route.

Chryenth

Or make multiclass take a major trait slot.

Trait: Tekura, or whatever. Grants a reduced-use skillset, so you only have a selection of the abilities.

Iocun

Antonius said:

Having potentially sub-optimal traits for your secondary class would be a way to limit its effectiveness in comparison to your primary one, so I'm not entirely convinced that's a problem that definitely needs to be solved. Could even disable major traits entirely if you wanted to go down that route.

Agreed. Of course, some combinations suffer much less from this than others. It would be no problem to have traits that work well both for a serpent and a knight, whereas a knight/magi combination would be much more difficult. But in many cases, this inequality between the viability of different combinations actually makes sense RP-wise: a person trained in one physical combat art will realistically excel at another physical combat art more easily than an arcane one.

Also, not everybody who goes for a multiclass combination will actually seek to do much combat with both classes. I'd think that many would have one main "combat" class and another more aimed at general RP/bashing/whatever.

Naisar

I'm not saying we need to have race & traits switchable for multiclassing, I'm just noting that it's something to consider when creating the system- especially if there are going to be other restrictions.  Layering this on top of too many other restrictions would have negative effects.  Anyway, it'll be interesting to see how this is handled.

Sylvance

I'm still betting it won't be Multiclassing ala DnD. It'll be Multiclassing* ala MKO, which is more accurately called Class-Switching. So there won't be any Serpent-Knights. Period.

ETA: For the record, if this is the case I'd ten-times rather see class specialisation ala MKO, but whatever. The other changes are making me horny enough that I can get over the pre-emptive disappointment with multiclassing.

Shirszae

Sylvance said:

I'm still betting it won't be Multiclassing ala DnD. It'll be Multiclassing* ala MKO, which is more accurately called Class-Switching. So there won't be any Serpent-Knights. Period.

ETA: For the record, if this is the case I'd ten-times rather see class specialisation ala MKO, but whatever. The other changes are making me horny enough that I can get over the pre-emptive disappointment with multiclassing.

Multiclassing ala MKO is the only kind that makes sense in this game, when you think about it. Otherwise, combat would be a balance nightmare. The idea is that you don't lose what you already know in a class when you change. Call it whatever you want, it will still be great.

Iocun

Sylvance said:

I'm still betting it won't be Multiclassing ala DnD. It'll be Multiclassing* ala MKO, which is more accurately called Class-Switching. So there won't be any Serpent-Knights. Period.

I think we're all pretty much agreed on that. I doubt anyone seriously imagines being able to use the skills of two different classes at once.

Namino

Tecton said:

• An overhaul of the emote system, merging emote and tmote functionality, as well as providing the ability to combine emotes with some of the common item interactions.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ldT7B9dlQ6I

Might actually have to play here again.

Any chance we're going to kill off IC channels while we're at it?! 

Katzchen

Friztic said:

I really like the idea of opening up the Knight classes, but I'm a bit disappointed with the idea that the different classes all get their own weapons instead of weapons being interchangeable. Seems kinda raw to give shiny new flavor to a couple of classes and leave Runewardens with the same old thing people are tired of. I'm sure it's not as bad as all that, though, just wanted to voice that concern.

Agree that I really dislike the idea of forcing a class into one weapon sort, but for different reasons... I love duel wielding shiny swords, and I'd be really pissed if I was still infernal and suddenly forced to use maces, flails, morning stars, and warhammers.

Kyrra

I stuck with broadswords for a really, really long time and only just switched to rapiers. I know there's a handful of knights that prefer scimitars, and the few that use axes in combat.

It would be awesome if most of the other forged weapons were actually viable for proper use. I only ever really see people using them to test things out for comparing results.

Mishgul

i don't think the administration will take away variety rather than add to the variety of things. I have faith it will turn out well.

Vayne

It'd be interesting to see certain knight classes/houses have a certain extra proficiency for unique weapons or styles due to their tradition or what not instead of limiting each to just one type of melee weapon.