Ask your Producer: Mayaween Edition

Jacen

There's been sporadic discussion on the forums about whether neutral-tending cities belong in Achaea. What's your stance on this?

Where do you think city-state conflict should be, ideally? Meaning, do you think every city should be opposed to every other city? Are long term alliances (Cyrene-Targ, Ashtan-Hashan) healthy for the game?

Do you and the rest of the admin actively try to push the neutralish cities more towards alignment, or are you pretty hands off in that regard?

Iocun

Tecton said:

Hasar said:

What do you mean exactly by backfill the void, for these new skills?

And if I have trans enchantment now, will I have trans enchantment when the tradeskills are split off, or will I get my lessons returned and I'll be able to choose to trans the replacement skill or enchantment, etc.

1) Well, we can't have a class with 2 class skills, so you'll get a new one to replace it. (see earlier comments about 11 new skills needing to be designed, coded, and tested)

Am I right in assuming though that it won't be a completely new skill, but also consist of some abilities split off from the class's other two skills? The current tradeskill-owning classes already tend to have very ability-rich skills as their other two skills compared to classes with three combat skills, after all, so giving them a completely new combat-relevant skill would probably be over the top.

(E.g. monks have almost an entire skill devoted to doing limb damage, which knights do in the single ability of dsl, which also afflicts on top. Apostates have an entire skill for delivering different afflictions in pairs of two, which serpents do in the single ability of dstab.)

2) Not sure how we're handling this yet, you'll either get the lessons refunded, or you'll have the same skillrank in the new skill as you had in the trade skill.

I really hope it's the lesson refunding, considering that there may be people who aren't interested in combat at all and only learned their class tradeskill for its tradeskill value, so they wouldn't even want knowledge of whatever their class's new skill is.

Daklore

Regarding the split of trade skills, notably forging, will fullplate remain in forging, or will it be moved to the new third trans for Knights or into Chivalry itself? As fullplate is only usable by the three Knight classes, and you can only wear one you've made.

Edit to add: How will the split be handled by people who already possess those tradeskills? Will they just get auto-third trans and lose the ability and have to reinvest? Will they have to re-invest to get tri-trans instead and keep their trans'd tradeskill? Or will they get both for free? (or someone already asked, and I skimmed and never saw it. I'm lazy and don't like to read other peoples things >P)

Tecton

Jacen said:

There's been sporadic discussion on the forums about whether neutral-tending cities belong in Achaea. What's your stance on this?

Where do you think city-state conflict should be, ideally? Meaning, do you think every city should be opposed to every other city? Are long term alliances (Cyrene-Targ, Ashtan-Hashan) healthy for the game?

Do you and the rest of the admin actively try to push the neutralish cities more towards alignment, or are you pretty hands off in that regard?

I'd love to see each of the cities exist on their own axis of conflict, it's kind of difficult for the neutral-ish cities, just because that's how they were founded. If I could go back in time to when they were put in, I'd definitely have them be more polarised.

Where possible, we try to provide the tools for create conflict between the different organisations so that people in the more middle-of-the-road cities are not left on the sidelines.

Tecton

Iocun said:

Tecton said:

Hasar said:

What do you mean exactly by backfill the void, for these new skills?

And if I have trans enchantment now, will I have trans enchantment when the tradeskills are split off, or will I get my lessons returned and I'll be able to choose to trans the replacement skill or enchantment, etc.

1) Well, we can't have a class with 2 class skills, so you'll get a new one to replace it. (see earlier comments about 11 new skills needing to be designed, coded, and tested)

Am I right in assuming though that it won't be a completely new skill, but also consist of some abilities split off from the class's other two skills? The current tradeskill-owning classes already tend to have very ability-rich skills as their other two skills compared to classes with three combat skills, after all, so giving them a completely new combat-relevant skill would probably be over the top.

(E.g. monks have almost an entire skill devoted to doing limb damage, which knights do in the single ability of dsl, which also afflicts on top. Apostates have an entire skill for delivering different afflictions in pairs of two, which serpents do in the single ability of dstab.)

2) Not sure how we're handling this yet, you'll either get the lessons refunded, or you'll have the same skillrank in the new skill as you had in the trade skill.

I really hope it's the lesson refunding, considering that there may be people who aren't interested in combat at all and only learned their class tradeskill for its tradeskill value, so they wouldn't even want knowledge of whatever their class's new skill is.

1) Some of the new skills will be expanding some aspect of an existing skill into a full blown skill in their own right, some will be new skills entirely. For example, with knights we could remove the weaponry-based attacks from chivalry, add some more mount and falcon-related abilities, and then devote an entire skill to using weaponry.

2) We'll have to see what happens there as the designs get more fleshed out!

Melodie

What precisely do I have to do to have Neraeos around (both physically and in overall felt presense) again?

:-\"

Tecton

Daklore said:

Regarding the split of trade skills, notably forging, will fullplate remain in forging, or will it be moved to the new third trans for Knights or into Chivalry itself? As fullplate is only usable by the three Knight classes, and you can only wear one you've made.

Edit to add: How will the split be handled by people who already possess those tradeskills? Will they just get auto-third trans and lose the ability and have to reinvest? Will they have to re-invest to get tri-trans instead and keep their trans'd tradeskill? Or will they get both for free? (or someone already asked, and I skimmed and never saw it. I'm lazy and don't like to read other peoples things >P)

1) We'll probably do something like open up fullplate a little more, so someone can make a set of fullplate for a knight who doesn't have forging. We're also looking at expanding and adding to the skill so that there are some new abilities beyond fullplate at transcendent.

2) As I mentioned earlier, we'll probably refund the lessons, or set your skill rank in the new skill to what you had in the tradeskill pre-split.

Tecton

Melodie said:

What precisely do I have to do to have Neraeos around (both physically and in overall felt presense) again? :-\"

Occupy Nerry's house 2013!

Daklore

When tradeskill split occurs, will cities be able to spring for public rooms for performing certain tasks? Such as an enchanting room? Or a milking room, if venoms retain that... Obviously, we already have city forges, but to my knowledge, city-based public milking and enchanting rooms are currently not possible. Likewise, will houses be able to also spring for their own since tradeskills won't be class tied?

Tecton

Daklore said:

When tradeskill split occurs, will cities be able to spring for public rooms for performing certain tasks? Such as an enchanting room? Or a milking room, if venoms retain that... Obviously, we already have city forges, but to my knowledge, city-based public milking and enchanting rooms are currently not possible. Likewise, will houses be able to also spring for their own since tradeskills won't be class tied?

Most likely yes for both (the latter is already the case)

Tecton

Just a heads-up, I'll be closing this thread off at the Serenade tonight (5 hours, 45 mins from now) - so get your questions in soon!

Achimrst

Based on the current in-game dynamics. How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?

Tecton

Achimrst said:

Based on the current in-game dynamics. How many licks does it take to get to the tootsie roll center of a tootsie pop?

2.74 (if you're a grook)

Chryenth

Apologies is you've said and I missed it, but: Are classes that lose tradeskills (Serpent, Magi, Knights) going to get an entirely new skill, or will the remaining skills be spread out among three? Or something else entirely? Or is it not known yet and I'm jumping the gun somewhat?

Keep up the good work.

Eld

Chryenth said:

Apologies is you've said and I missed it, but: Are classes that lose tradeskills (Serpent, Magi, Knights) going to get an entirely new skill, or will the remaining skills be spread out among three? Or something else entirely? Or is it not known yet and I'm jumping the gun somewhat?

Keep up the good work.

Tecton said:

Iocun said:

Tecton said:

Hasar said:

What do you mean exactly by backfill the void, for these new skills?

And if I have trans enchantment now, will I have trans enchantment when the tradeskills are split off, or will I get my lessons returned and I'll be able to choose to trans the replacement skill or enchantment, etc.

1) Well, we can't have a class with 2 class skills, so you'll get a new one to replace it. (see earlier comments about 11 new skills needing to be designed, coded, and tested)

Am I right in assuming though that it won't be a completely new skill, but also consist of some abilities split off from the class's other two skills? The current tradeskill-owning classes already tend to have very ability-rich skills as their other two skills compared to classes with three combat skills, after all, so giving them a completely new combat-relevant skill would probably be over the top.

(E.g. monks have almost an entire skill devoted to doing limb damage, which knights do in the single ability of dsl, which also afflicts on top. Apostates have an entire skill for delivering different afflictions in pairs of two, which serpents do in the single ability of dstab.)

2) Not sure how we're handling this yet, you'll either get the lessons refunded, or you'll have the same skillrank in the new skill as you had in the trade skill.

I really hope it's the lesson refunding, considering that there may be people who aren't interested in combat at all and only learned their class tradeskill for its tradeskill value, so they wouldn't even want knowledge of whatever their class's new skill is.

1) Some of the new skills will be expanding some aspect of an existing skill into a full blown skill in their own right, some will be new skills entirely. For example, with knights we could remove the weaponry-based attacks from chivalry, add some more mount and falcon-related abilities, and then devote an entire skill to using weaponry.

2) We'll have to see what happens there as the designs get more fleshed out!

Penwize

Chryenth said:

Apologies is you've said and I missed it, but: Are classes that lose tradeskills (Serpent, Magi, Knights) going to get an entirely new skill, or will the remaining skills be spread out among three? Or something else entirely? Or is it not known yet and I'm jumping the gun somewhat?

Keep up the good work.

That's like the fourth time this has been asked in this thread, and this thread's only 5 pages long!

Josoul

Have you considered making a light mobile version of the website?

Eld

Penwize said:

Chryenth said:

Apologies is you've said and I missed it, but: Are classes that lose tradeskills (Serpent, Magi, Knights) going to get an entirely new skill, or will the remaining skills be spread out among three? Or something else entirely? Or is it not known yet and I'm jumping the gun somewhat?

Keep up the good work.

That's like the fourth time this has been asked in this thread, and this thread's only 5 pages long!

On the bright side, that makes it easy to answer with three mouse clicks and a couple seconds of scrolling.

Chryenth

I'm sorry, I was skim reading and eating at the same time.

Tecton

Chryenth said:

Apologies is you've said and I missed it, but: Are classes that lose tradeskills (Serpent, Magi, Knights) going to get an entirely new skill, or will the remaining skills be spread out among three? Or something else entirely? Or is it not known yet and I'm jumping the gun somewhat?

Keep up the good work.

They'll all get a new skill to replace the tradeskill that was lost. Some will be an entirely new skill that fits with the RP of the class, some will be existing class elements that are expanded upon and having an entire skill built around.

I'll give another example out to try and clarify - let's say... Sentinels! They'll no longer have concoctions, but they'll get a new skill that could be focussed around, say, woodlore traps. So the trap abilities in woodlore would be replaced with new abilities, and a new skill would focus solely on traps with some other new additional trap-related abilities that would fill in the skillset gap left by no longer having concoctions.

Or say, Sylvans - they'll lose concoctions as well, while we're there, we'll take the opportunity to give the class it's own flavour, so we might replace Elementalism with, say, a weather-control skill, and concoctions will be replaced by a skill that's all about being a Viridian.

** Note: These are just hypotheticals to explain how things will work, they may or may not be what is actually happening.

Chryenth

Thank you for clarifying, and sorry again for repeating questions!

Nakari

You wouldn't actually consider taking away sylvan elementalism, would you? 

Penwize

Nakari said:

You wouldn't actually consider taking away sylvan elementalism, would you? 

Elementalism is kind of a mess, it could really use some flavour love for the Sylvans.  Mechanically similar, but improved to better match what the Sylvan are I think (and fix the awkward help file situation for it that has like a million annotations).  Compare how Puppetry and Vodun are different in flavour but mechanically similar, for example.

Nakari

Penwize said:

Nakari said:

You wouldn't actually consider taking away sylvan elementalism, would you? 

Elementalism is kind of a mess, it could really use some flavour love for the Sylvans.  Mechanically similar, but improved to better match what the Sylvan are I think (and fix the awkward help file situation for it that has like a million annotations).  Compare how Puppetry and Vodun are different in flavour but mechanically similar, for example.

That's probably fair. Still, redoing the help file and adding new skills is hardly removing the focus on elemental magic, which is what I would sorely miss. And while you are likely in a better place to comment on what their flavor should be, I'll admit that I rather like the mix of purely elemental and natural abilities that currently make up the class, flavor-wise. (just don't take away my holobomb please ).

Achimrst

Nakari said:

That's probably fair. Still, redoing the help file and adding new skills is hardly removing the focus on elemental magic, which is what I would sorely miss (don't take away my holobomb please ).

Holobomb it Tecton!!!

Holobomb it and than make it neat and something all sylvans will love :P

Trevize

Tecton said:

Kellonius said:

I apologize if this was already asked but:

Do you foresee the tradeskills being something that we will have to purchase, like cooking, tailoring, etc, or something that we automatically have access to?

For systems that use custom designs, there will be a licensing fee, for others, no (current thinking, we may do something different here though). I should also not that we're going to be introducing a cap on the number of trade/gathering skills that you can have, having everyone having access to every trade skill wouldn't really promote inter-player interaction.

Does this mean that some of the previously bland skills (forging comes to mind) may open up to custom designs?

Also, with limits on tradeskills, will you give us the option to 'forget' a current tradeskill with a lesson/credit (full or partial) refund? If so, will the option persist afterwards with limitations (ie. no credit refund for buying the license, normal lesson refund ratio for quitting embraced class)?

Tecton

Trevize said:

Tecton said:

Kellonius said:

I apologize if this was already asked but:

Do you foresee the tradeskills being something that we will have to purchase, like cooking, tailoring, etc, or something that we automatically have access to?

For systems that use custom designs, there will be a licensing fee, for others, no (current thinking, we may do something different here though). I should also not that we're going to be introducing a cap on the number of trade/gathering skills that you can have, having everyone having access to every trade skill wouldn't really promote inter-player interaction.

Does this mean that some of the previously bland skills (forging comes to mind) may open up to custom designs?

Also, with limits on tradeskills, will you give us the option to 'forget' a current tradeskill with a lesson/credit (full or partial) refund?

1) We're planning on some customisation to be added to forging, yes. Probably not full custom designs, but definitely more than there is currently.

2) We'll most likely do a full refund on all existing non-class tradeskills and licenses, yes.

Trevize

Tecton said:

Trevize said:

Tecton said:

Kellonius said:

I apologize if this was already asked but:

Do you foresee the tradeskills being something that we will have to purchase, like cooking, tailoring, etc, or something that we automatically have access to?

For systems that use custom designs, there will be a licensing fee, for others, no (current thinking, we may do something different here though). I should also not that we're going to be introducing a cap on the number of trade/gathering skills that you can have, having everyone having access to every trade skill wouldn't really promote inter-player interaction.

Does this mean that some of the previously bland skills (forging comes to mind) may open up to custom designs?

Also, with limits on tradeskills, will you give us the option to 'forget' a current tradeskill with a lesson/credit (full or partial) refund?

1) We're planning on some customisation to be added to forging, yes. Probably not full custom designs, but definitely more than there is currently.

2) We'll most likely do a full refund on all existing non-class tradeskills and licenses, yes.

re: 1, you just made my day.

Tecton

Josoul said:

Have you considered making a light mobile version of the website?

Oops, missed this one! 

Have I? Sure, but I don't do much in the way of web design for the IRE pages. Best bet would be to contact Jeremy with your suggestion!

Zuko

1.) Will the Bloodsworn warn us when Houses are bound to arrive? Sort of like we were told to be around when shallam fell.. That would be cool so most of the city could try and make it to the unveiling of the Houses!

2.) Thera Pets! Why were these taken out? Wasn't the whole point to give us, who couldn't afford permanent 900 cr or ship trade pets, to get these temporary ones? Any chance they will return?