The weirdest thing I have run into there was not strictly Roster related, but House Laurent's duchy moved.
By quite a lot, maybe 500 miles? I mean it made sense and I like the implications of the new position on the map, also much less crowded where they were before, but it was mildly disconcerting and I only found out through a casual mention from somebody else.
One factor as well, regarding the Thrall question, I am pretty sure that all of the other houses practice Serfdom. Now serfdom is not as bad as slaves/thralls in many ways, you cannot just buy or sell people, etc, the degree of labour they owe is likely very sharply constrained through law and custom, but they are still tied to the land and unlike with thralls it is generational and inherited.
So there is probably a degree of not wanting to start throwing stones when you live in a glass house.
Added to that it is not as if the Crown can really make one of the great houses do something if they do not want to, the Compact is very much an alliance of necessity and convenience against the far more numerous Abandoned, who outnumber the Compact about two to one in overall population.
Added to that just how would people invade Thrax? Redrain is entirely land locked, Valardin is literally the other side of the continent, you would basically be limited to the Crown, Grayson by extension then maybe some of the Lyceum if you could get them to be interested. Given Thrax would be defending and on islands, with sieges of castles being drawn out and hideously expensive things, I do not find it surprising that nobody has ever done it.
Remember that Redrain does not even follow the same religion as the rest of the Compact, despite wars fought in the past over that very issue.
This is so very, very true, a MUSH is a text only medium, people have no idea what your intended tone of voice is and thus how you mean to say whatever it is you just typed.
This can really easily lead to a gigantic degree of antagonism as people assume the worst of whomever they are talking with, it is easy to see somebody who from their perspective is making an observation they do not even feel that strongly about, as angrily ranting, arguing, etc. It is an especially easy trap to fall into when you are staff, somebody points out 'Hey, X does not seem right' and it is very easy to see it as a personal attack on your decisions, or said person as attributing huge important to something irrelevant.
The moment you start assuming people are being outright argumentative or confrontational is the moment where that starts actually being true.
So what is the story here? I personally find Hellfrog's occasional random explosions at people on the assumption that they are evil to be highly discouraging and in stark contrast to how chill and collected the rest of staff are. But, well, it is in contrast to the rest of everything.
@surreality said in We Need a Game Set In the Roman Empire.:
@Ominous ...and yet there's something so campyfun about that it would probably make a cool beer and pretzels fun game, which I absolutely cringe to admit.
I'm kicking a historical thing around. I am hoping for 'TV grade' reality for one of the sources as an ideal, which is still timey-wimey at best and still... television grade. I will still be happy to settle for 'A Knight's Tale' grade, because... ultimately, it's a MUX, and that's probably the most realistic guesstimate of where it will end up anyway.
A Knight's Tale is actually a fairly high bar to aim for given that, so far as I can tell, they did do the research for that film then deliberately went with the bits they thought were cool or evoked the right themes rather than actual historical accuracy.
I have a job that I had never even heard of before starting it, I work in 'Export Control'. Specifically I manage making sure a fair sized (2500+ person) business unit within a multinational corporation follows various laws relating to the management of strategic items and technology. Making sure we have licences and use them properly, etc.
Which is pretty interesting actually, I get to be involved in lots of strategic planning, project launches, etc, along with giving tons of training and managing local experts spread through the business. I have been doing the same kind of thing for nine years now though not at as senior a level. I have the best of both worlds though, a proper management grade/salary, 25 or so people part time answering to me as the 'subject matter expert', but nobody I actually have to line manage day to day.
On a different note, huge props to the player of the character who mailed Cristoph an alacarite weapon for the tournament prize, that seems to have gotten people an awful lot more excited over competing!
Plus that is a way cooler story/way to get an alacarite weapon than 'I ground out economic tasks for a few months'.
@Pyrephox said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Want to put yourself on the front lines of the battle when you're not married and don't even have the hope of a legitimate heir?
To be fair this one is already dealt with in game from what I have seen, placing yourself on the front lines of the battle seems to have a fairly reasonable chance of getting you killed, then you are dead. Though it could well be that it involves combat checks meaning the existing super badasses are very unlikely to ever fall victim to this with newbies being reaped like grass before the scythe.
One thing that I do feel hurts the game is that athletics and survival are both combat skills, meaning they are expensive and also generic amoungst people who are going to go off on Adventure Stuff. Essentially it means anyone who is liable to head off on a quest is going to have the same skillset, just some will be outright better or worse than others. Not ideal.
The XP thing is a big concern of me as well, especially as the normal response to it being raised is vague mention of plans to add 'Abilities' or additional skills for say, maxed out combat people to continue to spend xp on. That is not a solution! That will just make the problem worse. They definitely missed a huge opportunity to wipe at the end of alpha then institute a much slower xp progression, ideally combined with say more starting skill points especially for older characters, commoners, or those who are otherwise expected to already be experts.
There is the system were costs build as you spend xp but I am not sure how this interacts with training, I actually feel it makes the problem worse because from what I recall hearing it increases the cost of new skills based not on your skill levels, but instead on how much xp you have spent. Raised skills without training? Welcome to being permanently inferior. I might be wrong about that but it is still a lot easier for somebody rich to get that training and thus save xp.
Essentially if anyone wants to be a combat badass, the time is passed, they really needed to apply back in alpha and ideally as a Grayson prince/princess or as a landed noble so that they could accumulate cash for the most shiny gear. Keep in mind that in early alpha a lot of the great house Swords had say, medium weapon 2. The entire scale has changed dramatically.
Equipment is also weirdly important but hits a soft cap fairly quickly, somebody in say refined HQ leather/steel with a HQ steel weapon has likely spent about 30,000 silver or perhaps a hundred odd economic resources, which can be obtained week one with a +task and no income plus a little trading for cash. Further improvements are then marginal unless somebody spends hundreds of thousands on a decent quality alacarite or diamondplate weapon, but somebody with such a weapon can then basically just slaughter equal skill opponents. They might be doing 30-40% more damage but when armour is absorbing most of the damage when you hit? You are suddenly hitting 2-3 times as hard against peer opponents.
So if anyone does make a Laurent, I have a Free* rubicund sword going for them! It is not evil.
*(Rubicund sword may contain black gemstones that are apparently tied to demonic powers and is thus banned from being taken into the palace)
Wow, just logged on this morning to catch up on boards whilst at work and it seems it was busy overnight, people being thrown off bridges and such.
@Lisse24 said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
Yeah, I just had a discussion with this with my house, because I feel like people should be able to afford some things, but we also shouldn't be bankrupting the house. I offered to up everyone's payments, but the feeling was that even with the upped payments no one would be able to afford anything, so we kept the payments low and ended up paying for really expensive armor out of the house account - which might be a mistake, or might be brilliant considering the current situation.
I have done some messing around with making gear and I really feel that, from a house perspective, sticking to High Quality Steel / High Quality Pelts level, refined to Excellent quality, makes an awful lot of sense. You can outfit somebody with gear 95 percent as good as refine Rubicund/Exotic Leather for literally a fifth of the price and even a Marquis level house can afford to spend 30,000 silver every now and again to outfit a new family member.
Added: Refining to exceptional quality does not help much (not at all for leather, very slightly for steel) and costs SO MUCH more. Limiting to Excellent grade outside of lucky rolls is critical here.
Looks like Tehom's experiment killed the server again.
I am operating on the theory that given I am playing a duke I really should do bling. What kind of scrub duke does not wear stuff with gold and gems on it? Only a poor duke who is worried about his ability to afford gold and gems.
If a duke is worried about that then he is obviously not going to reward his retainers and vassals properly because he is either a tight ass or poor.
Nah, the hideous colours is me being awful at doing ASCII and suchlike. The decision to apply a shitload of random expensive stuff to a relatively mundane item is her fault though.
All Sylvie's fault. I have not even played on any Firan or similar games with crazy individually described equipment objects before.
@Meg said in Coming Soon: Arx, After the Reckoning:
if you can forgive me for contributing to spending too much on clothing.
(I play Sylvie.)
I just spent ten thousand silver on a 'cloak' (surcoat to go over armour) due to adding appropriate heraldric bling, this is at least partially your fault.
I need more recruits to properly swarm!
So I should probably say who I am, I have been away from MUSHing for a fairly long time but I jumped into playing Cristoph. Fun so far though I am spending probably far too much money on random items of coded clothing.