Jubaris

The respective announcemenets are: http://magicduel.com/page/Announcement/view/131 and http://magicduel.com/page/Announcement/view/133 They do not speak about the reasoning of the system, for instance protection of new players, just explain that the effect of the lesser amount of rounds for alliances will be less energy loss. Because you can't rely on a single-target creature to win a fight. For instance, I'm playing around with aramor anniversary auras, and in each of the 3 rounds, the aramor kills one creature, but in the end, I usually lose the fight because I lost more VE (enemy pope extracts too much VE, or the damage my opponent did to my other creatures, because aramor was taking 1 damage, was higher in combination than what that one aramor did to my opponent's creatures), even though the fight would clearly be won if the aramor had a few more rounds to take out the other creatures. My question is, why don't we stimulate the diversity of creatures following the fact that a lot of creatures aren't chosen simply because they aren't all-attackers (and by that naturally weaker than those that are, for ally fights, they are just devalued further)? In that concrete example of anniversary aramors - you are already weakened by the fact that you hit single-target per round and that the 4 aramors you use in a ritual don't have a single freeze/antifreeze aura, so you sacrifice a lot, only to be decapitated by the fact that you can't finish off your opponent because of a round or two missing. Why do you think, if we increase it, we necessarily need to take 40 rounds fights immediately? Although total-combat sounds interesting to play around with, I would first aim towards 6 or 10 rounds. New players usually don't join alliances that fast, plus, when they do, they don't join it because of hoping to get 3 rounds per duel, at least I haven't heard of such cases. Are we really still protecting the new players with this rule? The mentioned trillion stats cases make sure the weaker players are obliterated, I don't think that a few more rounds of damage that didn't kill them in the first 3 rounds is that newbie-unfriendly. Because of fighting for only a few rounds, ally fights shouldn't be called magic duels, but magic skirmishes. x) Unless you 1-hit kill your opponent, then it's a proper duel. Perhaps there should be some kind of option box, rather than enforce this type of fighting? Leaving the option to fight the old-school way by not being in alliance simply is not good enough, because it contradicts our desire for a player to be deeper in MD.

It was a plus back then maybe, but I think all of you will agree its outdated. We have such fighters that one attack is enough to finish the duel. Small number of actions just hurts single target creatures, which should be an alternative to the mainstream trend with ultimate rituals. what do you guys, combat knowhows, think about a possible increase in number of rounds/actions, how much if yes?

Of course, I'm talking about 6 vs 6. Attacking with a single creature is a rarity/stupid with all the freezers, so you won't be seeing it around. Maybe the short amount of rounds is meant to symbolize the difficulty in using all 6 aspects of yourself, so the duel can last only that short, with a game mechanic encouragement to use lesser amount of creatures, but 5-6 creatures due to mentioned freezers is an axiom, if you really want to fight, so the encouragement today is null.

Not sure is this mentioned, since it is a leeeengthy topic - but why don't number of rounds in a combat concerning players in an alliance increase more than just 3?

You should put your paper on "Transparent(Custom)" mode, and use this code in the html part, just edit out the source for the image: <div style="background-image: url(http://WHATEVER_SIR_BLUT_LIKES_AND_APPROVES);"> At the end of the section you want to use the background image for, you will have to close the div tag with </div>

Death should be something final, not getting killed, then resurrected, over and over again, it loses the weight really. And that's only if we ignore that our ghost can still 'write memoirs', use physical items (rather than cast spells, which should be more logical) and manifest his physical presence in all of the ways I mentioned above and probably some more. Regarding Necromancy and your problem with it - Temporary animation of bones, not because it is such an ability that lasts temporary by default, but because of the lack of power to permanently raise a corpse, after some time it wears off. Maybe it can be permanent at some advanced level obtainable differently, not through shared items but through individual role evolution. When the magic wears off, you become a corpse again.

Happy birthday :)

I like the conclusions very much on the research level. In practice it would be very hard to pull it off, due to availability of kill weapons, chaos it can create to the gameplay and work effort of years killed in a moment. There were numerous starting ideas from Mur on how should MD work but that didn't go in that direction because of very hard implementation. For this to be actual, appearance of death should be very very rare.

Very weird and unexplainable? 'Death' in MD is just a state of paralysis, (death in MD has no research base btw, interpretations can be built along the way, but it was not introduced as a natural part of the system) it's a state where you can chat, jump to leader, use items, send messages, receive messages... So I am really impressed that your logic system broke just now. The effect of the purge would be just that, damaging shock that would paralyze the target for an appropriate amount of time, death mechanism fits perfectly into it. I agree that leaving it labeled as 'death' rather than just rename it (like renaming ghost stance into a cloaked character for cloak items) is debatable, but there are several arguments that can support it (maybe not eventually win the discussion, but, surviving a round or two ^_^). In regards to your remark about offensive MB ability, the defensive suggestions where the first in the topic - but already existent, or with a few tweaks. Maybe it is 'interesting', but for those who don't wish to see.

Here's a few first suggestions for new abilities: Purge One of the rare(only?) sacrificial-offensive abilities MB should have. land affiliation: Marind Bell Ability:Temporary kills the target for a few hours, drains all of the caster's AP and VE (caster has to have at least 50% of VE and AP full before casting the ability), requires 4000 heat. Cooldown should be at least several days, maybe a week or so. Definitely not more, since real kill items have high cooldown valuing in months. Related item that could carry this ability: Special rosary artifact, help to the mantra used to focus and channel your energies. Connection with the land: Angien's energy burn and their sacrifice to attack, Heretic Archer's initial focus on revenge where he loses his former self, focus of MB on your isolated inner self Necromancy This one is probably brainstormed by a lot of Necros through the history, I'm not sure will this suggestion of my entirely satisfy but let's see. One of the most popular forms of magic in fantasy, yet not present here so far. Can be interestingly combined with the caster of Purge ability. land affiliation: Necrovion Ability:Resurrects a killed player into a(n illusioned, game mechanics wise?) state of a raised corpse. Temporary state, lasts for days/week, because the killed players still have their will left in their corpses, so they can't be subjugated into control. The player should lose some connection with his account abilities while in this state - so no to current alliance, special avatar of a raised corpse (skeletons, something like that), his creatures should be Necro predefined, depending of the current player's collection. If he has draches, he will have same amount of windies in this new state, tormented souls and unholy priests by default, plus maybe something more. Stats are kept, now the player can fight against Molquert's guards on his own. Once the temporary state ends, he returns to being a corpse, unless resurrected along the way. Reasons to raise someone would be to ask for service of the raised corpse. If someone is having a hard time getting resurrected, or is getting constantly killed, he may find an alternative in this state for some time by getting raised number of times, depending of the agreement with his Necro 'masters'. Cooldown should be around a week or so. Like Purge is an 'inferior' kill spell, so is Necromancy an 'inferior' resurrect spell Related item that could carry this ability: To be brainstormed, because of the numerous options. Connection with the land: Obvious, though someone might say stereotypical. Good, since the world of symbols doesn't shun stereotypes. Dark, occult, tainting nature and death symbolism of Necro connects with Necromancy.

Soothing Sands presented a nice view, Ary. Plus, the very fact that there are few more potent parties than the rest is a reason enough, even if we forget that MD had wars (and it's not that impossible to have one now) - such difference manifests somewhere else rather than just seeing someone is kicking your behind. There is nothing to war about, you can't take anything/compete about, but if we want to go into a direction where we have action and conflict of stimulating nature, of course this balance has to be covered. Such development is irrelevant only if MD in stasis is alright, but is it?

@Ary: Some appropriate level of land defense potential, in the topic I made a few descriptions and references(1) how the system is currently imbalanced in that section which leaves some lands very vulnerable, Marind Bell mostly but Loreroot is not that far at all. @No one: I am in support of development of non-mainlands, on a bit different level, as I mentioned on several occasions in this topic(1). In regards to adjustment of the scene tags, they are in large part unrelated with the context of this topic, but I am in support of updates of such nature, I even have a few pending for Marind Bell since this summer, but no answer as of yet. (1) - I know the posts are too long for everybody to read them to the detail, but if I start repeating like in a mantra, it will only make more mess, please check again to find respective references. If a problem occurs, please contact me again.

Sorry for the lengthy post. This is just an additional description of what I plan to achieve, why are these changes needed and such, aimed mostly at the skeptical audience and admins. Next posts will be consisting of concrete detailed ability suggestions. Nature of lands not manifested, lack of magical development through land aligment and no strategical tools to defend land integrity while there are other characters that are invulnerable are a number of problems addressed in the topic. By careful choice of the abilities that would get implemented, we can also stimulate the dynamic life of Magicduel. That is accomplished by having an ability that you can't resist using because its that interesting - but the ability effect should also provoke a reaction from the other side. Domino effect is the desired goal, so you get a situation where something is going on, where that something is not someone getting dominated, but an unpredictable competition by a number of parties. One of the MD problems is that there is nothing to compete for, but that will have to be resolved separately. For now, we try to develop methods to interact and add depth to our magic evolution, abandoning the current unmagical Magicduel situation where we have players actively playing for years and not being able to evolve their characters properly without some direct admin interaction, getting in someone's favour, or just being loud. The pure fun of things can also be a source action, rather than a concrete thing for which you fight for, and we should aim for the mentioned items/abilities to be of such 'pure fun' nature. We also have to be careful not to overflow the realm with too many new items/abilites, trying to solve all the problems separately. For the start, each of the mainlands (and afterwards non-mainlands as well, individually analysed) should have 2-3 such land shared items. Things can expand as per the original effect, we will monitor the situation and see if balance is broken, if there are any problems, did the implemention achieve what it was supposed to, etc. I don't think we should do this all at once, wait the final moment until all lands are ready for this. Start it like with the kingships, few by few. Each land should put some effort into it, and proportionally based on it, will get its part faster. I will soon start with some concrete suggestions for new abilities. Marind Bell will be my focus, but I will present ideas for other lands as well depending of my inspiration. In the final moment, we may have more abilities than the number of abilities we plan to implement, but that's alright, we'll pick the best combination.

Sounds pretty neat to me, lots of people want to have East or MDA land loyalty points. And what do you "get" from choosing a mainland, Marind Bell for example? Bonus on crossing locations with 1 AP requirement? Access to water tool that you can already get in MDA with some effort? Unless you are the land's leader, there is no advantage. Actually, you have better chances to get role updated from the admins if you are not in a mainland, because you are not under a patronage (that doesn't help you a lot btw, I had a couple of requests recently for Clock Master, big MD player with no role powers, which all got denied) so they feel obligated I guess to focus more on you. Kings Council is a player made thing, so it has no relation with this. I'm not sure does your "you" refer to me or to leaders in general, but I wasn't involved in its organization, wasn't a King back then, I participated in a few previous meetings and that's it - nothing was achieved from those meetings yet, so don't feel so sorry about others. In the organization's defense, there are no non-mainland leaders, when MDA got its own, they got invited.

@Dst: There are some advantages indeed, but the leader has those abilities, not the regular citizen. The situation is different through different mainlands. For example, Marind Bell doesn't have any strategical advantages, it has one restricted location (Angien's shrine, it became one relatively recently) and it is used responsibly without tricks for gaining advantage. Its potential power lies only in regular development of people that chose MB as its home. I think LR has a similar story, while GG and NV have some advantage in the form of a hard-to-travel-through land. What I want is for every mainland to have a minimum strategical defense it can 'retreat' to, if it doesn't have powerful individual characters. Importance of mainlands aside, non-mainlands at the moment don't require that, I never heard of a war with a non-mainland, furthermore they are generally safe in their high-AP isolation. In the current MD situation where we have a very low population, every faction is vulnerable, because you only need to strike at one or two targets to compromise a whole faction system. Current kingship tools are nice and useful, but there's nothing that can help you maintain sovereignty and integrity of your land concerning outlanders. With some strategical addon, the kingdoms stop being a charade, and it's not just having leverage over others, what I am talking about gives you ability to do something, so we get some dynamic life. The domino effect prevents abuses, besides, the implementation doesn't consist of some mega-power changes. When you are not in a mainland, nothing prevents you from cooperating with one, you can work with everyone, and you double-profit when they start competing or enter a conflict, so you don't decrease the attractiveness of non-mainlands. Non-mainlands are very specific in nature anyway, so usually when people join them, they are picking something over the whole land balance competition system. I mean, let's take a look for non-mainlands other than the East: MDA-observing, no interest in strategy Underground-underground=not mainstream :)) Labyrinth - currently non-player land No man's land - not intended to be a homeland of integrated players (Z is an exception) @Richie: Keep having fun, not commenting till I see "edit30" in your first post not to compromise your brainstorm evolution :D

@Burns: Of course, "of similar" value is what I want as well, that's not what I was referring at with the term 'equivalent balance', what I meant was I don't want the different lands to have basically same abilities under different clothes. Banally said, every land will 'need' each other for its plans to be bullet-proof, but since they are meant to compete, it will be a whole lots of 'fun'. Basically, I agree with everything you said, I think we just misunderstood each other. @Ary: A discussion meeting about land weapons was organized some time ago, and you have the access to the log where I was talking about Marind Bell one, the sanctity is well explained there (even if you ignored it, there are enough well-known facts that should make you acknowledge the protective aspects of Marind Bell) and it is not in contradiction with what Marind said in the story mode, the context is different. I will not go into what you aspire or not to be, I am talking about the nature of lands. Since you are very adept at finding out how things work, I am puzzled how you missed to read the signboard at the Necrovion gates. Necrovion Main Gate Divided in two inner areas, Necrovion combines both brute evil forces and deserted lands with advanced dark arts and secret occult practices. because of its nature, this land is opposed to all other lands and represents a constant threat to all life. Is also a refuge to those that wish to develop their dark side and turn their personal demons into a powerfull offensive force. During the constant war with Marind Bell many secrets and powerfull forces can be found on these lands. Regarding mainlands, well, the land balance and the mutual influences of the mainlands is the main background of this game. No, their 'main' prefix is not because they were first. (no man's land is not a mainland, by the way, so that should clear up a few things for you if you're willing to think about it rather than feel attacked) @Dst: Please go into specifics. What particular benefits do you refer to, and of which powerful becoming more powerful players are you talking about? I'm sure everyone reads Dst's blog, it's the only place where something is going on. There, m'lady, you have given us a saga about your recent interaction with Lorerootian folk, among them their leadership core. At what point in them getting collectively terrorized by you and Eon (two non-mainlanders, if I may add) by simple game mechanics did they get to manifest their power and domination? East is a special story indeed, I don't dare to go into that one because I don't really understand it. In any case, I think it shouldn't mess with land balance, but I agree it should be worked on, it doesn't have much at the moment. We can do stuff along the way, instead of all at once, this is how things were done, like the kingships. Let's go slowly, we take care of mainlands, we see possible problems, correct them, we see how does that affect other lands and what can we do to help their development and the development of the game in general, etc. I don't think it will possible for us to predict everything in theory, let's start from the beginning, and the beginning is the mainlands.

@Dst: They are not meant to have the same treatment, and I am pretty sure you know that as well, you are one of the oldest MD players and you are pretty aware of what's going around. Mainlands have prefix main for a reason, if we want to debate this, we can open a new topic and continue there. Although I think it would be a good idea for few things to go around that way as well - for instance, acoustic remains item grab-able for any MDA player that has a high land loyalty, or something like that. Just not something that would intervene with the land balance due to possible strategic value of abilities gained that way. @Chewett: If you would indeed postulate such a thing, I would ask you to argument :P I don't think "deep mysteries and powerful protective magic" refers only to our land weapon. (also, if its role is to prevent Shade invasion - in some form, because Shades are generally not to be found outside Necrovion, it wouldn't prevent invasion of Necrovion to other lands, and land of Necrovion is the enemy of all mainlands) Anyhow, the game is halfway to decade being alive, and never were the land weapons activated - to our knowledge. In the beginning, any large magic effect whatsoever was triggered as an admin reaction to something the players were doing, in time, steps were made to make it more automatic. Isn't this a complete legit step towards that direction? We acknowledged the usage of principle of transposition with Z and Bob, Awiiya and his resting place, when they gained their respective abilities for their roles. Isn't it natural in the same way for someone who is making a connection with his home for so long (high land loyalty requirements) to gain aspects of the nature of his home? This wouldn't eliminate the need for magic rituals, like the heat collecting trend that got a bit demode, it would just be a small step towards that home-connection, which would, by the way, give a lot of positive effects on the dynamic of the game. Lands would actually have something to 'play' with, and everything would gain different dimensions in regards to diplomacy, contests, future wars, etc. Right now lands as such don't really have any powers, except maybe Necrovion and Golemus that have the advantage of a high AP cost in their land. Kind of ironic for MB to be so full of sanctity symbolism and "the only land able to close itself" (never done so far actually in game) yet for it to be the most vulnerable land. Such situation is okay if we are being observed only as a group of people that happen to be trippy a land X is their home and have no real connection with it, but observing the attitude of admins towards what's going on for about 6 years now I have a different impression, therefore this post. (Can one of the mods please split TheRichMerchant's idea and comments for it onto a new topic, because it has no relation with my original post?) update: sorry for double posting, but figure its better than to merge everything in one huge post. (which just happened due to not waiting enough time, curses!) the context is a bit different here anyway, the previous post was "why yes" to chewy and dsty, this one is "don't be afraid to say yes" to burnsy, which makes it right. so, @Burns: It would indeed not be perfectly equivalently balanced, but is there such a thing in MD? From resources to everything else. I'm not sure did you see the link Rophs posted a day or so ago, about "perfect imbalance". Doing this properly, no land would have a clear advantage over the others, they would just be 'different' in their potential, which is good.

Currently, the mainland kingdoms have no abilities specific to them, other than an amalgam of their individuals who might or not have some roles. Which is weird considering that when kings were introduced, they were supposed to be epicenter of our realm's activities. Several years later, there is still no gameplay difference between mainlands and other lands. Others can speak about their own lands, I am curios about everything and eager to provide thoughts, although I will be addressing Marind Bell here specifically. If you look at the sign at our gates: Marind Bell Gates The remains of a once flourishing town, Marind Bells real name was forgotten, and its current name is given after Marind, the protector of these lands. Its power lies in deep mysteries and powerfull protective magic developed in time to withstand Necrovions constant attacks. This land was once peaceful but is now tainted by the fury of war and hatred against darkness. There are no such things in the gameplay. We've been talking around in MB trying to figure out the best way to manifest land natures. For now, we think that the easiest solution that will have a point will be introducing new land shared items, powerful ones that will require a lot of land loyalty. In our case, protective abilities. For Necrovion, it will most likely all be offensive oriented, etc. Due to MB's isolationist nature, maintaining sanctity is what I am thinking of. Abilities that prevent teleporting you (while in Marind Bell at the very least), perhaps in a form of an item that assigns a nosummon tag for a period of time in a scene where you are at. Also, healing abilities. Resurrection items, for example, 2 of those with at least 1000 land loyalty points requirement, and maybe a month longer cooldown than the normal resurrection items. It sounds a radical change from this point, but it fits the general balanced system, and it is something that was long due, together with other mainland item equivalents of course. Calling for support on the matter, looking forward on conclusions from the discusions and welcoming suggestions and expansions.

Ha! But you will have two addresses, how will you know where to kill me? This is all part of my plan! Purposely avoid getting the first one to give a different address, so you think that one is true, but is it? Bluff? Double bluff? Serbian-Jew double bluff?

There seem to be a lot of loopholes in your words, but I'll try to be brief. I never assigned a land to you, in my last post I said you are NML in my eyes which didn't mean it is your homeland, it manifests your lack of certainty in choosing where to 'live', you don't have a home. Your explanations have to be good because the Labyrinth does not have an administration and you need community's support to get its citizenship. Mur pos repped your main post, which is probably the first time I see him repping a post, so that's a plus, but there is no connection with your character. Since talking, as you say, is not your good side, I recommend talking less and doing more (those plans of yours). You love to track for examples, why don't you track a positive one? Zleiphneir? Consistency and without much noise on the forum he managed to do something 'more impossible' than what you are trying to do now. Also, I wasn't talking about ruling the Labyrinth.

Yes, yes, can I get the previous one too, since the post office tricksters made a trick on me? I will change the address to my hometown where I have my men assigned to ambush postmen, so it should be received with certainty. :ph34r:

Like Chewett, when I analyse your words, I don't see why you wouldn't find all that in No Man's Land. It seems you are only searching for a place which will not be 'tainted' by the identity of others, so you can make your own glow. (kind of Marind Bell-ish hehe, but this is not an invite/propaganda :D)* I really don't see a connection between your character and Labyrinth specifically, I think you are looking for an isolated land in general. Don't find this discouraging, if you are sure, go for it, good test for your 'dedication'. Btw, in regards to crafting a private land, consult your friend Dst for mentorship :P Between provocations, she might teach you a few things, just never stop poking her :)) *that particular aspect. Shielding into yourself requires consistency, you're currently No Man's Land in my eyes

Happy birthday to a great artist! :)

You can, but as a post for 'a new quest' part, mentioned in the quote. Process of rewarding by Mur for the events was started, and I needed to summarize it. Considering that the last entry was almost two weeks ago, I found it valid to close this chapter (pun unintended). Anyhows, new submissions are 'welcome', I will look to find a reward base for future entries, just they will not be covered by the first rewarding system.

Thank you Mur, I knew you would be fond of those, I'm pretty sure so will the receivers :)