Dracoloth

The log so far:
[04/01/24 15:35] :Aia waves to Fyrd's likeness
[04/01/24 15:36] Aia:I do wish thou couldst have been here for this.
[04/01/24 15:40] Aia:Wherever thou wert, I hope happiness has followed thee there.
[04/01/24 23:47] :Chewett bows
[04/01/24 23:48] Sunfire:you will be missed, old friend and mentor
[04/01/24 23:56] : Mallos throws the dice and gets 3
[04/01/24 23:59] jakubhi:I miss you Fyrd
[04/01/24 23:59] Death Ray:I don't even know what to say, for the last 15 or so year's ... we meet here on MD. And created a friendship and bond.
[05/01/24 00:04] Chewett:Things change, things don't, but our friends are still here
[05/01/24 00:04] Death Ray:One of very few long lasting friendships to be immortalized here in MD....
[05/01/24 00:05] jakubhi:I still remember the hangman word games he used to organise
[05/01/24 00:06] jakubhi:I liked them
[05/01/24 00:08] Invie:Goodbye, Pickle Meister.
[05/01/24 00:11] Aksel:He really put in the effort into MD, handheld me around in early days and was always there to help and make new content. Was expecting him to show up any time now, quite sad
[05/01/24 00:16] Chewett:He inspired questions, ideas, quests, and many other things
[05/01/24 00:20] lashtal:His generosity was sincere, detached. He would spend days just to help someone run a quest. I was in debt back then and I will forever be.
[05/01/24 00:21] lashtal:Thank you Fyrd.
[05/01/24 00:21] jakubhi: *gives everyone a hug* This is not a good night, but I wish you peaceful dreams
[05/01/24 00:34] :Aamon starts taking notes to keep record of the memorial
[05/01/24 00:38] Aamon:Would anyone care to share some words and or memories with Fyrd?
[05/01/24 00:40] Aia:I am honoured to have known thee and to have worked with thee on so much. Thou wert truly one-of-a-kind in wit, generosity, and vision.
[05/01/24 00:42] Aia:Rest in everlasting peace, dear friend.
[05/01/24 00:42] :Aamon notes Asia's words
[05/01/24 00:43] Aamon:Would anyone else have words or memories to share?
[05/01/24 00:45] Aia:If there is one regret, it is that thou didst never see the likeness we created of thee in thine honour.
[05/01/24 00:46] Aia:We shall miss thee now and evermore.
[05/01/24 00:49] :Aamon records Aia's words
[05/01/24 00:51] Aia:There is one last thing I should like...
[05/01/24 00:51] Aia:Here is the last clicky that thou didst provide for me.
[05/01/24 00:51] Aia:It is fitting that it is a lamp.
[05/01/24 00:53] :Aia places the lamp at the base of Fyrd's pedestal
[05/01/24 00:58] Aia:May it shine evermore in thy memory.
[05/01/24 00:59] Invie:You were always ready to help out a fellow player. You welcomed many new players with your guidance and quests. Be sure that we will continue to guide new players to your garden.
[05/01/24 01:11] Chewett:I will take an acoustic remains later
[05/01/24 01:11] Chewett:All I wish to say is that I am very sad
[05/01/24 01:12] Aia:We all are, but let not that trivialise the weight upon thyself.
[05/01/24 02:16] Death Ray:It was truly a blessing to have come across such a person. The impressions he's left behind with is will forever remain
[05/01/24 02:29] :chriselnenepr Notices he has arrived late
[05/01/24 02:31] chriselnenepr:I simply want to share that Fyrd has been a great help to our community. He always encouraged players to take a more active role when it comes to participating in quests, creating them, or simply just tending to his bug garden
[05/01/24 02:32] chriselnenepr:I am happy to have met the happiest pickle meister in the realm and the many quests he has created to further our enjoyment of the realm.
[05/01/24 02:32] chriselnenepr:Although a bit sad some of his unfinished works may stay as such, but will forever be memories we will hold dear
[05/01/24 02:33] :chriselnenepr Places some flowers near Fyrd's statue
[05/01/24 02:33] Chewett:We can finish some of his plans I have some of them
[05/01/24 02:34] :chriselnenepr smiles
[05/01/24 02:35] Chewett:Goodnight all, I must rest
[05/01/24 02:35] Chewett:I have posted the log as it stands, and will continue to log and post it
[05/01/24 02:35] Chewett:Be well my friends
[05/01/24 02:36] chriselnenepr:Be well and good night! I hope we can make some of those plans a reality
[05/01/24 02:51] Lazarus:Good night, Fyrd. I am grateful to have blessed by your presence all these years.
[05/01/24 02:52] :Lazarus bows
[05/01/24 02:52] Lazarus:Farewell
[05/01/24 02:54] :Aamon notes everyones words
[05/01/24 07:32] Death Ray:Heart breaking, im sure we all know he'd been in his element with the curret event going on. I was aware he was away. And tbh... i thought that it was him, as the voice...
[05/01/24 07:58] Death Ray:Another thought, Magic Duel must have meant a lot to him considering a family member reached out to us...
[05/01/24 11:31] Chewett:His son said "I know he loved playing and contributing to your game."

- Dracoloth

Darvin

Alright - time to write commentaries!
Aia:
Her strategy consist of 2 simple states, and a way to "seed" the encounter.
Her first move is determined by a pseudo-random criteria (if she's facing a male or female opponent).
She has 2 states: countering her opponent last move, or lose against it. Swaps every 3 turns depending on performance.
Notably, she also checks for fixed patterns - and although it's not too useful against most strategies, it does work against Ledah's.
However, it is also quite slow to adapt to match condition, and even if one of the two state counters someone - this slow adaptation can lead to consistently close - but losing matches. Notably, against Pip
Aelis:
His strategy is to count his opponent move: their first move and their move against him, and output a counter to their most commonly used move. There's a decay value to keep the recent moves more relevant.
He also have a panic mode to swap his moves around.
I'd say the main downfall of this strategy (I was excited to see how well it would perform) - would be a few things:
There's a very clear and apparent weakness against strategies that swap frequently. Where the move that was "most recently and most played" changes constantly - and the least likely to be played again. His panic mode helps - but the point difference could easily be too great to overcome, and many have states they could flip as well - back and forth, meaning the swap isn't too useful. He is one of the "tie trio" between him, Nep, and Draco - mainly due to the constant swapping. Notably - while Nep and Draco ties are understandable due to their highly similar strategies, Aelis output constantly changes when facing opponents with a fast changing output. Which lead to Nep/Draco strategy to immediately play against his move to output differently. Thus leading to an endless draw spiral. His first move strategy does however - lead to a consistent edge against certain strategies Against Nepgear - this gave him an edge to tie or win all encounters Against Draco rotating first move - this led to an endless tie, always. I'd say that the strategy itself has a lot of merit, as part of a bigger analytical engine The main downfall imo, would be that such strategy requires far, far more tuning in terms of number Such strategy also need to be a lot more complicated, has multiple prediction and categorization routes, which couldn't be done without a bigger model and more data/observation. Ledah:
He rotates around 6 moves - PSRRSP Simple, but not a throw. This fixed pattern has a very strong counter potential to strategies that assume their opponent has a strategy This meant while not a strong contender, his strategy consistently beat certain strategies. Kaya:
Well, Kaya posted their own tactic, so I'll just add a commentary:
The mix of unpredictability and strategy is the main keypoint of this strategy It allows the strategy to strongly counters certain strategies It allows the strategy to try and keep an equal footing against others Random by itself - performs badly. The larger the tournament, the less likely that Random drops out before the finals This is clearly not the case - and the main reason why Kaya's strategy was allowed to sit in the gray zone. Tissy:
A complicated mess of a Finite State Machine. His strategy simply has 6 states, corresponding to counter/lose/draw against his or his opponent last move.
He updates the state every 2 moves, which allows a certain degree of flexibility
I'd say in general, his strategy is good at predicting certain counter-move strategies, and it seems designed to do just that
I'm not sure if there's any reason for the states to cycle, and you'll have to inquire him for any special reasoning!
Draco & Nep:
I'm grouping these two due to their similar strategies. They're both:
Strategies with a self-determined first move Reacts immediately to opponent moves Both tries to directly counter opponent's move if they lost last move The main key difference would be of these three details:
Draco cycles his first move - whereas Nep has a fixed first move Draco groups/considers draws and winning as "similar" outcome to react upon, Nep groups draws and losing. Draco counters his last move upon winning (or draw), whereas Nep copies his enemy last move This does lead to a surprising outcome - while Aelis draws with Draco and consistently beats or draw Nep - Nep consistently beat or draw with Draco
This is due to the limited potential interaction between the two - based on Draco first move. 2 of which leads to a draw, whereas 1 of which leads to a loss
The skew of the 1-2 ratio could be explained by the skewed first-move Draco give if they face against eachother at latter rounds Else:
His strategy is a weighted counter based on his opponent last two moves - simple, but surprisingly resilient.
By default - it counters certain pattern, and is countered by other patterns - hence it can lead to strong counter/weakness against strategy that is somewhat consistent in what they output
Against strategies without a complex observation/time based state (which is most) - his strategy result in a clear win or loss. Which, in this tournament, is basically everyone but Kaya. Yoshi:
He incorporates some logic with a simple rotating pattern for tiebreaker:
If he wins, play same move If he ties, choose a pseudo-random rotating move If he loses, counters the enemy last move (not the way he described it, but that's effectively what it ends up being) He also have a panic mode during which he just straight up copies his enemy's last move.
Pipstickz:
He always play paper. Except when he sees his opponent play Scissors for their last move - then he plays Scissors.
Surprisingly effective at countering counter-strategies despite its simplicity Despite its simplicity - he did manage to win the tournament under specific orderings - just not very consistent. =============================
Commentary:
Well, most of my observation are listed at the above strategy discussion. There are also some key things I noticed during testing various setup, interactions, changing the participants, adding test strategies, removing certain participants to observe the rest and...
It was honestly, a fun experience seeing how things clashed out. The tournament is actually a lot closer than it first seem to be - other than Kaya domination being a seemingly constant as long as her confusion array isn't horridly countered due to bad distributions.
There are a few main things I'd like to talk about:
The tournament has a very, very strong counter dynamic. A > B > C > A relations can be easily observed if you look at the documented pairing outcome - and that was a very, very strong determinant of how the results ends up to be. Nobody completely dominated everyone else - It was consistency against a larger, higher performing crowd that also likely to make it to latter rounds that gave Kaya their domination. Ledah and Pip - arguably the underdogs of this tournament, both have a very, very strong track record of beating Kaya. However, they are unlikely to make it to the inner rounds - giving Kaya a very strong advantage, facing mostly opponents they're comfortable beating past the first round. As such - a change of the tournament roster have been observed to drastically change the top spots. Pipstick - a strong Aia counter, when removed, bumps her position/ranking dramatically. Without neither Kaya or Pip - Aia actually consistently wins - or tie top spot in almost, if not all tournament. Notably however, the chances for ties also increases dramatically. Similarly with some slight changes - Draco actually comes out as a top winner, not Tissy nor Else as anticipated. The existence of observation/random-ish strategy serves as a very, very nice method of making the tournament outcome more interesting to observe - while strong counters gave rise to an interesting variation in dynamics as the participant changes, adaptation and non deterministic outcome (not strong counter - can win/lose/draw at specific ratio, such as the 1:2 win/draw chances of a faceoff between Nep and Draco) leads to variation in how likely someone will win given the same roster, giving rise to underdogs winning tournaments. This is an element that makes many sports interesting to see as well! All in all, I had great fun hosting this, and I hope all participants feels similarly. It is unlikely this event will be re-run anytime soon (due to the nature of it all) - but expect to see similar events in the future!
Thank you all for your participation!

Plushies are given out as rewards for quests during the anniversary, as well as for being logged in during the anniversary

The main way to increase principles is by sacrificing creatures at sacrifice altars.

The regeneration stat allows creatures to heal after a battle is over. Some creatures have this stat on their own, but it can also be given to creatures by the player by selecting a higher vitality on the ritual's slider.

The void is the unknown, darkness waiting for a light.

First one:
i will buy a revive from Syrians revive tool to reveive granos with that

I found myself back in the original story mode, and I noticed it's mentioned that the creature of liquid dust has a purple top hat.

They work but do give that error as well, they give you an RP item.

It's my humble opinion that a service such as this would be at most a time saver for any experienced veteran mp5. The situation wouldn't be the same for a fresh mp5, 4, or 3. In fact, the lower down in mind powers you go, the more useful it seems it becomes.
As a Vet myself, I'd only pay for whatever time I might have saved. At most I'd pay 1 silver to go back down to 0 heat. It would be more useful, and thus logically more costly, for an mp3 or 4 to do the same, since the 4 has a harder but not impossible time dropping heat, and the 3 can not do so at all.
Problem with this logic however is obvious. I wouldn't expect, nor request an mp3 or even a 4 to pay for a heat reduction. We might want to consider making it free for the lower mind powers within reason (consider a free once a week heat drop for them) and possibly charge the vets for whatever miniscule time is saved via using this option.
In fact, when people can drop over max heat in one single battle, this method would actually take more time than the 2 clicks that single battle would.
Food for thought.

If you could pay something to reduce your heat, what would you consider an acceptable cost and what amount of heat would it take off you?
This question relates to a new feature I am working on.

Hello, everyone,
16 years, wow! That's a lot! Throughout these years, we've seen a lot: the rise and fall of many alliances, RPCs, Queens and Kings, not to mention countless events and quests. We have also witnessed the appearance of new lands, creatures and even concepts (Wiiya and Fenths come to mind, for example). I could go on and on, but I'll try to keep this short (and ultimately fail), so bear with me!
Mur once said:
I, for one, find this quote fascinating, especially when we acknowledge the many "coincidences" that take place in our beloved realm. As a (tentative) researcher, I often have to dig through old records to look for said events when trying to identify and/or predict their associated collisions. When doing so, I frequently find myself picturing an ideal world where a certain concept or topic would be well-documented and whichever public information regarding it could be easily retrieved by any interested party. While at first this is a rather selfish thought, I really think such scenario would greatly benefit our community and, as such, I'd like to propose this quest to thee:

TLDR: QUEST DESCRIPTION HERE!
Pick a topic of your choice (anything, really: a particular event, a principle, a resource, an alliance, a faction, a land... hell, even the history behind a certain medal, why not? :P) and document everything you can about it as if you were an Archivist writing a book on that subject for current and future generations. References to relevant announcements, adventure log entries and forum posts are encouraged, as are screenshots, artworks and chat logs — feel free to add anything you'd find appropriate. Bear in mind, though, that we're interested in PUBLIC information here. For the love of our Demon, keep it spoiler-free! Oh, one last thing: due to the nature of our goal, multiple submissions per player are more than welcome, so, the more the merrier — only one pack of rewards per player, though!
 
With your entries, I plan to start organizing (and contributing to) a "new generation" of documents for the MD Archives. I hope that in the future everyone will enjoy heading to the Archives to browse the bookshelves for clues!

Oh, and since there isn't a predefined "editorial style" for these, I'll draw inspiration from our submissions in order to determine that as well.

Finally, I invite anyone inspired by this quest (even if you don't submit an entry) to join me in this endeavor! If you're interested/curious, feel free to send me a PM (forum or in-game would be better... though I might also be available on Discord during the birthday) so we can discuss stuff.
 
Enough with the wordy bit! Here comes some important info:
Submissions Entries are to be sent via FORUM PM. Please don’t make them public before the quest ends as I’d like to see a lot of variety in your entries. After that period, I’ll contact you to find a way to make all of them available (we’ll see how that goes, depending on the formats and whatnot).
Judging We have managed to get a very special Archivist to judge your entries: Kyphis the Bard! Hooray! Oh, also some random guy that goes by the name of Aelis will be acting as judge (don’t trust that one).

Entries will then be judged on:
Presentation (10 points) As I said, there’s no predefined editorial style, so feel free to innovate. Make it interactive, draw stuff, use pictures where one would expect text and vice versa, etc. Go wild on the format and surprise us! Historical accuracy (10 points) We expect you to present good references for the stuff that you write. Try your best to provide “proof” for your sources. Writing (5 points) We won’t look at your grammar or vocabulary here. Just aim for some degree of cogency in your texts, that’s all!  
Rewards (the good part, finally) 1st place: Anniversary creature + Wishpoint (if we have at least 3 entries, if not we’ll see) 2nd place: Anniversary creature + 1 gold 3rd place: Anniversary creature + 5 silver
    Additionally, all entries, regardless of score, will receive some amount of silver or spellstones (the exact quantity will be defined Soon™).

    PS: I have been given the power to award Anniversary creatures to good quality/score entries that don’t make it to the Top 3, so try your best! And now the coolest part: if your entry doesn't make the cut, you’ll have some time to improve it and try again if you’d like.
Deadline April 29th (end of birthday). After we post the results, you get an additional week if you want to improve your entry to go for an Anniversary creature.
       
 
Okay, that was a bit lengthy... thank you for your patience thus far!
Please post here if you have any questions. I'll try to answer as fast as I can.

And herewith, for those who did wish to note the occurrences within Necrovion:
 
 

Herewith, the log from the event this day:

Many thanks to those who did attend, and welcome to Dracoloth, Priest of the Moon.
 
 

It is fun and interesting that the menu reacts, though. Sometimes my "Fights" button does an extra spin, I feel like it's showing off. I agree with Fyrd nonetheless, especially about the whole menu going away to hide.

May I confirm that this declaration is made as Queen of Necrovion, and in doing so, that Necrovion's Queen now has dominion over it?

I think he means it should display how many of an item you own when you're looking at someone else's inventory.

I think he means it should display how many of an item you own when you're looking at someone else's inventory.