Nep

When you are enchanted and drunk it will not let you post in chat correctly. It will say "drunkenchanted". I tried with parentheses and ** same outcome.

You need to read this thread more thoroughly as it explains this already. It's been noted that the EVO shop herbs basket does not deplete.

Just to add something to this.
Like Ledah mentioned combat stats don't really mean much because everything has a hard counter.
Not only that, but the differences between various characters are so great that maintaining armor would feel like a waste of time (no amount of boost a set of armor can realistically give me would overcome hundreds, thousands of percentages worth of difference in stats).
So in order to make them more useful, would it be possible to create pieces that have a non-combat focus (or at least not strictly attack/defense)? Like something that increases briskness, making it easier to gather heat, or maybe some scout garb that has an AP reduction for movement. Armor that reduces heat scars (or increases, for masochists)? A wizard cloak that boosts power and maybe grants some extra casts? Just throwing some ideas out there...

Just to add something to this.
Like Ledah mentioned combat stats don't really mean much because everything has a hard counter.
Not only that, but the differences between various characters are so great that maintaining armor would feel like a waste of time (no amount of boost a set of armor can realistically give me would overcome hundreds, thousands of percentages worth of difference in stats).
So in order to make them more useful, would it be possible to create pieces that have a non-combat focus (or at least not strictly attack/defense)? Like something that increases briskness, making it easier to gather heat, or maybe some scout garb that has an AP reduction for movement. Armor that reduces heat scars (or increases, for masochists)? A wizard cloak that boosts power and maybe grants some extra casts? Just throwing some ideas out there...

Just to add something to this.
Like Ledah mentioned combat stats don't really mean much because everything has a hard counter.
Not only that, but the differences between various characters are so great that maintaining armor would feel like a waste of time (no amount of boost a set of armor can realistically give me would overcome hundreds, thousands of percentages worth of difference in stats).
So in order to make them more useful, would it be possible to create pieces that have a non-combat focus (or at least not strictly attack/defense)? Like something that increases briskness, making it easier to gather heat, or maybe some scout garb that has an AP reduction for movement. Armor that reduces heat scars (or increases, for masochists)? A wizard cloak that boosts power and maybe grants some extra casts? Just throwing some ideas out there...

Just stepping in on the stat thing - combat stats can always be countered with skillvamp and other auras. High VE cam be countered with certain auras too. There is already a certain level of balance.
Massive numbers are only for bragging rights imho.

Iv spent some time working some constructive feedback for your most recent actions and this post gives a good place to discuss them as it will hopefully help you and your role described here. This has involved a lot of discussion and seeking comments from other players so please read this in the genuine way I have written it, an attempt to help you improve your ideas.
If I haven't conveyed what others said, please feel free to post your comments further here in an attempt to improve this idea.
AI Slop Helpers
A few people have remarked that a lot of your posts recently all seem very "generic AI fantasy" and don't always meld with the reality of MagicDuel (since they don't know much about it). Some suggestions are that using AI is great, but you need to temper it's output and not just rely on it verbatim.
Here is it quite apparent with your first post being quite generic fluff without anything concrete, you may want to rewrite it to be personal. It reads as if someone who doesn’t care enough to invest the time to write it personally. I don’t think that’s how you intended it to come across so I would encourage you to consider how you portray yourself. We much prefer typos galore than output from GenericFantasyLLM. We do have a Mur working on MD 😉
As you can imagine, MagicDuel is a population of artists, writers, storytellers, and creatives and using AI is a controversial topic.

Other suggestions on first paragraph
I would suggest changing it to a call to action “this is what iv done so far, this is I’m going to do, it’s going to be amazing, stay tuned”
Another big theme with the feedback is that it's great to see you back, but it would be good to see you back for a bit longer instead of immediately claiming a guild. MD has changed a lot and it would be good to see commitment to an idea rather than flitting, MD works on a lot slower pace than most are happy with and that's fine.
However don’t ask permission to become ruler of a guild, just start being the crafters guild. Titles can be earned later, they don’t matter!

Goals
It would be good to see you starting to embody the goals such as running events, creating collaborative projects. In MagicDuel a lot of roles are given once people have a track record of accomplishing it. You started with your forge commentary but it would be good to see that continue.
As I said, be the crafters guild!

Why you may make a good leader
Without commenting on this specific instance, someone making a post saying “I will be a great leader” is the number one reason they should not be a leader in my books! Don’t take that personally though.
You want the leader to be someone who, when someone asks “who knows about this crafting” they go “this guy!” That isn't gained by a fancy title, it's created by work and dedication.
You may want to address past behaviours and highlight steps you have taken to change. It also reads as written as an impersonal AI comment similar as in the first paragraph. It's like you said “Write some bullet points saying why I am an amazing leader” to an AI and it's generated content without actual knowledge of your character and past, that's the most important part IMO.
As a specific example you have not been well known for being patient, community focussed, or collaborative and actively stirred hurt in the community. Showing why and how you have changed would add weight to this petition.

Do you want a crafters guild or general workmen “profession” group
It’s a bit confusing because your first post talks all about the crafters guild but subsequent posts suggest you want to help organise/run the general economy of production.
Historically the crafters were about bespoke small scale craft and maybe you actually want to form your own “workmen” guild focussing on expertise on bulk processing rather. Really the crafters guild are dead now the forge is alive.
I would suggest having a think about where you want to actually position your new guild. From your commentary I would move away from crafters and make your own new guild.

Workshop containing all processors
I think this idea is against all of MD lore and concepts and unfortunately continues the “generic fantasy AI slop” vibe. MD has always encouraged putting things “around” the world to encourage movement, trade, and specialism. I don’t think having a singular place for all crafting is good for MD.
My suggestion would be to split these up and suggest places around MD where they would thematically fit.
Some people I have talked to have actually suggested we need to revive the guilds across the land, Fusioneers, water dowsers, etc. Instead of having a central organisation, make it so each land has a specialism. I think maybe this would work well, and instead of you being the "Head" of them all, work as an envoy between them facilitating crafting, trade, sharing knowledge?

Infographics
I won’t individually comments on the items but it again looks very generic fantasy, there are various elements that don’t seem to fit in with how resources actually work in MD
I saw Fang made a number of suggestions aligned with my comments about it being generic (and agreed when I spoke with him about it) and not fitting in with MD but now I look again he removed them.
Instead of producing a large quantity of ideas that just don’t fit in MD I would suggest you spend time reviewing actual structures in MD and provide a smaller subset that actually fit into MD.
As an example to help you I have written up how the upgradable were planned to work. I never got time to finish them unfortunately. Maybe Mur will let me in the future.

Resources need a use
One of the key areas previous initiatives like yours have failed is because they have a lot of ideas about resources that could be collected and processed but nothing about how they could be used. There is a reason most larger games actively employ economists to build a sensible economy to encourage trade.
My suggestion would be to focus more on the end products and why the players (and Mur and I) would care about including them.
We don’t want to add three new types of ore, but if there is a use, that’s exciting. To help I have posted an idea about how resources could factor into armour. Hopefully that will give you some ideas of what I mean.

I’m encouraged to see your real ideas
Without trying to seem too negative a lot of these ideas are quite generic fantasy and I’m keen to see your real ideas where they fit into MD, or where you argue MD should change, rather than a lot of generated things that don’t really fit.
My primary suggestion would be to focus on a few key ideas and make them really good so we can implement them, over a vast wave of things that don’t really fit. .
AI is a superpower, using it well can give incredible results, but if it’s generating a large volume of low quantity ideas it removes what’s special about MD. And protecting what’s special about MD is the only thing I care about.

This inforgraphic shows what potential devices could be used to further process each resource. The higher your skill, the more successful/faster you would be in processing raw resources.

Due to image file size limitations, I have to spam posts for this.
Ive done up a handy infographic as well for what I would like to do for the work process for materials. There are tonnes of other resources, but just kind of expanding on current resources:

Welcome back and it's nice to see you.
Fang can Discord me and I can help him

Hi nepnep.
I am happy to hear from you.
Life always takes precedence before any online stuff.
I hope that you have managed to get some stuff of your chest with this post. Know that many people before you left MD without a word, me included, and others will after us, so it is not rare, and you do not owe anyone any explanation, although it is nice to understand your reasoning.
I have seen quite a few people become invested in great things (groups, organisations, projects..), and then become burdened by them when they felt they had duties to it. It is alright to take a step back, otherwise it may twist into something ugly it was never supposed to be.
I wish you well in both worlds.
Maybe we can talk for a bit, should we meet. Just to chill.
Don't let the world snap you.

Hello again.
Just wanted to give a brief explanation behind my sudden disappearance a few years(?) ago. It's really not my style to leave just like that but under the circumstances I felt like I had to so ehh.
Anyway. It was a difficult period in my life and I felt like I'm spending too much time on the game, but at the same time couldn't bring myself to leave in a meaningful way. Something always happened that dragged me back in. Either some event or becoming the leader of GotR. I realized I couldn't be one of those leaders who just holds the title and chills out, it needs to be done properly buuut at the same time I wanted to reduce my activities. Eventually everything in the realm felt like being forced to fit into a mold that fits less and less (even though all of my "commitments" were self-imposed). So eventually I just snapped and left all MD related communication channels, even blocked most people on discord save for a selected few to prevent getting dragged back in. Felt easier than having difficult conversations, though I realize it's a rather stupid way to handle things.
Anyway. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Easier than explaining to people one by one.
Some other things:
Sunfire took over GotR, WAS IT A COUP????
No, it's for the best. I didn't have the mental fortitude to run it properly, nor do I have it now. Things probably worked out how they were always meant to lol.
Will you return now?
Hard to say. Some of the new updates are tempting, and I think I'm about to lose my job so I'll definitely have more time on my hands... But at the very least I'll check in eventually.
One more thing.
Fang says he can't figure out his forum login thing... Any chance someone could help with that? lol... Or what's the best way to go about this?

Hello again.
Just wanted to give a brief explanation behind my sudden disappearance a few years(?) ago. It's really not my style to leave just like that but under the circumstances I felt like I had to so ehh.
Anyway. It was a difficult period in my life and I felt like I'm spending too much time on the game, but at the same time couldn't bring myself to leave in a meaningful way. Something always happened that dragged me back in. Either some event or becoming the leader of GotR. I realized I couldn't be one of those leaders who just holds the title and chills out, it needs to be done properly buuut at the same time I wanted to reduce my activities. Eventually everything in the realm felt like being forced to fit into a mold that fits less and less (even though all of my "commitments" were self-imposed). So eventually I just snapped and left all MD related communication channels, even blocked most people on discord save for a selected few to prevent getting dragged back in. Felt easier than having difficult conversations, though I realize it's a rather stupid way to handle things.
Anyway. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Easier than explaining to people one by one.
Some other things:
Sunfire took over GotR, WAS IT A COUP????
No, it's for the best. I didn't have the mental fortitude to run it properly, nor do I have it now. Things probably worked out how they were always meant to lol.
Will you return now?
Hard to say. Some of the new updates are tempting, and I think I'm about to lose my job so I'll definitely have more time on my hands... But at the very least I'll check in eventually.
One more thing.
Fang says he can't figure out his forum login thing... Any chance someone could help with that? lol... Or what's the best way to go about this?

I saw you walking about IG and I wanted to say hello! and see how you're doing. I hope to see you soon!

Hello again.
Just wanted to give a brief explanation behind my sudden disappearance a few years(?) ago. It's really not my style to leave just like that but under the circumstances I felt like I had to so ehh.
Anyway. It was a difficult period in my life and I felt like I'm spending too much time on the game, but at the same time couldn't bring myself to leave in a meaningful way. Something always happened that dragged me back in. Either some event or becoming the leader of GotR. I realized I couldn't be one of those leaders who just holds the title and chills out, it needs to be done properly buuut at the same time I wanted to reduce my activities. Eventually everything in the realm felt like being forced to fit into a mold that fits less and less (even though all of my "commitments" were self-imposed). So eventually I just snapped and left all MD related communication channels, even blocked most people on discord save for a selected few to prevent getting dragged back in. Felt easier than having difficult conversations, though I realize it's a rather stupid way to handle things.
Anyway. Just wanted to get that out of the way. Easier than explaining to people one by one.
Some other things:
Sunfire took over GotR, WAS IT A COUP????
No, it's for the best. I didn't have the mental fortitude to run it properly, nor do I have it now. Things probably worked out how they were always meant to lol.
Will you return now?
Hard to say. Some of the new updates are tempting, and I think I'm about to lose my job so I'll definitely have more time on my hands... But at the very least I'll check in eventually.
One more thing.
Fang says he can't figure out his forum login thing... Any chance someone could help with that? lol... Or what's the best way to go about this?

On day 364 year 17, a delegation ventured inside Necrovion for an unprecedented offering to the Shades.
Three individuals (Ledah, Nep and The Puppeteer) were taken to the Eternal Toiler, where they sacrificed altogether 50 creatures.
111 fenths were created and left for time to erode.
This outstanding sacrifice was awarded with a spell-doc page for each participant.
Below the full log of the event:
 

Everyone should have their rewards  

Let's get this party started I guess.
Item 12 – Tainted Angien - 600 plushies

Recently I went through Gateway Island as an alt account just to test and get an idea of exactly what it was and what it involved. This topic is just to compile the feedback I had as a returning player who did their best to perceive it from a new players point of view. Firstly I have to say that the island itself is good, and that the tutorial is hitting along a lot of the right tracks in terms of teaching the player to play, about puzzles and facets of the game. Where it stumbled is in the smoothness of the experience and the potential buy in.
 
One of the main things that new players encounter is the tool mechanics, though the tools have a much reduced cooldown to ensure that newbies don't spend all day collecting the required resources, however this emphasises the fact that the inventory menu doesn't refresh itself. While a refresh button is presented in the window it blends in with the text around it and is very easy to miss, and this is especially true on mobile devices. The first solution a player may find is simply refreshing the whole webpage, and not a good experience. If it is possible to make the countdown of time at least happen in real time, and the refresh button was made a slightly brighter orange, this would be remedied. Or better if the panel simply refreshed itself when hitting 0 seconds left, though I assume there are technical limitations with that?

AP Cost is an odd one here and has me somewhat confused. It seems that moving in the main handful of areas can be done even when on 0 AP, not sure whether this is a bug or intended. The other half of the areas however do require AP expenditure as per normal, except as you might imagine with only getting so few newbies the viscosity is usually around 20. Even with the Land Affinity bonus the usual AP for movement around the areas that cost it is roughly 18. Given a starter player has a bank of 200 and regens roughly 16 every 10 minutes this can get to be an issue especially since most new players will backtrack a lot as they try and put things together. This means they might start to get really excited about figuring things out... Only to find themselves out of AP and having to wait twenty minutes to move a single scene. It might be worth giving newbies more affinity for GWI to start with, or at least cap viscosity to being at max triple of the AP the scene would ordinarily cost to move to. IE if an arrow costs 1 to move, the max viscosity cost it can have would be 3, making the total cost 4. That would be much more palatable for the GWI, but probably its own discussion.

Active Days to get off the island... I get why it's there, really. But the island doesn't necessarily take that long to solve, or to exhaust the possible actions on it (depending on the player, of course). MD is a community game and GWI more often than not at this point in time is cut off from the community. Someone there can't interact with the majority of players, and without that MD loses some of its appeal. I don't see all too many players wanting to stay on the island for that amount of time because it is limiting. Left there you can't explore or necessarily find more puzzles and this is before you are able to see the deeper lore of MD... Though, suppose there may be a way off the island with less active days, not certain but the majority I've seen require it.

Finally - The Buy in. Back when I started MD you were greeted by the Story Mode, and it honestly inspired me. The story was the interweaving of lore and gave some snippet of how to think about the realm, it gave flavour and some rather odd context, the kind of thing that was utterly unique. That was what made me, personally, want to investigate and explore, it gave the curiosity to press on into the realm. That and the fascinating creatures and fights were my 'buy in', the point that I was invested enough to push through adversity or any of the rough parts of MD.
This seems to be missing in GWI. There is the introduction with a fair few interesting mentions of what is possible, but it's not really inspiring, just informative. Then the first thing you are greeted with are the tools and collection mechanics which seems like an odd choice. Don't get me wrong the tutorial is good (though the wait for the map was a bit too long), but it's not something that is going to draw people in which is what you need to start with. I'd suggest start with a mystery, some hinting at the lore and have the mystery progress with each step to exiting the island. Meet the creatures and combat second, with a shade in each location to optionally fight. Then the tools.
This way players can at least do something while waiting for things to process or AP to generate, because when most people start looking for a new browser based game, they're bored. Greeting them with a mystery and something to puzzle over as they go is not only more interesting, but also more authentic to at least how I see MD.
 
Anyway, thank you for reading my thoughts. GWI seems like a very good place to start, it just needs that buy in and polish. But the hard part is done, it's intuitive and easy to understand for those who do not leave early. At least by my own reckoning. Hopefully my perspective helps to some extent!

Thank you, the quest was really fun to do! Took a while to get the hang of how it worked for the first few steps, but after that everything worked really well!

Honestly I think it needs to be recognised how much the NPCs to chat with add to the realm, it really did bring things to life all the more, even outside the quest.

1. ailith and fyrd
2. nep
3. eara
 
congratulations to the winners, it was overall a very close race, thank you for cooking

Closed.  Got one.  Thanks Nep!

Then I'll take a 10 gold note, if it's still available

Apparently, the Shade ambassador has vanished. Perhaps too much was revealed, perhaps too little?
We'll never know for sure.
Anyway, I found a scribbled parchment by the Well of Tears. The calligraphy doesn't resemble any of yours, dear questers, so you might want to take a look at it:
Interesting, uh?
Now, given the disappearence of the ambassador, I had to judge your submissions by myself.
I used these criteria:
how much comprehensible it would be to the Shades (0 - 4 points) originality / inventive (0 - 3 points) effort (0 - 2 points) synthesis (0 - 1 point) As you can see, the maximum score is 10. Without further ado, here are the results:
Eara Meraia: 8 Fyrd Argentus & Invie: 7 Aia, Else, Ailith: 6 Nep, Amber Rune: 5 Ledah: 3 When more people has the same score, the submission order will be used. Therefore, I expect you to pick your reward in this order: Eara, Fyrd Argentus, Invie, Aia, Else, Ailith, Nep, Amber Rune, Ledah.
Reward pool (I'll update this as people choose):
1 wish point: Eara Meraya - delivered
30 gold note: Fyrd Argentus - delivered
30 gold note: Invie - delivered
30 gold note: Aia - delivered
10 gold note: Else - delivered
10 gold note: Nep - delivered
30 silver note: Ailith - delivered
30 silver note: Amber Rune - delivered
30 silver note: Ledah - delivered
As a final note, I'm very happy for your participation and I hope you enjoyed it.
Keep in mind lashtal is allergic to gold, so pick your prize as soon as you can.

I thought everybody knows this 🤔