Nep

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 🤔

Four years in and I've discovered a new feature.  If you're looking in either inventory system (menu on left, or panel on right) and use a find-on-page key stroke (command-F on a mac) either menu will scroll to the location of the found text.  You don't have to page through all that junk to find the one thing you're looking for!

Fyrd gave me a winderwild with 1000 shards embedded, but after transfer it is missing the shard menu: 

Crit IDs: 883013, 883025.
As you can see, it shows that it has shards embedded, but the shard menu is missing. 
I did not spend a gold coin to keep their levels, so maybe that caused the problem, but I can't be sure. 

This is to confirm that @Elyssia has provided a correct solution to this puzzle, with indeed an elegant thought-pattern to accompany it, and so, has received a wish-point and mine spell-document.

The Anniversary is a time for formal events and one of these is the signing and approval of the formal MagicDuel Title Documents.
Mur and I have prepared this one to be issued on the 17th Anniversary of MagicDuel.

This document gives full rights over all decisions relating to the land of Loreroot in Aia's role as Queen. This is awarded after gaining the respect and support of the land and the MagicDuel Community.
This is dated Day 49, Year 17 which is the official date her reign began.
Aia will have the chance to claim the document and have it sent to her or have it stored in the MagicDuel vaults for the time being.

I have bestowed it upon thee, Nep; let all who observe it revere of thy magnificence, as proven by the *legendary* Memery Stone.

Oh Majestic Emperor of the unseen Bacons. With this, I present you with my humble looking dish, that cannot be missed at any feast. Alhough it looks simple, but do not underestimate it! A whole civilisation had to emerge, flourish and go in decay just to create this so simple and yet so tasty dish. It took almost 3 days to prepare and I believe me, I hate that cannot convey any smells and sounds as these were unbelievable. So...let us start
Ingredients you need are simple...some water, some flour, just a small pinch of yiest (unfortunately my sourdough is on vacation at the moment so I had to use some conventional yiest). Stir and wait...
When your new civilization is at rise, give it some more food to grow on - some flour, some water, some love, stir it well and let the magic do its work...

Fold your baby...at this point it needs a lot of care and patience but you will see how it changes and grows in return...

Once again fold it, mould it and wait until your very own civilization comes to flourish

And now, when it is on its best...its time for...the end of the world...make the fire do its job and enjoy unbelievable smell.

Once its done, you will be left with unbelievable, indulgent sinful loaf of bread...heritage of decayed world, essence of Shade Sentinel its midst that you can so shamefully and lustfully devour with a bit of butter and a pinch of salt...not much more is needed. Enjoy

I'll take the memery stone first for sure, it sounds glorious  

Creamy Winderwild, Grasan Bacon and Mushroom pie with oniony mash.
 
Cook Winderwild in a covered dish in oven with equal parts dijon mustard and runny honey and some white pepper. Once cooked, put the meat aside to cool and keep the juices from the dish.

Fry small pieces of bacon until nicely cooked (but not crispy) and make a sauce using softened onions, mushrooms, bit of oil & butter, white pepper, juices from the winderwild dish, bit of basil (prefer tarragon but had run out) small amount of chicken stock and low fat creme fraiche.

Once all is cooked, mix the winderwild, bacon and sauce together and leave to cool. Grease your pie dish and line with puff pastry, put the filling in and cover with the remaining pastry:

Cook until golden brown (browner than the photo, it appears lighter than it was):

Make some yummy buttery spring onion mash and serve:

 
 
 

So, the hot winderwild wings I have promised... Here is what we are gonna use: 

Namely: 
- 6-7 wings (I used 5 for this one because mine are fairly large - just means there will be some leftover sauce)
- a pinch of salt & black pepper (salt is not on this pic because I forgot)
- 4 tablespoons of honey
- about half a cup of Sriracha hot sauce from the uhh... EAST (that is about 1,1 milliliters in my estimation)
- 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 4 teaspoons of sesame seed oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (can be rice vinegar or something else but this is what I prefer)
- some olive oil (we will need about 2 tablespoons in our frying pan)
We start with preparing the wings like so: 

Cut them in half like that... I fed the tips to the knators because they aren't the best for this recipe. 
Next up, mince the garlic: 

Now mix it together in a bowl with the ingredients listed above, and give it a good stir: 

Next up, put your wings in a bowl or some kind of food container and add about half of the sauce we have just prepared: 

Cover it with a lid and put it in your fridge for 1 hour... You can leave it overnight but 1 hour should be enough. 
Once that is done, add the olive oil to your frying pan and start frying the wings on medium / medium-high heat. We will do this for about 15 minutes. Make sure to turn the wings every 2-3 minutes, and use a lid in-between or else your stove will look like mine. 
Here how we start: 

I prefer to start with the skinny side down but it's not that important. After a while some of the wings may start to get seared, but don't be afraid, this is actually good for you:

...obviously you don't want it completely carbonated. If you feel like you are going too fast, you can turn down the heat a bit. 
After the 15 minutes is up, add the other half of the sauce to the wings. This will give it a nice glaze.

You can turn up the heat here as long as you don't go overboard. Continue to fry it until the glaze is nice and thick: 

I used less wings here so we have some more left over but we can use that as a dip for our fries or whatever. 
Here is how it should look like by the end, more or less: 

Get them out on a plate: 

...then eat it. You can use any side dish but sometimes I just prefer to eat them like this. Enjoy!
 

I grew up in a very toxic family environment, which resulted in a serious inferiority complex, among other things. After I grew up and started working, I have noticed that I'm simply... doing better than the people who were criticizing me all my life, and the people I was compared to all my life. And not even by a small margin. Shockingly, it wasn't even that hard. And, I'm just getting started...
After some years, the people criticizing me started to die off, or wrecked their own lives in various ways. The cousins I was "competing" with are all living underwhelming lives, and I hardly meet them anymore. It's as if their opinions never mattered in the first place. 
Basically what I learned is that you shouldn't define yourself based on what others think. Though this can be hard when you are still a child and don't have any point of reference apart from your immediate environment. You define what you can and can't achieve. Since most people are not actors, but only reactors to outside events, you can make an awful lot of change in the world just by putting some effort in it every day. 

I grew up in a very toxic family environment, which resulted in a serious inferiority complex, among other things. After I grew up and started working, I have noticed that I'm simply... doing better than the people who were criticizing me all my life, and the people I was compared to all my life. And not even by a small margin. Shockingly, it wasn't even that hard. And, I'm just getting started...
After some years, the people criticizing me started to die off, or wrecked their own lives in various ways. The cousins I was "competing" with are all living underwhelming lives, and I hardly meet them anymore. It's as if their opinions never mattered in the first place. 
Basically what I learned is that you shouldn't define yourself based on what others think. Though this can be hard when you are still a child and don't have any point of reference apart from your immediate environment. You define what you can and can't achieve. Since most people are not actors, but only reactors to outside events, you can make an awful lot of change in the world just by putting some effort in it every day. 

I grew up in a very toxic family environment, which resulted in a serious inferiority complex, among other things. After I grew up and started working, I have noticed that I'm simply... doing better than the people who were criticizing me all my life, and the people I was compared to all my life. And not even by a small margin. Shockingly, it wasn't even that hard. And, I'm just getting started...
After some years, the people criticizing me started to die off, or wrecked their own lives in various ways. The cousins I was "competing" with are all living underwhelming lives, and I hardly meet them anymore. It's as if their opinions never mattered in the first place. 
Basically what I learned is that you shouldn't define yourself based on what others think. Though this can be hard when you are still a child and don't have any point of reference apart from your immediate environment. You define what you can and can't achieve. Since most people are not actors, but only reactors to outside events, you can make an awful lot of change in the world just by putting some effort in it every day. 

So, the hot winderwild wings I have promised... Here is what we are gonna use: 

Namely: 
- 6-7 wings (I used 5 for this one because mine are fairly large - just means there will be some leftover sauce)
- a pinch of salt & black pepper (salt is not on this pic because I forgot)
- 4 tablespoons of honey
- about half a cup of Sriracha hot sauce from the uhh... EAST (that is about 1,1 milliliters in my estimation)
- 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 4 teaspoons of sesame seed oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (can be rice vinegar or something else but this is what I prefer)
- some olive oil (we will need about 2 tablespoons in our frying pan)
We start with preparing the wings like so: 

Cut them in half like that... I fed the tips to the knators because they aren't the best for this recipe. 
Next up, mince the garlic: 

Now mix it together in a bowl with the ingredients listed above, and give it a good stir: 

Next up, put your wings in a bowl or some kind of food container and add about half of the sauce we have just prepared: 

Cover it with a lid and put it in your fridge for 1 hour... You can leave it overnight but 1 hour should be enough. 
Once that is done, add the olive oil to your frying pan and start frying the wings on medium / medium-high heat. We will do this for about 15 minutes. Make sure to turn the wings every 2-3 minutes, and use a lid in-between or else your stove will look like mine. 
Here how we start: 

I prefer to start with the skinny side down but it's not that important. After a while some of the wings may start to get seared, but don't be afraid, this is actually good for you:

...obviously you don't want it completely carbonated. If you feel like you are going too fast, you can turn down the heat a bit. 
After the 15 minutes is up, add the other half of the sauce to the wings. This will give it a nice glaze.

You can turn up the heat here as long as you don't go overboard. Continue to fry it until the glaze is nice and thick: 

I used less wings here so we have some more left over but we can use that as a dip for our fries or whatever. 
Here is how it should look like by the end, more or less: 

Get them out on a plate: 

...then eat it. You can use any side dish but sometimes I just prefer to eat them like this. Enjoy!
 

I grew up in a very toxic family environment, which resulted in a serious inferiority complex, among other things. After I grew up and started working, I have noticed that I'm simply... doing better than the people who were criticizing me all my life, and the people I was compared to all my life. And not even by a small margin. Shockingly, it wasn't even that hard. And, I'm just getting started...
After some years, the people criticizing me started to die off, or wrecked their own lives in various ways. The cousins I was "competing" with are all living underwhelming lives, and I hardly meet them anymore. It's as if their opinions never mattered in the first place. 
Basically what I learned is that you shouldn't define yourself based on what others think. Though this can be hard when you are still a child and don't have any point of reference apart from your immediate environment. You define what you can and can't achieve. Since most people are not actors, but only reactors to outside events, you can make an awful lot of change in the world just by putting some effort in it every day. 

So, the hot winderwild wings I have promised... Here is what we are gonna use: 

Namely: 
- 6-7 wings (I used 5 for this one because mine are fairly large - just means there will be some leftover sauce)
- a pinch of salt & black pepper (salt is not on this pic because I forgot)
- 4 tablespoons of honey
- about half a cup of Sriracha hot sauce from the uhh... EAST (that is about 1,1 milliliters in my estimation)
- 4 tablespoons of soy sauce
- 4 teaspoons of sesame seed oil
- 4 cloves of garlic
- 1 tablespoon of apple cider vinegar (can be rice vinegar or something else but this is what I prefer)
- some olive oil (we will need about 2 tablespoons in our frying pan)
We start with preparing the wings like so: 

Cut them in half like that... I fed the tips to the knators because they aren't the best for this recipe. 
Next up, mince the garlic: 

Now mix it together in a bowl with the ingredients listed above, and give it a good stir: 

Next up, put your wings in a bowl or some kind of food container and add about half of the sauce we have just prepared: 

Cover it with a lid and put it in your fridge for 1 hour... You can leave it overnight but 1 hour should be enough. 
Once that is done, add the olive oil to your frying pan and start frying the wings on medium / medium-high heat. We will do this for about 15 minutes. Make sure to turn the wings every 2-3 minutes, and use a lid in-between or else your stove will look like mine. 
Here how we start: 

I prefer to start with the skinny side down but it's not that important. After a while some of the wings may start to get seared, but don't be afraid, this is actually good for you:

...obviously you don't want it completely carbonated. If you feel like you are going too fast, you can turn down the heat a bit. 
After the 15 minutes is up, add the other half of the sauce to the wings. This will give it a nice glaze.

You can turn up the heat here as long as you don't go overboard. Continue to fry it until the glaze is nice and thick: 

I used less wings here so we have some more left over but we can use that as a dip for our fries or whatever. 
Here is how it should look like by the end, more or less: 

Get them out on a plate: 

...then eat it. You can use any side dish but sometimes I just prefer to eat them like this. Enjoy!