Aethertecture... aetherscaping?

Saran

So, after spending some time designing my manse a bit more I've come back to an old thought, that we really should be able to just set our manse rooms that whatever makes the most sense.  The 50 credit-75 dingbat price tag on changing a single room seems minimal but when I'm looking at ten rooms with the expectation of expansion seems a bit excessive when I can just ignore that (or get a druid in for the trees), writing whatever description that I want and I can just find/design furniture I like skipping any concerns about limitations there.

Right now, the system seems to encourage this and I imagine I wouldn't be the only person out there with a manse that isn't unformed indoors aether.


So, rather than tying this up in credit/dingbat artifact purchases, perhaps we could get a new skill dealing with shaping our manses (Aethertecture or aetherscaping sound weird, sadly aethercraft was taken ).

The abilities in the skill would represent small groups of terrains that you could change the default "aether" into, so you might have nature with opening up the ability to make gardens/forests/etc. Org limited or not, you might have a Wyrd ability making such places inherently wyrden or something similar for taint. Limited, of course, to the manse owner. Tthis would open up the ability for manses to truly reflect the environments that are described without charging people because maybe their character doesn't want just a house, and ideally enable all sorts of environments within. Beaches, Rivers, Seas, Mountains, Taint, Valleys, maybe even considering going higher and including cosmic terrain types. Perhaps with an artifact to reset a room (though toggles like wyrd and taint probably should be free).

The other benefit of putting this into a skill would also be the other possibilities for manse expansion. If we could get an "Icon" type construction in our manses, this could activate them to make them functional for offering (not amazing but a nice addition), perhaps for those that want outdoors but still want to lock sections off you could convert a door into a barrier (same mechanics but messages about a force preventing you from going that way instead), perhaps some form of treasury mechanic whereby you can declare a room your treasury and any artifacts you leave within it stay there?

But yeah, tl;dr I just don't feel incentivized into actually paying for this room by room, especially when I still wouldn't be able to make it all match(afaik there's only trees/outdoor/freshwater/desert/beach available). Maybe people out there do, but I guess the question is how many people have oceans, forests, cloud-castles or whatever in indoor aether.

On the flip side, I'd happily learn a skill that lets me do it, and if there were other ways to improve my manse using a skill that'd be cool and probably make  me more enthused about crafting it. And giving us more things to do with manses means that maybe you can put a price tag on those things, like getting custom tenants or an upgrade like a ship upgrade but it instead lets your manse have other manses attached to it (disconnecting them from the aetherplex and preventing you from making the upgraded manse a ship)

Xenthos

I like the concept of aethersculpting (my own take!), but do not think it can be easily implemented in the manner you are suggesting. There are perhaps other ways it can go, but turning credit purchases into a skillset is a losing proposition from the game admin standpoint. Consider this: if it is a skillset, it would need to function on manses other than your own. Even if it did not, someone could temporarily transfer their manse to you for sculpting. Only a small number of players would ever need to actually invest in it. Many of those might even be like me, who already has thousands of lessons sitting around and nothing else to use 'em on. I just can't see any benefit to them to spend the time and effort to convert this specific mechanic.

That said, there may be other cool things that could be done in a skillset like this, that do not impinge on artifacts. As I said, I like the concept.

Daraius

I could see myself sinking lessons into something like this when Resilience gets refunded. :-?

Phoebus

In my opinion, this is far too niche to exist as an entire skill. It would probably be more feasible to ask for an aetherscaping device to exist as an artifact*. Unlimited uses to change room types in your manse, perfect for people who have large scale projects in mind and need a simpler and more cost-efficient approach than the current single use artis.

*A REASONABLY PRICED ARTIFACT. Don't pull a zimoru syringe on me again if this is done, artifact pricers. [-( There's no point in making an unlimited use version of a single-serving artifact if its cost is outrageously outside of what a normal person would spend by buying each one separately.

Saran

@Xenthos it is something that I considered, I suppose the other question really is how many of the existing artifacts are actually sold?

One ability that occurred was a convenience that I think Richter coded, effectively "Manse goto" enabling you to instantly move to anyone or room in your manse (or flow if there are concerns). Which is the way to get people to buy it (and thereby increase the profits), abilities that require you to have the skill and own the manse. Because I wouldn't buy the artifacts and I haven't really encountered any manses that I've noticed have them, my expectation is the market for them is low, if the skill is attractive enough to have and keep then it may result in more investment both in the credits/lessons to learn the skill as well as in building the manse itself than a single use artifact.

Home shrines would be nice of course and probably at the top of a few lists, but the question is what other things could be cool to include in manses. Maybe stealing prized return from the artisans to teleport you back you your manse if it's on prime?

I've been reading Mage: The Awakenings Archmage stuff and playing Skyforge recently so my brain keeps circling around creating spaces in your manse for npcs to inhabit, worshipers or whatever that you could tend to as a kinda daily thing, a couple simpleish things and you can get some essence.  But that's getting complicated as it'd be a minigame system.

Saran

Phoebus said:

In my opinion, this is far too niche to exist as an entire skill. It would probably be more feasible to ask for an aetherscaping device to exist as an artifact*. Unlimited uses to change room types in your manse, perfect for people who have large scale projects in mind and need a simpler and more cost-efficient approach than the current single use artis.

*A REASONABLY PRICED ARTIFACT. Don't pull a zimoru syringe on me again if this is done, artifact pricers. [-( There's no point in making an unlimited use version of a single-serving artifact if its cost is outrageously outside of what a normal person would spend by buying each one separately.

Yeah, the concern there comes with what the price might be as ultimately it's the price of the current artifacts and the total they represent that leads to "ah just get a druid to forest it, it'll be fine". Also the skill is nice just for the possibility of building in some more features into manses though also new artisan stuff would be great too.

Tarkenton

Put the cost around the same as transing a skill. Approx 300 credits.

Saran

So... ideas, thoughts, expansions.

A mini-game idea that I had was that we might build a small village inside our manses. We could build storerooms, houses, and other small buildings (all designed by artisans of course), over time these would attract special npcs. Similar to tenants, except that they would be part of the system.

Every npc would have a drain on the resources, so you would need to keep your storeroom stocked with food commodities and the like. Not enough food, the villagers die. Other commodities would be consumed arming the npcs with clothes, weapons, and armour. With a general "morale" variable.

There would be two boards that you can build.

The first is for requests that the npcs have. These would be randomly rolled at the month, maybe they want a great feast which would improve morale but consume a significant amount of extra resources for the month, maybe there are some enemies invading which you need to stop (you would go to an invasion point which would spawn some waves of enemies for you to kill) failure to do so would result npc deaths reduced based on how well armed they are.
The second would be for missions you can send the npcs on. This would require a certain number of npcs and have a danger level, the difference between your npcs equipment and this level would determine both success and how many make it back. (Equipment would be abstracted, if you send twenty npcs and have twenty swords, they're considered equipped with the swords for example)


The "why would I do any of this?", maybe one thing your npcs might eventually ask you to build is a small chapel, if you're a demigod. At the end of every month based on morale, successful missions, and the number of surviving npcs, the chapel is filled with their prayers which a demigod can absorb becoming a small essence gift.

It lets us build our manses into something more, gives us a little gift for doing so, and tending to the villagers would ideally provide a reason for people to log in daily to check on them. With the days you actively work on them offering a bigger reward.