Design Overhaul

Charites

Greetings, Mortals.

For some time now, We have been evaluating the strengths and flaws of Our design system. We believe that the Lusternian design system is one of the hallmarks of the game, and one of our greatest features. We also understand that over the decade and longer that it has existed, its rules have grown...unruly.

Today We can announce that We have devised a streamlined and simplified set of rules for the creation and submission of designs within Lusternia. We, along with everyone here in the Havens, believe that these rules will both broaden the horizons of your creativity and render the design system easier to access for those newer to it.

These rules will be fully announced and come into effect on Wednesday, 14th August 2019.

We understand that you will doubtless be keen to know how the system will be changing. Here are the highlights:      

      - All standard English spellings are now permitted in the design system. Rejoice, Americans, for you may finally divest yourself of pesky Us and embrace your beloved Zs.

      - Everything represented in a design must still be represented by a commodity, but those commodities are no longer prescribed. As long as your commodities make sense, and keep within the other limitations of the design system (e.g. with regards to "magical" items), then they will be accepted.

      - New tints have been created and will now encompass every conceivable colour. The precise combinations of faeleaf, coal and purpletint will no longer be the woes of Tattooists everywhere; rather, you will simply have to meet the tattoo's weight number in total, the figure made up of every colour you have used.

      - Commodity costs have been reviewed for Forging, Tailoring, Tattoos and Artisan to bring them in line with one another and, most importantly, with common sense. We will also be continuing to review commodity costs going forward.

      - Comments made by designers will no longer be overridden by reviewer feedback, and will now last forever. You may also now edit those comments after the design has been approved.

      - Mortal Reviewers are now paid at a much higher rate to value their efforts, and the position of Senior Reviewer has been created, granting an even higher credit reward for long serving reviewers.

The transition to the new system will involve the entire design system being taken offline for a period of time on the release date. This will be done in the early afternoon server time (GMT) to minimise disruption. When the system is brought back online, the new rules will be in effect.

We hope that you are as excited as We are. We would like to say a tremendous thank you to the coders behind the scenes who have valiantly brought Our vision, wide-reaching as it is, to life.

The Lovely Charites

Misericorde

Does this mean we might also be getting new design types soon?

Charites

We're unlikely to add anything early on in the transition period, because everyone will be getting used to the new rules system. After that, though...

Jolanthe

I'm honestly pretty excited for the new comment changes myself. Looking forward to seeing what else is on the way.

Misericorde

I was too excited to ask, but will existing designs be updated to the new commodity costs? If not, are Trademasters going to be able to ask for reviews of existing designs or will they be grandfathered in under the old system and not touched?

Also HUGE thanks to all the volunteers working to give the design system an overhaul. Designing is my favorite part of the game and I can't wait for it to be streamlined!

Charites

Existing designs will remain as they are, however it will be possible for Trademasters to request modifications. When We announce everything, We'll give the details on how that will work and how to make the requests.

Portius

Charites said:

      - All standard English spellings are now permitted in the design system. Rejoice, Americans, for you may finally divest yourself of pesky Us and embrace your beloved Zs.

Pretty thrilled with this change. Like, you could have just done this one, skipped all the others, and I would still be thrilled with it. The rest is good too, but nothing competes with this for me.

Charites

Today's downtime will occur at approximately 2pm GMT. We will endeavour to keep the downtime as short as possible, but due to the extensive nature of the changes We unfortunately cannot give you an ETA.

We will notify everyone here and in game once things are transferred over.

Thank you for your patience!

Charites

We have now entered the scheduled maintenance time. Updates will be given here, in game and via the Lusternia Twitter account.

Daraius

Very excited to see the “extensive nature of the changes.”

Xenthos

Chocolate?!

Charites

We are about a third of the way through Our work now. Much of what We are doing is unfortunately manual and in places quite persnickety, so there is only so much We can do to speed it up.

Thank you all for your patience!

Charites

Two thirds or thereabouts!

A small portion of Ourselves have gone on strike, so We're just whipping them into shape and We'll get right back to it. Not long now.

Misericorde

Charites

After about three and a half hours, We're delighted to have turned the system back on! We're sinking this thread now in favour of Our new queries thread, so throw your questions and reactions there if you have any.

Thank you all for bearing with Us - We're so excited to hear what you think.