1. That is a real problem with trades, the saturated market. I don't feel you can make trade money unless you own a shop. So basically you go a trade because you enjoy designing, which is a good reason.
2. Yea that's a real problem with melders. Why have you meld when the guy who had a demesne rune etc can meld instead. May be resolved with the upcoming mage overhaul, though!
3. Breaking into rp is hard in any game, man. I'm having a tough time finding a groove to my character in Aetolia right now. I honestly don't know if I'd had stuck with lusternia if not for Shayle (my first guildmaster) being so damn chairsmatic.
1. That is a real problem with trades, the saturated market. I don't feel you can make trade money unless you own a shop. So basically you go a trade because you enjoy designing, which is a good reason.
From what I was aware of there's also issue that even with a shop the ROI is so low that it's still not really worth it, because you're still competing with people that can craft more efficiently thanks to artifacts and self-sufficiency.
1. That is a real problem with trades, the saturated market. I don't feel you can make trade money unless you own a shop. So basically you go a trade because you enjoy designing, which is a good reason.
I'd read up on designing but didn't know how to submit designs. I didn't know if it was supposed to be, like, an OOC message to someone important or if there was a syntax for it or anything, and couldn't find any help files explaining it.
3. Breaking into rp is hard in any game, man. I'm having a tough time finding a groove to my character in Aetolia right now. I honestly don't know if I'd had stuck with lusternia if not for Shayle (my first guildmaster) being so damn chairsmatic.
Roleplaying is literally the only reason I want to play this game. I can mindlessly repeat tasks on WoW or Ultima but as a Forever DM all I want is some actual RP. I've tried Aetolia and actually found the community easier to engage, but half the time I try to interact with someone here they're either in the middle of something or just silently taking cures over and over ignoring the world.
Roleplaying is literally the only reason I want to play this game. I can mindlessly repeat tasks on WoW or Ultima but as a Forever DM all I want is some actual RP. I've tried Aetolia and actually found the community easier to engage, but half the time I try to interact with someone here they're either in the middle of something or just silently taking cures over and over ignoring the world.
RPWHO ON is a great way to advertise yourself as looking for some RP interaction!! Sorry you've had such rotten luck so far here !
‘It’s important to be kind. You can’t know all the times that you’ve hurt people in tiny, significant ways. It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.’
1) CARTELS MAGNAGORA. This gives you a list of all of Magnagora's cartels (and the person who can submit designs for that cartel).
2) Put your design in a letter. Mail it to said person.
3) They will handle submitting it (they should also handle typos, spelling-to-British-English fixes, etc). If you want it to be a private design (only to the cartel) instead of public (available to everyone), include 5k gold in the letter. If it's a public design, no need for gold.
On the RP end of things:
I'm not sure what your play time is, and Magnagora seems to have had a slightly smaller population over the last week or so than usual. I'm suspecting it'll pick up again though, they tend to be one of the more populated orgs in the game. I usually see someone hanging around the Necropolis on WHO, and you should be okay to just plop in on them. There are a few Mags who also talk about their enjoyment of being "abducted" for RP so I'd try to see if I can find them. I'm hesitant to suggest org hopping with your character because you've already done it once, but if you really can't find anyone around on your play time you could roll up a new alt and check out somewhere else just to see. Mag is definitely one of the orgs that comes across as having regularly available RP though, so I'm hoping you can find some!
So I'm a level 82 newbie. I've tried a lot of characters on here and nothing I do can get me I to whatever is going on in this game and it's starting to become frustrating. I can't join the guild I want because nobody can induct me. I'm without a guild because I was originally in Serenwilde but would literally be the only player logged in over half the time, and despite going transcendant in forging (yes, I invested money despite the problems) nobody seemed to need anything forged, so that was a complete waste. I was told to study up on aethercraft but first I have to get a manse, then a ship, and so far that has been a completely unused skill. I went trans in Geomancy, but I can only use that against players, and the only PVP seems to be the timequakes or bashing, both of which I'm told not to meld, so that's a completely unused skill. Realizing I'm not supposed to use any of the skills I've invested in I started studying influence, but all I've been doing is repeating the exact same command over and over, so I have no idea how to do that properly.
It feels like this game was built for about thirty people, and those people have a blast. Any roleplaying I do is rebuffed so I don't see any point in even engaging in that. This game seems like so much fun when you're low level and a lot is happening, but I'm approaching Demi and have done nothing but bash.
Hi there @Soveliss. If you are Magnagoran, which I'm guessing you are, I've not ever interacted with you because most times I see you, you're really quiet! I've never even heard you talk, I think - beyond skill recommendations maybe. And I honestly have been concerned about seeing a lot of high level people who just don't talk...So, hello!
Usually, you have to be a self-starter for most RP here, and like Gurashi said RPWHO is a good resource. I'm on it 24/7. Who has rebuffed you in roleplay? I'd like to hear about that in private, because we have a lot of people who will engage. It depends on the style and the culture of the org how they will respond.
Summer is also a really tough time to be starting up a character, as most people are out enjoying the weather. Or getting cooked by it. So hang in there. I'm going on vacation soon, so I'm pretty sure most people are doing things like that.
Which guild do you want to join? I know all of the GMs personally and you can shoot them a message for induction since you're past the 20+ level window for the npc tutor induction.
Geomancy is a skill for PVP yes, have you reached out to me, Shango or Avurekhos about how to get engaged? It takes practice and time to learn because it's something a bit more difficult for someone starting out. We have a lot of resources in Midnight Legion, and I'm always up for a duel.
If someone is telling you not to meld, they're likely wanting someone with experience to hold it and you be secondary for your practice. We have a bunch of allies who have melders, and usually when more experienced people are around, they'll meld. If an area is larger, I've seen up to two mancers take them. So that's also a good opportunity.
I'm sorry to hear that this has been discouraging for you. But we have plenty of people who you can direct questions to. It's not just fun for the low levels. It takes a bit of confidence to speak to someone directly for stuff, but I'm always available usually. And can help you as needed.
The cool night-time breeze shivers in the arid caress of the streets of the capital city, brushing the earthen taste of dust across your lips.
*
A blessed silence falls upon the city for the moment, most activity confined to the towers and the theatre due to the snowy weather.
*
Pinprick points of light twinkle in the deep black overhead, their brightness full of a cold, hungering malice.
I appreciate how helpful everyone has been in the forums but I'm thinking I just don't mesh with the culture or the players or something. I'm a super awkward nerd and have trouble integrating and think this just isn't going to get better. I just gave all my gold to the one guy that always helped, though I wish I could had something to offer everyone who was so responsive in here! Once again, thank you all for the help and enjoy your game!
Yeah, it looks like I'll have to change skills again. I just specifically asked my city if that was a wise choice and everyone advised me to go with what I want to play, but it seems odd to not mention it will go unused. It would just be nice to get to try something before you have to make a game-altering decision regarding it.
So if there are city aetherships how do I access them?
Talk to Shango and see if he wants to get an aetherhunt or two going. Or barring that, speak to Alexandria in Hallifax, she can probably help you.
Everiine said: The reason population is low isn't because there are too many orgs. It's because so many facets of the game are outright broken and protected by those who benefit from it being that way. An overabundance of gimmicks (including game-breaking ones), artifacts that destroy any concept of balance, blatant pay-to-win features, and an obsession with convenience that makes few things actually worthwhile all contribute to the game's sad decline.
I've pretty much given up. I'm at level 27 and I have no clue where to go from here. Problems that I am having include:
1) The help files were written by (and seemingly for) people already uber-familiar with the game. And many are unfortunately written as in-universe records rather than "Look, in order to do X, you need to use verb Y." I need Help Files for Dummies and there isn't any such thing.
2) The blocks of text. There are many, many long descriptions of people and places. I have difficulty seeing them (there isn't enough contrast) and there's just too much to take in.
3) The persistence of bad color choices. An astonishing number of descriptions are red on black (which I can't see), dark green on black (which I can't see), and dark blue on black (ditto). I've changed some colors thanks to CONFIG COLOR...but it's a mess and a serious strain on the eyes.
4) The help files are not only hard to read but are also hard to find. I don't understand why GUILD TASKS ALL NOVICE is available for a Tessenchi but not a Reveler. Nor do I understand why the instruction "Read CITY NEWS 1557!" would pop up, only to tell me that I can't read it because I'm not high enough level. And why is there a GHELP and a GHELP ADVANCEMENT but not a GHELP TASKS?
5) There are no quest walkthroughs on the wiki. At all. I've found exactly two walkthroughs online and both were for Newton Caverns. Doing both was enough to make me dread doing any further quests in game, as I know that a) they would be insanely complex and b) I wouldn't know what verbs to use to complete the quest even if I did somehow figure out the answer. This in itself makes me feel that the game is unwelcoming. The fact that quests often involve Sudoku or logic puzzles discourages me further.
6) People have a tendency to refer me to the help files even after I've already told them that a) I don't understand the help files and b) half the time, I can't FIND the help files. This only leads to frustration on both sides, because to them, the help files are fine, whereas to me, they're a nightmare.
7) Pretty much every guild task at this point demands that I reject grace, which makes no sense at all, since you're a newbie until you're thirty. Why would I want to be vulnerable for three more levels than you have to?
8) I think I'm in the wrong guild, but I don't know how to quit it--or what guild would be the right one. (People telling me that I can be in any guild I want is not reassuring; the guild I'm in doesn't match my profession well.)
9) I'm having trouble understanding what power is for a person in Lusternia. I gather it's important and that you need it to do stuff, but if you try to look up "power", you'll run into help file after help file about city power.
10) I haven't figured out what happens when you die and you're no longer a newbie.
11) I also don't know what creatures exist where or what levels they are. Or, for that matter, what areas are deadly to a newbie but are fine for a demigod.
12) What kind of armor or clothes is a Tessenchi supposed to wear? Where do you buy such armor and clothes?
13) Also where are the food shops and the herbalists in each city? (Since food, herbs and potions seem to be important around here. The Aetherplex does not help as it seems to be all player shops. I would be far better off with an NPC herbalist who sold the herbs and cures that I needed and .who could tell me a little bit about what each one does.
14) Where do you rent rooms to sleep? (The taverns I have seen do not appear to have any rentable rooms, and sleep seems to be critical in this game.)
15) What the hell is up with begging from denizens? Why would I want to beg from them? I don't know them from a hole in the wall.
16) A lot of instructions seem to take a very long time to type. I am a slow typist. This will be deadly in combat. I don't know any way of fixing this.
I am completely lost. And I'm about ready to walk away, as it's not fun being lost.
I've pretty much given up. I'm at level 27 and I have no clue where to go from here. Problems that I am having include: 4) The help files are not only hard to read but are also hard to find. I don't understand why GUILD TASKS ALL NOVICE is available for a Tessenchi but not a Reveler. Nor do I understand why the instruction "Read CITY NEWS 1557!" would pop up, only to tell me that I can't read it because I'm not high enough level. And why is there a GHELP and a GHELP ADVANCEMENT but not a GHELP TASKS?
8) I think I'm in the wrong guild, but I don't know how to quit it--or what guild would be the right one. (People telling me that I can be in any guild I want is not reassuring; the guild I'm in doesn't match my profession well.)
10) I haven't figured out what happens when you die and you're no longer a newbie.
12) What kind of armor or clothes is a Tessenchi supposed to wear? Where do you buy such armor and clothes?
13) Also where are the food shops and the herbalists in each city? (Since food, herbs and potions seem to be important around here. The Aetherplex does not help as it seems to be all player shops. I would be far better off with an NPC herbalist who sold the herbs and cures that I needed and .who could tell me a little bit about what each one does.
14) Where do you rent rooms to sleep? (The taverns I have seen do not appear to have any rentable rooms, and sleep seems to be critical in this game.)
15) What the hell is up with begging from denizens? Why would I want to beg from them? I don't know them from a hole in the wall.
16) A lot of instructions seem to take a very long time to type. I am a slow typist. This will be deadly in combat. I don't know any way of fixing this.
I am completely lost. And I'm about ready to walk away, as it's not fun being lost.
I wish the help files actually helped me.
For some quick answers...
4) GUILD TASKS LIST would be a better option afaik because you'll see the tasks available to you, depending on how stuff is named GUILD TASKS ALL NOVICE could bring in some tasks a novice wouldn't be elligible for. (it should search for anything that mentions the word novice so a task "Teach 5 novices" should
8) QUIT <guildname> will do that for you.
10) You lose experience and have to pray, there are skills which might save you or let other players resurrect you. You can also get a buff that removes the exp loss.
12) Great Robes or Tattoo armour. Robes might be easier to get from the aetherplex, Tattoos would be slightly stronger but you need to get a player with the Tattoos skill.
13) The trade system is actually designed around players selling goods, Bob sells some stuff but it should all be inferior and/or more expensive than buying from a player.
14) You don't need to rent a room, just sleep wherever. You can also have a manse which is basically a player house.
15) Influencing, such as begging, is an alternative to killing stuff. Begging gets you gold and experience without risking death, there's other types of influence that have other effects.
16) If you're using the client on the website you can create macros and assign them to buttons if you like.
I've pretty much given up. I'm at level 27 and I have no clue where to go from here. Problems that I am having include:
1) The help files were written by (and seemingly for) people already uber-familiar with the game. And many are unfortunately written as in-universe records rather than "Look, in order to do X, you need to use verb Y." I need Help Files for Dummies and there isn't any such thing.
2) The blocks of text. There are many, many long descriptions of people and places. I have difficulty seeing them (there isn't enough contrast) and there's just too much to take in.
3) The persistence of bad color choices. An astonishing number of descriptions are red on black (which I can't see), dark green on black (which I can't see), and dark blue on black (ditto). I've changed some colors thanks to CONFIG COLOR...but it's a mess and a serious strain on the eyes.
4) The help files are not only hard to read but are also hard to find. I don't understand why GUILD TASKS ALL NOVICE is available for a Tessenchi but not a Reveler. Nor do I understand why the instruction "Read CITY NEWS 1557!" would pop up, only to tell me that I can't read it because I'm not high enough level. And why is there a GHELP and a GHELP ADVANCEMENT but not a GHELP TASKS?
5) There are no quest walkthroughs on the wiki. At all. I've found exactly two walkthroughs online and both were for Newton Caverns. Doing both was enough to make me dread doing any further quests in game, as I know that a) they would be insanely complex and b) I wouldn't know what verbs to use to complete the quest even if I did somehow figure out the answer. This in itself makes me feel that the game is unwelcoming. The fact that quests often involve Sudoku or logic puzzles discourages me further.
6) People have a tendency to refer me to the help files even after I've already told them that a) I don't understand the help files and b) half the time, I can't FIND the help files. This only leads to frustration on both sides, because to them, the help files are fine, whereas to me, they're a nightmare.
7) Pretty much every guild task at this point demands that I reject grace, which makes no sense at all, since you're a newbie until you're thirty. Why would I want to be vulnerable for three more levels than you have to?
8) I think I'm in the wrong guild, but I don't know how to quit it--or what guild would be the right one. (People telling me that I can be in any guild I want is not reassuring; the guild I'm in doesn't match my profession well.)
9) I'm having trouble understanding what power is for a person in Lusternia. I gather it's important and that you need it to do stuff, but if you try to look up "power", you'll run into help file after help file about city power.
10) I haven't figured out what happens when you die and you're no longer a newbie.
11) I also don't know what creatures exist where or what levels they are. Or, for that matter, what areas are deadly to a newbie but are fine for a demigod.
12) What kind of armor or clothes is a Tessenchi supposed to wear? Where do you buy such armor and clothes?
13) Also where are the food shops and the herbalists in each city? (Since food, herbs and potions seem to be important around here. The Aetherplex does not help as it seems to be all player shops. I would be far better off with an NPC herbalist who sold the herbs and cures that I needed and .who could tell me a little bit about what each one does.
14) Where do you rent rooms to sleep? (The taverns I have seen do not appear to have any rentable rooms, and sleep seems to be critical in this game.)
15) What the hell is up with begging from denizens? Why would I want to beg from them? I don't know them from a hole in the wall.
16) A lot of instructions seem to take a very long time to type. I am a slow typist. This will be deadly in combat. I don't know any way of fixing this.
I am completely lost. And I'm about ready to walk away, as it's not fun being lost.
I wish the help files actually helped me.
@eidu If I see you on tomorrow, I will sit down with you and we can go through a lot of stuff and I will help where I can! Sometimes you just need someoen to actually talk you through things. It is such a massive learning curve and I agree with you- people assume the files make sense. I've only made Yinuish in the last few months and I got frustrated with how much I forgot or didn't know.
@Eidu some specific answers, but do take Yinuish up on their offer. As I mention further down there can be practically invisible sources of miscommunication, talking out specifics (and using that to build a strat for tackling general). Talking with someone directly can really help.
1) Different types of help file are written by different people and changed in different ways. Anything in the base HELP system (no prefix) is admin written or vetted, and can get very technical for some of the more complicated technical topics.
There is a mechanism for players to suggest and write new help files though, if there are some in particular that are causing issues, some folks might try to tackle them!
Anything in GHELP/CHELP/CGHELP and so on are written from scratch and edited by players and therefore vary DRAMATICALLY in quality. However, it should be easier to get fixed. If something is wrong or out of date HELP <ORGANIZATION> will list who can fix them: professors, ministers, and secretaries.
So, if there is a GHELP you believe should be there, your guild can put it there! Likewise, the guild tasks system is relatively new and is used differently and to varying degrees in each guild based on how players have fiddled with it or not at all if none have put in the effort to configure it (and it's a beast to fiddle with).
2) If you're using Nexus (the web client) and there isn't an option to change the background color of the entire output away from black, might consider a third party client with more display options.
There are also some options that can pare down the description spam that someone can walk you through when you're on. Turning off constant weather display and so on.
3) See 2, a client like mudlet lets you repick colors entirely if need be, so that for instance it will display a brighter red any time it would recieve dark red.
4) See 1.
5) Wiki is also thoretically player run, but there is sparse and sporadic interest in updating it. However there aren't quest walkthroughs by direction of game admins. The feeling was that player enjoyment overall would be reduced without the (sometimes loooong) process of discovery. That may have changed with new admin leadership!
That said: the newton quests are pretty difficult, id say more so than average quests. Theyre some of the oldest quests, have some really mysterious verbs as a result, and have punishing reset timers so that multiple people can do them. Theyre a bad intro to quests, try some of the village quests, or your org's power quests for a better intro!
Also: questing is NOT mandatory, which is why there aren't loads of guides to help smash through them. I personally mostly avoid it as I've done most of the more straightforwards ones and get very frustrated with moon logic puzzles or guide dang its.
6) Hard to address this without some examples to help figure out where the breakdown in communication is. I've had a few episodes of *very* confused novices until we figured out that they were using a screen reader that didn't interpret ALL CAPS differently so they didn't catch on that people were telling them about commands!
It could be that there are some terms people assume can only mean one thing and aren't obvious.
7) You can pretty much reject grace at level one if you want. There basically isn't random PK outside of very specific dangerous areas, some of which you just can't get to yet anyways. The avenger system prevents anyone from killing you more than once a RL month on Prime (most of the game) as long as you aren't in enemy territory, and it opens them to being free killed so 99% of pkers won't even do it that once - even if they were of a mind to attack novices which invites universal scorn.
8)Guilds have *nothing* to do with profession/class anymore. So no guild will really fit your class! Also like 85% of guild content is player driven so feel free to jump to a guild that's more popular and populated: it will (probably) have more content to make it newbie friendly! More empty guilds are a great opportunity to spread your wings later, as you can usually kick off your own lore projects and build something cool yourself.
9) City power and personal power are the same resource. You use it in small chunks for power skills mostly.
As you noticed, most ways of getting power deposit it directly in the city stockpile. You LINK to the nexus to slowly draw it into your reserves for use. Cities use it in batches of millions to do big projects and therefore have an interest in managing the flow in and out.
Functionally this system of a basically limitless (usually several million) org reserve that has to be slowly drawn out to personal reserves puts a time limit on fights. At some point the combatants run out of reserves for power moves and need to go slowly replenish or spend time gathering power to avoid depleting the city stockpile over time.
10) Covered, but there are no permanent death effects in Lusternia. As a non-demigod player you go through a short death animation that serves as a timeout period of a minute or two and lose a little xp. As a demigod you lose more xp equivalent and have a different timeout mechanic.
11) I believe there is an environment skill that helps with this, but you can also CONSIDER a specific denizen to get an idea of its strength. Different orgs have different rules on protected areas you can't bash so look to org helps for hunting guides!
12) Covered already, but robes or tattoo armor for acrobats, plate for everyone else. Player shops or player artisans do all that, best to ask on MARKET.
13) Use path tracking to the city shop directory or the aetherplex for shopping. If you can't find something, try asking a few times on market.
14) There aren't any sleeping rooms. You're largely safe outside of specific (well marked or difficult to reach) dangerous areas. People sleep wherever.
After level 8 you no longer need it at all, many players forget the mechanic exists these days and it's largely been depreciated.
15) Begging gives you money and experience as part of the influencing system. No one considers this in the same way as "begging for handouts" or anything, so don't worry about that. It's just a nonlethal alternative to killing the denizen and looting their body.
The other types of influence have different effects on a denizen on top of xp gain: weakening temporarily lowers their level, empowering raises it, paranoia stops them from participating in quests, and… seduction makes them attack your enemies (if you could attack those enemies).
16) The answer is Aliases: you can have a short command stand in for a longer one. For instance, typing CUD could replace "point cudgel" or what have you. There is a barebones system for this in game, a stronger one in the nexus client itself, and a potentially very very powerful array of choices with third party
clients.
Hey, @Eidu. Message me ingame sometime (msg Parhelion <your message>) and I'll help you get some stuff and explain how the city and guilds work.
Her voice firm and commanding, Terentia, the Even Bladed says to you, "You have kept your oath to Me, Parhelion. You have sworn to maintain Justice in these troubled times."
Yet if a boon be granted me, unworthy as I am, let it be for a steady hand with a clear eye and a fury most inflaming.
Hi! I'm trying to setup an influencer for nexus. When I've looked around how best to do this, others often use the command "sm add <thing>". What does that do and why is it not working for me?
Hi! I'm trying to setup an influencer for nexus. When I've looked around how best to do this, others often use the command "sm add <thing>". What does that do and why is it not working for me?
Hi! Welcome to Lusternia.
`SM` is short for `STRATAGEM` (which should probably be added into the Ability Help files). If it's not recognising the Syntax, check to see you've learned up to that ability in Combat. 16 lessons total to Novice, or if you've already learned some Combat, there should be a line telling you how many lessons to the next skill level when you do `AB COMBAT`.
Having not played the game in maybe ten years, I’ve found people to be individually helpful but most of my early goals have been a little frustrated.
First, general stuff. There’s no prompt by default because the new player experience is made for nexus or something. Connecting through Mudlet, if I hadn’t remembered the config menu, that would have been pretty weird.
Second, beastmastery. It seems as if the list of possible pets has not grown much in ten years and insofar as it has, most of the critters in the list cost 400ag (formerly dingbats, I think?) or hundreds of thousands of gold. For newbies, we still have only the pony in Estelbar [sic].
Shouldn’t we have (probably not mountable, by default) dogs, cats, lizards, birds, priced at newbie levels and not only expensive things for established players, plus the Estelbar pony?
Third, accessibility of enchants and supplies. Finding my way to the aethershop hub, which a new player would not know exists to begin with, there was no avaricehorn on sale to Magnagorans. I feel as if someone or something should make all basic and quality of life things consistently available for newbies. In Aetolia you automatically pick up corpses and gold, in Lusternia you need an enchant for that, then I find out that I can’t buy it. Pretty convoluted and frustrating in comparison. I decided to learn enchanting to help me avoid this problem but that just led me to other issues.
Relatedly, I had a plot to make newbie gold by using piper horn but it appears to be that 1% reserves = 1 rat which is not really worth the time even as a newbie. It was kind of a waste of lessons, why not make everything useful?
Also related, I wanted to pokeball my planned beastmastery pony but I was told that the skill doesn’t work. This is literally the very first skill in a generally available trade skillset and it doesn’t work.
Fourth, populations in some cities are small, alliance clans exist, but I’m not getting inducted into the clans on any of my characters, so there is no socializing happening.
Fifth, in Aetolia the landmarks system will take you to stuff specific to your city when you type in something like “path find shops”. In Lusternia, you have to type in obscure city-specific names like “darkportals” and so-on. I feel as if new people should be able to just go shops, which would take them to the main shops hub, from which everything should be available to new players.
In conclusion, I feel as if content is not set up well for new players. It’s a shame since the great lore and interesting skills of Lusternia are all still there, it’s just that actually using them is another question.
Also related, I wanted to pokeball my planned beastmastery pony but I was told that the skill doesn’t work. This is literally the very first skill in a generally available trade skillset and it doesn’t work.
All of your other points, I'll leave for somebody else to answer. This one however is my wheelhouse, so I'll take it.
These were 'functioning' for some time, however they had a critical bug in them which caused several people to lose their beasts entirely and took dozens of hours of manual work on our end to rectify. As such, we were forced to disable them.
Given the size of our codebase (~1.5 million LoC), and the fact that we only have two coders (one paid, one unpaid - compared to Aetolia's five+ with three paid) we have to be careful in triaging our bugs and non-working features. I personally would rank this particular bug as low impact, high complexity given they are very optional content only a small portion of the playerbase sees, however the code required to make these work will touch critical code paths that could cause bugs ranging from crashes to item duplication to replica (item and mob) decay ceasing to work. As such, while it is on our list of things to do, it's not near the front, and will take a decent amount of time to get right.
I realise this isn't a satisfying answer, but I hope it provides insight into why this feature is in the state it's in.
We always welcome perspectives from newbies or those who've come back after a long time to learn what we could shore up in terms of our new player experience, and we'll take what you have said into consideration.
In terms of the aetherspheres, or 'pokeballs' as you mentioned, in Enchantment: See @Ianir's explanation above - And know that we are aware of the bug, and while it is a low level skill, it is also not as simple a fix as one might think and requires more complex and integral code changes than one might expect, and therefore while it is on the list of fixes to make, it is not something that can be done in a short amount of time.
We do recommend that you BUG any bugs you come across, however, and if you have any ideas on how things might work differently for new players or old players alike, please IDEA your thoughts!
Welcome back to Lusternia, and we hope you continue to enjoy the game's lore and skills!
Second, beastmastery. It seems as if the list of possible pets has not grown much in ten years and insofar as it has, most of the critters in the list cost 400ag (formerly dingbats, I think?) or hundreds of thousands of gold. For newbies, we still have only the pony in Estelbar [sic].
Shouldn’t we have (probably not mountable, by default) dogs, cats, lizards, birds, priced at newbie levels and not only expensive things for established players, plus the Estelbar pony?
Third, accessibility of enchants and supplies. Finding my way to the aethershop hub, which a new player would not know exists to begin with, there was no avaricehorn on sale to Magnagorans. I feel as if someone or something should make all basic and quality of life things consistently available for newbies. In Aetolia you automatically pick up corpses and gold, in Lusternia you need an enchant for that, then I find out that I can’t buy it. Pretty convoluted and frustrating in comparison. I decided to learn enchanting to help me avoid this problem but that just led me to other issues.
Relatedly, I had a plot to make newbie gold by using piper horn but it appears to be that 1% reserves = 1 rat which is not really worth the time even as a newbie. It was kind of a waste of lessons, why not make everything useful?
Also related, I wanted to pokeball my planned beastmastery pony but I was told that the skill doesn’t work. This is literally the very first skill in a generally available trade skillset and it doesn’t work.
Fourth, populations in some cities are small, alliance clans exist, but I’m not getting inducted into the clans on any of my characters, so there is no socializing happening.
Fifth, in Aetolia the landmarks system will take you to stuff specific to your city when you type in something like “path find shops”. In Lusternia, you have to type in obscure city-specific names like “darkportals” and so-on. I feel as if new people should be able to just go shops, which would take them to the main shops hub, from which everything should be available to new players.
In conclusion, I feel as if content is not set up well for new players. It’s a shame since the great lore and interesting skills of Lusternia are all still there, it’s just that actually using them is another question.
So, just from seeing your post in this thread a few things from an active player perspective:
- beasts, aye, there's the pony and there's the horse easily acquaintable. Goat and swan and such are more fancy, but a good deal of work away for a new player (at 60k upwards: http://wiki.lusternia.com/Beasts seems relatively up to date).
- your comment about the piperhorn. i'm not sure wh you're saying it's 1% reserves per rat. As far as I understand it, it's an enchanted horn like any other horn, which, with an energy cube and a clockwork charge regulator ( which I hope are either explained by helpful people around you or part of your cities scrolls ), should cost you 1 charge per blow, which in turn would be 4 gold invested per extra rat? no reserves used here.
- I can't speak for IHC's side here, but on Shadowlights side, there's not really anything much going over that alliance clan aside combat coordination, most of the time. But getting inducted into there shouldn't be difficult. Yeah population in some places sadly is quite low at the moment, I think we're all not very thrilled about that
- are you aware of the LANDMARKS command? Inside your city it shows you the name of all the landmarks. I agree it would be nicer in some way if path tracking would take you to are looking for, however LANDMARKS at least gets you a feeling as to what landmarks are in the current area that you can path too. PATH TRACK AETHERPLEX will also always get you to the aetherplex, which is our shop hub, which since a while also includes city shops that are set up for it.
- As for enchantments, this is part of the current economical problem (which admin is having a look at as faar as I am aware), it is right not now not profitable for most people to run shops, as commodity prices are rather high and if you can't make the entire chain an item takes, stocking is almost pointless. Which leads to strange scarceties, such as enchantments missing. Though I do believe, as a newbie you get a set of enchanted items when you start out... I feel that should include an avarice horn.
Having not played the game in maybe ten years, I’ve found people to be individually helpful but most of my early goals have been a little frustrated.
Shouldn’t we have (probably not mountable, by default) dogs, cats, lizards, birds, priced at newbie levels and not only expensive things for established players, plus the Estelbar pony?
Third, accessibility of enchants and supplies. Finding my way to the aethershop hub, which a new player would not know exists to begin with, there was no avaricehorn on sale to Magnagorans. I feel as if someone or something should make all basic and quality of life things consistently available for newbies. In Aetolia you automatically pick up corpses and gold, in Lusternia you need an enchant for that, then I find out that I can’t buy it. Pretty convoluted and frustrating in comparison. I decided to learn enchanting to help me avoid this problem but that just led me to other issues.
Relatedly, I had a plot to make newbie gold by using piper horn but it appears to be that 1% reserves = 1 rat which is not really worth the time even as a newbie. It was kind of a waste of lessons, why not make everything useful?
In conclusion, I feel as if content is not set up well for new players. It’s a shame since the great lore and interesting skills of Lusternia are all still there, it’s just that actually using them is another question.
Beasts are (supposedly) a lot of work for the admin to make which is why we really only see 1-2 new beasts a year.
Enchantments and supplies are completely player run (outside of a few very basic things sold by Bob). Because shops are rarely a money maker, people are only to spend the time stocking the things that actually sell. And because of things being player run, they often have rules about excluding enemies (or opposite-org like how Celest will not sell to Magnagora).
Sadly, There are a lot of skills that are useless and will just be there to fill out the skill list. Some are better than others, but I'm not sure you will find any skill where every ability is useful.
Just to touch one a few things with a Magnagoran perspective:
- Beasts- If you're looking for something with a little more flavor than a standard pony, nightmares are easily accessible for Magnagorans, and you can probably chase down a geomancer willing to help you get your hands on a taint wyrm. There's also a pretty good chance folks are willing to sell you some other things within your price range if you ask around in the city or college channels.
- As far as enchants and supplies, we try to keep stocked on most of the necessities but, if you can't find something you need, ask in city or college and it's pretty likely someone can either point you to it, find it for you, or will just send you one outright.
- For population and conversation, Mag is pretty active these days, so if you're seeing tumbleweeds in the streets you might just be on a different schedule than most of us. It's also possible there are a bunch of people around you can't see, because aetherhunts have been popular lately and folks might be off-plane.
We do have a few clans- IHC is the alliance chat mostly used for combat coordination and various other things. We also have the Legion, which is the Magnagora specific clan for anything you need regarding combat. We do have an OOC chat channel, mostly for questions you can't phrase IC, but it hasn't seen much use in awhile. We won't automatically invite everyone right off the bat, to avoid overwhelming novices, but if you ask over the city chat, someone will get you invited to whichever you want ASAP.
If you're just looking for socialization, try visiting the Megalith. It tends to be where most people congregate when they aren't off doing something else, and its a good place to strike up a conversation.
Third, accessibility of enchants and supplies. Finding my way to the aethershop hub, which a new player would not know exists to begin with, there was no avaricehorn on sale to Magnagorans. I feel as if someone or something should make all basic and quality of life things consistently available for newbies.
Rainbow Ranch does sell all those things, including avaricehorn. I restock it at least once a day, and yesterday I ran out of avaricehorn and restocked. You must have searched just in between those two moments. Of course there are things I can't make, like waterwalk, because no one can make everything and working with third party suppliers never seems to work out for me. But I've got 95% of 'all basic and quality of life things', and the only reason I run the shop is to do exactly what you say, I certainly don't need the gold.
Agreed on city landmarks. Drives me insane that there's no standardization. Magportals, magnexus, magshops(directory), magalchemy, etc. Apply it to all orgs. Because necrowarehouse,dark portals, magstables... Granted, a lot of stuff is necro something, so maybe I'm just a whiner. But (shortorgname) (standard name) for the things all orgs have would be great.
The best I've seen is more dynamic landmarks. Not here but, for example, if there's a directory in the area you can just "path go/track shops" to get to it or like... path track tutor works anywhere and takes you to your org tutor.
So I'm just here for the PVP, I love the combat system, but I'm encountering a few problems I don't know how to ask about IC. Let me also establish I'm not the smartest guy, especially compared to other Lusternians.
1. How do you keep up with the insane amount of shit happening at once? I feel like I've got the hang of 1v1 fights but when it turns into a gang war I'm still targeting dead people, I don't know when to change tactics and don't realize I'm getting the shit kicked out of me until it's too late.
2. Where can I get vials? I just got out of army BCT and all my stuff deteriorated while gone. I got some vials from the 'welcome back' thing, but can't find regular vials.
3. I'm in Magnagora, the seemingly evil city, but we're lax on the evil. I was expecting to be denigrated as a serf, interrogated by inquisitors, and for the nobility to be general dicks until I worked my way up. Obviously there's a flavor of cruelty to things, like enslaving the beggars and whatnot, but am I missing some greater evil? Like, can we sacrifice a serf or torture someone for failing to pay homage to the demon lords? Looking for a little more Menzoberranzan and a little less Disgaea.
4. Oh, quick edit, how do I change my title? I'm still a fledgling but I've pushed all my combat skills to max so I don't feel like I should be, like, Grayven Destroyer of Worlds, but something a little more elevated than 'fledgling' would be cool.
1. When you're in combat using obliviousness can help lessen the combat spam, and/or you can choose to gag some lines that are generally unnecessary for you to read. Also there is typically a person calling out targets, which you would need to be in the proper clan channel for, and people follow their lead in order to be more or less organized. Then most combatants have triggers and echoes for various actions. Lastly, you eventually just get used to the spam. There is no real adjusting to the combat during combat. All that happens after when you analyze logs and see what happened to you that you could maybe remedy the next time. And yes, it can be frustrating that it all happens in a matter of seconds, but it'll improve when you work at it.
2. You buy vials from Trader Bob (v811) or if you have enough goop or credits, you can purchase an artifact vial with goop (ASHOP 327) or buy a vial from Bob and attach a Rune of Glassworking (ASHOP 106). When purchased through the ASHOP, the vials (and runes) prevent decay and allow you to link more than one liquid to it.
3. This is a very, uh, loaded topic. For a long while, it was perceived that Magnagora being called an "evil" city lends itself to some unfair biases, especially for new player retention. The true perception is that Mag is not so much evil but perhaps more immoral and uses any means to achieve their goals in the name of progress or the taint. The "evil" is subjective. The players within also enjoy a wide variety of RP from playing a pariah or a contemptible (who often receive the abuse you seem to be looking for) to the aloof nobility, debutantes, and occasional mad scientist/librarian. Yes, sacrifices do happen, but they're not going to happen to just any newcomer. There is a level of consent and making sure OOCly that all parties are okay with this line of action. Yes, there are demons and torture and cruelty, but there's layers to everything, and I would strongly encourage that you take a deep dive into the lore of Magnagora to more fully understand their perspectives. It's not so one-dimensional as being evil for evil's sake.
4. HELP TITLE gives you the particulars, though I can't remember if the requirement that you must be a certain rank to change your title is still in use. I didn't change my own title until after spending a lot of time in the game, so I'm not sure if newbies can do it right out of the Portal.
1. Experience, gagging non-essential text, and highlighting important text. Obliviousness is a crutch you can use at first but you'll eventually want to ween yourself off of it. Once you have highlights you like, you don't really even read the text just notice the highlights.
2. Ask on CT and just about anybody with some skills in arts can make you a vial. You can also buy sorcelglass which turns a regular vial into something that looks a bit cooler. To get an artifact one attach a rune of glass working to it an existing vial or just get one of the goop vials from the ashop.
3. See above.
4. Titles are going to be based on your guildrank until you've earned the right to have one you pick title. So even at trans skills, if you haven't gotten a guild promotion you won't get a title change, ask on GT about that.
Feel free to ask questions on CGT anytime as well.
Comments
2. Yea that's a real problem with melders. Why have you meld when the guy who had a demesne rune etc can meld instead. May be resolved with the upcoming mage overhaul, though!
3. Breaking into rp is hard in any game, man. I'm having a tough time finding a groove to my character in Aetolia right now. I honestly don't know if I'd had stuck with lusternia if not for Shayle (my first guildmaster) being so damn chairsmatic.
Roleplaying is literally the only reason I want to play this game. I can mindlessly repeat tasks on WoW or Ultima but as a Forever DM all I want is some actual RP. I've tried Aetolia and actually found the community easier to engage, but half the time I try to interact with someone here they're either in the middle of something or just silently taking cures over and over ignoring the world.
It’s easy to be cruel without meaning to be. There’s nothing you can do about that. But you can choose to be kind. Be kind.’
theatre due to the snowy weather.
hungering malice.
1) The help files were written by (and seemingly for) people already uber-familiar with the game. And many are unfortunately written as in-universe records rather than "Look, in order to do X, you need to use verb Y." I need Help Files for Dummies and there isn't any such thing.
2) The blocks of text. There are many, many long descriptions of people and places. I have difficulty seeing them (there isn't enough contrast) and there's just too much to take in.
3) The persistence of bad color choices. An astonishing number of descriptions are red on black (which I can't see), dark green on black (which I can't see), and dark blue on black (ditto). I've changed some colors thanks to CONFIG COLOR...but it's a mess and a serious strain on the eyes.
4) The help files are not only hard to read but are also hard to find. I don't understand why GUILD TASKS ALL NOVICE is available for a Tessenchi but not a Reveler. Nor do I understand why the instruction "Read CITY NEWS 1557!" would pop up, only to tell me that I can't read it because I'm not high enough level. And why is there a GHELP and a GHELP ADVANCEMENT but not a GHELP TASKS?
5) There are no quest walkthroughs on the wiki. At all. I've found exactly two walkthroughs online and both were for Newton Caverns. Doing both was enough to make me dread doing any further quests in game, as I know that a) they would be insanely complex and b) I wouldn't know what verbs to use to complete the quest even if I did somehow figure out the answer. This in itself makes me feel that the game is unwelcoming. The fact that quests often involve Sudoku or logic puzzles discourages me further.
6) People have a tendency to refer me to the help files even after I've already told them that a) I don't understand the help files and b) half the time, I can't FIND the help files. This only leads to frustration on both sides, because to them, the help files are fine, whereas to me, they're a nightmare.
7) Pretty much every guild task at this point demands that I reject grace, which makes no sense at all, since you're a newbie until you're thirty. Why would I want to be vulnerable for three more levels than you have to?
8) I think I'm in the wrong guild, but I don't know how to quit it--or what guild would be the right one. (People telling me that I can be in any guild I want is not reassuring; the guild I'm in doesn't match my profession well.)
9) I'm having trouble understanding what power is for a person in Lusternia. I gather it's important and that you need it to do stuff, but if you try to look up "power", you'll run into help file after help file about city power.
10) I haven't figured out what happens when you die and you're no longer a newbie.
11) I also don't know what creatures exist where or what levels they are. Or, for that matter, what areas are deadly to a newbie but are fine for a demigod.
12) What kind of armor or clothes is a Tessenchi supposed to wear? Where do you buy such armor and clothes?
13) Also where are the food shops and the herbalists in each city? (Since food, herbs and potions seem to be important around here. The Aetherplex does not help as it seems to be all player shops. I would be far better off with an NPC herbalist who sold the herbs and cures that I needed and .who could tell me a little bit about what each one does.
14) Where do you rent rooms to sleep? (The taverns I have seen do not appear to have any rentable rooms, and sleep seems to be critical in this game.)
15) What the hell is up with begging from denizens? Why would I want to beg from them? I don't know them from a hole in the wall.
16) A lot of instructions seem to take a very long time to type. I am a slow typist. This will be deadly in combat. I don't know any way of fixing this.
I am completely lost. And I'm about ready to walk away, as it's not fun being lost.
I wish the help files actually helped me.
4) GUILD TASKS LIST would be a better option afaik because you'll see the tasks available to you, depending on how stuff is named GUILD TASKS ALL NOVICE could bring in some tasks a novice wouldn't be elligible for. (it should search for anything that mentions the word novice so a task "Teach 5 novices" should
8) QUIT <guildname> will do that for you.
10) You lose experience and have to pray, there are skills which might save you or let other players resurrect you. You can also get a buff that removes the exp loss.
12) Great Robes or Tattoo armour. Robes might be easier to get from the aetherplex, Tattoos would be slightly stronger but you need to get a player with the Tattoos skill.
13) The trade system is actually designed around players selling goods, Bob sells some stuff but it should all be inferior and/or more expensive than buying from a player.
14) You don't need to rent a room, just sleep wherever. You can also have a manse which is basically a player house.
15) Influencing, such as begging, is an alternative to killing stuff. Begging gets you gold and experience without risking death, there's other types of influence that have other effects.
16) If you're using the client on the website you can create macros and assign them to buttons if you like.
1) Different types of help file are written by different people and changed in different ways. Anything in the base HELP system (no prefix) is admin written or vetted, and can get very technical for some of the more complicated technical topics.
There is a mechanism for players to suggest and write new help files though, if there are some in particular that are causing issues, some folks might try to tackle them!
Anything in GHELP/CHELP/CGHELP and so on are written from scratch and edited by players and therefore vary DRAMATICALLY in quality. However, it should be easier to get fixed. If something is wrong or out of date HELP <ORGANIZATION> will list who can fix them: professors, ministers, and secretaries.
So, if there is a GHELP you believe should be there, your guild can put it there! Likewise, the guild tasks system is relatively new and is used differently and to varying degrees in each guild based on how players have fiddled with it or not at all if none have put in the effort to configure it (and it's a beast to fiddle with).
2) If you're using Nexus (the web client) and there isn't an option to change the background color of the entire output away from black, might consider a third party client with more display options.
There are also some options that can pare down the description spam that someone can walk you through when you're on. Turning off constant weather display and so on.
3) See 2, a client like mudlet lets you repick colors entirely if need be, so that for instance it will display a brighter red any time it would recieve dark red.
4) See 1.
5) Wiki is also thoretically player run, but there is sparse and sporadic interest in updating it. However there aren't quest walkthroughs by direction of game admins. The feeling was that player enjoyment overall would be reduced without the (sometimes loooong) process of discovery. That may have changed with new admin leadership!
That said: the newton quests are pretty difficult, id say more so than average quests. Theyre some of the oldest quests, have some really mysterious verbs as a result, and have punishing reset timers so that multiple people can do them. Theyre a bad intro to quests, try some of the village quests, or your org's power quests for a better intro!
Also: questing is NOT mandatory, which is why there aren't loads of guides to help smash through them. I personally mostly avoid it as I've done most of the more straightforwards ones and get very frustrated with moon logic puzzles or guide dang its.
6) Hard to address this without some examples to help figure out where the breakdown in communication is. I've had a few episodes of *very* confused novices until we figured out that they were using a screen reader that didn't interpret ALL CAPS differently so they didn't catch on that people were telling them about commands!
It could be that there are some terms people assume can only mean one thing and aren't obvious.
7) You can pretty much reject grace at level one if you want. There basically isn't random PK outside of very specific dangerous areas, some of which you just can't get to yet anyways. The avenger system prevents anyone from killing you more than once a RL month on Prime (most of the game) as long as you aren't in enemy territory, and it opens them to being free killed so 99% of pkers won't even do it that once - even if they were of a mind to attack novices which invites universal scorn.
8)Guilds have *nothing* to do with profession/class anymore. So no guild will really fit your class! Also like 85% of guild content is player driven so feel free to jump to a guild that's more popular and populated: it will (probably) have more content to make it newbie friendly! More empty guilds are a great opportunity to spread your wings later, as you can usually kick off your own lore projects and build something cool yourself.
9) City power and personal power are the same resource. You use it in small chunks for power skills mostly.
As you noticed, most ways of getting power deposit it directly in the city stockpile. You LINK to the nexus to slowly draw it into your reserves for use. Cities use it in batches of millions to do big projects and therefore have an interest in managing the flow in and out.
Functionally this system of a basically limitless (usually several million) org reserve that has to be slowly drawn out to personal reserves puts a time limit on fights. At some point the combatants run out of reserves for power moves and need to go slowly replenish or spend time gathering power to avoid depleting the city stockpile over time.
10) Covered, but there are no permanent death effects in Lusternia. As a non-demigod player you go through a short death animation that serves as a timeout period of a minute or two and lose a little xp. As a demigod you lose more xp equivalent and have a different timeout mechanic.
11) I believe there is an environment skill that helps with this, but you can also CONSIDER a specific denizen to get an idea of its strength. Different orgs have different rules on protected areas you can't bash so look to org helps for hunting guides!
12) Covered already, but robes or tattoo armor for acrobats, plate for everyone else. Player shops or player artisans do all that, best to ask on MARKET.
13) Use path tracking to the city shop directory or the aetherplex for shopping. If you can't find something, try asking a few times on market.
14) There aren't any sleeping rooms. You're largely safe outside of specific (well marked or difficult to reach) dangerous areas. People sleep wherever.
After level 8 you no longer need it at all, many players forget the mechanic exists these days and it's largely been depreciated.
15) Begging gives you money and experience as part of the influencing system. No one considers this in the same way as "begging for handouts" or anything, so don't worry about that. It's just a nonlethal alternative to killing the denizen and looting their body.
The other types of influence have different effects on a denizen on top of xp gain: weakening temporarily lowers their level, empowering raises it, paranoia stops them from participating in quests, and… seduction makes them attack your enemies (if you could attack those enemies).
16) The answer is Aliases: you can have a short command stand in for a longer one. For instance, typing CUD could replace "point cudgel" or what have you. There is a barebones system for this in game, a stronger one in the nexus client itself, and a potentially very very powerful array of choices with third party
clients.
Hi! Welcome to Lusternia.
`SM` is short for `STRATAGEM` (which should probably be added into the Ability Help files). If it's not recognising the Syntax, check to see you've learned up to that ability in Combat. 16 lessons total to Novice, or if you've already learned some Combat, there should be a line telling you how many lessons to the next skill level when you do `AB COMBAT`.
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...I was 3 lessons away in combat *facepalm*
Thank you very much!
Does anybody know what the gmcp line is for right arm and left arm balance?
First, general stuff. There’s no prompt by default because the new player experience is made for nexus or something. Connecting through Mudlet, if I hadn’t remembered the config menu, that would have been pretty weird.
Second, beastmastery. It seems as if the list of possible pets has not grown much in ten years and insofar as it has, most of the critters in the list cost 400ag (formerly dingbats, I think?) or hundreds of thousands of gold. For newbies, we still have only the pony in Estelbar [sic].
Shouldn’t we have (probably not mountable, by default) dogs, cats, lizards, birds, priced at newbie levels and not only expensive things for established players, plus the Estelbar pony?
Third, accessibility of enchants and supplies. Finding my way to the aethershop hub, which a new player would not know exists to begin with, there was no avaricehorn on sale to Magnagorans. I feel as if someone or something should make all basic and quality of life things consistently available for newbies. In Aetolia you automatically pick up corpses and gold, in Lusternia you need an enchant for that, then I find out that I can’t buy it. Pretty convoluted and frustrating in comparison. I decided to learn enchanting to help me avoid this problem but that just led me to other issues.
Relatedly, I had a plot to make newbie gold by using piper horn but it appears to be that 1% reserves = 1 rat which is not really worth the time even as a newbie. It was kind of a waste of lessons, why not make everything useful?
Also related, I wanted to pokeball my planned beastmastery pony but I was told that the skill doesn’t work. This is literally the very first skill in a generally available trade skillset and it doesn’t work.
Fourth, populations in some cities are small, alliance clans exist, but I’m not getting inducted into the clans on any of my characters, so there is no socializing happening.
Fifth, in Aetolia the landmarks system will take you to stuff specific to your city when you type in something like “path find shops”. In Lusternia, you have to type in obscure city-specific names like “darkportals” and so-on. I feel as if new people should be able to just go shops, which would take them to the main shops hub, from which everything should be available to new players.
In conclusion, I feel as if content is not set up well for new players. It’s a shame since the great lore and interesting skills of Lusternia are all still there, it’s just that actually using them is another question.
All of your other points, I'll leave for somebody else to answer. This one however is my wheelhouse, so I'll take it.
These were 'functioning' for some time, however they had a critical bug in them which caused several people to lose their beasts entirely and took dozens of hours of manual work on our end to rectify. As such, we were forced to disable them.
Given the size of our codebase (~1.5 million LoC), and the fact that we only have two coders (one paid, one unpaid - compared to Aetolia's five+ with three paid) we have to be careful in triaging our bugs and non-working features. I personally would rank this particular bug as low impact, high complexity given they are very optional content only a small portion of the playerbase sees, however the code required to make these work will touch critical code paths that could cause bugs ranging from crashes to item duplication to replica (item and mob) decay ceasing to work. As such, while it is on our list of things to do, it's not near the front, and will take a decent amount of time to get right.
I realise this isn't a satisfying answer, but I hope it provides insight into why this feature is in the state it's in.
We always welcome perspectives from newbies or those who've come back after a long time to learn what we could shore up in terms of our new player experience, and we'll take what you have said into consideration.
In terms of the aetherspheres, or 'pokeballs' as you mentioned, in Enchantment: See @Ianir's explanation above - And know that we are aware of the bug, and while it is a low level skill, it is also not as simple a fix as one might think and requires more complex and integral code changes than one might expect, and therefore while it is on the list of fixes to make, it is not something that can be done in a short amount of time.
We do recommend that you BUG any bugs you come across, however, and if you have any ideas on how things might work differently for new players or old players alike, please IDEA your thoughts!
Welcome back to Lusternia, and we hope you continue to enjoy the game's lore and skills!
- Beasts- If you're looking for something with a little more flavor than a standard pony, nightmares are easily accessible for Magnagorans, and you can probably chase down a geomancer willing to help you get your hands on a taint wyrm. There's also a pretty good chance folks are willing to sell you some other things within your price range if you ask around in the city or college channels.
- As far as enchants and supplies, we try to keep stocked on most of the necessities but, if you can't find something you need, ask in city or college and it's pretty likely someone can either point you to it, find it for you, or will just send you one outright.
- For population and conversation, Mag is pretty active these days, so if you're seeing tumbleweeds in the streets you might just be on a different schedule than most of us. It's also possible there are a bunch of people around you can't see, because aetherhunts have been popular lately and folks might be off-plane.
We do have a few clans- IHC is the alliance chat mostly used for combat coordination and various other things. We also have the Legion, which is the Magnagora specific clan for anything you need regarding combat. We do have an OOC chat channel, mostly for questions you can't phrase IC, but it hasn't seen much use in awhile. We won't automatically invite everyone right off the bat, to avoid overwhelming novices, but if you ask over the city chat, someone will get you invited to whichever you want ASAP.
If you're just looking for socialization, try visiting the Megalith. It tends to be where most people congregate when they aren't off doing something else, and its a good place to strike up a conversation.
1. How do you keep up with the insane amount of shit happening at once? I feel like I've got the hang of 1v1 fights but when it turns into a gang war I'm still targeting dead people, I don't know when to change tactics and don't realize I'm getting the shit kicked out of me until it's too late.
2. Where can I get vials? I just got out of army BCT and all my stuff deteriorated while gone. I got some vials from the 'welcome back' thing, but can't find regular vials.
3. I'm in Magnagora, the seemingly evil city, but we're lax on the evil. I was expecting to be denigrated as a serf, interrogated by inquisitors, and for the nobility to be general dicks until I worked my way up. Obviously there's a flavor of cruelty to things, like enslaving the beggars and whatnot, but am I missing some greater evil? Like, can we sacrifice a serf or torture someone for failing to pay homage to the demon lords? Looking for a little more Menzoberranzan and a little less Disgaea.
4. Oh, quick edit, how do I change my title? I'm still a fledgling but I've pushed all my combat skills to max so I don't feel like I should be, like, Grayven Destroyer of Worlds, but something a little more elevated than 'fledgling' would be cool.
1. Experience, gagging non-essential text, and highlighting important text. Obliviousness is a crutch you can use at first but you'll eventually want to ween yourself off of it. Once you have highlights you like, you don't really even read the text just notice the highlights.
2. Ask on CT and just about anybody with some skills in arts can make you a vial. You can also buy sorcelglass which turns a regular vial into something that looks a bit cooler. To get an artifact one attach a rune of glass working to it an existing vial or just get one of the goop vials from the ashop.
3. See above.
4. Titles are going to be based on your guildrank until you've earned the right to have one you pick title. So even at trans skills, if you haven't gotten a guild promotion you won't get a title change, ask on GT about that.
Feel free to ask questions on CGT anytime as well.