How do you play?

[freespace2dotcom]

So I've been thinking. (Which is a dangerous thing for game developers when their customers have too much time, or so I've heard.)

 

How do you guys play the game? I'm not really talking about strategies or somesuch thing that we all more or less have down by now... But instead, I really mean do you guys roleplay in a certain way? I always play the same character, which is a not-so-thinly veiled expy of myself, but that is just my way of projecting myself into the game for higher immersion.

 

That said, my observations of others leads me to believe that I'm kinda unique in naming my char after myself. (I am not very good with names, regardless... )

 

I was curious if the characters you play as have any definate role-playing value outside of any game stats within your own personal interpretation of the game's setting. (which. although vast, has lots of room open to interpretation.)

 

Even though omni disciplinarians are possibly only awesome in my own viewpoint when compared to the legate's and the Team's, I'm sure that if there is a difference in opinion in that matter, My opinion is really the only one that matters on that to me. I have actually come up with several ideas to pad my own personal extension 'cannon' to the game that I personally doubt that I will write simply because they are at least partially in conflict with the idea that multi pillar magic is not common at all, and at least at some level I agree with that, if only so that my character can be that much more unique and amazing for choosing such a hard path as learning from all pillars of magic during his (or 'my') time at the academy.

 

I've come up with at least a few ideas but writing is also a major pain, to the point that the only adventures I will write will be related to our dearly devoted dumb rock, at least until his story comes to a conclusion. (although I intend for power players to be able to be rid of him in Y2, this will not be the ideal way to get rid of him, you will need to be... patient.)

 

Also, I'd like to shower the team with affection for developing Y1, (and year 2, if it should be released in our lifetimes, hahah) as not many games have been able to capture my imagination. Altough I'm not really playing the game anymore due to my hatred of dealing with *cloud* services and password resets for a hundred things I no longer remember, (due in part to virus troubles and reformats) I still think that the story is probably the most interesting to ponder and ponder, and that has kept me on this forum despite the long, long wait. (well, that and DLC, ) I also like to imagine what would happen in certain circumstances if I were to personally do certain things in setting. Really I'm amazed that some wizards haven't taken the world over. (although I'm sure that's not due to lack of trying )

 

 

so, how do you guys play the game? Do you imagine your character as a future Gates Scholar, hiding your best spells from sight for fear of reprisal? Or are you the spoiled brat to make even the richest students look like paupers and only came to the school because your family just wants to make it more presentable for themselves when they give you that cushy 'do-nothing' job in the family business? Or are you the eternal outcast. The black sheep of a family with a tarnished name from a treacherous past, who has no friends or family to turn to in time of need?

 

Or do you just wish there was a random button so that you could go along your merry way faster? After all, doesn't this game take like 10 hours to complete in one sitting? oh, wait, sorry, I'm probably the only one who likes to do that...

[Metis]

So I've been thinking. (Which is a dangerous thing for game developers when their customers have too much time, or so I've heard.)

 

How do you guys play the game? I'm not really talking about strategies or somesuch thing that we all more or less have down by now... But instead, I really mean do you guys roleplay in a certain way? I always play the same character, which is a not-so-thinly veiled expy of myself, but that is just my way of projecting myself into the game for higher immersion.

 

That said, my observations of others leads me to believe that I'm kinda unique in naming my char after myself. (I am not very good with names, regardless... )

I play the game by ear or by whims, mostly. Of course there's the usual goals of getting pretty numbers and the long-term goal of setting everything up as I wish it, but beyond that and set events on holidays I tend not to actually plan past the next day or so.

 

And yes, in naming your character(s) after yourself I'm fairly sure you are alone unique. I never do so, and childhood aside (maybe, don't remember) I never have. That said, coming up with names isn't hard. Just violate your keyboard and delete characters until a name-sounding word comes out. I got most of my names that way.

 

I was curious if the characters you play as have any definate role-playing value outside of any game stats within your own personal interpretation of the game's setting. (which. although vast, has lots of room open to interpretation.)

The characters I've played so far? No. I'm waiting on Y2 before I do proper roll-playing playthroughs. Not that I'm not already planning at least one, which you've heard that before I'm sure, but yeah.

 

Even though omni disciplinarians are possibly only awesome in my own viewpoint when compared to the legate's and the Team's, I'm sure that if there is a difference in opinion in that matter, My opinion is really the only one that matters on that to me. I have actually come up with several ideas to pad my own personal extension 'cannon' to the game that I personally doubt that I will write simply because they are at least partially in conflict with the idea that multi pillar magic is not common at all, and at least at some level I agree with that, if only so that my character can be that much more unique and amazing for choosing such a hard path as learning from all pillars of magic during his (or 'my') time at the academy.

Eh, I think the whole Omni-thing needs Y2 before it can really even try to shine. Y1 just doesn't have the mechanics for it, and while writing is all well and nice there needs to be some sort of mechanical base to it.

 

I've come up with at least a few ideas but writing is also a major pain, to the point that the only adventures I will write will be related to our dearly devoted dumb rock, at least until his story comes to a conclusion. (although I intend for power players to be able to be rid of him in Y2, this will not be the ideal way to get rid of him, you will need to be... patient.)

Tell me about it, I've got like...closing in on a half-dozen Y2 adventures I need to work on but ignorance of Y2 mechanics gets me every time. Let me check my list, actually...4. 4 adventures. There's Atlessia's Y2 adventure, the follow-up adventure of Illegal Incantations (although that might become a Y3 thing, I dunno), A Walk Along The Lake's Y2 adventure and the neutral follow-up of An Outing... (where you study under the Sphinx).

 

I also like to imagine what would happen in certain circumstances if I were to personally do certain things in setting. Really I'm amazed that some wizards haven't taken the world over. (although I'm sure that's not due to lack of trying )

Pretty sure the Empire wasn't build on (just) a sword arm, let's say.

 

so, how do you guys play the game? Do you imagine your character as a future Gates Scholar, hiding your best spells from sight for fear of reprisal? Or are you the spoiled brat to make even the richest students look like paupers and only came to the school because your family just wants to make it more presentable for themselves when they give you that cushy 'do-nothing' job in the family business? Or are you the eternal outcast. The black sheep of a family with a tarnished name from a treacherous past, who has no friends or family to turn to in time of need?

My Hedi kid will be a "regular" black sheep who's life will get worse before it gets better. And oh boy, will it get worse.

 

Or do you just wish there was a random button so that you could go along your merry way faster? After all, doesn't this game take like 10 hours to complete in one sitting? oh, wait, sorry, I'm probably the only one who likes to do that...

10 hours? That calls for a speedrun! Omni-Ending RTA, shortest time to the end of the game will all the qualifications of an Omni mage-in-training! Whatever that is .

[Albert]

I got a few typical activities that I setup for a character but every now and then I throw in something extra. To make sure I got most areas covered.

 

My characters are usually achievers, the grades might not be the primary goal but that tends to come along with great skill and "ambition".

 

My characters tend to pickup all magical arts and skills aswell as the !forbidden! ones, not because they plan on being evil people but because they seek greater understanding of magic and one type of magic typically boosts another aswell as grant you additional phemes that could be useful when casting another spell and you want to modify it somewhat.

 

The most famous of the old wizards didn't even consider magic to have different pillars, it was all part of the same thing. If you are ever to reach that level of understanding, then you might need to broaden your research, discretely.

 

I also tend to add some fighting skills and dueling skills into the mix. Tbh, I almost max everything on my most ambitious wizards. Some put extra time into their familiars.

 

I've also tried to complete every Adventure on characters but there are just too many if you count the student adventures. Most of those are actually pretty interesting or fun, each in their own way. Some do make you wonder why you got yourself involved to begin with

[Grue]

In all my playthroughs, even the 'nicest' characters I've made for a run manages to pick up quite a few 'forbidden' things (rather than destroy them...if rooms were inspected any of my characters generally have a large enough Museum to the Dark Arts stuffed in their closest to have them sentenced to death several times over) and arts as well as collect secrets and at least one secret society membership (joining rather than rejecting).

 

Schoolwork also takes a backseat to Adventures for a any of my characters, while I've developed some maxed out omni-disciplinarians (dialed to 11) and top-test takers, if the choice is either a bump in a key score (scholastic or otherwise) or getting the necessary oddball skill to finish an adventure...I'm a knee-jerk completionist.

 

I don't think I've made a character that finished a year that hasn't had the Page background... I usually miss 'Elegant Service' too much in the early game for sucking up to the profs to make a PC without it. Likewise, Mastery or Calligraphy for mind control seems a required part of the toolbox for any of my characters for all but a few of my (earlier) characters to mind control your clique into improving their internal clique relationships, win the merit race, or other things 'for their own good'. Granted it's also very useful way make a bully self-destruct....or ride them into the ground by using them to take the adventure action by proxy (I have 2 playtrhoughs were I have all the adventures done except for class and house specific ones and about 20 to 40% of the familiar unlocked adventures done using that exploit...I did mention I was a completionist).

[Albert]

wait a minute..... Adventure function by proxy?.... That works on controlled characters? Who gets the rewards? Player or puppet?

Is there actually a way to pick an adventure for them?

[Grue]

wait a minute..... Adventure function by proxy?.... That works on controlled characters? Who gets the rewards? Player or puppet?

Is there actually a way to pick an adventure for them?

 

Your character gets the rewards but what adventures you do (or rather they choose) is random. It uses your PCs stats, not the mind-controlled target. I like to think of it as 'possession' with a glamour disguise to make your puppet look like your PC;-).

[isadorbg]

 

Your character gets the rewards but what adventures you do (or rather they choose) is random. It uses your PCs stats, not the mind-controlled target. I like to think of it as 'possession' with a glamour disguise to make your puppet look like your PC;-).

 

Haha that's awesome.

[Grue]

 

Haha that's awesome.

 

Magic Jar with a Disguise Self spell as a old skool D&D why-wizards-are-awesome escapade . Even before I started using that trick, with my focus on doing Adventure actions with my priors I spent a bit of time building each into a bit of a socialite (to unlock student adventures) as well as on clique building.

 

While you lose control of what adventures you do with the Mastery adventure by proxy method, by about midgame you can stop using 'Cleanse & Remake' given the stat bumps handed out by adventures and spend that action for one of your clique mates to 'Train your company' or for your House to bump merit.

 

Managing to complete all the student adventures leads to a generally wildly popular PC. [Fires up last playthrough] Let's see....twenty-nine relationships (students and profs) at less than 10 ...ah one 2 (Joanna), three 5s, two 6s, ten 7s (6 of those are Profs), five 8s, and eight 9s. On the flip side twenty relationships greater than ten...thirteen 11s (heh) and seven 12s. The remaining student body are at 10s as are all but six of the profs. If/when we see a Y2 (I'm optimistic we'll see it eventually...just not this year given the speed of Scheherazade's steam rollout and the 'To-Do list'), I'm interested to see if it's a playable mess or even what happens when converted with all the student adventures completed.

[Albert]

That Adventure thing is certainly interesting, I wonder if that was intended though

 

But in a way it would make sense that you get some use out of your controlled minions.

[goliath764]

I build all kinds of character, from bad kid who sacrifice his familiar for his own gain to the standard achieve-everything-kind-of-guy. Aside from a more roll-playing approach on my main character who is like a virtual me in the setting, I tend to go for more roleplay: no reload, if the PC fails, he fails; no super effective min-max schedule, if he likes to study in his room(instead of library), he is staying in it; bullying others might be a waste of time in terms of stat gain but I am going for it if I play a bully; if I am a slacker, I slack and say hello to detention; so forth and so on.

[ronikai]

I like to roleplay entire lives with my characters. I bought my friend this game forever ago, and then we created a giant universe that has veered off the cliff of Academagia and reason. I could go into impossible detail, but I'll just say that it all started with My character Rune Pierrot and her character Nara Haruka.

 

Whenever I get writers block I also play Academagia. I also have a habit of using my last name with some of my characters

[Albert]

All this waiting for Y2 is getting a Little frustrating Keeping all the save's and hope I don't loose them somehow

 

I hope we can get to play around with that save file converter soon to check out if the conversions are working or not Some thigns like breakign the main adventure and manage to play through mutualy exclusive Adventures... might have broken some of them? (I hope not)

 

Hopefully it won't break down due to such things or fan adventure mods. Least as long as we didn't add any new items or skills/abilities that can't be transfered for some reason...

[Legate of Mineta]

albert;

 

Haha, sorry about the wait.

 

The save file converter is the last thing that will be worked on, although they've played around with a basic conversion tool. Fan mods *mostly* will import fine...although, no guarantee.

[Albert]

Good to hear the few ones I made Before the Tools broke/microsofts updates, didn't contain anything shockingly strange. I made a familiar school adventure where a Court wizard helped your familiar to improve it's social skills somewhat. The idea was that an "Uncle" had arranged for it to give you and your friend a hand.

 

That way it would be possible that there might even be an uncle for a Blacksheep that might not be half bad, and it could still make sense. And why it wasn't given to every student at the school.

 

I really think a familiar that got some basic social skills worked on should cause less trouble for the wizard in social situations. The wizard and familiar ability description commes to mind

Let's say there is a penalty associated with the skill initialy, but there is also a roll for the familiars relevant social skills upon applying the ability. With a sucessful roll for the familiar it negates the risk of getting at odds with other people. Or rather, the familiars failed roll would be what causes the friction with other people to begin with.

 

Which ever would work.