A few in game questions

[Schwarzbart]

35 minutes ago, freespace2dotcom said:

1. What is the #1 leading cause of death at the Academagia? If it's magical mishaps, can you say what kind?

2. Where does Mineta get most of it's food supply from? Since the Minetan guard carries emergency rations for the whole city, is it safe to say that it can be cut off with a decent siege? Or is that more of a famine thing?

3. Speaking purely hypothetically, since it is possible (if difficult) to reverse years of aging off of a person, what would happen if a spell designed to take off a couple of years was cast on a newborn?

4. Are there any good stories about monsters showing up at the Academagia that were so powerful that even if a 5th year encountered it, they should immediately look for a professor?

5. How much of Cyve is covered by water? Is that the reason why there are so many hydro-oriented phemes?

6. Is there any good lore on Mastery wizards stealing bodies from younger people? Can such a thing be reversed without resorting to Mastery?

7. Say I made a torch with a fire that was magiclaly fueled, so that it couldn't be extinguished. If I accidentally dropped the torch into some hay, would the resulting major fire also be impossible to extinguish, or just the source fire? And if there is training to safeguard the torch so that the fires it started would be natural, extinguishable fires, what level of training would that be?

8. Are there any working wells in Mineta or the Academagia? I know there is at least one dry well that you can examine, but with Lake Ardica so close by, do many feel the need for a well?

9. Since it is practially impossible to revive the dead once they're well true and gone, I have to ask how hard it would be in theory to turn a corpse into undead? Preferably the kind with IQs greater than a walking stick.

10. Has there ever been a case on record where the casting of a spell went awry due to outside magical phenomena, natural or otherwise? Think Less catastrophic failure and more supercharged effects like greatly enhanced area of effect

11) When changing college in year 2 will it be possible to cover up for a weak skill with a strong one? I.e. if I want to change to Avila would be a Astrology of 15 (with items) cover for a geometry of only 5 (without items)

12) Or are to join a different college in year 2 the sub skills tested instead of the skill if you didn't have it as class in year 1?

[Legate of Mineta]

Free;

Lore, eh? Alright, I'll add that to the pile of questions.

[Schwarzbart]

And my 2 questions?

1) When changing college in year 2 will it be possible to cover up for a weak skill with a strong one? I.e. if I want to change to Avila would be a Astrology of 15 (with items) cover for a geometry of only 5 (without items)

2) Or are to join a different college in year 2 the sub skills tested instead of the skill if you didn't have it as class in year 1?

Edit:

3) Janitor Tre currently working at Academagia? (So the question is if his lore is current or some notes from the past)

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

In their hands.

[freespace2dotcom]

Mmm.. This silence is unnerving. I can't quite place my finger on it, but it's almost as if... They've got some sort of thing going on at the moment which is more important than answering questions.

What kind of thing, indeed? And does it involve Y2?

[Legate of Mineta]

Free;

Let the silence be broken!

1)  Dragonroot isn't commonly available, exactly.  As one might infer from the name, it has long had associations with hostile powers and illicit activities, and it was officially banned about sixty years ago - during one of Mineta's more populist phases.  The Captain hasn't had much reason to reverse the ban, so...

 

That said, it's not too hard to find among the merchants by the docks, and since it's being sold under the table tax isn't really an issue.  That said, the fact that it's technically illegal inflates the price, and there's also a certain amount of fluctuation depending on availability.  If you're lucky, you can probably grab a single root for somewhere between 20 and 30 pims, but it can go a lot higher.

 

2)  For first and second years, that kind of variation in course availability is extremely rare.  In theory, most of the classes taught at the Academagia are explicitly "per librum" - the professors are expected to build their classes around specific books approved by the full Board of Regents and approved by the Captain (though he invariably defers to Orso's judgment in academic matters), and most of them have been in use for years, if not centuries.  The idea is that the school's entire curriculum remains true to ancient traditions, and only gets modified when there's a consensus that there are better alternatives to existing books and fields of study.

 

[Obviously, in practice, that isn't entirely true.  Sido's Dialectics classes, for example, tend to be highly improvisational.]

 

If a professor steps in and announces that she's done a huge amount of research on early Empire agrarian practice in far western Merilien-speaking counties and wants to conduct a special seminar for a year for elite botany students, the bureaucracy gets a little tricky.  The idea is that she, the professor, would set the class up without any particular guarantee of getting paid for the work, individual students (usually older ones with more flexibility in their schedules) could sign on as "guided study" for credit, and various Colleges would then kick the professor a certain amount of money per attending student.  It can be an incredibly successful way to teach, if you're popular and if you focus on interesting subject matter; you're free to teach and test to your own personal satisfaction, and you can get paid a fortune if you manage to fill a major lecture hall.

 

If the professor can't attract much of a class, though, then she's actually paying a nominal fee to "rent" a classroom from the Academy, doing a full course's worth of work, and getting paid a fraction of what she'd be getting if she were just teaching introductory botany.  Plus, it's humiliating.

 

1.  Barring the years with really extraordinary pirate attacks and/or rioting Minetans, the most common cause of death on campus is formally "Misadventure in Proscribed Regions."  The Tower of the Cold Forge isn't the only ancient magical structure on or under the campus grounds that no one has been able to move, break down, or entirely seal off.  Heck, some years kids go missing inside the Venalicium itself and never come back.

 

2.  Basic cereals and grains mostly come from the fields of Braida and Porziana to the south; these days, oddly, most of the meat eaten in Mineta is flown in by airship from the north - particularly Meril and Breuve.  [The game associated with the Imperial Reserve is largely protected by ancient law, so if you're not nobility - or, happily for Gwendy, an authorized Academy student - hunting is largely out of the question.  A fair amount of pork is local, though.]

 

The food stockpiles maintained by the Guard are, indeed, fairly short-term fixes for city-wide hunger in case of weather irregularities or sudden economic shocks; they're not meant to keep the entire populace going for months at a time in the event of military disaster.  That said, it's thought that the Captain controls a few major Imperial treasures that could present longer-term solutions.  Most famous, in song and story, is an enormous golden cauldron that's meant to be carried empty into Ardica Lake, and then dragged out full of food; the bad news is that the people who take it into the lake never come back out.

 

3.  Completely hypothetically.  Suuuuuuuuure. 

 

[Redacted]

 

If you're going with Astrology or Gates, you get a phenomenon recorded only as "the White Gate."  There's nobody alive who can publicly tell you what that actually means...

 

4.  Yes.  These are the stories for which Professor Pachait lives.

 

5.  There are lots of lakes, and there are even "islands" of ice in the great oceans below.  There's a raging argument in magical philosophy about whether the discovery of so many phemes is actually the function of a kind of natural imbalance, or if magical forces themselves are more strongly influenced by the Oceans Below than is commonly taught.

 

6.  [Redacted]

 

7.  It's almost certainly the torch itself that bears the enchantment, so the hay could be doused.  Enchantments to create transmissible permanent flames would be [Redacted], and the only way to put out or control the fires they started would be to destroy or magically ruin the original artifact.

 

8.  Oh, yes - wells and fountains are all over the city, and most of the dorms of the Academy are built over or near a local source of fresh water.  There used to be a massive, common cistern, but it was actually re-engineered and divided by neighborhood during the Middle Empire to keep contaminations from spreading.

 

9.  Incredibly stupid shambling corpses are [Redacted].  Making proper sentient undead is a whole lot harder - though not so much so that a talented Gates student couldn't pull it off with [Redacted]  Bringing back the shade of a specific person, though, is a whole other level of hard.

 

10.  Yes.  Absolutely, yes!  Ley lines, dragon lines, and assorted magical hot spots are very carefully regulated at the heart of the old Empire, so students don't have a lot of experience with them, but localized magical distortions are really quite common, and many wizards go out of their way to build their homes or workshops (or to choose battlegrounds) on top of them.

 

3. His Lore is a couple of decades out of date.

[freespace2dotcom]

Thanks legate! However.. Though I feel a little bad saying you forgot this, if I don't say it, it really will get buried!

On 3/13/2018 at 0:16 AM, freespace2dotcom said:

1. What colors to unicorns appear in? Only white? And do winged variants appear?

2. Can you tell us anything about Opossum and Racoon Familiars? Are they unheard of? Since the Familiar bond process is partly up to chance, it has to have happened before. Any good stories surrounding them?

3. Given that magical herbs and mushrooms are fairly common, I have to ask about any common recreational drugs in setting, including magical variants, as well as the Academagia's policy on usage of such items, especially those which have genuine beneficial uses.

4. Are there any sort of cliches surrounding wizards who like to live in very tall towers isolated from large communities?

5.This is kind of a big one. I've been trying to order all of the history in the game for a while. Given that we only ever get pieces and there is no official timeline to reference outside of your internal documents. Can you look over my understanding of the proper order of history and make any corrections and notations you feel are needed? I'm aware that it seems the periods overlap a bit, so I've tried to make as much sense of everything as I can.

The First Captivity: Dragons show up rather suddenly, make a show of force taking land, and cohabitate with many native races through feigned goodwill, which quickly deteriorates into outright slavery, probably taking about a generation or so, and lasts for a good while, This is where most magic was first taught to humans, even though Astrology is older. Eventually, a rebellious army was created, by the mythic kings and queens who today are the namesakes of the Academagia's colleges. This coalition eventually succeeded in defeating the dragons, although due partly to choices made, the final blow to the oppressors never came...

The Exile: Having lost the war to put down their human slaves, the dragons apparently chose an extreme course of action was necessary to save themselves. Although due to the catastrophic ramifications of the event, it is not well understood outside of the obvious, whole chunks of the world were rended skyward, with great violence. The chaos that ensued caused the collapse of most kingdoms, as the map literally needed to be rewritten. Making matters worse was it became impossible to return to or communicate with the surface. The aftershocks from this event continued for centuries and can still be felt in a subdued way today. Travel was impossible to and from all of these newly created sky islands, which allowed the dragons time to recuperate, and since they could fly....

The Second Captivity: The dragons reasserted their domination one island at a time. As the humans were separated, they could not band together and were easy prey. Although due to this separation, there were many islands which did in fact live free from the tyranny that many ultimately suffered. Eventually, though it seemed that this period might have gone on forever, eventually the new gods appeared, These beings organized humanity, and gave many gifts of knowledge to reignite the rebellion against the old masters, and were powerful enough (with the help of many other races once subservient to the dragons decided to join in the rebellion, although that is not well known today and is a bit scandalous) to eject them from what is now considered Elumia, partially by the forced dissolution of their main ruling body. They also set up the defenses against the dragons, which ultimately lead to..

The Early Empire:: Even early in the second rebellion, it was clear that a unified front was required to face the dragons. A powerful imperial government was set up, (which is the foundation of the modern calendar) as well as a centralized school for teaching the magical arts that were so critical at having a chance at defeating dragons in combat. The descendants of the new gods were the ones who were most involved in this. Since the dragons again were never fully defeated, a powerful force was required to meet them in battle during their inevitable return. Many battles have been fought successfully since.

The Middle Empire: After several centuries of self rule, the Empire of Man begain to truly prosper. airships became common, reestablishing trade and communication with the disparate islands had a very powerful positive effect, although things eventually started to slowly turn downhill. Gradually, the threat of the dragons started waning, and as that was the glue which formed the very fabric of human society up until that point, individual regions gradually started becoming more autonomous, and infighting started occuring amongst certain regions. This, and the abuse of certain magics for more petty endeavors led to both corruption and disaster, causing said magics to be repeatedly banned and unbanned, causing a loss of knowledge on how to properly deal with them. Some even dared to challenge the imperial rule, (the story of enlightenment) although that is a story for another time. Eventually, though, an event happened which dealt the Empire a grievous blow...

The Calamities: Due to the dying out of several bloodlines of royalty who were elected to the position of the Emperor, there were only a handful of candidates worthy of being considered. Eventually, the island from which most emperor hailed was suddenly overcome by an incredibly devastating event which saw that vast majority of it collapse back down onto the old world below. Although a few people were saved in time, the island, which was one of the largest, was simply too large, and the collapse too fast to even think about a proper evacuation. The event was not a clean collapse, either, which caused massive amounts of floating debris and powerful storms to wreak havoc on the whole region surrounding the area where it used to be.The loss of one of the last main Imperial bloodlines caused the seat to become vacant, further accelerating the decay of the government

The Modern Era (To be named later no doubt): While the Imperial government still stands, and most regions of which it is made up have never openly revoked it's claim of power over them, in practice it is a shadow of its former self and all islands except for the one which holds it's capital practice a very large degree of autonomy. It's presently unknown exactly how much stress the current political system can take, should a serious event happen, but as it stands most are still interested in maintaining the status quo. Unfortunately this also includes resistance to the idea that reforms are needed to even patch together and repair the now ailing millenial-old defenses against the dragons should they ever decide to return in force, which has not been seen in centuries.

 

[Legate of Mineta]

Free;

I'll bump.

[Schwarzbart]

Looks like my year 2 questions where ignored ^^ Then here some new year 2 questions  

1) Will we be able to set up 2 or more library? (I.e. one for the legal books and the other for the more problematic ones)

2) Will it be possible to set up a library in Schohanwitch and how much will it cost? (I think for some book it should be one of the few good places)

3) Is Schohanwitch open for our chars during the summer holiday?

4) Do I remember right that a skill of 7 should be enough to get trough the test in year 2 if you want to change the college or take a advanced class but didn't take the skill as class in year 1?

5) Is it possible to set up a public library i.e. at the Academagia with low or no cost if one have enough books to start it and would 20 enough for the start?

6) Any hints what I can do with the high Relationship I build in year 1 with the Regents during the summer break beside change of the college?

7) Is the team interested in the endgame save of a Morvidus that I think should be able to join all college except Vernin and Arnaza in year 2? (I had used 2 or 3 of my mods for him)

Beside Legate your signature appears to be broken.

 

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

Not ignored! Just not answered, yet.

1) You can, but I wonder if there are some bugs...;)

2) [Redacted]

3) [Redacted]

4) Yep, about 7, with modifications due to Professor Relationship.

5) No, but that's very cool! Also, [Redacted].

6) No.

7) The Team has discussed a call for end game saves, but it's not yet.

Thanks! I think my sig has been broken for a bit so far, let me look at it.

[Schwarzbart]

Someone at steam need a hand with Artifice, sadly I never touched this for a long time so someone else have to help.

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

That one is pretty tricky in Y1, that's for sure. I'll pass it along!

[Crimson]

Would you be talking about my post by any chance?
 Im thinking its more a UI issue then anything due to my screen size.

Is this normal for everyone, or is this how it is supposed to look? Mind you this is the very bottom of my screen, taking using the snip tool. I cant move the artifice interface in any way as far as I can tell, so I cant see any way to confirm what I am crafting, nor what the 'items required' section is supposed to say.
 
Im considering jumping into the game files and seeing if there is a config file I can just adjust to fix it, but ive been a tad busy as of late.

 

[Metis]

More than likely it's a UI issue. Thing is that the updated DLC 17 UI was what could reasonably be backported from Y2, but Y2's Artifice system (among others, which is why shopping/character creation/duelling/etc. looks so out of place and generally awful) is too different to do that, so you end up with old UI slapped on top of new UI. It leads to stuff like this.

[Legate of Mineta]

Yep, that's a UI one, for the reasons Metis suggests.

[Crimson]

Well the solution should not be too hard to fix. Just make it dragable like everything else. Would be a lot more simple then trying to fix it for every resolution me thinks.
 Still, even tho I cant enchant because of it right now, I do have some questions related to it.

So I see you can create an item, but I also see enchanting an item too. Could you give me a rundown on how this works? From what I gather, you need the information track items - and then to use them to learn that item (in my case, I found a spear one), but would that just create a non magic spear then?

I see metals too such as gold on the wiki that have a lightning pheme affinity x2. Can one assume that a weapon made with gold would get that lightning affinity, or would applying the lightning pheme be more easy instead?

lastly, if you can enchant an item, how do you go about doing that? I have a scroll bar worth of phemes that I am trying to commit to memory due to the sheer number of them, but frankly, most of them I dont think I would really use unless a test is right around the corner, or if I knew an adventure needed it ahead of time. On the other hand, if I could apply those as a permanent bonus to an item, that would change everything.

Sorry for the noobish questions. This is one hell of a fun game so far, and i look forward to getting any additional content that may come out too
 

[Metis]

Whatever item you've got a recipe for, if you successfully craft it, it's that item. It's not possible to create a non-magical version of a magical spear you've got a recipe for, for instance. On the flip side, it's also not possible to create actual enchanted Items in this game outside the odd pre-defined adventure (there's an entire chain about crafting/enchanting a Negation wand, Miles to Go can have you enchanting up a pair of shoes IIRC, there's probably a few more...) allowing you to do so. If you've got a recipe for a mundane spear you can't use that to craft a magic spear that does whatever based on what Phemes you inscribe on it, sadly .

Mechanically speaking, affinities in Y1 have absolutely no effect whatsoever. In universe it does, but mechanically it's one of the mechanics that ended up not getting entirely implemented.

[Crimson]

That sort of makes sense if you think about it. No matter how much you learn in class, you wont be crafting powerful magic items year 1, lol. Hell, the game is already pushing the limits of what you should be able to learn and do as is, but its a magic world, so anything is possible.

Thanks for letting me know. Crafting does not really seem worth it to me if that is the case. I find more then enough magic items just during random events and in shops
 also... I just scored 370 on my exam, so I dont really think I need them anyway

[Schwarzbart]

1. Can you tell us what new god our character bloodline can be traced back to when having the "History: Descended of Royalty" background?

2. Are there human bloodlines that have the chance to show powerful ability early in live? And if so what ability do they show? 

3. Any of our backgrounds planed to give powerful ability / action at later years and if so can you give us hints about the background? 

[Legate of Mineta]

S;

Requested.

[Crimson]

Ok so I know this had to have been asked like a million times, but I am a new guy here, and I am sure just about half of yall can answer this for me so I will ask anyway.

How is the progress going on Y2?
 I know it takes years and years to flush out content on this scale with a small team, so mostly just asking out of curiosity. Also, I will buy it as DLC on steam if you launch it that way

[freespace2dotcom]

All I can say is, Years ago the Legate said that Y2 looked better than Y1 did in beta. Also Y2 is playable from start to finish. See this thread, which implies that most artwork for it is done as well. So, it's probably safe to say that it's "close" to beta now, though how close we won't know until the team starts handing out invites.

 

[Legate of Mineta]

What Free wrote. There's still more to do, but the Team decides on the When (tm).

[Crimson]

That is honestly really good news. Im a game designer myself (allbit a novice one, working on his skill set) so I know just how insane a game like this is with the amount of text, triggers, and scripts that could trigger wrong. I tried to create a choose your own adventure book kinda game before too, thinking it would be an easy place to start but NOPE! That was a mistake!

If the devs are reading this, keep up the good work. You created one hell of a gem here, and I look forward to seeing it expand more and more

and to stay true to the thread, I will toss another question out while I am here.
 Ive been experimenting around with the game a bit, and I am coming to the conclusion that classes....dont really matter in y1. Sometimes you learn something but most of the time you dont. Compare that to detention where you almost always learn something related to one of the detention topics, having 2 extra days a week means you can cap out at 10 wayyy faster then going for perfect attendance. From the threads I have been reading, the only thing that currently matters is your exam and finals score for class honors, so even if you miss every other class, if you score insanely high on those, then you come in on top without really trying. I have seen the talk about the changes to this for y2, but for the time being, am I correct in my analysis that classes dont matter?

[freespace2dotcom]

Classes will matter. They are 1 of 2 ways known to take advanced classes in the future. The only other way is to test competency into them but that option can't be done repetitively. It's why I have Glamour, Negation, Incantation, and Revision as electives. Got to prepare for the future.

Due to how inefficient classes can be compared to, well, some methods of power gaming, Yes, classes can be considered less than useful, but to say they don't matter at all is a bit harsh. I love using them to raise the core pillar skills because with adventures it guarantees that they'll hit 10 with no need to worry about them, allowing me to focus on other skills needed to pass adventures and things like studying, which really needs to be done.