Hi,

First a little disclaimer. I'm not downing anything, I really like this game. I'm just curious about a few things. Now, along with my post.

Well, I've played a few of the other IRE games and I think I like this one the best. So far, I think I'm seeing RP. Hopefully, I'll run into a lot more. I love the skill-tree and trade skills.

Now, from what I can tell, the guilds are set up the same way as those in the other two games I tried. As soon as you enter, you get a greeting and a request for you to read ghelp . In that scroll it list skills that you are required to learn and when to stop and most hint at not learning anything else. My question is: Why's that? What if I just want to learn lowmagic, herbs and healing and RP a Shaman or something. Or what if I just want to go around doing quests and put all the lessons that I've earned (and maybe bought) into a trade skill? I might be able to do this, but will I be able to advance in my guild?

I only ask this because I can take forever to reach level 20, mainly because I don't do alot of bashing. I like exploring and quests (But I think a person like me could level steadily with the quest system that is in place here. )I also like to RP and such and would like to advance a bit in my city and guild.

Ok, that's about it. Thanks everyone!

Actually - the way I see it, you don't HAVE to follow these recommendations. It's not like they can stop you being guilded if you don't, after all. RP away, learn what skills you like - the recommendations are recomendations, nothing more.

I've served as a sec and a GM for a fair bit of time in another IRE game. Its a complicated issue, and probably much more so here, in that there are limited lessons and some skills that people really just need. Left to their own devices, people invariably learn weaponry avoidance and tattoos, it seems.

Sometimes it is more important then others. Magi in Achaea without crystalhome are not in a good position...they can't even enter their guildhalls without help. Knights need to get to DSL asap to be effective. I've seen a lot more people frustrated by realizing later they should have learned differently then they did. People don't set up rules like that to be jerks or screw people over, we did it because we knew what skills people would want and need before they did.

Especially in a world with highly regulated tradeskills like achaea, there frankly aren't that many good alternatives to bashing if you want levels and gold (yes, there are some, yes I've heard of Bambi, etc etc.).

In Lusternia, there is a huge difference...there is a lot to be done with influence and commodity quests alone, and a largely deregulated tradeskill setup that lets everyone get involved. I think there is a lot of room for less strict requirements, both in learning and in the standard essays and crap.

On the other hand, you should keep in mind the RP...If you join the Ur'Guard, a guild that believes heavily in discipline and structure, as well as using combat skills for the betterment of the Empire, you should really EXPECT guidance on where to start for learning, and you should expect that guidance to focus on your combat ability more then trade or influence. If you join a happy go lucky guild of dowhateveryouwants, then you should EXPECT them to say "learn whatever you want!"

Yeah, ditto to what Olan said (surprise!)

Guild requirements in "other" IRE games boil down to those two factors:

1) We, the guild, want you to not be screwed up when you get off novicehood and be unable to kill black rats because you fubar-ed your skills

or

2) We, the guild, don't really want idiots to join our guild, get class, and run to our enemies with our desirable tradeskill/guildskill/secrets

Actually, there's also:

3) We, the guild elders, are a bunch of power-hungry jerks who enjoy making other people miserable, most likely because others made us miserable when we were wee.

Of these, only 1) is without blame, though as mentioned, so long as people know what they're doing, let them screw up their own skills. No one should ever be outguilded because of 1). But if you don't follow it, don't whine later.

The second isn't really an issue in Lusternia. And as seen in other realms, it tends not to work very well anyway.

If you've got 3) in your guild, quit immediately and join something more sane.

If I wasn't in the ur'guard I'd me making my guild put information about Influence in the novice scroll. and Low magic and Trade skills like you said.

I think is sickening how many tasks certain guilds felt they have to impose on the young people.

In the ur'guard I can understand because we are suppose to be a mindless army, and even then we have very little.

Number 1) above is the most common rationale, at least the most common that anyone actually says outright. Forging in Achaea is a good example. Paladins forbade novices (or even full guildies less than Guardian rank) from putting lessons into it. Sounds harsh, but considering it took a massive number of lessons to make anything that you could use for yourself, or that had any demand at all, the danger was there that novices would be spending lessons there instead of Weaponry and Chivalry (and enough Devotion to get Hands). Lusternia isn't as bad as that, as just about every skill has some useful things in it, even at the low levels of skill.

I've been there (another realm) when a guild shackled down its youngsters with inane requirments, and it sadly fell more into reason 2 then reason 1. Though for the most part, the most horrid requirments all come about from the best of intentions.

We, being the geomancers, put down some basic skill recomendations for little geomancers (stoneskin in elementalism (gets you blast along the way) and rift in planar). We saw those as particularly easy skills to get (can be done with less then your starting lessons If I remember correctly), and both are inordinantly useful.

Besides, playing as a geomancer who never actually bothers to study elementalism and thus learn Geomancy? I mean come on.... Its in our name for cripes sake.

You could easily pick just Herbalism, Healing and Lowmagic, wait 'till you pass novicehood then quit your guild and go on your own path playing as a Shaman. That's the good thing about Lusternia, getting class so quickly and all.

As has been said, guilds only really reccomend you learn certain skills for your own guild. For example back in Achaea, every now and then you'd see a novice who thought "I'm going to put all my lessons into Tattoos, and sell them to people!" sadly not realising that this would never work. That's why there were requirements, so that the poor dumb novices would be able to have a skill to bash with. Things are the same here, which is why there are reccomendations to learn Blast or Cosmicfire or whatever - only thing is that some guilds don't specifically say this is why they make their reccomendations.

But so long as you know what you want to do, and you know that you won't have a skill to bash with... it's your choice really. Lusternia's skills like Influence, and all the quests, mean your 'Shaman' character could have a real future. I'd love to see if you end up acting like a tribal witchdoctor too, that could be cool

Oh, and...



Quests in Achaea most certainly AREN'T a good alternative to bashing. Bambi is like 130 years old, and something like level 85-90 after having done quests for all that time (she's the orderhead of the God of Peace for any who aren't Achaean refugees) but now she's quickly being passed by dozens of people who bash in the Underworld there, and who are a quarter her age. Fortunately in Lusternia, quests rock, and so does Influence.

I just wanted to head off the inevitable person who would claim they were a possible way to get yourself up there, and use her as an example. Although I did get a lot of low levels with the shastaan guard spear quest!!

Well, yes, when you know them all it is possible to simply do cycles around Sapience, getting all the items and delivering them, as 40 or 100 gold per quest for fifteen to twenty different quests does add up... and there are a couple that are quite a lot more profitable (500/1000/2000 gold each) so if you repeat them it can be a good way to obtain gold.

But while at low levels simply repeating a (good) quest three or four times can be a lot easier than bashing a low-level area, when you get past, say, level 60-70, quests are simply no longer viable. Killing deathknights, or really anything strong, gets both more gold, and an impossibly larger amount of experience. Bigger (and more rewarding) quests are often impossible because a certain person is dead, or someone has grabbed the essential item.

If you knew them all it was possible to make a living from Achaea's quests, but not much more... fortunately Lusternia is a hell of a lot better in that area. Not to mention Influence (even though I still haven't figured out how to do it too well.)

Also, I've noticed in Lusternia that long quests give you experience in the intermediate steps. This way, you don't lose so much if when you're to deliver the final item, the person who wanted it is death.
In achaea you often worked for hours to end up seeing somebody killing the last piece on your quest, or items missing because a novice grabbed them.

Yea, this is pretty much what I wanted to do. But I wanted to also stay in my guild and work my way up the ranks.

After reading through most of the posts and a few others in other threads I think I realized why the guilds have those requirements. I just don't think some of them actually state why they have them.

Thanks for the replies, guys.

That is really the key. They should say why they suggest or demand them. If they do not you really don't learn.

As to paladins forbidding novices from learning forging, that's just people putting expediency before people. It would not be that much harder to simply tell them they aren't allowed to learn -- until speaking to someone who can inguild or a novice aide. For all you know they're sitting on more credits then Das.

My biggest problem with guild recs is that they tend to discourage roleplaying anything out of the cookie cutter. Yes, there should be a core shared believe and behavior, but there are ways to aid a guild which rest outside of the 'mold'.

Endlessnite, you also gotta keep in mind that each guild (some more some less) have their own idea of what roley they'd like to play as a guild, so if you want to work your way up in the ranks of any given guild, you'll probably have to at least roughly form your own Roleplay around that of the guild...

I can't speak for the other guilds, but in the Serenguard our lessons are merely suggestions that will make you most effective as a normal warrior. If a person wanted to learn something else, I would have no issue with letting them do that. As long as they realise there are still certian responsibilities once they leave novicehood that they have to fulfill to the guild, and that they might struggle without certain skills. But I would never tell someone they couldnt learn their own choice of skills.