ANNOUNCE NEWS #610
Date: 7/31/2006 at 4:42
From: Estarra, the Eternal
To : Everyone
Subj: Faethorn

As you know, we have been planning some major changes to Faethorn. We've
had a summit to get your opinions and ideas, as well as letting you know
beforehand the general direction which we are going. One of the updates
which I am VERY happy about is the ability to incorporate influencing
into quests which is a new thing for us. (For reasons I will not go
into, we were blocked from doing that.) However that has changed, and
the first use will b seen in Faethorn. I regret that we can't please
everyone, but I honestly feel that in the end these changes will be
better for the better.

Below are some of the changes in Faethorn and the Ethereal Plane. More
changes may take place throughout the coming week so keep an eye out!

- Ethereal Glomdoring and Ethereal Serenwilde are their own continents.
- Guards and totems are NOT allowed in Ethereal Glomdoring and Ethereal
Serenwilde except at the nexus points.
- Ethereal archways to Ethereal Glomdoring and Ethereal Serenwilde have
been moved to their respective nexus points.
- The wiccan surge power will now surge champions instead of guards on
the ethereal plane. There are more types of champions and they will be a
bit more hardcore against those who are enemies to Moon or Night
(whoever they serve).
- Fae must be influenced to be taken. However, you will require special
items to do this. Investigate to figure out what and how to get them!
- Fae will not generate passive power. HOWEVER, they will serve in
either Ethereal Glomdoring or Ethereal Serenwilde for a short period of
time (no longer than a game day) and when they depart, they will leave
behind a new creature which may be hunted.
- The Sceptre Quest is currently offline (but we have plans!).

Penned by My hand on the 12th of Dvarsh, in the year 153 CE.


Well, I don't know about you, but this seems rather good. The Spectre Quest will remain offline, but at least We have a notice about that.

What you guys think?

Sounds pretty good to me.

One thing - what will the Song quest be used for now?

Oh, we have SPECIAL plans for the Song Quest....

YESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYESYES.

Does this mean Celest can now bring Fae to Raziela without being accused of kidnapping?

I really like it...though there should be cubix entrances into EtherGlom and EtherWilde to even it up more

Uhh... no. The fae still say where they want to go, and taking them elsewhere is kidnapping.

Yes, cubix exits for Ethereal Glomdoring and Ethereal Serenwilde are needed. Perhaps east then down for Glomdoring and west then down for Serenwilde from the Higher Fulcrux.

No, but we're going to add aetherplex rooms.

So does that mean docks?

ok, Out of Topic, but... can someone post a description of Estarra? I keep thinking of her as Estelle Getty from the Golden Girls

That description is amazingly accurate!





Est!

-Like the silent changes to archways/pillar/pits. Thanks for disallowing the flying bug/cheap trick from working anymore.

-Docks to etherglom/wilde are needed for game balance. Good call.

-Pretty interested in how the song quest will be used when it's implemented.

I must confess, when I saw the title topic, I was like "Oh crap, I hope these aren't more sweeping changes that swing the pendulum too far in one direction... again...", but I was very pleasantly surprised. I'm quite pleased to hear that influencing mechanics were changed to allow influencing to be built into quests, and with such good timing too, with the release of Dramatics and such. Because it's no longer a "hand thing to person A, get beneficial reward B" quest and actually takes some time to accomplish, this will definitely allow for much more stability and balance over the Faethorn situation (watchful people can now see when people are standing still for a long time and go to them, rather than praying they had found all the fae already). My only complaint about the changes is that they are further pushing Ethereal Serenwilde and Glomdoring into their own mini cosmic/elemental planes, except easier to raid.

My only complaint, again, is the removal of the Faethorn conflict quest

Stfu.

Nah, honestly, I do think this opens a lot more conflict potential since Ethereal is about on par with Cosmic now. As soon as the exits are added, it surely is going to be good fun to raid them.
Though I'd like to be able to flood/taint on ethereal.

Yeah, I agree, but it's just pointless killing of each other. That's so dumb. I perfer lasting changes, so you feel like you're actually doing something, and not just cries of "omg pwned biiatch!"

Bah, if I wanted to play a game where all I could do was go around killing people, I'd play Guildwars. It's much prettier.

APPLAUSE for downgrading ethereal defenses! Two things that would make the change better:

1. No totems at all, including at the nexus. We don't get statues, they shouldn't get totems.
2. Make demesnes breakable. As-is we can't make a demesne and we can't get rid of theirs, though people can make demesnes on the cosmic planes.

The change should be to make cosmic planes undemesneable, not to make Ethereal demesneable.

No.