Well, I have a couple of months free, and I'm contemplating returning to Lusternia. However, a couple of things are making me have seconds thoughts:

1. The sheer amount of time I would spent. Lusternia is a time-vampire, I swear.
2. I heard Shayle left the game . I recognised none of the people in positions of power in Glomdoring and Shadowdancers other than Xenthos (if I saw correctly)
3. Too many things have happened! I left somewhere between the introduction of bards and introduction of monks, when they were discussing collegiums and there was this Seals event. Now I see strange terms like domoths, dingbats, ascensions and whatnot. Could someone update me on what has happened since? Oh, and I'm curious as to how the collegiums work.
4. I'm absolutely rusty. I've forgotten almost all of the commands.
5. I lost my influencing and debating scripts. I spent a lot of time and effort doing them. I knew/know nothing about scripting, and I made my scripts solely by modifying existing scripts and asking around.


In any case, hi to all those whom I knew before!

It's easy to get caught up! I spent all of last semester outside the gates of Lusternia, and while that doesn't compare to the apparent year you've taken a break, it's a similar sensation; new people, new words, new areas...

The people in Glomdoring are more or less the same. Xenthos, Druken, Yeralih, Xavius, Astraea, Nadjia... we're all still here. There are lots of new people, sure, but they're all easy enough to meet and get along with.

The events posts are really all you need to get caught up with the terms you don't recognize. Sign on and spend a few hours sipping coffee and reading. If it isn't enough to make you want to come back, you'll at least get to take in the cool story.

The other stuff -- scripts and commands -- will come back.

*Smack head*

I totally forgot that there were event posts. Wow, just getting back into Lusternia will suck up a large portion of my time already.

Hi, welcome back to Lusternia.

Skippin' one and two.

3. Monks have been introduced. You have Shofangi from Seren, Nekotai from Glom, Ninjakari from Mag, and Tahtetso from Celest. All of these guilds are not only small, but they are broken and have tipped the scales of combat. Bards did basically the same: spiritsinger from Seren, Harbinger from Glom, Cacophony from Mag, and Cantor from Celest. Too overpowered. Feel free to jump onto the 'delete monks/delete bards' band wagon.

- Collegiums have also been released. HELP COLLEGIUMS to get started there. It's basically an advanced newbie channel. You have a denizen representing each guild, and each one gives a novice a task (read: quest) to complete. Completing these quests advances a newbies collegium time (there is now a novice period in the collegium, followed by a novice period in the guild). A novice cannot speak on GNT until they have graduated the collegium. Lazy novices can afk for about 24 hours to advance out of the collegium; but those who complete all quests receive an honors line.

For example, right now, you, Caerulo, have this honors line: He is a graduate of the Shadowmaze.
Completing all quests (and you can, as a non-novice), will modify that honors line into this: He is a graduate of the Shadowmaze (honours).

The collegium is confusing now, but it will make sense when you get used to it (promise!). It's also an excellent way to speak to all novices in your ORG and not just your GUILD.

- Domoths are a pain in the butt. You will learn as you go with that.

- Dingbats are a form of currency (like credits), that you can purchase in game or with real life money when they are being offered (they are being offered throughout january 2009). Jeremiah sells arties that you purchase with dingbats - rare ones, which WILL retire next October. HELP DINGBATS explains how many you get with a purchase, and what arties Jeremiah sells with details.

- Ascensions and Domoths are related - Ascendants are just a buffed up Demigod. Here's a link that can explain in detail a bit about Ascendants and their abilities.


4. For commands, I suggest HELP, HELP NEWPLAYERS, and HELP COMMANDS.

5. If you head on over to the Mechanic's Corner, and post what you want, along with your client information (nexus, zmud, etc), someone can provide you with a debating script, or at least start you on it.

Hope that all helps . While reading the events news would be good, that's also overwhelming. Best to go to the help files (HELP DOMOTHS, for example).

Weeky had a book on that the whole time? Xenthos powerbashed to trans for nothing?!

EDIT: Oh, ok. Weird Xiel.

Edit: Oh, no, Xiel compiled all of it. He just makes it all fancy. It has nothing to do with Weeky.

Woah, bards are overpowered? That's a shocker.

Thanks for all the info Aison, really appreciated. And yeah, event posts overload.

As for Mechanic's Corner, yea, I intend to go there sooner or later if I come back to Lusternia. For now, just looking at the events that have happen is going to be more than enough for me. O_O

Bards aren't overpowered so much anymore, but they were when they were first released. They've undergone several nerfs since, and there was also something wrong with their coding that made them do more damage than what they were supposed to be doing. Monks are ridiculous, though, and by far much worse than bards.

SpiritSingers are op, Harbingers are good, Cantors are tragic but getting a special report, Cacophony needs some tweaking and find a way to drop the hunger attrition.

Monks are over the top right now but hopefully the upcoming report on them will level that out.

SS, Harb, and Caco are all ok in my book (caco you just need to get a little creative with). Cantor need help, only because whoever was envoy when they got the special report the first time around completely ... how to put it nicely? Sucked. Yes, they completely sucked.

Really? But I recall when they first came out, bards were, literally, a joke. (Hearing other people talk about it of course. I don't do combat) Or is my memory that bad?

EDIT: Woah, thread de-rail. Not about bards, this thread is about...me?

Bards and monks have both gone through various phases of being underpowered and overpowered. They've gone through even -more- phases of people -saying- they're underpowered and overpowered. The game actually isn't any better or worse balanced than with 3 guilds per org, despite what some people will tell you (possibly because they weren't around for long enough of the 3-guild period), but the admin have been so much better at communication wrt bugs and (sometimes) fixing stuff with envoys lately. Spiritsingers have already had the OP sucked out of them and as mentioned Harbingers and Cacophony are both good. Monks have some changes both for the better and for the worse coming up. Bottom line: don't trust random stuff you hear about balance as consensus is fragile at best even if you subscribe to consensus=reality in general.

Domoths are basically another way of fighting. What it means to you, if you fight, is that you have to wait for an aethership crew to flashpoint back after conglutinating if you die during a fight. Ascendants are demigod+. Collegiums are awesome and make for the best novice support in IRE.

Events news is helpful, but it's written in such a way that it's next to worthless for getting quick, practical summaries. You could read 3 pages of fairly well-written exposition describing "muud area (90+ nonwarrior) came out; duum area (70+) came out; annoying soulforge conflict quest came out; ascendants came out; sojiro got ascendant and turned into shuyin". You're probably better off just discovering things as you go along or finding someone cool you can ask.

Personally, I don't care how OP/UP an archetype is as I don't participate in combat. (In other words, I'm bad at it)

And about the discovering method, hey, how come I never thought of that? And I'm really curious and excited about the collegiums, they were just about to be implemented when I left, and from the looks of it, it sounds pretty interesting, and working too!

Alright! Nonetheless you may find bards fun if you end up changing guilds, they have a bunch of cool non-combat skils and make good bashers.


I don't know about interesting, I am confident from anecdotal evidence that they are working though. I'm not sure if that means we statistically retain more novices. I wonder if Estarra's at liberty to disclose that information.

Yeah, bards sound fun, especially since I influence. Too bad I'm too poor to change guilds, and I can't write poetry to save my life. (EDIT: I do have a teensy little alt in a bard guild though, but I don't have enough time for my main, let alone my alt)

Alright, bed time, 12 midnight here. Good night all.

D:

Hey, 12 is still early! <.<

But welcome back, Caerulo! Always good to see a fellow Singaporean get back into the game. (Unfortunately, my own semester's going to start, so it might just lose another one in return..)

Sorry Synl. <3 Synl's here still, too, and is as sexy as ever. Make sure to smooch him hard.

I hate to hijack this thread, but I've been contemplating coming back and since I left just after the first ascendant challenge, I find myself in a similar boat as Caerulo - even so far as being from Glomdoring

I wouldn't want to do it as Vionne (too much baggage), as I'm looking forward to making an alt and experiencing the colligeums and building up new relationships with people (Arel divorced me ), but I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on what organizations*:

1. have fairly decent, solid leadership so I won't get sucked into high positions
2. encourage involvement in the libraries and culture competitions like the plays.
3. aren't overwhelmingly large and filled with ooc/snuggly niceness.

I've been playing Imperian in the meantime, but I'm continually frustrated with the administration over there, and I've always enjoyed Lusternia's better thought out structure and anyone who remembers me will know that I LOVE the libraries here and how non-PKers can get involved in the conflict.

* Includes: guilds, families, and cities.

Oh hi girly. Um, Nariah does a good job of that in Mag, I'm not sure about the Cantors in Celest.