I agree. No tornadoes or other patent effects.
I was thinking something closer to how I've seen it done before. You can AERO/AQUA/PYRO/GEO/FORESTCAST WEATHER (GOOD|BAD|NEUTRAL) (HOT|COLD|NEUTRAL) and the next time the weather updates, it gets nudged in that direction. So if I wanted to make it better weather for a wedding in Seren and it's currently too hot and nasty outside, I could FORESTCAST WEATHER GOOD COLD, and the next few days would have a higher chance of being on that side of the limits for the area. If it was maximally cold and good already, it wouldn't have effect.

My understanding is that they got rid of the weather because it was annoying to deal with, not because they wanted to add more stuff to it. I really don't see any reason for them to be adding more weather based effects. It's far more likely that they'll put together a simple system that does what it did before, without the complicated behind-the-scenes stuff, so it's easier to adjust later if they want to. But really, I hate speculating about this sort of thing, because it just gets the players expecting all that cool stuff they talked about amongst themselves, which may not be anywhere near what the admins had in mind. Then we're disappointed that they didn't listen to us when they weren't soliciting our advice in the first place.

Regarding druids having a stronger tie to the weather, I'm not buying it. Being more in tune with nature sounds like a very good reason to leave the weather alone. Why would you mess with the natural cycle of things, when those very cycles are what you worship? I am a wiccan in real life, and if I knew I was able to affect the weather, I most certainly would not be trying it out. Maybe, maybe, if I had spent several years studying meteorology, had an intimate knowledge of local weather patterns, several equally qualified people to back me up, and a damned good reason. Mucking about with things better left alone sounds much more likely to happen in a city than in a commune.

I'm also reluctant to go in depth about what I proposed for similar reasons stated above, but essentially, I want to purchase one or more RP additions for our guildhall. So, no, I don't think other people should get something comparable, unless they want to put it the time, effort, and money that idea encompasses.

I think I'm going to stop posting now, because I'm coming off far more harsh than I had intended to.

They got rid of the system because it was annoying to deal with the code for it, because it was someone's grad project and was far more complicated backstage then anyone guessed on this side.

Druids already call down storms all the time, it's one of our basic druidry skills, there's precedent for mucking with the weather when need be, and I get the feeling that BT wouldn't care even if it was doing weird things to nature. If we got something that was more nudge based, I can see it fitting in juuuuust fine with druidry. I'm not sure anything like that would go through, but it shouldn't be discarded on the basis of druids being close to nature and therefore not doing anything in/to nature.

Have a guildhall addition that gives you closer actual control. Plenty of people put time and money into things that end up being changed later, that's how the game works. I don't like aeromancers having the only claim to weather, that's silly (and not true).

Ehm. As a newbie aeromancer, I would much prefer to see quests for extreme weather control than guild skills. Causing a major (un)natural disaster should take some work. I would not be opposed to said quests being Halli/commune quests though.

Aeromancers getting Hallifax weather control and druids getting Seren/Glom weather control would be ok with me (as long as they were solely for flavor). I don't really think weather control makes sense for geomancers, pyromancers or aquamancers, and I don't think all cities need skills related to weather as long as they have no purpose beyond aesthetics. If Magnagora, Celest and Gaudiguch /absolutely need/ weather control because their crops are failing, well, that is what alliances and begging are for!

I would like to see clothing play a role in higher level areas. For example, dressing warmly to go to astral would be pretty cool. Prime basin shouldn't be affected except by flavor messages.

I know in Avalon, the pre--cursor to IRE's games, had the same thing as per weather and clothing. They made it realistic; if you go about completely naked in the winter, chances of you freezing to death were pretty high. Realism isn't a bad thing, I would think. But then again, we're playing a game where you can turn people into toads, crucify them and then kill them but they still come back to life, aaaaannnd don't forget flying around on brooms.

They also had something where you could take up the "Mantle of Peace" and become a pacifist, which meant were you untargettable by another person for offensive actions but also meant that you couldn't target others. I once saw Aldaron modify the weather in Northern Greenwood to that of a tornado-like weather that kept the Animists from getting assaulted by the Seers and the Warlocks. This was during the time Aldaron "lost his power to protect his children". That was a lot of fun, as the Animists have been known as being push overs because of their pacifist approach to life.

I know Imperian also has something like this in their ability of Naturalism, where they can alter the weather and directly affect temperature and the whatnot. I believe they can cause tornadoes at the transcendant level. However, the skill has become a rather large and glowing joke among the other guilds of Imperian as abilities that allow you to levitate pretty much negates any and all damage this may cause.

Quick Edit: Wait. When did the druid class lose the ability of Naturalism?

Persistent, intrusive weather effects, like freeze ticks in cold weather, are very annoying. The first maybe five times, they'll seem cool, then they'll be tedious on the next twenty thousand occasions. They're also an unnecessary pitfall for newbies. You already want clothing for DMP and influencing, and looking cool. You don't need another enforced reason.

Cosmetic weather-working is cool. Druids and mages being able to calm a storm or drum one up lets them say, "Hey, check out my power, the world is the canvas for the brush of my will." They can touch and change the scenery. Stuff like that is badass impressive to newbies, and pretty cool to cynical veterans as well.

PK-focused weather-working is less cool, because a class will necessarily be balanced taking its full capabilities into account, meaning you have this handful of abilities you rarely get to make use of because the optimal situation for using them never comes up, or is broken OP the one time it does.

Imperian's system I believe allows the wind, temperature, and humidity to be raised and lowered, with different combinations over time yielding different effects (high temperature + high humidity = rain, low temperature = snow). That impressed me because it's simple at a basic level - three factors you can shift in two directions each - but with complex and impressive end results.

I agree with you about the last statement; that impressed me too. Sort of really gave you the feeling that you did have a major impact on the world around you (though temporary). I played with the system for a while on an alt. I enjoyed it immensely. Being able to make it rain or snow or dry up the weather was very cool. However, if you refer to some of the posts on the Imperian boards, it has become a joke, as you stated in the third statement. It is sort of like synergzy or whatever that astrology skill is. Yes, its a very cool skill, but one that only works once every 250 in-game years. Nice skill? Sure, in theory. Useful? Not even in the smallest. It is like giving someone a delicious piece of candy but telling them they can only eat it in 300 years.

This isn't really a great comparison. The ability to which you refer (Stellium) is most powerful during a syzygy, which happens 250 IG years or so, but the ability is useful so long as one sign has at least 2 planets aligned with it, which happens very often.

This. I really love this. It takes skill to get the correct effects, and it's not straight up control. I'd LOVE the ability to do this on a limited level, it would be awesome! I can totally see working in guild RP about limiting this power, not overusing it, and so on. This sounds like a delicious piece of candy, thanks. It's not intended to do anything but give you a nice RP thing that doesn't effect pvp. If this doesn't come out with the weather update when it comes out, I'd like to know if it's possible for an envoy slot, because I'll envoy it.

While aeromancers were still frozen in time druids were summoning storms, nature users were summoning rain and masters of low magic were summoning blizzards. You can argue rl meteorological processes but I can easily see a lusternian druid shrugging and saying "The spirits agreed we needed a storm and so we made a storm" this rationalises with aeromancy in that what the spirits do is the natural process of the world but because mages lack that link to the fae, the aeromancers have to study the weather patterns and attempt to influence them which does go against the will of the spirits.



This is what I'm hoping for, not the naturalism skill but that core system.

Honestly, if the Elemental planes are involved in the weather, the weather is really a combination of all 4 elements in some fashion. It might seem Air might have a bead on it, but you don't have clouds without water, lightning is plasma (fire), etc. Is Ice Water or Air? Is Lava Fire or Earth? The 4 Platonic elements are not the easiest things box in more complex natural things. At the very least I would think Celest has a equal power over "sky weather" (storms) as much as Hallifax. (Gaudiguch and Magnagora are more "ground" based weather such as Volcanoes and Earthquakes).

All Mages have some basic grasp of the four elements before they choose their mastery. I just don't see a weather system being dominated or the province of a single organization.

Regarding druids, yes, they have weather precedents as nature is more or less a mix of all 4 elements combined with Spirits--however the Spirits we'd expect to be more involved in the weather (spirits of Lake and Sun) are sort of "in limbo" right now.

But then again, we won't know until the Elders and their overgods actually implement any changes.

Phred, you seem uncharacteristically dogmatic about this. Have you investigated anything about the Aeromancers? I think you're way off base here, almost as much as if you were saying that the mages should be as skilled with trees as druids, since trees take their sustenance from the elements. You just seem to be brushing off a fairly extensive amount of backstory in favor of what seem to be just speculations of how you think it should or could be. Surely by now you know that The Original Vision always trumps anything any of us think makes sense.

Lendren's right. To be blunt, Weather 2.0 will be as complicated and intricate as the attention span of whoever is coding it. If they lose steam halfway through, we'll get something simpler. If they don't, we might get something shinier.

In the end, though, it doesn't matter. As long as the new system, simple or shiny, does not affect combat in any meaningful way, I'll be a happy camper. They can make monks the sole controllers of the new weather system for all I care about continuity or logic or whatever. It's a game, anything can be explained with some mumbo jumbo.

I'm not deliberately ignoring any back story--I can only find out about Hallifax via in-game interactions, and since I am not playing alts I can only find out things from either the public histories or what I can see in the city itself. From what I remember when the weather went crazy a weather machine was on Xion, but it affected all the elements and used all the elements, not just the air ones. I just don't believe Hallifax has an "exclusive lock" on weather control from that, as it seems the whole concept of a demense is more or less a form of general weather control. (And yes, I know Wind is very important for storms and the like).

Any speculation might be coming from how Estarra might have been influenced by her literary and gaming sources. (Quick Estarra--name the 4 para and 8 quasi-elemental planes in 1/2e D&D !) And I also believe that if they were to implement some sort of weather system I doubt they'd allow a single org to have that power, as part of the original vision is "conflict".

Things I hope to see:
-Semipredictable weather patterns for the aeromancers to predict
-The ability to measure wind direction, wind speed, temperature and humidity.
-Ashfall over Gaudiguch, Zoaka, Magnagora, Mountains of Madness and the Blasted Lands
-Sandstorms/duststorms in the Skarch, Blasted Lands, Tar Pits, Dramube, Nil and Magnagora
-Demense effects that have effects on the weather
--Aeromancy Westwind/Northwind/Eastwind/Southwind/Whirlwinds each having a unique effect on weather conditions and making a bizzare mess of the weather if left going for long enough.
--Aquamancy Needlerain/Typhoon making it rain/making the winds go crazy
--Geomancy Duststorm making lots of wind and drying everything up
--Pyromancy Heatwave, Ashstorm, Firerain and so forth all making the weather hotter and dryer
--Gust shifting the winds towards the selected direction, and being effected by prevailing winds
--Nature Rain and Druidry Storm actually shifting the weather towards raininess
--Druids getting an ability to calm the weather down and undoing the damage that all of the above does

I thought "Weather 2.0" already came out...

I feel like what we have is more of a beta patch (I certainly hope we don't have these random color-spammy Broken Sky weather messages forever...).

Beta usually involves testing what will become the end result.

I really hope that this is not a beta!

Welcome to weather 2.0 alpha?

I think the "weather" we have now is