This is the first thing that occurred to me as well, but would the characters know about it? Or does this game require a significant barrier between player knowledge and character knowledge?
Come to think of it, I suppose my Sedai would know, but you’re hardly supposed to be telling Novices about it.
That’s good. Wedrifid would have known too—given that he was curious, Cate Sedai was a specialist in arcane research and both were rather direct about seeking out and exploiting any novel sources of potential power.
Every tactic for farming SMOBs, as soon as they came out.
Automatic Ways navigation
optimisation of all forms of intercontinental travel.
Harnessing various previously unidentified features of the magical universe (ie. Bugs) for fun and profit. ie. I probably still have 10 characters with maxed out bank accounts and full stockpiles of weaponry.
Quite possibly the best scripting/mapping/targetting/automation code ever used by MUD players. The ability to write advanced regex was probably even more of a bonus to Wedrifid than Warder multibash, attack, heal and health and stamina regeneration.
Killing just about every possible MOB target in the MUD, simply because they were reported to be hard or impossible. Extra fun if this required using usually useless spells specifically to target a weakness and if, after a month or two of exploitation they had to remove the shocklance or jewelled wristcuff load because we were flooding the economy with top end items.
When they were younger, automatic purchasing of all key economic items the moment the MUD came up. What were they again? The gold breastplate and occasional gold greaves, a large steel spear, an ivory necklace, all the flatwort tea and the yellow vials.
We aimed to have Justice at least every second time. Because Warder spawn sense isn’t nearly as cool as having your light saber light up every time they come within three zones. (We also used that to figure out rather a lot of darkfriends within the Tower. We kept the identities to ourselves unless we found non Justice proof but it is kind of useful to know when to just leave a fight.)
Harnessing various previously unidentified features of the magical universe (ie. Bugs) for fun and profit
And here I naively thought that the thing to do with bugs is to report them so they get fixed...
We aimed to have Justice at least every second time.
Hah, bet you were well loved for it. I remember when I had Justice for about a year and a half (with some breaks). Fun.
Would still be doing it probably except Justice is currently bugged and not loading, ever since a game crash literally 1 second before I was going to pick it up. (The most you’ve-gotta-be-kidding me MUD moment ever, for me.)
And here I naively thought that the thing to do with bugs is to report them so they get fixed...
Sure, when they annoy me. Even fixed a few myself once I got my somewhat short lived coder Immortal. :)
Hah, bet you were well loved for it.
Used to have people scream in outrage when I took it on trips to Seanchan. For some reason north PKers thought I was obliged to go to the blight and die to a gank of 10, not play hide and seek down south.
Used to have people scream in outrage when I took it on trips to Seanchan. For some reason north PKers thought I was obliged to go die to them, not play hide and seek down south.
Haha, so it was you. I remember people were complaining about some guy doing that. I never quite stored the name because nothing that happens south or west of Lugard registers in my brain.
Yeah, I got hated on just for using it extensively.
I was less equipped to live with bullshit at that point in my life. ie. I corrected Nass and he threw one of his tantrums. Obviously now I’d be able to identify the political threat and avoid it. It’s the flipping internet. If it was worth the effort of defending epistemic purity then it was worth using a proxy, an anonymous name and delivering the messages strategically so as to maximise the cost humiliation for enforcing a deception. (Which isn’t hard, Nass humiliates himself without much help.)
Haha, so it was you. I remember people were complaining about some guy doing that.
Don’t know what they were complaining about. By virtue of sheer bulk of hours played I spent more time killing Fades than most players and on the one occasion I managed to lose it to a Seanchan I killed him three days later. Then I let Cate be a Justice Wielding Aes Sedai for a couple of months while I went back to being a proper warder who could throw away his life heroically.
Yeah, I got hated on just for using it extensively.
That’s what they call “winning”. If folks don’t like it they can bitch and wheedle their own way into the Warder clan!
It’s scary how much of that world I still have stuck in my brain. Four hundred zones, each zone a hundred interconnected rooms. I can probably still navigate most of that via text and a lot of it without even looking. Then the rough location of all the mob spawns, and where all the horses are. And where all the horses end up when any of Cate, I or a Ruy/Patricia alt has logged on. A (now obsolete) social and political map of the nations and key characters in each, with an additional speculative map of which characters are actually alts of others and to what degree they can be expected to be corrupted by their out-of-character incentives. Basically my brain treated it as though it was the real world—except rather more entertaining.
Probably has something to do with the widespread belief that it’s everyone’s business what you do with your equipment. Which I’m not entirely sure where it’s coming from, but it’s always pleasant to see this expectation frustrated.
Well, IIRC, balefire is well-documented in the old lore and may be forbidden; I more vaguely recall Moiraine stealing a ter’angreal which specialized in producing balefire, and since she didn’t spend her life playing with random ter’angreal, someone else must have known of its function or it was listed in storeroom catalogues. If balefire is discussed in the old books, forbidden by Tower law, and a ter’angreal is documented as producing balefire, it’s hard to see how any Aes Sedai could doubt balefire’s existence.
Hm, Moiraine learned how to actually weave it herself. The ter’angreal thing was someone else. Not that it matters.
What matters is that class will be taught to Accepteds and Novices, so discussing something Moiraine describes thus...
‘Something forbidden,’ Moiraine said coolly. ‘Forbidden by vows almost as strong as the Three Oaths.’ She took Aldieb’s reins from the girl, and patted the mare’s neck, calming her. ‘Something not used in nearly two thousand years. Something I might be stilled just for knowing.’
My understanding is that it’s forbidden to use or even know how to weave balefire, but not to know it exists or what it does. Knowledge of its existence moves around among Aes Sedai quite a lot without comment throughout the series.
Letting Novices and Accepted even know it exists is probably bad conduct, if not forbidden though, lest someone lacking sufficient discipline be tempted and try to learn to use it.
This is the first thing that occurred to me as well, but would the characters know about it? Or does this game require a significant barrier between player knowledge and character knowledge?
We’re talking about an in-character class, so even though I’ll be talking to fellow channelers I don’t think any of us is aware of balefire.
On the other hand, Ogier lore on the Pattern, including how some of them can sense ta’veren, might be valid IC knowledge for me.
We weren’t supposed to know about Balefire? Oops.
Come to think of it, I suppose my Sedai would know, but you’re hardly supposed to be telling Novices about it.
That’s good. Wedrifid would have known too—given that he was curious, Cate Sedai was a specialist in arcane research and both were rather direct about seeking out and exploiting any novel sources of potential power.
Oh, such as?
Every tactic for farming SMOBs, as soon as they came out.
Automatic Ways navigation
optimisation of all forms of intercontinental travel.
Harnessing various previously unidentified features of the magical universe (ie. Bugs) for fun and profit. ie. I probably still have 10 characters with maxed out bank accounts and full stockpiles of weaponry.
Quite possibly the best scripting/mapping/targetting/automation code ever used by MUD players. The ability to write advanced regex was probably even more of a bonus to Wedrifid than Warder multibash, attack, heal and health and stamina regeneration.
Killing just about every possible MOB target in the MUD, simply because they were reported to be hard or impossible. Extra fun if this required using usually useless spells specifically to target a weakness and if, after a month or two of exploitation they had to remove the shocklance or jewelled wristcuff load because we were flooding the economy with top end items.
When they were younger, automatic purchasing of all key economic items the moment the MUD came up. What were they again? The gold breastplate and occasional gold greaves, a large steel spear, an ivory necklace, all the flatwort tea and the yellow vials.
We aimed to have Justice at least every second time. Because Warder spawn sense isn’t nearly as cool as having your light saber light up every time they come within three zones. (We also used that to figure out rather a lot of darkfriends within the Tower. We kept the identities to ourselves unless we found non Justice proof but it is kind of useful to know when to just leave a fight.)
And here I naively thought that the thing to do with bugs is to report them so they get fixed...
Hah, bet you were well loved for it. I remember when I had Justice for about a year and a half (with some breaks). Fun.
Would still be doing it probably except Justice is currently bugged and not loading, ever since a game crash literally 1 second before I was going to pick it up. (The most you’ve-gotta-be-kidding me MUD moment ever, for me.)
Sure, when they annoy me. Even fixed a few myself once I got my somewhat short lived coder Immortal. :)
Used to have people scream in outrage when I took it on trips to Seanchan. For some reason north PKers thought I was obliged to go to the blight and die to a gank of 10, not play hide and seek down south.
Why was it short lived?
Haha, so it was you. I remember people were complaining about some guy doing that. I never quite stored the name because nothing that happens south or west of Lugard registers in my brain.
Yeah, I got hated on just for using it extensively.
I was less equipped to live with bullshit at that point in my life. ie. I corrected Nass and he threw one of his tantrums. Obviously now I’d be able to identify the political threat and avoid it. It’s the flipping internet. If it was worth the effort of defending epistemic purity then it was worth using a proxy, an anonymous name and delivering the messages strategically so as to maximise the cost humiliation for enforcing a deception. (Which isn’t hard, Nass humiliates himself without much help.)
Don’t know what they were complaining about. By virtue of sheer bulk of hours played I spent more time killing Fades than most players and on the one occasion I managed to lose it to a Seanchan I killed him three days later. Then I let Cate be a Justice Wielding Aes Sedai for a couple of months while I went back to being a proper warder who could throw away his life heroically.
That’s what they call “winning”. If folks don’t like it they can bitch and wheedle their own way into the Warder clan!
It’s scary how much of that world I still have stuck in my brain. Four hundred zones, each zone a hundred interconnected rooms. I can probably still navigate most of that via text and a lot of it without even looking. Then the rough location of all the mob spawns, and where all the horses are. And where all the horses end up when any of Cate, I or a Ruy/Patricia alt has logged on. A (now obsolete) social and political map of the nations and key characters in each, with an additional speculative map of which characters are actually alts of others and to what degree they can be expected to be corrupted by their out-of-character incentives. Basically my brain treated it as though it was the real world—except rather more entertaining.
Probably has something to do with the widespread belief that it’s everyone’s business what you do with your equipment. Which I’m not entirely sure where it’s coming from, but it’s always pleasant to see this expectation frustrated.
Well, IIRC, balefire is well-documented in the old lore and may be forbidden; I more vaguely recall Moiraine stealing a ter’angreal which specialized in producing balefire, and since she didn’t spend her life playing with random ter’angreal, someone else must have known of its function or it was listed in storeroom catalogues. If balefire is discussed in the old books, forbidden by Tower law, and a ter’angreal is documented as producing balefire, it’s hard to see how any Aes Sedai could doubt balefire’s existence.
That makes sense, though I had vague memories of the existence of balefire being suppressed.
Hm, Moiraine learned how to actually weave it herself. The ter’angreal thing was someone else. Not that it matters.
What matters is that class will be taught to Accepteds and Novices, so discussing something Moiraine describes thus...
… is out.
My understanding is that it’s forbidden to use or even know how to weave balefire, but not to know it exists or what it does. Knowledge of its existence moves around among Aes Sedai quite a lot without comment throughout the series.
Letting Novices and Accepted even know it exists is probably bad conduct, if not forbidden though, lest someone lacking sufficient discipline be tempted and try to learn to use it.