Posted by Pico(IMM) on December 10, 1999 at 20:29:09:
In Reply to: MAGIC-NATURE posted by widowson on December 10, 1999 at 12:46:43:
The others seem to have said this rather well. I must address one issue, though. Your thesis > In the CF story, the Masters of Magic were once known as the Mages of Order. Upon discovering how their meddling with the universe lead to their greatest failure of all, the creation of the Battleragers, they became withdrawn, pacifistic, and studious in nature, vowing never to repeat this past error. > It seems ironic that the Magic-Nature War, in both RP and game balance terms, is a repeat of this disaster in both the RP of what being a Master was and in the way it has contributed to upsetting game balance. > Pervious to this war, the central theme of Master RP was the studious mage, withdrawn from the world. This made for good RP since you could play a mage seeking knowledge for any number of reasons. Now the ONLY viable end for Masters is not knowledge, but the utter and complete destruction of Nature. This limits the RP that a Master can have. Also, it follows that if magic opposes nature, then nature must oppose magic. Why then do Sylvans allow mages amongst them? > Also, the basic pacifism and non-involvement with cabal affairs the Masters had made them easily balanced by the Battleragers and you had a cabal made up of inoffensive, RPing people seeking knowledge, not raiding and PKing incessantly. Now with the Masters at war with the Ragers and the Sylvans this has drawn them even closer to the Empire’s way of doing things, worsening the game imbalance that Empire itself creates. Also, with the Masters holding such an extreme, violent position on nature, the list of enemies and the Tower Regulations, on enemies of the tower and so on, designed to balance the Masters excellent PK powers, has become virtually meaningless. Anyone helping nature in any way can now be scourged at will. > Reading the help file on Masters, the portion concerning magic-nature is but one sentence tacked on at the end, almost as an afterthought. By changing the Masters from enlightened, studious magi to bloodthirsty mad scientists holding to an extreme view, the RP of the tower has been destroyed. Master RP seems closer to Battlerager RP now, (me hate nature) and with the advent of better Battleragers (Thror, Nesam) has probably become WORSE than Battlerager RP. They no longer even have learning requirements, which only worsens this situation. > Ironically, Battleragers can now make a rational, logical argument that their view on magic is correct. Watching magic using Imperials, Masters, and Scarabs on killing sprees you could say that Magic is inherently bad while Masters really can’t show how their inquisitorial, extreme view has helped the world in any way. > Finally, as proof of all this, consider the quality and quantity of the Hero-Imms and Imms that came out of Master pre-magic nature war. I think Masters was the source for new Imms in CF for quite some time. > Post magic-nature war, how many new Imms and good RPers have come out of Master lately? Their RP and central beliefs of the cabal were destroyed by the magic-nature conflict. > It would be better to return Masters to the way they were. They should be studious, intelligent, RPing magi and not rapacious, destructive, de-facto Imperialistic inquisitors
The Magic/Nature thing is not nearly as big
as you recall it to be from six months ago.
that Master is now a faulty cabal because they
have not produced as many immortals as they
once did is rather flawed. Beyond being purely
circumstantial and having little significant
basis other than cosmetic appearance, it's not
correct. There has been a steady stream of
Masters make it to 53 (quality). As for
quantity, there are currently three heroimms:
two Dawn and one Troupe. I guess this "proves"
that these two cabals are now overpowered?