The sky above the clouds

from Elemental Forums

There's an interesting thread going on about weather and several ideas are floating about on other aspects of looking down at the map. But what about looking up?

I've seen nothing yet about a moon or moons, constellations, or any other astrological sort of stuff. These things have all kinds of potential as part of magical systems. Each shard type could be associated with a moon, or a single moon (and the sun) could move through a zodiac of 2 or 3 signs for each Element, with slight benefits or penalties for a given magic type depending on the chart for the day. A moon or moons also could be off-map destinations for working major magic.

And yes, I said in another thread that I really hope the world of Elemental is not a "realistic" planet, but some non-sphere thing. In a fantasy setting, there's no conflict between that and an astrological system of some sort.

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Reply #1 from Elemental Forums Top

Why do you care whether the planet is a sphere or not?  Seems kind of irrelevant given the scale of the game.  I personally like fantasy to have a thread of reality that allows one to thinkthe setting is not so implausible that it could never happen.  So a big square planet made out of brie cheese would not be appealing to me.  A spherical planet made out of some sort of energy storing crystal that provides a source for magic on the other hand is intriguing.

Reply #2 from Elemental Forums Top

Perhaps there could be different world shapes in the world creator.  I, for one, would love to play on a disk :D

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Reply #3 from Elemental Forums Top

I should not have mentioned my no-real-astronomy thing here. It is a matter of taste (aesthetics), and I'd be happy to talk about it elsewhere. What I'm really interested in with this thread is whether the devs already have any "celestial mechanics" in mind and whether any other pre-beta folks think that the game would benefit with some stuff like that.

Reply #4 from Elemental Forums Top

Where is the action?  Below?  Focus on below.  No need for day or night or stars and what-not.

Reply #5 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting GW, reply 3
I should not have mentioned my no-real-astronomy thing here. It is a matter of taste (aesthetics), and I'd be happy to talk about it elsewhere. What I'm really interested in with this thread is whether the devs already have any "celestial mechanics" in mind and whether any other pre-beta folks think that the game would benefit with some stuff like that.

Do we even know if the camera could tilt to look at the sky? :P It's somewhat moot if it always looks at the ground. So far in the screenshots, it doesn't seem like it ever changes perspective enough to actually show a sky.

You could probably do basic night and day since it just lights up/shadows the ground, but if you never see the sky the celestial aesthetics don't really fit in anywhere :)

Reply #6 from Elemental Forums Top

Heh. I never even considered the graphics engine. I was just thinking game mechanics.

So, I guess if I was getting all my dev wishes, I'd want the magic system to have some astrological aspects *and* I'd want to see the moons and houses or whatever in the richest parts of the UI.

But practically, it wouldn't matter to me whether those views were from the 3D engine part of the game or not. I'd be just as satisfied if related art appeared only in cutscenes, or even if it was a really simple part of static dialogs. My OP was just a thought about how to add detail to a complicated magic system at the rules level.

 

Reply #7 from Elemental Forums Top

An old PnP I played used an astrological system to raise/lower power of spells. It would be awsome to have something like that

" - No, wait for 5 days, the moons will be good for the ritual

- But we can't, the annemy is at our door!

- Buy us time. that spell will make us so powerfull

- 'derstood."

 

*dreams*

Reply #8 from Elemental Forums Top

Well, something like this was in Master of Magic, and I assumed that's where you got the idea. Every now and then a constellation would go in conjunction or the Moon would be waxing or waning, changing the power-structure of the spellnodes in the game. A simple mechanic that usually affected little in the game, but a nice touch nonetheless.

Reply #9 from Elemental Forums Top

Quoting Tiavals, reply 8
Well, something like this was in Master of Magic, and I assumed that's where you got the idea. Every now and then a constellation would go in conjunction or the Moon would be waxing or waning, changing the power-structure of the spellnodes in the game. A simple mechanic that usually affected little in the game, but a nice touch nonetheless.

My memory's not that good and my MoM disks got corrupted a long time ago (sigh). I was just doing some sloppy remembering of table RPG stuff and some fiction. But I was definitely trying to go for a "simple mechanic that usually affected little in the game, but a nice touch nonetheless."

Now, if it could have really cool visuals in a 3D engine where you can indeed look up, that would be really nice eye candy, IMO. Not that I'm demanding, or anything...

Reply #10 from Elemental Forums Top

Yea, the MoM conjunctions had very minimal graphical impact on the game (your mana income display would have the word "conjunction" in the appropriate magic color).  They could range from negligable impact on the game to giving a player a nearly unbeatable head-start against wizards of other colors.  Doubling all income from your nodes and halving income from nodes of others can get pretty important ;)  But typically that wasn't the impact.