Book 2 – Text Updates 011

[Rosa Vernal]

Maria Shriver (still a fine looking woman)

Since when was Maria Shriver fine looking?

[Nebulious]

But a scroll that brings you, by far, more value than the cost? Including an item that may be an artifact? That is an artifact to me, if we're measuring by "power level" rather than "origin."

As an upfront disclaimer, I haven't read the whole thread. But this line is the core of you argument: your personal definition of artifact. It is wrong, Sizemore explicitly states that magic items are made by mortals and artifacts by Titans. That's it. Done. Now the bracer is valuable; this is indisputable. Could you make a profit by constantly purchasing the spell, summoning units that subsequently popped items that could be sold for profit? Possibly. You'd have to hope that the summon works each time exactly like it did for Parson. You'd also have to hope you don't run out of buyers and that they don't eventually kill you with their supply of rare, game-breaking items.

This brings us to the tricky question: is the bracer an artifact? Sizemore speculates that it's powerful enough to be Titanic. The spell could have summoned it to Parson via Findmancy, allowing it to be either mortal or Titan made, but still acquired by mortal means. (The inset for Parson's watch doesn't concern me, since even Stanley can do resizing of magic items.) So what we do know is that the bracer could be an artifact, but it has nothing to do with economics.

[StClair]

Seems to me the question of whether something is mortal-made or the work of the Titans is fairly straightforward, at least from our perspective: is it drawn or CGI?

[warriortribble]

Well, we can now be reasonably sure that Charlie doesn't have any Archons within the FAQ forces. Hmm...

Not really... we just know that duncan doesn't know. Jillian seems to have been keeping him out of the loop on a lot of details. He doesn't even "know Jillian's basic battle plan", which considering the odds likely revolves on help from charlie... hell considering how much he praises Jillian for his own defeat, she may have never told him charlie's role in that plan either.

That's true, but I find it hard to believe that the chief warlord could have allies within his stack w/o being aware of them. I mean for that to be a possibility the Archons would need to secretly join the group under veil before reaching Spacerock, and why would they bother? Charlie didn't want Jetstone or Gobwin Knob to know about his involvement, but he has nothing to hide from FAQ. Also, even though Jillian has been hiding much of her plans from Duncan, I don't think she'd go so far as to hide the existence of ally units to her troops. There can't be any tactical advantages to doing that, but there can be disadvantages.

[Retconjurer]

Although I'm not participating in the Item/Artifact debate, I'd like to say that the Retconjurers have struck again and that it now says Magic Item, not artifact.

[MonteCristo]

Well, we can now be reasonably sure that Charlie doesn't have any Archons within the FAQ forces. Hmm...

Not really... we just know that duncan doesn't know. Jillian seems to have been keeping him out of the loop on a lot of details. He doesn't even "know Jillian's basic battle plan", which considering the odds likely revolves on help from charlie... hell considering how much he praises Jillian for his own defeat, she may have never told him charlie's role in that plan either.

That's true, but I find it hard to believe that the chief warlord could have allies within his stack w/o being aware of them. I mean for that to be a possibility the Archons would need to secretly join the group under veil before reaching Spacerock, and why would they bother? Charlie didn't want Jetstone or Gobwin Knob to know about his involvement, but he has nothing to hide from FAQ. Also, even though Jillian has been hiding much of her plans from Duncan, I don't think she'd go so far as to hide the existence of ally units to her troops. There can't be any tactical advantages to doing that, but there can be disadvantages.

Well the archons don't have to be in his stack, just within the hex...
you do have to recall that Jillian isn't always the most tactically minded person... think back to book 1 when she sent weibner and Dora in the wrong directions to hunt for the dwagons. There was no tactical value to that, she was just being mean. If she doesn't feel like talking to Duncan she will not talk to him; hell dealing with Duncan seems to annoy her has he kinda wants to act like a traditional chiefwarlord, leading the battles himself, when Jillian only made him chief warlord to take advantage of his bonus... Duncan might question her decisions and that's something she does not like to deal with... Jillian is only comfortable working those she is close to, and like duncan pointed out, she trusts and is more open to vinnie then she is with her own troops who are duty bound to her

We could also factor in a few other possibilities like the fact that chief warlord's have the ability to order troops themselves, thus allowing duncan to issue orders when she doesn't want them... hell if he truly felt something objectionable about charlie's involvement he might be duty bound to "screw things up" to protect Jillian from charlie... it could even be that she may question his level of loyalty since he was captured and turned...

[zalos]

I really like the pace of releases. Not too fast and not too slow. Keep up the good work!

[SteveMB]

Seems to me the question of whether something is mortal-made or the work of the Titans is fairly straightforward, at least from our perspective: is it drawn or CGI?

The Arkentools are rendered in CGI to make them look a bit "otherworldly" -- that may or may not be the case of non-Arkentool artifacts (which we haven't seen yet, unless Parson's Stupid Meal items are actually artifacts -- all we can really say is that non-Arkentool artifacts are apparently known to exist, or there would be no need to have separate words for "Arkentool" and "artifact".)

Although I'm not participating in the Item/Artifact debate, I'd like to say that the Retconjurers have struck again and that it now says Magic Item, not artifact.

Is this still about Parson's Mathamancy bracer? Sizemore's comment ("This is a very powerful item, or maybe artifact.") is the same as it was originally written.

[Retconjurer]

I was referring to the update, surprisingly

[gameboy1234]

I get my updates via RSS feed, and the copy in my inbox says magic item, not artifact. So I think you're just misremembering that it ever said artifact. (No worries, it happens. )

[dan2178]

Maria Shriver (still a fine looking woman)

Since when was Maria Shriver fine looking?

Be wary of the wrath of the Governator

[Retconjurer]

I get my updates via RSS feed, and the copy in my inbox says magic item, not artifact. So I think you're just misremembering that it ever said artifact. (No worries, it happens. )

Me and the whole first set of comments? Although none of them quotes the original post outright, it is obviously discussed that the tri-mancer link created an artifact.

[theseus2x]

Remember : The Summoning Spell (presumably) booped up because Stanley kept adding more things to his request. He got most/all of them in Parson, but obviously not the way that he wanted. (The Wiki has lots of good stuff on this.) We have no idea what would have happened if he hadn't assailed Wanda like that.

Also : We don't know the MK can just make more.

But a scroll that brings you, by far, more value than the cost? Including an item that may be an artifact? That is an artifact to me, if we're measuring by "power level" rather than "origin."

As an upfront disclaimer, I haven't read the whole thread. But this line is the core of you argument: your personal definition of artifact. It is wrong, Sizemore explicitly states that magic items are made by mortals and artifacts by Titans. That's it. Done. Now the bracer is valuable; this is indisputable. Could you make a profit by constantly purchasing the spell, summoning units that subsequently popped items that could be sold for profit? Possibly. You'd have to hope that the summon works each time exactly like it did for Parson. You'd also have to hope you don't run out of buyers and that they don't eventually kill you with their supply of rare, game-breaking items.

This brings us to the tricky question: is the bracer an artifact? Sizemore speculates that it's powerful enough to be Titanic. The spell could have summoned it to Parson via Findmancy, allowing it to be either mortal or Titan made, but still acquired by mortal means. (The inset for Parson's watch doesn't concern me, since even Stanley can do resizing of magic items.) So what we do know is that the bracer could be an artifact, but it has nothing to do with economics.

[Rosa Vernal]

would it teleport Parson and the bracer to the new side and force him to serve them? would it summon the best Erfworld-native warlord? would it summon the second-best warlord from some other parallel universe, complete with his own stupid-meal toys? would it create a dittomancy clone of Parson and the bracer? The evidence - i.e. that the spell summoned a unique individual, rather than creating a perfect warlord - suggests that it's not reproducible, which suggests that GK just lucked out.

Easy, it'd summon his friends.

@dan: My Governator can bring it. I'll bring my liberal rage at his incompetent "leadership" and his old flabby not-on-steroids-anymore ass would get beat down. Being a Californian suffering from college rate increases and furlough increases.... it does not make me happy at all that I'm paying more and more money each semester for less and less education. Last semester, we had a high of 5 furlouged days; this semester, it's SEVEN.

In multiple classes.

*liberalRAGE*

[rughat]

He really hadn't been the same man since leaving Jitterati, he had to admit. But he was not unhappy with the change.

Hm. Is this the effect of his "real feelings", or is this the effect of a Turnamancer changing his loyalty? If it _is_ the effect of the Turnamancer, what does that say about the free-will discussion people were having before? It seems that the battlefield of love is more than just emotions - when love and loyalty can be changed by spells and have stats (unknowable, but stats), then fighting for someone's love has a more concrete meaning. "Increase Duncan's love of Jillian by 20".

[Lamech]

First off: Duncan seems to have changed more than Ansom. Ansom loved his brothers, still held to a noble err... honorable code, and still sought to serve the titans. His main change was working for Stanley and loving Wanda. Duncan is apperantly a wholey differant person, and presumably its the effect of the turnamancer. Kind of pathetic for the side claiming to be the good guys. Well, really pathetic actually.

Second: Under standard english an artifact is something made by humans. Under erfworld language its something not made by mortals. Notice the distinct lack of things like power or value there? If you have a super large gem that allows a natural side to spawn enough units to destroy all of GK's forces and take all three of the artifacts you do not have an artifact.

Three: I would also like to point out we don't know if the selling of the scroll is more comparable to say... getting a mystery box and getting lucky and finding a really good prize, or say buying ore from a gold mine and discovering it also has a large amount of platinum in the ore. If its the first the casting+scroll might be worth 500k, if its the second the predictamancers sold the scroll for less than it was really worth.

Four: When talking about the scroll and the value of its results one must note that the casting of the scroll is 150k.

[theseus2x]

First off: Duncan seems to have changed more than Ansom. Ansom loved his brothers, still held to a noble err... honorable code, and still sought to serve the titans. His main change was working for Stanley and loving Wanda. Duncan is apperantly a wholey differant person, and presumably its the effect of the turnamancer.

I'm sorry - based on what? We barely saw Duncan before he turned to Faq.

Kind of pathetic for the side claiming to be the good guys. Well, really pathetic actually.

Erfworld follows MUCH different ethical guidelines than our world. Using Turnamancy is well within the realm of acceptable tactics.

Second: Under standard english an artifact is something made by humans. Under erfworld language its something not made by mortals. Notice the distinct lack of things like power or value there? If you have a super large gem that allows a natural side to spawn enough units to destroy all of GK's forces and take all three of the artifacts you do not have an artifact.

Your point is...? Look, 'artifact' is a term. It has an actual meaning and definition based on what Sizemore said. No need to make more of it than it is.

Three: I would also like to point out we don't know if the selling of the scroll is more comparable to say... getting a mystery box and getting lucky and finding a really good prize, or say buying ore from a gold mine and discovering it also has a large amount of platinum in the ore. If its the first the casting+scroll might be worth 500k, if its the second the predictamancers sold the scroll for less than it was really worth.

Agreed. We have no reason to think another scroll would result in an item being procured that could turn around and be sold for more than we paid for the scroll. For that matter, we don't know if the Bracer can work without Parson. For that matter, we don't know if there are more scrolls.

Four: When talking about the scroll and the value of its results one must note that the casting of the scroll is 150k.

Not neccessarily. The net result is 150k IF GK turns around and sold the bracer, or IF its really worth 150k to keep it. Otherwise, the 150k is just a number.

Prior to the Battle in Book 1, if Stanley had one inkling that he could have sold Parson's bracer for 150k, he probably would have done it.

[dan2178]

First off: Duncan seems to have changed more than Ansom. Ansom loved his brothers, still held to a noble err... honorable code, and still sought to serve the titans. His main change was working for Stanley and loving Wanda. Duncan is apperantly a wholey differant person, and presumably its the effect of the turnamancer. Kind of pathetic for the side claiming to be the good guys. Well, really pathetic actually.

Or maybe Duncan's change is due to his promotion to chief warlord resulting in him taking a broader view of things? Or perhaps Jillian (really Charlie's) tactics has opened his mind to "outside the box" thinking? There are a few plausable reasons to explain it outside of the turnamancer's influence.

[the_tick_rules]

But then again we know almost nothing about what he was like before.

[MonteCristo]

First off: Duncan seems to have changed more than Ansom. Ansom loved his brothers, still held to a noble err... honorable code, and still sought to serve the titans. His main change was working for Stanley and loving Wanda. Duncan is apperantly a wholey differant person, and presumably its the effect of the turnamancer. Kind of pathetic for the side claiming to be the good guys. Well, really pathetic actually.

Turnamancy adjusts loyalty, not necessarily perspective...
theoretically, when turning a unit all you change is which side they fight for and who they call master... otherwise they are largely unchanged
From what i got from this update, his changes are not due to turnamancy but due to his experiences.
It seems that a lot of why he changed was due to how jIllian defeated him... it seems as though it really had an impact on his character