Today, it's all about .... MISSIONS! Glorious missions.

[lucetimods]

As you may have noticed, the long-awaited missions system has FINALLY ARRIVED! There is a seriously huge amount of information available to you guys. A quick and easy navbar of links can be found on each and every post and/or relevant nitpicker's guide section related to mission and mission shenanigans.

Most of the information you will need to know is contained within those posts, so I won't go into depth here. I will leave you with a few details:

Today, October 22nd, there will be an IC announcement from a new face in the Malnosso organization. He'll describe some things for you all, ICly and OOCly, and will mark today as the first day characters will become aware of this system.

However, the system itself WILL NOT GO LIVE TODAY. Missions will actually start on November 1st. There will be no missions available until that date.

As usual, please only leave questions for us in the MOD QUESTIONS thread!

(And yes, for now, the navbar has one correct link. Once CJ's post is up that'll be corrected. s'all good.)

Go nuts!

Comments

MOD QUESTIONS

[lucetimods]

[consultmybooks]

For signing up for experimentation, would the characters still be allowed to have effects carry over after the mission ends and they're returned to the village? Or would that counteract the "humane" aspect of this new approach?

[lucetimods]

Oh, do you mean the Shift Experimentation? It can go whatever way you want it to. So if you'd like to have them return from their mission with effects still remaining, go for it!

[consultmybooks]

CJ has it down as "Test Subject." Volunteering for Shift Experimentation? That's the "experiment" alternative to kidnapping, right?

Coolness, good to know!

[lucetimods]

OMG sorry. Yes. Those are the same thing. My brain is addled by all this information. (Good luck to y'all just seeing it for the first time!)

[eyesofstrength]

How long are the one time missions going to typically be available? Or will that be added later on once dates are determined.

[lucetimods]

Well, the unique missions won't be available straight away. For now, it's just the regular missions. We'll be giving more specific info about the unique ones as time moves along; we need to get the system working (and working smoothly!) before we use those, much. At the very least, they are unique for a reason, so they shouldn't need to come up too much in the near future.

However, we will also be adding to the regular, open missions over time, so there will be more things there to compensate.

[eyesofstrength]

Awesome! I know I definitely was wanting in on a few of those, but November wouldn't be all that good. Definitely looks like it will be lots of fun!

Re: MOD QUESTIONS

[blessedbyfarore]

For the combat testing - is that against simulated enemies? In other words, not actually hurting anyone?

[lucetimods]

Yup, it's all simulated.

[blessedbyfarore]

Cool, thanks :)

[consultmybooks]

NEW QUESTION. How is signing up for the unique, limited slot missions handled? Are there days where they will be considered "available?" Do they have to be ICly announced first? Are there precedents given?

[lucetimods]

Right now the limited missions are in the beta stage. So the current ones are mostly examples (though they will happen anyway). Once things are ironed out, we'll let people know. In the future, they'll most likely be time sensitive and when they go up, a set of dates will be attached to them.

[eyesofstrength]

Another question actually, or more like a few. Can the high level rewards be used for things like the ability to learn powers that are available in their canon, but not known to the character as long as said power isn't absolutely unique to a certain individual? Obviously nothing horribly abusive like Joshua or Leonhardt learning Weissmann's ability to wipe memories, but more like the Golden Sun cast getting another Teleport Lapis rather than needing to share one among the cast.

Second, would it be possible for a character who has summons to get the ability to use them again as a high level reward?

And last, is it possible for characters to obtain things from a future timeframe via a reward (obviously they would need to know said thing exists first, so assuming this is covered), obviously in this case it would be equal to the appropriate level. I can understand this would likely be a case by case basis, but more is it possible and worth asking about?

And sorry about that, but thanks for taking the time to answer!

[lucetimods]

In general, the items should be something that isn't one-of-a-kind and is something characters would normally be able to find in their own world (the more effort = the higher level of reward). So if there are multiple Teleport Lapis items in the Golden Sun world, it could certainly apply.

We've discussed bringing back the ability to learn summons via missions. So it's something we plan to do, it's just not rolled out yet.

As for future items, that would fall under the same guidelines as above.

[semper_cogitans]

Now that LJ is working... I have a few questions, fff. Sorry for bombarding you guys, and if there's anything you can't answer don't worry about it. ;;

Firstly, about the missions themselves: What kind of biota will there be in other enclosures? Will it also seem "Earthlike" or will it be significantly different? What about the areas outside barriers; are those Earthlike too? (For that matter, is everything enclosed by barriers?) I'm mostly curious about unbarrier'd surroundings, because previous events suggested the sky was red without the barrier's interference, so I'm not sure what worlds would look like outside of it.

Secondly, more about specific rewards and such: Can the barcode adhesives be studied? Can points be earned for someone else, or earned as a joint effort? What's the limitation on technology that could be procured at "high" reward point levels?

... Sorry about asking so many questions, ffff. And that isn't even the end of them... I'd probably bug you guys directly for more information if I was ever going to do something, but I figure these apply more generally. 8|;

[lucetimods]

For the most part, the other enclosures will have Earth-like flora and fauna. If you want to make things interesting, they might have species from other parts of the world. The Luceti enclosure generally tends to reflect North American wildlife, for instance. Another one might be more similar to India, Europe, Australia, or so on. There might even be a few that reflect other worlds, but those will be a bit more rare. Those enclosures might, for instance, have chimera animals from The Last Airbender series running about.

They can be studied, but without knowing how Shifting works, it will be an unsolvable puzzle. Like trying to read Egyptian without a Rosetta Stone.

Points cannot be combined, so characters have to earn them on their own. They can freely distribute their prizes to others, though.

Vehicles are still a no go, so they won't grant any requests for items that would ultimately be used for that purpose. Advanced technology will generally only be granted if they have innocuous uses and is from more or less modern times. General rule of thumb is items that won't have a heavy impact on things.

To add on to that, any character can requests items that would be available on modern Earth (and fit the above criteria), but canon-specific stuff will only be granted to people from within that canon. That means, for instance, Sokka cannot request a tricorder from Star Trek.

[semper_cogitans]

Whew. Thanks, Masa, for answering all those questions. \o/

I'm not sure if you missed the barrier-specific questions, though, or if they're just not something you can answer. It's fine if you guys can't - I'm just not certain.

[lucetimods]

Most places have some kind of barrier to create a protection from natural shifts. So they generally won't be sent anywhere without something in place to protect them. It will also effectively make it extremely difficult to actually escape, since it sets a physical limitation for how far they can actually get.

[chikaidestroyer]

Wooow. So much information. Especially the Nitpicker's Guide. Good grief. Major props for the detailed information, mod team. Thank you!

[lucetimods]

I think a small novel was written in dedication of this new system, I'm ngl.

[consultmybooks]

Wooooow, look at all the stuff! I feel like a kid in a twisted, scientific, Aperture candy store. Where to start? Kudos to the modsquad for getting all of this together!

I got a look at the NPC's new post. I like him. He's weird.

[corrinesbell]

Clearly the reason I woke up from my nap when I did was to be able to process all of this text. It looks exciting. I am excited.

[whatdeheckisdat]

...Great, now I have to find a way to balance Dhaos' HURRRMALNOSSO attitude with his desire to actually do crap and learn more. CURSE YOU MODS.

I love you guys omg.

[falenandawn]

So, how much informations would characters be able to gather from these missions about Luceti, The Malnosso, and their enemies? Because these missions could double as recon for the village and I know Frey would be all for it. As long as it remains volunteer because if they start dragging off people for no reason he will flip things....

[lucetimods]

It's more or less all laid out in the Nitpicker's Guide about what they should be able to discover. The Malnosso will be taking efforts to keep too much information from slipping through.

More information might get leaked through on the unique, limited missions. In those instances, we'll be sure to mention what can be gathered.