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Phase I of Alpha Two testing will occur on weekends. Each weekend is scheduled to start on Fridays at 10 AM PT and end on Sundays at 10 PM PT. Find out more here.
Check out Alpha Two Announcements here to see the latest Alpha Two news and update notes.
Our quickest Alpha Two updates are in Discord. Testers with Alpha Two access can chat in Alpha Two channels by connecting your Discord and Intrepid accounts here.
Comments
@Cyreph I'm not sure if the other nodes want the same thing (i.e. to solve everything.)
@Illrathuleon Yeah, that's kind of what I believe in real life. I'd imagine in the world of ashes Magic will be as "ordinary" to my character as electricity is ordinary to me in real life.
Aye, it is as your first post mentioned! °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖° And I remember your character is a bard-- a magic user yeah? Then yes, it would be normal for her to see magic. But it's also because there's that innate magical... pool that she has that allows her to utilize magic.
To all just reading through...
Summary of Nako's POV;
Magic is where you are the vessel and you can cast a fireball.
Science is where you need a inanimate object... to cast a fireball.
Divine intervention is when the fireball comes when you begged for it, from an unknown or known source, unknowing if it comes or not.
(ノ*゜▽゜*)
On Earth, in the real world, biology relies on physics rather than arcane or divine magic.
Which is why vampires don't exist IRL - nor fairies, etc.
Yes, I'd refine that statement to say that we haven't seen reasonable proof that such things exist so we have no reason to think that they do.
Ah, that is talking about sources of power though.
I was just looking as science as a subject not as the source of magic.
So let's assume that POV you provided is the general understanding of how magic works in Ashes?
How do we know for certain that the person/mage is the vessel for the power? Is it a gene? Is it something they're born with? Can they be trained into developing it? I'd assume to we'd have to also devise tests to test the affinity of the mages towards magic. Answering those questions, to me, is science. Science is just the study of how those sources react with the world.
So, as with our debate about non-theism as it relates to Ashes.
Since Ashes differentiates between science and arcane and divine, it seems most likely that science refers to the natural world - as would be applied to life on the world we just left - a world without magic.
Whereas magic refers to the supernatural - which returns as viable fields after we return through the gate.
Individual characters can think that magic doesn't exist on Ashes either.
I expect their to be magic deniers, just like we have climate change deniers and people who believe the moon landings are a hoax.
In the Scholars Academy, it's probably a safe bet that we will see study divided into science, arcane magic and divine magic - rather than magic studied under the umbrella of science.
If science is defined in the context of the world that we left, then I'd be in full agreement.
I personally believe that scientists will end up expanding the definition of their fields to understand these new sources. Most Scientists don't believe in certain things because of the lack of proof, but if it does exist. It doesn't seem logical that they'd only stick to their old definition (since even in real life, new discoveries leads to theories and ideas being changed and refinements in Science.)
It's not to say that science absorbed all study of the arcane and/or divine. It's more like they can easily co-exists without opposition.
The only thing I know about Science in the game currently is that Science based nodes have teleport at the metropolis stage. Is this because of the advancement in understanding of the Arcane due to new fields in science? Is it purely a technological wonder? Since there isn't an Arcane node, I'm guessing they might possibly be relatively similar things.
Anyway, from the examples you provided, I think there are way more similarities in our ideas than there are differences. Haha, having magic deniers in the world of ashes will be quite funny. I might have to consider that as the basis of one of my RP alts.
My initial sharing was mainly to illustrate another pov of magic and science coexisting for @ruairidh who said:
Yet I am quite stubborn at wanting to be a mage/caster character and, while science may fit more with an engineer kind of class (like those from Warhammer), mages are the knowledge seekers of the bunch and should be likely to pursue scientific advancement, alongside itheir quest for knowledge.
It feels a little bit contradictory because magic and science are somewhat opposite, yet, for as much as I know, neither I can find a better scientist than a mage, strictly class-speaking, neither I can, yet, distinguish magic and science as things, being magic, to me, just unknown science.
Scholars will expand their knowledge, but science will remain a distinctly separate field from arcane magic and divine magic.
I would expect the denizens of Ashes to use some other term to apply to the systematic study of arcane magic -possibly even named after some legendary arcane scholar- rather than apply the term "scientific method" to the study of arcane magic.
But, then again, the devs seem to be pretty sloppy with their terminology
(classes or archetypes? sub-classes?), so...
We will see.
We know for sure that science node augments will be significantly different from divine node augments.
If Scholar Academies provide augments for all three fields for everyone rather than forcing us to choose separate progression trees - the semantics there may not matter.
Science Metropolis has limited fast travel network.
Was teleport confirmed or airships?
I will have to check, thanks!
Oh man, okay- I see where the thinking part gotta activate now.
"How do we know for certain that the person/mage is the vessel for the power?
Is it a gene?
Is it something they're born with?
Can they be trained into developing it?"
This set of questions and to answer them-- is definitely science. To me, it takes form of a domain of science that we are already aware of-- biology. ESPECIALLY if the idea of magic is normal, then this wouldn't be separate from understanding the human body.
If it comes to actually answering the question, this is my point of view::
God, this is going to sound so stupid, PLEASE BEAR WITH ME.
Yes, it could be a single gene that carries the innate ability of being able to gather the "magic" around to allow it to be manipulated via thoughts- the Somatics or Visuals is simply to help channel the intent. However, I believe this 'gene' cannot be seen... unless with magical means. I believe that a mage is simply an enchanted human... like an enchanted sword. Or an enchanted knife.
However, they must be born with such capabilities. The limits of a flesh body is only so much, and exertion of the body would push it past the limits. Granted, we should be "always optimistic", but the fact that a spell needs to be casted with an intent... could indicate that this "gene for magic" would be close to, or be where the brain would be.
... same imagery as a microwaved egg.
So unless one already has an innate ability for magic, aka for easier understanding, a MP bar, then they can cast magic. Otherwise, nothing will happen. Only THEN, can you developed it. You can have water, but no cup, therefore nothing will hold. It is only when there is a cup, no matter how big, then you can collect the water.
"I'd assume to we'd have to also devise tests to test the affinity of the mages towards magic"
Definitely, but it's only by magic that we can detect magic. I believe once mages (as a civilization) have studied and developed over time, there will be a spell or sort for them to gauge the level. (eg. Detect Magic).
I'm.
...I'm sorry if it sounds weird. ｍ（｡≧ _ ≦｡）ｍ
Haha, no it's not weird at all. I totally understood what you said (perhaps that should worry me :P).
My questions were meant to be rhetorical in a sense that someone else would have done the investigating to the point where we know what we know about magic in the game.
I'm thinking that they'll use the scientific method (though some would disagree :P) to find the best ways to find these limits, or the best spells or even develop a detect magic spell that specializes in detect innate magic in an untrained person.
But I do thank you for your detailed magic idea. Now I'm REALLY looking forward to you DMing an adventure for us where this form of magic exists. Haha. MAKE IT HAPPEN NAKO!
O-oh.
I walked right into that, I'm sorry! ・゜・(ノД`)
Despite the fact that we couldn't use magic on the world we just left.
I think due to the restrictions of game mechanics what we experience in the game is divine magic that will appear to us to be fixed and understandable through what we IRL would call the scientific method. Although, divine magic would probably also defy rules and really cater to the whims of the gods.
Divine magic won't work if the gods don't want it to.
Science worked even away from the Ashes gods.
Magic did not work while away from them.
Regardless of methodologies.
I would assume if you were to somehow go back through a divine gateway, your mana bar and all of your magical abilities would vanish. This leads me to a slightly off topic question, which I'll probably ask in another thread.
The corruption could be another word for dark magic. The fact that the gods chose to pack their followers off through gateways to avoid it, indicates to me that it may be a difficult for even them to control.
So what were the gods doing for the thousands of years that the corruption ruled the planet? Were they fighting it and forcing it underground, or did it naturally decline? Who opened the portals? Why would the "good" gods open the portals if they knew full well the corruption hadn't been eradicated yet?
We have no way of verifying our theories regarding magic and genetics.
For all we know, corruption is considered by the gods to be part of the acceptable balance as long as corruption doesn't become OP.
Perhaps the gods were overwrought by corruption and having finally wrenched everything back into balance, they deemed it time for the mortals to return.
Perhaps, but I don't think the gods in the world of ashes will be omnipotent, possibly because they keep one another in check. So even though rules might be defied, it might only be up to a certain limit.
But threads like this make me hunger for more information on the lore. Haha.
if they decide to use the term corruption to also the game mechanic used to describe the penalties granted to PKer. I'd rather term corruption not be shared between lore and PKers
Heh, it could just be that it could encourage or give them the excuse that "oh I'm just roleplaying that's why I'm stabbing all these low leveled characters in the starting area".
Alt turned into a zombie.