Dev diary: Ritual, Skills, Wyrd

[martinuzz]

I would be sad to see the LP system replaced by Wyrd. I like the way it is now. Same for fast travel.
I'd rather see Wyrd, as suggested before, giving buffs.

[KoE]

In my more ranty moments I've noticed I keep disparaging the concept of wyrd replacing LP as an advancement system, so I might as well make that (likely irrelevant) opinion public. It may have evolved into something a little less ridiculous sounding in the intervening months, but I doubt the devs are gonna be keen on enlightening is.

My main worry is that it'll wind up being like Ancestral Worship; hype built up (though that may have been me imagining it) and the follow-through system being fairly craptacular. Except this time it's character advancement and not a side system.

[Sarchi]

I have to agree with a lot of people in here. Using Wyrd to level up skills is just awful, but I think that using Wyrd as a way to buy new skills is a fairly reasonable idea. If LP is such a bad system because it allows farmers to increase totally unrelated skills, why not introduce an Experience system akin to what most MMO's have? For example, if you are a farmer, you could only increase your farming stat by plowing a field or planting/harvesting crops. Likewise, you could increase your Sewing stat by making linen, silk, or clothes. You increase your Exploration stat by picking nettles, rustroots, blueberries, and taproots, etc.

On the topic of teleportation, I don't support replacing teleportation at all. Perhaps there could be a minor resource cost per teleportation (though I don't think that the current system is broken, at all...). I think that replacing teleportation would make raiders a bigger problem and scare away newcomers. Hell, from my experience as a noob, I was fairly dependent on the teleportation system. It would have been a major turnoff if that ability was taken away.

Likewise, I don't think that it's very fair that players will be forced to interact with each other. It's just the style of quite many players to be self-reliant and not having to worry about dealing with other folks. It's a legitimate playing style, and I don't think it's wise to basically force players to co-operate. However, I do think that there needs to be benefits for those that decide to team up and work for the common good instead of working for their own separate selfish ambitions.

As for everything else concerning Wyrd, it seems fairly reasonable, although it's not something that I'm excited about going through another reset over...

[Avu]

Raising farming by hunting or hunting by farming is perfectly fine. It let's you do whatever you enjoy doing instead of retarded grind (don't get me wrong it's still grind but there's good kind of grind and your kind of grind).

[Zamte]

Not to mention hugs, tea, sunsets, and knocking on doors doesn't seem very viking-like.

http://www.havenandhearth.com/portal/about

Haven & Hearth is a MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game) set in a fictional world loosely inspired by Slavic and Germanic myth and legend.

Yes. Germanic peoples. Like the Swedes, Danes, and Norwegians. The places which the vikings come from. Runestones are almost always identified with them. Runestones were used largely for staking claims, which we just so happen to use as a main centerpiece of the game (granted without the use of a runestone, which I still think is a shame).

These guys are Swedish, and I think it's safe to say the game is meant largely to be based on the history of the area around there during history. The original Slavs also come from the areas east of Denmark, around where Poland is today. I don't see it as far fetched at all to assume that the Swedish guys making the game intended "Germanic" to include... you know, themselves.

[jorb]

Runestones were by and large erected as commemorations of the dead, or as personal boasts, and to a lesser extent to mark claims. Claim markings -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_mark -- were most likely rather carved into anything (a house, a tree or, I'm sure, even smaller stones) and everything scattered about the claim in question that was deemed suitable for the purpose. Permanent enough to last a life time, but not permanent enough to become a burden for future owners of the estate. The Indo-Europeans were certainly well aware of their own mortality, and of the fact that they would not possess any piece of land forever. The memory of a dead person was conversely, however, thought to be more or less immortal.

Deyr fé,
deyja frændr,
deyr sjálfr et sama;
ek veit einn,
at aldri deyr:
dómr of dauðan hvern.

- Hávamál

A hint of the importance a person's memory was thought to hold can be derived from observing that the harshest punishment that could be meted out by the Roman senate was the Damnatio Memoriae, Damnation of Memory, which meant the systematic eradication of a person's memory from Roman history. A person thus struck from the rolls of collective remembrance was most likely thought to have suffered a fate far worse than death, and the punishment was also reserved for people who were considered to have brought grave dishonor either to themselves or to the Roman state. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damnatio_Memoriae

In the wider Indo-European mythos we also find that the concept of the boundary is often thought to be sacred, with the Roman God Terminus providing a case in point. -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_%28god%29 -- And there is little reason not to assume that the Germanic tribes had similar concepts concerning the sacrality of property. The Westrogothic law devotes a fair amount of time to the subject of property, but, then again, that is both well into Christian times and also a natural preoccupation for any codex of laws, and not necessarily something uniquely Indo-European, nor proof of any special sacrality accorded to the subject.

I notice that both the Swedish and English Wikis stress the importance of the Runestones as claim markers, but I believe that they both misstate the case somewhat. The inscriptions on the stones do not carry functional messages intended to be useful, for example, in the event of a legal dispute -- "So and so owns this from here to there" -- but, rather "So and so lived here or there and did this or that". Both variants would of course overlap and serve the common purpose of marking a presence, and while that was obviously an important function of the runestone (and of any monument, for that matter) I do not believe that the messages on them were primarily intended to be read by contemporaries, but that they were, rather, intended for posterity.

The principal means of confirming ownership (of land) in traditional Norse society was the oral Odal right. According to the principles of the Odal, a person is entitled to a piece of land if he can cite between three (Frostatingslagen) and six (Gulatingslagen) continuous generations of his own ancestors having lived on the property in question. The Wikis are right insofar as that several runestones confirm this right by making explicit mention of it, most notably perhaps the Nora stone -- http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norah%C3%A4llen

We can thus observe that the functions of remembrance and property overlap, with right to the latter being almost exclusively derived from a very concrete practicing of the former, but I maintain that runestones, unlike boundary stones or a house mark, were not intended as practical or functional markers of ownership. When we flesh out the ancestral worship system I think I can guarantee that the runestones will have their functionalities vastly extended.

So, with all that said, what, then, is the historical basis for the H&H claim pole? None whatsoever, of course.

[Potjeh]

Slavs, on the other hand, weren't so hot on personal property, as evidenced by Russian obshchina and South Slavic zadruga.

/irrelevant fact of the day

[GhostOfZed]

Since the world 5 thread is locked and I could not imagine sifting through 100+ pages, is Wyrd still going to be implemented in the future?

[sabinati]

no

[DatOneGuy]

Would like to see Marching implemented for carts/wagons.