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4/13/2017 9:00:16 AMLet's talk Astronomy/Astrology
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Ravenlute

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As a skill, Astronomy will let you navigate by the stars. There has been mention of skilled Astronomers venturing into the realm of Astrology and revealing the destiny of others.

I had a bit of a discussion with Matrim Cauthon about this and here's some ideas we came up with.

Discovering Talents

While it could be potentially used for finding out if someone has a latent talent and what that talent might be, it's my personal opinion that this should not be included. Talents are a mysterious force that create story twists. If they are made easy to discover then they cease being that special thing and become just another item on the checklist to take care of during your characters lifetime. So leave it out.

Fortune Telling

The use of Fortune Telling would be two-fold.

First, it could provide hints to a characters personal story arch. SBS has mentioned that the Soulborn Engine will create story objectives for each character that will follow the character around and activate when certain conditions are met. By using Fortune Telling, hints could be provided that would lead a character to unlock those conditions.

For example, your character is destined to fight a pteroguin but this is unknown to you. You get your Fortune read and are guided to spend some time in a part of the land that is native to large groups of pteroguin. This way, the Fortune doesn't directly tell you what to do but improves the chance of it happening by focusing your attention in a certain location. Since these story quests are already established, getting a Fortune told would just be pulling a detail from that quest in the form of a hint.

In true Fortune Telling form, you could get a wrong or false reading. This false reading chance would decrease as the Astronomers skill rises. Too many false readings would lead to discouragement and lack of use for the skill so I don't think it should start at any higher than 50% when first made available.

Secondly, you could use Fortune Telling to guide you toward your Soulmate. If your twin soul was not activated yet at the time of the reading then you would simply learn that there is no draw towards another. However, if someone was playing your Soulmate the reading could present a direction that the character is in at that moment. Something like, "follow the tail of Manticore," which would be the star at the end of the constellation of Manticore positioned SW of you. Later on you could get another reading to see if the direction changed. A bit like tracking on a massive scale and using the stars instead of footprints.

Prophecy

Similar to Fortune Telling but involving world-wide events. This would produce results that would not be limited to a single Astronomer, many users across the world would forecast the same thing. An example would be: "A King will fall," when a King hits that black line and has only a short time left before their spirit vanishes and they die of old age. Another example: "A new land will be discovered," when the devs have opened up a new continent and over-sea travel is made available. In fact, the devs could use Prophecy as a way of informing players of new features in-game without coming right out and saying it! How awesome would that be?

I hope this has sparked some ideas of your own and I'd love to know what you think on this subject!

4/13/2017 9:14:14 AM #1
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DarioZ

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Interesting but: how can you tell that the hag at the summer fair told you really your fortune and was not an impostor?

I could start to go around telling people I've the talent, that they have to go to the far north to fight off beasts. Would they believe me? Would you do? I don't really think foretelling is too much an issue. Prophecies are quite tricky as the story will be player driven. So you can end to useless prophecy "someone somewhere sometime will die". That's a reason why Anara Starsong is a NPC prophet and she can foretell something because the Dev will make use of her to help driving the story arc.

Duke of Lyrhia

4/13/2017 9:27:24 AM #2
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Ravenlute

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If you just faked it and lied, I don't suppose too many people would come back to you.

4/13/2017 12:35:04 PM #3
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Atlas Forgiven

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I think your fortune and talents are kind of tied hand in hand. Part of your story arch would be part of the talents because from what I understand most talents will be triggered under more epic means than mundane ones.

They've stated that there might be some region/world wide events where certain talents are needed to carry along a plot line. So say your an every day merchant or farmer and an evil demigod appears or something you might think to your self " Ill just let the knights with their shiny armor and sharp kill things take care of that" you might just miss both your destiny and your talent.

However if an astrologers onces told you that when "gods come to earth you shine brightly and protect your fellow man"

You might be convinced to go and fight even though your a simple merchant or farmer.

Thats just my two sense any way

4/13/2017 3:34:36 PM #4

guildsbounty

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If you're interested...I actually wrote a rather lengthy exploration into my take on Astronomy and Astrology a while ago. If you'd like to have a read on it....

Astronomy Deepdive

It more-or-less incorporates your ideas already, but also tacks on a bunch of other practically useful things that an Astronomer can do to build up their skill and make a living, beyond just guessing at the future.

Knowing what I can do isn’t the same thing as knowing what I can’t do.

4/13/2017 9:22:04 PM #5
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Ravenlute

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Posted By guildsbounty at 08:34 AM - Thu Apr 13 2017

If you're interested...I actually wrote a rather lengthy exploration into my take on Astronomy and Astrology a while ago. If you'd like to have a read on it....

Astronomy Deepdive

It more-or-less incorporates your ideas already, but also tacks on a bunch of other practically useful things that an Astronomer can do to build up their skill and make a living, beyond just guessing at the future.

That's fantastic! Having never seen that before and having the same ideas on a few points is even more encouraging. I hope the devs are able to gather what we've suggested and bring us a fun and challenging skill line.

5/2/2017 9:59:07 PM #6

TheGuardian

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I love your ideas on prophecy and, to some extent, discovering those with talents and where they are located.

As you have read, Agravaine Academy is meant to be a supernatural safe haven of some kind. It's kind of hard to provide proper, unrestricted training when there's a "blinking on the map" and every man and their brother rushes off to find this person.

Perhaps a happy median? Maybe some astrologists can find these talents while others can not. But so far, I agree, every astrologist shouldn't just be able to figure out where a talent is, as much as I would love to have that info.

- Shmuck

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