A question for the development team and/or for player speculation

[Prolix]

You don't have to know how to make a weapon to use it, you do have to know how to make a spell. It is true once you have learned the spell you don't need to remember how it was made but if you accidentally lose one of the glyphs you need you will have to figure out which one(s) you need. That is one major difference. Another is you do not have to take damage to learn how to equip the weapon which, to me, is analogous to researching the spell. Once you learn a spell it is always at hand unless your mana is depleted. That is like being unable to fight due to stamina loss.

The difference between knife and long sword styles is similar to the difference between Red Way and Brown Way. The former are differing weapon styles and the latter are differing magic styles. The difference between weapon styles and magic styles is greater than that amongst weapon styles or that amongst magic styles.

[Mythryndel]

Are you asking for in-character justification or just complaining? There have been a couple of very good explanations that could work to justify the current mechanics to the satisfaction of a character from Yliakum. You keep saying that these are not good enough and it should really by like "this". You could make the same argument about the weapons styles from the perspective of someone who has studied martial arts. This is a ROUGH simulation of the real world, NOT the real thing. If you have such a problem with gaining and combining glyphs, then maybe magic in PS just isn't for you.

[Prolix]

I thought I was responding to the replies that were offered to me. From what I understand, the martial arts will be Argan, Esteria, and Lah'ar. For some reason they are listed under "other" skills so I am not positive about that. Other people have offered suggestions and I appreciated them. At the same time, for one reason or other they did not work for me and I tried to indicate why.

If I just wanted to justify the current policy from an in character perspective, I could simply assume that it is the way it is because the gods have willed it to be so. Concise and irrefutable. There are gods active in the world and everything bad can be blamed on them and everything good credited to one or more of them.

Talad created the glyphs and he jealously guards knowledge about them. The npc trainers know that bad things will happen to them if they talk about glyphs or spell combinations, the players just have not learned it yet. That might be a good justification except that the players will likely never suffer any consequences from relating the information.

I suppose the previous suggestions basically boil down to 'discovering glyph combinations it the trivial part of learning magic' and that the trainers ration out the difficult parts as you level. If that were so I think that examining one purified glyph would give you a resonant feeling about another purified glyph in your possession that was related by sharing a spell connection. Advanced casting levels would give you stronger feelings about more powerful glyph combinations. I do not know how this could be implemented though.

Anyway I am more than happy to keep discussing this if people have more ideas.

By the way, bilbous is still looking for a book of glyph combinations if there are any mages out there that care to write one out in the game.

[MustangMR]

Well, some more ideas.  The glyphs in game, as I understand them, would be small stones with symbols on them.  The symbols would represent words of power infused into them by... I guess Talad if I'm reading everything right.  Color doesn't really mean anything other than a means of identifying the category of words the symbol on them represents.  Those symbols would require interpretation, and meaning, and if they were to somehow represent a gods language, one symbol could have many meanings and usages with varying powers in each one.  You would have to be taught the meaning of the glyphs, how to pronounce the words correctly, etc...

Then, add to it that a person's ability to manipulate their own thoughts is a learned skill.  Meditation can be a tougher skill to learn than sword fighting.  All the emotional baggage that people carry can corrupt the purity of their thoughts and make even the simplest directed thought impossible.  Add that in, and all these teachers around the area are really spiritual advisers as much as anything else.  To channel the energy of the glyphs, you have to pull it all together, pure thoughts to channel, speak the words correctly, perhaps even hold them correctly.  So I still see value in the trainers around the world and the system in place. 

Now, this is all my interpretation.  I could role play it like this, but it doesn't mean it's what the games authors (i.e., the lolgods), intended.  Till it becomes lore, it's hard to say how to roleplay it right.  I do not understand the purification process described and how that fits in, unless you consider purifying them to be part of the understanding of the symbol.  After that though, the combining of them would be based on the players knowledge of the words/symbols on them and how to form more powerful sentences with them.  That seems within terms of what could be expected of the glyph magic system in game and in character.  I think the process of researching could be a bit more involved, but no biggie. 

As for other players telling each other the recipes, well, perhaps there should be more consequences, like backfires, to keep powerful mages from sharing too powerful spells with young acolytes.  Otherwise, you can't really stop that, and I would put forward other players, if you really want PS to be about role playing, should be able to train up other characters if their skill is higher.  They can charge what they want, and the trainers in the world are just a sort of check on making sure people don't abuse the player base.

What bothers me the most though... why are they all standing around on street corners all day long?  Shouldn't they be off in a cave or a study somewhere focusing their thoughts?

[Mythryndel]

Prolix... I like your suggestion about "sensing" a stronger connection between glyphs as you gain higher levels. I have given considerable thought to come up with a suggestion on how to implement it. If you are level 0-5 in any given way, you are stuck with random chance. If you are level 6-10 you start to gain a sense for what glyphs might go together because those that are compatible would change color slightly after placing one in the research area. If you are a level 11 - 15 you might get a different color change indicating only those glyphs that would be compatible after the one already placed. lather, rinse, repeat. I am just using the level brackets above as a suggestion, but whatever level ranges would be appropriate given the max level available in-game would likely change the numbers I used.

[Prolix]

Very well put. What I think you are saying is that the trainers teach you grammar and vocabulary but learning spell combinations is learning to apply the lessons and to make meaningful sentences. I can accept that. I just wish there were more clues to developing the spell combinations but perhaps there is and I just haven't quested enough for the instructors.

As far as purification goes, it would seem to me to be taking the potential energy of the glyph and turning it into kinetic energy. Sort of unwrapping the batteries before putting them into your device. I wouldn't mind if the research was more involved as long as it was less painful. Maybe it depends on your stats and the closer to max mental stats you have the less damage you receive per attempt.

Where else will you find your cash cow ... I mean students ... and why in all those kung fu movies is the master a cook, a servant or the drunk in the corner? It may be a case of 'hide in plain sight,' avoid trouble by seeming innocuous. Or just plain laziness.

Myth that sound pretty good to me, the appropriate levels might be the ones associated with the realms which are either 10 or 20, I am not positive what they are specifically.