Divine Relation

[geloooo]

Description: We suspect that some of the deity relations in game have yet to catch up to what is written in LORE. A priestess of the Dark Mother cast the spell on a monk of Sulterio and it appeared as Neutral, when it should be Unfriendly.

Location: N/A

Verified: N/A

Reproducable: Most probably

[Dorganath]

The deity relationship that's used by the spell is correct in the database (Unfriendly).

Where was this monk that was the target of the spell? I'm assuming it's an NPC monk somewhere, since the most recent time a PC monk of Sulterio was in-game was January, 2009. It's possible the NPC just isn't coded properly.

[geloooo]

I may have mixed that up, I'm not so sure. It was last night while Ni'haer was with To'ryll and Gladyus, followers of the Dark Mother and Sulterio respectively. Perhaps Alatriel may be able to shed some more light on this.

[Alatriel]

My guess on this is that either the godfield of the character was not filled in, or not filled in correctly (spelling issue maybe)  But since I didn't have another worshipper of Sulterio to test on I couldn't verify it *shrugs*  a spelling error in the character's deity field would be simple to fix.

[Dorganath]

I suspect "not filled in" is the proper answer here.  The last time any follower of Sulterio logged in was November 22, 2009.

I checked for similar spellings and got nothing, so I'm guessing it's blank.

[geloooo]

**He raises an eyebrow towards Gladyus and taps his chin*

[EdTheKet]

Gladyus Rockhand has a blank deity field.

[stragen]

This has been fixed.

[Chazzler]

I've had similar occurrences with Unther Hardhammer, a character of mine.
When casting divine relation to other PC's that I know have a deity field,
the spell reports as such: "Your target is neutral in Dorand's eyes" or somesuch, Not "Your target's deity is X in Dorand's eyes".

[Alatriel]

That's the way it's supposed to work.  the only time it will tell you exactly which deity they follow is if it is the same as your own.  It only tells you relations, hence "Divine Relation" not "Divine Specification"

er... well, unless you're saying that it was supposed to be other than Neutral?  a person with a neutral divine relation would appear the same as someone with no field filled in...

[Hellblazer]

I don't think he is saying that it should report the name of the deity, but that it's not saying "Your target deity is friendly in Dorands eyes"*. Instead he is seeing, "your target is friendly in Dorands eyes"?. Referring to the character and not the deity.

* Refers to the deity instead of the character, being friendly in the eyes of the caster deity.

? Refers to the character instead of the deity, being friendly in the eyes of the caster deity.

[Alatriel]

*face palms*  okay... yep.  must have read that before coffee.  Nevermind!  

[Chazzler]

Yeah, they're always (as far as I can recall) without Deity and saying Neutral.

[Dorganath]

Divine Relation asks your deity what he/she thinks of the person, not the deity worshiped by the person. It is telling you that your deity considers the person an allied, friendly, neutral, unfriendly or enemy individual.

Indirectly, it gives the opinion of one's deity on another, but most directly, it gives a review of the individual.

So the wording is correct.

[Hellblazer]

Yeah but Dorand isn't neutral toward all deity like Aragen is. So Unther seems to be having some kind of a bug, if he sees everything as neutral when casting DR?

[lonnarin]

Divine Relation asks your deity what he/she thinks of the person, not the deity worshiped by the person. It is telling you that your deity considers the person an allied, friendly, neutral, unfriendly or enemy individual.

Indirectly, it gives the opinion of one's deity on another, but most directly, it gives a review of the individual.

So the wording is correct.

Well, that's supposing that the deities are so fickle that they only judge people based upon the god that they follow.  The only variable checked is Deity field, and not the long list of CDTs, CDQs, RP events, relationships, temple donations, etc.  The individual is not being judged here, just the faith they have.

For example, say there was a Voraxian battlepriest who looked upon a Folianite who despite his own faith's relations with Vorax's church, hated all dwarves with a passion and blasphemed Vorax's name.  Sure Folian is liked by Vorax, but would Vorax really look kindly upon this Folianite positively after blaspheming him?

The wrath and grace of the gods seems more complex than narrowing it down to just what's in the deity field.  After all, Grand once worshiped Dorand.  When Dorand looked upon him for the first time, did he automatically  just shrug and say "well, he's an orc, but he follows me... I'll give him a heal spell!"

I wish there were further permutations on the divine revelation checks; namely Race, Alignment & Temple Donations.  And for certain gods, their very creed demands that their faith show mercy to any foe.  Aeriden and Azatta probably shouldn't be docking xp when their faithful show mercy to their enemies.

Food for Thought when coding the MMORPG.

[Dorganath]

I've had similar occurrences with Unther Hardhammer, a character of mine.
When casting divine relation to other PC's that I know have a deity field,
the spell reports as such: "Your target is neutral in Dorand's eyes" or somesuch, Not "Your target's deity is X in Dorand's eyes".

Yeah but Dorand isn't neutral toward all deity like Aragen is. So Unther seems to be having some kind of a bug, if he sees everything as neutral when casting DR?

Unless I am mis-reading it, he is talking about characters known to have deity fields, not necessarily characters whose deity is not neutral to Dorand.  It seems, based on what he typed, that the expectation was to give feedback on the other characters deity when it gives feedback on the character based on the deity followed by that character.

So my response was based on the idea that Chazzler was commenting on how the message was worded, not on the correctness of the relationship reported.

If this is not the case and he always sees "neutral" when using Divine Relation, then I would ask that he clarifies that.  Otherwise, my comments above stand.

[Chazzler]

I'll need to do further testing on this matter, which will be OOC in nature.

[Dorganath]

Well, that's supposing that the deities are so fickle that they only judge people based upon the god that they follow.  The only variable checked is Deity field, and not the long list of CDTs, CDQs, RP events, relationships, temple donations, etc.  The individual is not being judged here, just the faith they have.

Correct, but the deity field is meant, as we have long said, to indicate a very high level of devotion, and by definition, for clerics, that deity field is absolutely all that is needed.

The field is not meant to be populated by people who say...decide to go to church a few times a month so they can call themselves Lucindites/Dorandites/Toranites/etc.  Those people should not have anything in the deity field and any deity would consider them neutrally.

As for donations, despite what televangelists would have you believe, one cannot buy piety.

For example, say there was a Voraxian battlepriest who looked upon a Folianite who despite his own faith's relations with Vorax's church, hated all dwarves with a passion and blasphemed Vorax's name.  Sure Folian is liked by Vorax, but would Vorax really look kindly upon this Folianite positively after blaspheming him?

A blaspheming battlepriest would no longer be a priest, and thus would no longer be able to cast spells granted by Vorax, so it's pretty much a moot point!

The wrath and grace of the gods seems more complex than narrowing it down to just what's in the deity field.  After all, Grand once worshiped Dorand.  When Dorand looked upon him for the first time, did he automatically  just shrug and say "well, he's an orc, but he follows me... I'll give him a heal spell!"

All I'm going to say there is the gods who were once mortals likely retain some (most?) of their mortal foibles.

I wish there were further permutations on the divine revelation checks; namely Race, Alignment & Temple Donations.  And for certain gods, their very creed demands that their faith show mercy to any foe.  Aeriden and Azatta probably shouldn't be docking xp when their faithful show mercy to their enemies.

Again, donations do not buy piety.  Donations build churches.  Lucinda is not going to say, "Bah, that one's a Corathite...oh...but I see he donated a few million to the cause.  Very well then! No harm done, hey?"  It just doesn't work like that.

What would more permutations mean though? More gradations to the relationships? Or would each thing get a point value, different for each of the 28 deities, of course, and combined with an aggregated donation total come up with some value, and with X number of points, that somehow improves the relationship to the next level?

So what then does faith mean when one can just buy favor?

[Dorganath]

A blaspheming battlepriest would no longer be a priest, and thus would no longer be able to cast spells granted by Vorax, so it's pretty much a moot point!

It was pointed out to me that I may have given this response from an incorrect perspective.

I think it suffices to say, however, that while there may be cases where a more nuanced approach would make sense, mechanically speaking, nuances are often very difficult to code.

What we have works.  It may not be perfect, but it's a good framework for what it does.