With my necro, checked 5 graveyards and couldn't raise anything but a ghoul. Is it a questy spell or like that? Not everyone by default can raise special greater undeads?

What is the Imm stance towards this idea. Are Imms OK with players making a public list of graveyards and what undeads people have pulled from them?

I am assuming here that no graveyards from areas explorer are listed.

Daevryn posted on the Announcements, if you didn't see:
http://forums.carrionfields.com/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=3&topic_id=2460&mesg_id=2470&page=

But it does not indicate how this is done, as the syntax does not appear to contain any argument. How is the choosing done and does the spell contain some kind of argument for casting?

Three questions on casting greater undead:

1. If the spell contains an argument for choosing your greater undead in fashion of 'cast 'greater undead' ghoul' would casting the spell without argument choose your undead randomly between ghoul and mummy in a graveyard that does not contain one of your special undeads?

2. Assuming that there is a casting argument, would 'cast 'greater undead' ghoul' still pull a ghoul in a graveyard that contains one of your special undeads?

3. Let's assume that you cast greater undead without argument in a graveyard that does not contain one of your special undead. Will you pull randomly either a ghoul or a mummy or is the undead always ghoul at higher levels and always mummy at lower levels?

1. No, you will waste 200 mana and will get response:

Which type of greater undead do you wish to summon, ghoul or mummy?

I don't know if one of them will be replaced with different undead, since I haven't found my places yet.

2. Seems not. If I understand everything right, when you casr greater undead with 'ghoul' as an argument, and in a right place, instead of the ghoul you will have your special undead. If not, try mummy - and if you are lucky, you will have something special instead of the mummy.

3. No, you will have a same answer:

Which type of greater undead do you wish to summon, ghoul or mummy?

>But it does not indicate how this is done, as the syntax does
>not appear to contain any argument. How is the choosing done
>and does the spell contain some kind of argument for casting?
>
>Three questions on casting greater undead:
>
>1. If the spell contains an argument for choosing your greater
>undead in fashion of 'cast 'greater undead' ghoul' would
>casting the spell without argument choose your undead randomly
>between ghoul and mummy in a graveyard that does not contain
>one of your special undeads?

If you cast it without an argument (regardless of whether you're in a special spot or not) you'll get "you must choose mummy or ghoul" or something to that effect. If you cast it with an argument (mummy or ghoul, either one) in one of your special spots, you'll raise the special undead. Regardless of which you chose.

>2. Assuming that there is a casting argument, would 'cast
>'greater undead' ghoul' still pull a ghoul in a graveyard that
>contains one of your special undeads?

See above.

>3. Let's assume that you cast greater undead without argument
>in a graveyard that does not contain one of your special
>undead. Will you pull randomly either a ghoul or a mummy or is
>the undead always ghoul at higher levels and always mummy at
>lower levels?

See above.

If i raise special undead in my ghoul slot, will it be stronger than my special undead in mummy slot (similar to as ghoul stronger than a mummy)?

Ghoul/Mummy fill the greater undead slot, if you want to think of it that way, so the special undead (if you raise one) will be the same strength in filling the greater undead slot whether you tried to call a ghoul or a mummy.

Thanks for making it cleear. Last question that came from previous:
How many slots each necromancer get? 2 ghoul slots and 2 mummy slots, or it's abolutely randomly?

If it's randomly, does that meeans that one necro can be superlucky and have 4 ghoul slots whlie another can be unlucky and get 4 mummy slots?

Thanks!

You need to stop thinking of the slot as being ghoul or mummy; it's just a greater undead slot. There's no categorization of that kind, it's just that lower level necromancers don't get a choice of what to call.

But as you said, special undead in ghoul's spot would be stronger than greater undead in mummy's spot. I'm only trying to understand how they are being distributed.

But probably they are equal in strength and misunderstood something (again)?

If you cast greater undead in one of your special locations, it won't matter if you were originally trying for mummy or ghoul - you'll get the special greater undead, which will be exactly the same either way. Choosing ghoul or mummy won't change the properties of your greater undead.

Thanks, now it's all clear and no more questions.
Now I see that my rant about time consuming was wrong, sorry there.

It will require twice less of the time, and this is good enough.

This looks really interesting. Thanks guys for the effort in design and code.

All new and existing necromancers can raise the new undead; all existing necromancers were actually (randomly) assigned their special undead slots quite a while ago.

The questy aspect is that we could assign you a specific additional undead as a quest reward. There will also likely be an edge soon that gives you one more special undead slot.

Can we at least get some hints as to where the special undead *aren't*? For instance, are protected city or hometown graveyards a possibility? Or are they all in more obscure and hidden graveyards?

Is it possible to have your undeads in enemy cabal? For a scion player - graveyard in black sect, for imperial - graveyard inside of scions cabal?

Arials underwater?

In explore areas?

>Is it possible to have your undeads in enemy cabal? For a
>scion player - graveyard in black sect, for imperial -
>graveyard inside of scions cabal?

Nope.

>Arials underwater?

I don't think any graveyard is actually underwater, but you might have to pass through water to get to some of them. And yes, arials can get those.

>In explore areas?

Yes, though I don't believe any undead is available exclusively in explore areas.

>Can we at least get some hints as to where the special undead
>*aren't*? For instance, are protected city or hometown
>graveyards a possibility? Or are they all in more obscure and
>hidden graveyards?

I can think of one in a protected city off the top of my head, but that might be the only one in a protected city.

I don't think the Galadon Graveyard proper has one.

I'm pretty sure we didn't assign any of the cabal graveyards a special undead.

Otherwise, most of the graveyards in the game have one.

Most, but not all, of the undead are available in multiple locations. For example, I believe the Ghast is available in about 4 places. If you a necromancer who drew Ghast as one of your special undead you can raise it in any of those 4 places, because your undead are set by type, not by specific graveyard.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for the quick responses, you guys. This is a way cool change and I look forward to the surprises it brings.

I'll also add that for the most part there was an effort to create undead that match the environment they're found in. So if you were to visit the hypothetical Heap of Road Kill graveyard off of the North Road, where undead possums¹ roam freely, you might expect to raise a bitter roadkill squirrel there. There were one or two aberrations from that methodology, but that's pretty spot on otherwise.


¹Te adiuvare possum?

.

I know that when previous changes similar to this went through, characters that were already created didn't get the new abilities. I.E. ranger and shifter changes. This is smaller though, so maybe an imm can give it to necros already around *shrug*.

Because looks like it gonna be my last character ever.

there are about 20 different graveyard areas in the game and each one will bring someone different and so you, as the necromancer, have to try the spell in all of them to work out which graveyards you have an affinity towards for your specialized undeads??! That was how I read it. Like sleek finding but for cooler undeads.

For now, I've checked about 7 (two more left to check, one of them in explore area - doubt it's there).

I think out of 7, at least one must be working. One more that i know is in explore area - don't think it can be special and two more I didn't check yet.

Casting 'greater undead' without arguments wastes your mana and says either you lack the power (you cannot see if you can do something special in graveyard) or standart choice - ghoul and mummy, and wastes mana too like it's been casted.

There is no way to figure out if it's 'your' graveyard or not, which seems to be buggy. As I understand my own character, in RP aspect, necro must be able to know what he can raise in this particular graveyard - or is it supposed that he is casting spell and whoa! Surprise! Something different crawled out from the ground!

You need to actually cast the spell and raise an undead.

If it's one of your spots, the new undead will appear instead of a ghoul or mummy.

That in each graveyard I must attempt at least twice, first - ghoul, if not success - mummy and see, what will come out of this??

Nope.

Cast create undead, picking mummy or ghoul as normal.

If it's a spot for you, the special greater undead will replace whatever you picked.

To clarify further, generally all graveyard rooms in a given area share the same greater undead if any. There theoretically can be exceptions to that but I can't think of any at the moment.

I believe there are about 25 graveyards in CF. Each undead takes 40 minutes. 25*2*40/60 = 33,3 hours of non-stop playing.

Do you really think it's good and right?

Perhaps you will make it more usable and less time-demanding. We are not teenagers now (mostly). We have family, work, childrens and etc. Wasting so much time on a simple search sounds not nice at all.

Just saying

Please feel free to add more graveyards to my necro FAQ on Dio's.. That goes for anyone else also.

Did a quick search, no idea where is it there.

First, depending when you get the spell, that's not really all that long, just cast it in different graveyards as you go. Make a note of what you get and where it was.

Say there are 25 locations- though I think there are far more. Though how many does not matter really, since you'll have a 40% chance of finding one in any graveyard.

Each Necro has multiple greater available (of which there are 20.)

So say each graveyard just has 2 different greaters available. That's a 10% chance of getting one. You have 4 slots assigned to you so you have a 40% chance of raising one.

Now, assume for arguments sake greater undeads are like forms for shifters where if you have one you don't get the other. They set the greaters to each gravyard based on such exclusions so that you won't find a graveyard that can raise 2 of the greaters you have assigned to you (this is hypothesis- might be you can get say a ghast or wraith in a place and have both those assigned to you and so which you draw is random)

You don't need to test every graveyard, in fact since they appear in multiple places you really probably only need to test half and you'll have found your four. It's a new addition, I am sure it might be tweaked as necessary and maybe there will be an attunement spell at some point.

Now, I don't know if they are scaled, like maybe there are common greaters and rarer greaters- but that is the fun of discovery.
Maybe you can get a lich or vampire in one graveyard that's damn hard to reach.

I think it is very nice that the imms take the time to write these things and bring these little additions to CF personally. It's a small measure of class variation brought to necromancers.

>I believe there are about 25 graveyards in CF. Each undead
>takes 40 minutes. 25*2*40/60 = 33,3 hours of non-stop
>playing.
>
>Do you really think it's good and right?

Do you only play your necros for 32 hours? Then there's not a problem.

Each time you need to raise an undead just do it in a different graveyard you haven't tried yet.

Nothing says you have to stop at whatever rank you get the spell and spend 33 hours hitting all the graveyards to find your spots before doing anything else.

Nothing says you have to stop at whatever rank you get the spell and spend 33 hours hitting all the graveyards to find your spots before doing anything else.

Indeed, and if it feels like a burden you don't have to go find any of them. It was intended to be a fun variation on the spell, where you might discover some new undead answer your call and be able to use them in a different way. Looking at it as a hardship is missing the point.

Finis coronat opus...

I didn't complain. I wanted to hear reason why it is made this way and so unusable / time consuming / time requiring.

I see your point, though I disagree with it and would never do it that way. But you are the boss there, so we only can dance on your music, even if we don't like that particular song.

Mostly I dislike that from RP aspect it's absolutely stupid - to be a master of undead and having no way to figure out what will you arise.

Feeling like we are Harry Potters now: I'll cast something, but I've no idea what I'll have in result. Cool! :)

It's not "absolutely stupid" at all; what necromancer knows every corpse in a graveyard or every spirit roaming lost on the Material Plane? None. The necromancer puts out a call for a sentient undead being to serve him and something answers. Most of the time he gets what he is calling for, but sometimes he gets something different. If he discovers that in a few graveyards he is especially attuned to calling up undead of an unusual type he can use that to his advantage or go elsewhere.

If it is working that way, that's ok.

I've had different image: necromancer coming to the graveyard, examining it (remains, bones, etc), planning the spell according to what he has found and making undead form the bodyparts he discovered.

But guess I can get used to your interpretation without cracking my brains. So thanks for sharing, hope not offended you. And of course thanks for adding this spice to the class!

BTW, if you feel that this change just obliterates your ability to RP a necromancer, send up a pray and one of us can remove the special undead from your character. The scheme makes sense to us, but we can always make accommodations.

But really, I suspect you're in a very small minority here.

nt

Maybe you'll get lucky too.

P.S. You really sound like a whiny bitch btw.

Because right now, a huge amount of players and Imms want to slap you for being so damn self-entitled.

And realize the Imms probably can see who you are, but we can't as anonymous. If anything was PR-suicide, it's probably this post.

because

a) Yes, I dare to have my opinion and if it's not matching imms something - that's life, and that's not bad;
b) I've been already shot down by the imms long ago and this post won't change anything at all.

But thanks for the post!

nt

Except your little 'social-network' of cheaters.

I believe your character speculation about someone else indicates you have a social network. A social network which I no longer have, since I do not speak to torak anymore, at all.

The last time I spoke to anyone outside of game was a PM on dios thanking me for my post about ragers.

dsvsv

While I think we were patient with you here, I know I would have appreciated it if you could have shared your opinions with a little more tact. Having poured time into designing 20 greater undead and coding them up over the last few months--time that at least for me was at a premium--it's a little off-putting for us to have the first response involve comments like this being absolutely stupid, so unusable, a waste of time, why would we design something like this, etc. You can say that you didn't intend to be insulting, but it sure comes across that way.

It's awesome and thanks!

I apology to you personally andwhole immstaff if I've sounded insulting - not my intention.

Yes, i am thinking of usability and i truly believe that the current system of the search proper place is made not the best way it could be done.

Yes, I am totally excited about new undeads and think it's great. I sincerely hope that something similar will eventually happens to the zombies too.

Probably my ability in english sucks that much that I've been sounded insulting - again, I didn't want it to go that way. After Twist's clarifying, I understood that my argument about time investement was wrong for 50%, since it takes not so much time as I thought before (I thought that we need to do two attempts per each graveyard, and it was mistake).

Probably, to avoid those mistakes, you could add this to the helpfile to the spell - explaination that no matter what are you trying to arise, you will have your special undead?

About being shooted by the imms - it's another story, but exactly that feeling I have, and it isn't related to this topic, nor to anything that happened in game - it happened out of the game via e-mail long ago, but since that time all my attempts to do something seems to be failing, and failing, and failing again and again. I will go in details after finally abandon my attempts to play CF and delete.

Again, sorry if you thought I am trying to insult you or blame you for anything. I know how much time and energy it requires, to implement something like this, and will always be grateful for your time.

Peace!

Don't sweat this tool man. The rest of us our psyched at the new addition and appreciate your hard work. Though I guess this means my guess that a new alchemist class was going in was dead wrong?

But I agree with you on this.

Two days ago, you were presumably content as a cucumber with the necromancer class as you knew it. This change doesn't make you less effective against your enemies IN ANY WAY. You've lost absolutely nothing and gained something very powerful.

Please find something else to sound unappreciative about.

I'm intentionally letting this one go because I can't think of anything constructive to say.

You're no worse off if you pick the first graveyard you come to and always use that to raise the old-school undead.

Personally, from playing a necro, I use graveyards all over Thera in the normal course of events anyway.

There are a surprising number of graveyards in the game, some easier to get to than others, some more obvious than others; every necromancer has the ability to raise alternate/special undead in four of those graveyards. I wouldn't necessarily obsess over searching them out, but I know some players will.

With some of the sweeping environmental changes I want to make, there will likely be an additional alternative in Inferno.

Give us a command to see which undeads we can raise here please?
Waiting for 60 ticks for the next attempt is annoying like hell.

Existing necromancers do have this. Technically, all necromancers have had their specials "drawn" for months, since I wrote that code first.

Which type of greater undead do you wish to summon, ghoul or mummy?

When you are in a proper graveyard, and cast 'greater undead' without argoments, you will see something else instead of the ghoul, right?

Maybe you can raise a bunnicula?

nt I say nt

A bunnicula's bite has a chance of infecting the target with myxomatosis.