the LAG

You mention getting horrible problems in Nivla and Llevigar. Are you using fast graphics to make rendering leaves less intensive? Low FPS sounds like a computer issue, not a server one. I'd recommend installing a handful of performance mods (use Modrinth; its's easier to work with than Prism imo). I know that Modrinth has a pre-made ultra-performance modpack you can try; that could increase your fps pretty meaningfully. I think it's called "simply optimized".

 

Sodium, Ferrite-core, Scalable-lux, Lithium, Entity Culling, and a leaf Culling mod I can't quite remember the name of have helped me a lot. I think 1.21.11 should be faster as well.

 

I had a ?/35 horse that got turned into 2/90/120 all around

 

I guess I'll try that. Still a bit irked that I have to play Wynncraft with mods; I've made a minor point since Prism stopped working of playing Wynncraft vanilla specifically to test it on the count of "can be played completely adequately without any mods", which it was formerly meeting and ceased to meet the moment the Fruma update dropped.

I was specifically recommended to use 1.21.4, although I don't remember why.

 

On Friday, Wynncraft was also nearly unplayable with lag for myself, but today the only points during which I experienced even minor lag was when I was in the midst of a ten-person bat cave party. Have you logged on at all today? I'm curious to see if your performance has bettered as well.

 

My performance today is okay. It's not great. But it's not terrible.

 

What GPU are you using? I wouldn't think that performance mods are necessary unless it's something either integrated or very old.

 

MacOS "about" tab says "NVIDIA GeForce GTX 675MX 1 GB".

 

Messing with my render distance has alleviated the lag.

I think one of my old suggestions was actually implemented. Stackpeak Egg mini-quest has lore. Zhiraok put it up for a festival. I suggested, many months ago, that mini-quests should have lore... this admittedly isn't exactly to the letter of my suggestion. But it's a much better mini-quest than any other I've done! And it's reasonably challenging. I hope the rest are like this.

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Oh, Liff Leaves was another neat one! So that's what was with all those bushes...

I really do like Fruma miniquests. Shame the prof ones are locked behind agonising, mind-numbing, pointless grinding.

I suspect every Fruman ingredient is likely to be expensive on the TM, so I'm saving all of them.

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Oh, I like Zeph. I'm a sucker for mysterious, spontaneous, friendly benefactors. I sure hope he doesn't turn out to be an elaborate intrigue against me like the Caravan Driver was!

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[+5 Lotus Seedpods]

Right, okay, I'm enjoying this segment already. A nonlinear raid with bonuses littered everywhere? Astounding.

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It's like Misadventure on the Sea all over again...

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When the Nixeph Watchmen spawn, you can spawn more by going up and down the stairs before advancing the first dialogue. This causes duplicated Watchmen and two-Watchmen-killed dialogue (every Watchman after the second triggers it).

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Conspicuous book that's "not of use"? Oh, the Festival of the Crown will be important, surely. Interesting that it has the same naming scheme as Aster's Festivals... presumably there's no link? Aster's Wynnborn, despite how the aesthetics of the Citadel fit best as, like, ancient Fruma or something.

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The weapons are enchanted. Well, I was wondering how the Patrolling Cavaliers were doing those horse acrobatics in heavy armor. Who enchanted them? Is this residue from being near Zhiraok?Still, it's "weak"... Fruma seems like it's very fragile, with its rejection of magic. The enemies are high-level, but that's obligatory for an RPG - I'm sure Almuj and Troms aren't actually that different in Corruption strength, and Skyraiders wouldn't sweep dead the Orcish presence in Llevigar. Are they actually substantially powerful? All they've got is mundane skill. Is Fruma that good at ordinary martiality?

Their technology clearly isn't shabby. Fruma has working firearms that are fairly well-present; Corkus is theoretically more advanced but its technology is noted for being fragile, unreliable, and prone, in the case of mechs, to rebellion, while Wynn only has one gun in the whole province. Of course, Fruma's doing well due to not being influenced by any sort of rampaging malign influence; it's afforded the opportunity to gain strength other countries can't get. No mechs, no Decay, no Corruption.

But there's a concern. Isolationism is a revered policy. It can be a very effective strategy in Civilisation; feed your production into more production, ad infinitum, while avoiding conflicts, and sweep the floor with everyone else. Everyone loves the aesthetic; it's great for narratives, whether fictional or cultural. But it's terrible for maintaining power. China turned isolationist in the 14th century, and it got them soundly beaten during the Opium Wars; even now, China's economy lags behind America's and much of its rural area is underdeveloped. Japan turned isolationist in the 17th century, and it got them soundly beaten by America, who didn't even attack them - Perry turned up with gunships, forced their ports open, and began imperial trade, while the Tokugawa Shogunate collapsed and the Meiji Restoration to catch up with the rest of the world kicked off. Broadly, isolationism keeps you from accessing the resources and technology of other countries, and by insulating you from them, you start moving at your own - generally slower - pace. One can draw a link to competition in evolution; when two continents connect, usually the bigger continent's species are dominant with the smaller continent's dying out, because big area = more resources = more competition = better animals. (I mean, look at Oceania. The native species of Australia and New Zealand profoundly struggle to deal with rabbits.)

Fruma's avoiding some of this. Although we were only presented with the roaming Fruman spies during the leadup to the update, I'm sure they've been around for a long time. Fruma keeps tabs on the rest of the world, which... probably reduces the negative impacts of isolationism. Somewhat. And who knows what magic's going to be pulled out of this questline's rear. But I'm still suspicious. Is the isolated, lush province that has refused contact with the entire rest of the world at every level but the absolute top really going to be able to compete militarily against the magically-rich province next door that's twice the size with a thousand-year history of warfare? Really?

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Me, five seconds ago: "Oh! The windchimes!"

I'd seen them before, you see.

...oh, and I've seen the festival grounds too! At least the Auburn end of it.

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Right, that's about what I suspected. "Blessing" versus "curse", and what the distinction really boils down to is whether the Queen approves. I feel like this is probably connected to that ancient lore about how it was Villagers who brought magic to Wynn. That is, magic can be taught, but it can also be innate. The "Cursed" are the equivalent of Twains - people with natural control. The "Blessed" are those who the Queen has taught magic. We probably count as Cursed - we certainly seem to be much stronger than other Wynn soldiers, and Tasim was identified as Cursed himself - but Syn, Syndra? would have misidentified our province, under my theory - Wynn is full of Blessed.

Was the story about Cursed destroying primeval Fruma a lie? I mean, maybe, maybe not. I suspect the case was that, instead of a Marius Twain gathering unity during a time of uncommon Cursed presence, the Cursed instead all went to war with each other, and the Queen was the victor, who then repainted the history to frame herself as a Messianic figure. Her being immortal ain't a surprise - she doesn't seem to have a family (something which is obligatory for a monarchy in the pseudomedieval European mode, with their primogeniture), and immortality tends to bring uncommon power and knowledge, which she obviously has.

Now, the real question is - what's Syndra's deal? She's obviously using magic; her windchimes are enchanted, and she uses powerful fire abilities. But she seems to... not know what it is? And she talks about Cursed as if she's not one of them. I bet she's got enchanted gear.

Boss fights in Fruma seem to be just... damage sponges. Which is kind of annoying? I'm a sustain build, so the fights aren't challenging but they take ages. And I can't really change that without - hrk - learning how to make a build. And relearning how to fight as a Riftwalker or Arcanist. What's really annoying are the roaming Rare Enemy, Big Reward!! that is the Cavalier, which I think has as much health as Syndra while spawning kinda constantly.

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I dropped out of the quest briefly to visit Torann to dump a bunch of items out of my inventory. The music for meeting the peeps is playing out here; fun to see that it's overriding. The ludonarrative dissonance - or gameplay-story segregation, if you're not pretentious - is even more noticeable now. Fort Torann is supposed to be filled with guards out for my blood right now. It's kind of... weird that it's just a hub town. Why was this the decision made? You're obviously supposed to base in Espren, but the dissonance is quite significant if you go out exploring before getting back to the main quest.

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I actually found the Leaves in the Wind encampment earlier, and I identified it as a quest location that I hadn't unlocked yet. Talked to two guys there. I wonder if they'll remember.

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Why did Mora's name change to Yuri? Is he Russian? Is he secretly two tiny women in a suit?

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I couldn't interact with him, so I /classed and they all vanished. Sad.

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Going into the tavern through the back is a bit questionable. It's obvious that this wasn't anticipated; when you exit through the entrance, you get thrown out as if you'd entered instead.

...also, selecting dialogue options is finicky in the new system.

 

Most Fruma bosses have over two millio health, and there's one that has almost twice the health over phases as the eye does.

 

"You seem stressed."

"Oh, thank you for noticing! It's because of the stress."

...okay, this isn't, like, AMAZING DIALOGUE!!! But it's pretty good. Honestly my only complaint here is that all of Wynn's music is kind of muffled and sanded-off, and so it's hard to really distinguish that This Is Zhiraok's Theme Playing, to my ear at least, aside from knowing intellectually that this is Zhiraok's Theme. It's... kinda samey? Wynn could do with a lot more instruments to differentiate its music.

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Free Espren scroll!!!! Oh, oh I love that. I was going to buy one; I passed up Fort Torann because it was expensive. Thank goodness I didn't bother buying one earlier when, due to respawn mechanics, I ended up inside Espren before I was narratively allowed in!

...Why do I still have my book about self on me? Should I keep that?

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I feel like Zhiraok A. knows that Syndra is doing a rebellion and B. is tacitly supporting it. He's got the face to be the initial-big-bad-who's-the-weakest-member-of-a-larger-organisation-and-turns-good-in-the-second-act.

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"Magic [has] a tendency to be associated with bad memories." This could be true. Maybe it's not. Unless the line really means that people in Fruma associate magic with bad memories and not that bad memories cause magic, which makes more sense.

This opening dialogue seems to assume that I went to Espren after finishing the previous quest, but given that the next is, like, right there, I just started it immediately.

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Being the teacher for magic makes sense for the plot, but in an MMO like this one - with a mostly personality-less player character - putting this many words in the player's mouth still comes off strange. It's acceptable for the plot, but... kinda weird. Also it's noticeable that the UI cannot handle this. There have been a lot of dialogue options that are way too large for the buttons.

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More about Cursed/Blessed being broadly just propaganda.

"Belief, concentration, and skill". That's... okay, one third of that is new. Faith as an element of spellcasting hasn't ever been described, to my knowledge; concentration is implied through Intelligence stat, and skill is obvious. It's notable here that there are not really any quests at all in the rest of the game that go into the mechanics of Wynn's magic. Order of the Grook is... well, firstly, it aged badly, and secondly, it's old. So it's unreliable, and once it's gone through its rewrite it'll probably look completely different, to the point where it's more accurate to say it was killed, tossed into a pit, and replaced with its far shinier successor.

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"Aptitude tests"... okay, well, it seems like there's actually tons of magic running around Fruma, it's just that it's restricted to the military and government, and the propaganda is mostly to just ruthlessly crush anybody who might break that monopoly? Magic's powerful, but... I was expecting a little more ideology here. From the first quest I was going to guess that the fact Sovereigns use magic is a secret, but, no, this is openly known.

 

A lot of times later on it just says the gist of what you tell them without actually forcing the words into your mouth, which comes off to me as less weird. Maybe it's more weird, but I didn't really like having the exact words of it shoved down, since even in past a lot of NPCs just implicitly know what happened after their first line of dialogue.

 

Ah, here's how Syndra got magic - she was militarily trained. That makes sense.

I would have guessed Rex as the Air user due to being an archer, but... wait. Oh no. Rex has a bow, Zeph has a dagger, Mora presumably's the Warrior, Sui seems Magey... putting Syndra as the Shaman? Or as outside the system. I think she used a scythe, but the fight was hectic and I couldn't see well. Rex=Air, Sui=Water I guess, Syndra=Fire, Mora=Earth, by elimination Zeph=Thunder, which fits with her personality.

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Zeph's stutter is getting turned up here. Is that just a character quirk to further distinguish the dialogue of what's shaping up to be our main companion, similar to Zhiraok's constant use of semiappropriate mathematical terminology (very noticeable due to how it makes his grammar weird)? Or does he have, like, a problem? Presumably he can't have nerve damage if he's the Assassin.

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Our role in this questline thus far seems to be "supernatural arms dealer".

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Magic's clearly easy.

...I'm disappointed by the Blessed reveal, a little. There was such a long shot of the Caravan Driver using magic to repair his cart - wasn't even confirmed that he intentionally crashes it - and then it's just, like, not a big deal. It had an impact when we first saw it, but this is actually completely normal, so it's never going to be an interesting beat again... was there any point to the Driver at all?

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Zeph's 'race' gimmick is pretty fun. Wynn usually ends up having quest NPCs run to (what isn't really) out of sight and then teleport to their destination; the Fruma quests have made a point of making them run farther, and Zeph runs the whole distance, which is a character quirk that incidentally helps immersion.

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Having slowness-causing enemies in a parkour cave is... a choice. Definitely. You can, decide that.

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I don't like the mushroom parkour. It feels substantially worse than the at this point quite ancient slime parkour in Undergrowth Ruins (actually my favorite part of not only that dungeon but of every dungeon in Wynn Province).

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It would be really funny if people who happened to have maxed-out Mining could skip this segment of the quest by bringing their own Titanium. I give 30-70 odds that that's a mechanic.

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Fruma has trains??!?

Oh, wait, yeah, it does. You use one... inexplicably... to access the province.

I'm going to assume interacting with the Fruma Door is completely non-canon?

Fruma's power is more plausible with it seemingly being truly industrial - also this explains Corkus. It's clearly got more reliable technology than Corkian electromagic; no robots, but trains are much better than robots. This is known. Still, the Industrial Revolution in real life was an extremely economic event - it wouldn't have happened anywhere near the place and time and manner it did if not for the very precise circumstances of capitalist-imperialist Britain. Quite frankly, you don't need industrial production if you have nobody to sell to.

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It's fun to see that there is intranational racism. That's realism right there. Obviously the people in these various regions, which are divided on multiple lines (political, environmental, physical - look at all those walls!), are going to all irrationally distrust each other as the Other. The only thing that could unify them is knowing that there are other humans outside Fruma. Cynicism!

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The inexplicable notice board monologue is a classic. We love it when the narrator rambles about the intricacies of something mundane.

It does offer some useful lore. As mentioned, the racism. And yet another hint towards the Frog Bog secret discovery I already did. Why the hell is it so signposted when I haven't found anything for the others!! I guess the Lumberyard probably has something. And the date is in the early 100s 'IA'. Now, what's that about?

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...huh? Emeralds are used as currency in Fruma? Despite it being noted earlier that they aren't valued? That's actually just Auburn? Kind of weird. There's no diegetic justification here.

I've heard that the trope of the barter economy isn't really based in reality. Liff Leaves certainly seem to be a... not particularly excellent form of currency, given their high value. (Why does the player have such an easy time getting them compared to the Auburnites?)

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The zipline segments in this questline are... quite buggy.

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The Queen is not that bad at ruling.

She talks up her audience in this speech - she probably does in every speech, to every audience. She's reasonably charismatic. And once the flattery's over, she advertises material benefits - economic boosts to a poor region. Increased imports? Does Auburn have the money for that? They don't seem to produce anything except Liff Leaves and alcohol. Probably that's why they're poor.

...oh my god, the Liff Leaves actually are their main export. That's ridiculous. Sharpening infrastructure? What infrastructure, Zhiraok?

I was a bit disappointed by the nonsense of the region being in perpetual autumn due to drought, but they are making up for it with ECONOMI... after all the random scraps I had to forage through to make my economic history of the Dark Forest... we get all this...

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It's conspicuous that the mic is sized to the Queen's height and not Zhiraok's. She also is the first and last speaker, further centering herself.

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Part of the Queen's propaganda is that all other provinces have fallen. That's curious, because it means she acknowledges the existence of other provinces. I imagined the recruit export to Wynn as being a bit hush-hush.

That being said... "so many"? There's three. Are you lying about how many other provinces there are, are you using weird words, or is Wynn's world more expansive than The Rectangle(TM) would suggest?

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A little disappointing that I can only highlight one part of the speech.

...and, abrupt flashback to The Guy In The Mask With The Intriguer's Leitmotif. I bet this is diegetic.

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This is a substantially larger office than the one we broke into earlier. Does Zhiraok have multiple offices, or is this just weird compression narrative magic?

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Looks to be in the palace. Makes sense. Bigger office in the palace than in your actual governing region... serves to distance you from your people? And certainly serves to keep you close to the Queen.

Multiple times it's been highlighted that there's increased military presence in Auburn. Seemingly before we were here, although our attack has definitely been the prompt for a lot of this. Even the enemies imply it; there's poachers everywhere, but there's guards, too. And the Cavaliers!

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It seems like the Sovereigns are immortal. How is this explained to the people? It makes sense - I've already seen the Wellspring of Eternity, the fact that life-extension is going on is not subtle. (And this is also why the Sovereigns are noticeably Magic - and maybe why they're comically buff? Unclear.) But surely commoners would ask questions? They accept the Queen as immortal - do they accept her servants?

And what happened to Zhiraok's predecessor? He must have died violently.

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Ah, no, this reference to increased military presence is referring to us. It definitely hypes the player up; so many military resources have been called in to deal with us! While we're just... in the open. Skulking around.

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Oh, wait, this guy's dressed like the Inquisitors with a full model. I see. This is Head Inquisitor.

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...Of course this is Head Inquisitor. We've already run into them before, during the Fruma Mystery. Their mirror showed up in that island on the sea...

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The Head Inquisitor is adorable. And - newest? Zhiraok has only been sovereign for... ten years? At least ten years. He's clearly new. But someone else has just 'ascended' - presumably the Wellspring water is involved there. What's going on here...

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That's all for today.

Quest XP distribution is... actually really good. I think this quest got me most of a level - and it looks like quests are packed two to a level, so I probably won't have to grind that much. I'll still do every Miniquest and I'll try to find all the SDs before moving on.

 

...I bet there's going to be a narrative structure wherein we go to each Fruman territory's Festival and watch the Queen's speeches get increasingly unhinged.

I know almost nothing about the plotline - very intentionally - but I do know that there's something called 'Anathema' (my guess is a counter-Queen, powerful Cursed) and that the Raid that caps the 'line off is called Wartorn Palace. So there will be war in the Fruman walls - of what kind? How, exactly, does all of this spiral into open warfare in Fruma's most heavily-defended heart? I'm looking forward to seeing that. The structure here looks sturdy, but it can't be; not really. Isolationist regimes quite often fail when faced with external threats. A house of cards, and we a breeze... oh, what a marvellous fun!