[mainline] Red mages naming

[Velensk]

I think the main problem some of them would run into is that they already use Magister. Possibly as a name for the basic mage form as that is what it means in other langauges.

[Turuk]

We already have (human) Ranger and Elvish Ranger ...

Just because redundancy exists, does not mean you have to keep duplicating it elsewhere.

What about: neophyte; acolyte; savant;? I'm leaning towards acolyte.

The first two would be good for a level 1, and savant could go for 2 or 3, but would not fit in well with the current line if just the level 3 name is being replaced.

Well, I don't think we should change the first two level name. I like to think of the first mage as kind of student who already got his bachelor. He is a mage, but not a pro. So don't call him initiate or apprentice.

A good point, though even human mages would spend years/decades in study, and compared to his seniors, he could still just be an apprentice as he is most likely still learning from the level 2s, 3s, and 4s.

When did we shift the topic from the 3rd and 4th leves of the Mage line?

When it became pertinent to consider the impact of the name on the entire line as they all should make sense from one to the next.

[StandYourGround]

As long as we're reinventing the wheel, we might as well throw in a different advancement path for the Silver Mage, or whatever it ends up being named. So when you promote a level 1 Mage (or Initiate), you can decide whether it follows the path of Fire, Light, or "Wind"... Oh why not? Let's even throw in the Shadow Mage line from Liberty for good measure. Seems most of the time you have mages, you're usually fighting against the powers that be anyway.

Oooh, time to brainstorm!

Start with Initiate, then choose a path:

Path of Fire

These would be your bookworm Initiates who surpass in all areas of study, and focus on accumulation of knowledge and experience over variety of spells. They progress little beyond the fire attacks they learned in their undergraduate studies, but are well on their way to being unmatched in that discipline, though doing so as a means of battle is considered a rude application of their talent. Those who remain in academia long enough will become legends, not only for their brilliance, but for the awesomeness of their fiery incantations that make the common soldier stare in awe.

Notes: Basically, the Red Mage line with few alterations in attacks, but in name only. Suggest more academic and less fiery sounding names.

Path of Light

There are others who study the craft of magic that cannot allow themselves to spend a lifetime behind the cold walls of the Academy, and wish to use their abilities for the betterment of mankind, and ultimately themselves. These leave the Academy after graduation, and travel the world, honing their powers in the tasks of healing the sick, enlightening the lost, and banishing evil from the land of the living. While they tend to be pacifists by nature, when evil rises, they will rise to stand against it, and are an invaluable asset against those who practice necromancy.

Notes: Same as White Mage line, and the names should still work. If they must be changed, then something like Journeyman → Master of Light, perhaps. This is what brainstorming is for.

Path of Wind

There are great mysteries in the world of magic, and few who have mastered the deepest. Such wizards of intrigue have formed secret societies and brotherhoods, and while they rarely reach out for new talent, occasionally a student of magic who shows aptitude and demonstrates the ability to keep secrets may be recruited from the Academy. Such individuals are rarely seen in public, or even among their peers. They are the guardians of ancient secrets, and have mastered frightening abilities that are the territory of rumor. Only one thing is known for certain of these hidden elites. They universally have the singular ability to transport themselves over vast distances in an instant, such that no individual could possibly achieve through natural means. This ability makes them extremely valuable on the battlefield, if they could ever be convinced to employ it.

Silver Mage line, with some kind of "secret-order-sounding" level two unit that makes the transition between an Initiate and the Silver Mage as it currently known. Suggest changing magic attack type to something physical, like a magic impact ranged attack, and maybe a swarm pierce attack for the wind theme (gotta make this dude more unique than a teleporting red mage). The level two unit will not be able to teleport, and its description will talk about how while they have been successfully initiated into the secret order, they have much to learn before considered worthy to learn the great secrets.

Path of Shadow

A blight on the record of any school of magic, these are the outcasts and drop-outs. Many possessed some amount of natural talent, but lacked either the integrity or the motivation to make something of themselves. Still others had promising careers ahead, but resorted to dishonesty on their tests, or otherwise failed the trust of their superiors. Exiled from the Academies and often made to swear not to practice magic on pain of death, these individuals are rarely heard from again. Few however have ever resurfaced as practitioners of dark magic or necromancy, as those who follow the dark path have just as little use for their hot-headedness as their former instructors. Still, some persist in their studies independently, and forge their own path between Light and Darkness, adhering to neither. Precious few of these have ever been found to practice their arts for any reason, but rumors are said that strange shadows have gathered in the wilderness outside of Wesnoth, not far from the city-state of Elensefar...

Notes: Cold ranged, arcane melee. Chaotic alignment. Standard fare shadow mages from Liberty. Heh, why not?

Well, that was fun to write. Any thoughts?

[Turuk]

As long as we're reinventing the wheel...

Well, that was fun to write. Any thoughts?

I like the idea of having multiple paths open to a mage based on how they may have chosen to focus their studies. Outside of establishing naming conventions, the only hurdle for this would be the two new-ish lines (as two are basic alterations of the existing choices). The Wind line would need a L2 unit to get to the Silver Mage and both the Wind and Shadow lines would introduce level 2 units into a default faction that would have ramifications for multiplayer.

I suppose you could write the unit files so that they could be made unavailable for multiplayer, and it's not as if all units available to a race are available in multiplayer.

[StandYourGround]

Yeah, this would really rock the MP boat if used like that. Having more options would make sense only in a long campaign.

Edit: You could even have some fun in MP though... Suppose Loyalists can only get Fire and Light, while Rebels can only get Light or Wind... It would make sense that the Wind line would be more easily approachable by the elves anyway, i.e. like they are in AoI.

[Turuk]

Yeah, this would really rock the MP boat if used like that. Having more options would make sense only in a long campaign.

In order to cut out from derailing the name change thought process, if you wanted to flesh this out more in a separate thread...? Perhaps with unit descriptions/stats/etc. in order to see exactly what it would look like for the new tree idea.

[doofus-01]

Gentlemen,

I believe I have the solution to your problems. Most of the red-line mages are named just fine, but we simply replace the level 4 unit name, in order to not "rock the boat" too much. We have to work with years of lore and MP balance, so this is not something to be taken lightly. Gentlemen, I humbly submit the following name, if you deign to consider it:

Mega Mage.

[ancestral]

“Mage”, “Magus”, “Magister”… these are much too similar. I would be confused which would advance to which.

• In Ascension, I used the name Epic Mage to describe a mage higher than Great Mage.
• Taking a page from WotC, I see High Mage and Magelord that could possibly work.

Otherwise… we have Silver Mage as Level 3. Maybe it wouldn't be bad using a color word for the Red line for Level 3, such as Crimson Mage (and then make Arch Mage Level 4). That's my best suggestion:

Mage > Red Mage > Crimson Mage > Arch Mage

[Ranger]

Well, I don't think we should change the first two level name. I like to think of the first mage as kind of student who already got his bachelor. He is a mage, but not a pro. So don't call him initiate or apprentice.
Red mage fits together with the white mage and the dark sorcerer. So that shouldn't be changed too.
The third and fourth lvl advancements are the ones who cause confusion, so lets focus on them. I personaly lrefer beetlenauts "mage of flame" and for the fourth level "archmage"

Fair enough.

Let's not go overboard here. A 16x4 fire attack is one of the strongest ingame. So no need to be changed

[sarcarsm]Of course it is, and its not like we can change something else like resistances or special abilities.[/sarcasm]
EDIT: What I mean is that his damage isnt the problem. The problem is his lack of mobility and resilience for a 4th lvl unit.
If he would have more of the the first or the second (or a bit of both) it would make me a very happy panda.

Gentlemen,

I believe I have the solution to your problems. Most of the red-line mages are named just fine, but we simply replace the level 4 unit name, in order to not "rock the boat" too much. We have to work with years of lore and MP balance, so this is not something to be taken lightly. Gentlemen, I humbly submit the following name, if you deign to consider it:

Mega Mage.

Yeah, lets take a bland name and replace it with another bland name, just for the sake of it!

“Mage”, “Magus”, “Magister”… these are much too similar. I would be confused which would advance to which.

• In Ascension, I used the name Epic Mage to describe a mage higher than Great Mage.
• Taking a page from WotC, I see High Mage and Magelord that could possibly work.

Otherwise… we have Silver Mage as Level 3. Maybe it wouldn't be bad using a color word for the Red line for Level 3, such as Crimson Mage (and then make Arch Mage Level 4). That's my best suggestion:

Mage > Red Mage > Crimson Mage > Arch Mage

Personally I dislike using colors to describe Mages. Its just seems so unimmaginative. But I understand, that by now everyone who plays Wesnoth is used to distinguish various human mages by their colors.
So while I have in mind possible alternative names for all mages, for now I just want to deal with "Archmage" title problem.
While we dont need a 5th level mage name, the other ones...
Well High Mage is just a mundane naming of ArchMage and Magelord sounds more like a title of a Warlock than a Schoolar.
If the Archmage is going to become the name for the 4th level Red Mage we would need a new name for the 3rd level.
IMHO the term Magister would fit nicely for his supposed role into the hierarchy of magi of Wesnoth.

[zookeeper]

Just for the record, I've never felt there was anything odd about the lvl3 and lvl4 names. I've always assumed that "Arch Mage" is more of a title, signifying that they're pretty much at the top in everyday internal mage hierarchy, and that the Red Mage line overall represents the most common, general scholarly wizardry. That there are rare inviduals (Great Mages) who surpass them in skill and authority doesn't mean that the name "Arch Mage" is undeserved.

[Iris]

I’d greatly prefer if we didn’t have to change any names, because that inevitably causes trouble for us UMC authors. But if you really, absolutely need to do it, swapping one of the names will cause problems for everybody because it’s not a trivial operation for wmllint to do — it has no way to know, unassisted, whether a piece of WML has already been updated for a new Wesnoth version, leading to a chicken-and-egg situation. “Is this code referring to the L3 Arch Mage, or the new L4 Arch Mage?”

[Turuk]

I’d greatly prefer if we didn’t have to change any names, because that inevitably causes trouble for us UMC authors. But if you really, absolutely need to do it, swapping one of the names will cause problems for everybody because it’s not a trivial operation for wmllint to do — it has no way to know, unassisted, whether a piece of WML has already been updated for a new Wesnoth version, leading to a chicken-and-egg situation. “Is this code referring to the L3 Arch Mage, or the new L4 Arch Mage?”

So if it was ever to be done, it would need to be a change and not a swap, that makes sense.

[ancestral]

I’d greatly prefer if we didn’t have to change any names, because that inevitably causes trouble for us UMC authors. But if you really, absolutely need to do it, swapping one of the names will cause problems for everybody because it’s not a trivial operation for wmllint to do — it has no way to know, unassisted, whether a piece of WML has already been updated for a new Wesnoth version, leading to a chicken-and-egg situation. “Is this code referring to the L3 Arch Mage, or the new L4 Arch Mage?”

Good point. That triggered memories of when the Drake line got changed up and new names were used all around instead.

(FWIW I don't mind "Great Mage" myself.)

[Tzaot]

Mage -> Arch Mage -> Sage?

[kiss]

Until now, I take names as they are and never think about any change, but as the subject is open I look at the Mage line and I agree something is wrong.

A beginner (not existing): Student lvl 0 always intelligent, without any spell. Really needed?

Mage lvl 1 is ok. It shouldn't be fire but a more generic one, something not really defined like energy that can become fire, light, holly or whatever later.
Arch and Great should be linked to fire. Fire, then Sun, Nova, Magma, Nuclear ... Novage, Atomage, Magmage, Nucleage?
Silver isn't good either. Zap, Flash? Whatever related to teleport ability.

Red and White seems fine. If any change, Fire and Holly?
Arch and Great should master more than one spell path.

Only my thought.
I bet: Mage, Red Mage, Fire Mage and MagMage. And Flash Mage ...

Magister is a war plane! (France)