Potions and Herbs and Spells oh my

After what feels like more than a decade, we've finally updated the system for brewing potions. The old system was pretty hard to deal with from a code standpoint, and didn't give builders a lot of options. From a player standpoint, the old system didn't really allow for invention or thinking about your potions.

The new system changes that by adding affinities for ingredients, where different spell components are more likely to brew particular spells or spell groups. Players get the ability to actually influence what comes out of the brew, as do builders who can set those affinities if they want.

The new code also uses a staged algorithm for the PRNG such that I can add and remove things chunks of the algorithm without causing major damage. We can also tweak the probabilities on specific brews and components now if necessary.

As with any change, there's been some complaining about this, but it's largely been well received. It helps that there's information about how the new system works; I updated the brewing article on the AA articles page with a bunch of new information. Here's the link:

The Art of Alchemy

People have managed to brew quite a few interesting things so far. You can find the list of public potions brews as the Alter Aeon Potion Recipes web page.