[DISCLAIMER]I'm going to put more and more into this post as I remember things, and find documents I have saved on older hard drives. I'm mainly going to rant about magic, because this is something that has been a part of this server since I joined in late 2011. I'm going to use terms that have not been used on this server in a very long time, and I hope that they offend no one, but rather help me bring my point across. [/DISCLAIMER]
Magic's History
According to myself, semi- TL;DR'd
Back when I joined the server, November 1, 2011, there was a significantly different set of players than there are now, as many of you know. The first day I logged on the server, I knew nothing about roleplay, so I tried to find people that could help me understand what to do. Using the old port system, from what was formerly Port Silver, now known as Daggerfall, any player could go between the Port and a city for free. At the end of one of the docks, instead of a ship, there was a strange building, covered in vines, and quite strange. It teleported you to the former school of magic, Yoshi's Island. In this town was a character, known as Bellon, the archmage of the school of magic, who I believe ran the magic system at the time. Magic was extremely free form, basically anyone could learn it, as long as they agreed to help the town and do duties. Magic was taught by some the high level mages, much like I presume it was planned to be used now.
After the first exodus, in early summer 2012 (for the 1.2 jungle update i think), Yoshi's Island moved, as with most towns, to the new world. They didn't keep the buildings and such, but instead headed into the mountains. Magic died down, due to the inhabitants keeping to themselves. Kinda all of a sudden, near the end of the summer, two very popular admins suddenly left the server, taking many of the players and characters that were part of the town with them. Magic seemed dead, because soon after they left, the admins and mods, rightfully, started to crack down on the kinds of characters you could make, restricting the amount of races, and a lot of the crazy abilities that some characters had. Magic was gone for my first anniversary as a member of this community, and had been a pretty impactful part of my roleplaying career here.
I'm pretty sure magic popped back in very early in 2013, but don't quote me on that.
Then I was gone, for the end of 2013, so I do not know what happened, but when I did return, I had found out that a new magic system was going to be put into place, and that Nael was writing it. Great idea! I would have loved it, I hope, as long as we saw the whole thing. I read what lore was out there, and saw some of the spells. But then I started seeing this being used in roleplay, and some of the spells being used were... powerful, to say the least. None of the spells being used had any lore backing that was publicly visible, and after trying to figure out where I could find out some more info about the spells and curses being used on me. Since there was no info, I decided just to wait it out, and if I saw a situation where magic could be used, I backed out of it, trying to avoid getting angry over it again.
Here we are today. We again have no magic lore. I love the idea of magic in our world, and I think it would be very fun to have magic for roleplay use, as long as it is balanced and fair to all involved.
Use of Magic Over Time
Over the years that I have been here, magic has been used for two major things in roleplay, healing and combat. With the addition of potions (1.0) the healing magic very slowly died out, as more players utilized potions for healing, because they had quicker effects, and didn't require another person to use their magic on you. (will add more later, need to go to work)