Light as the opposite of entropy?

[Ixiohm]

I like the entropy spell category however I don't think light is a fitting opposite category.

Then I think order is more fitting, however I would like to propose another term; I believe the most agreed upon opposite of entropy is extropy (se for example this article http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2009/08/extropy.php), even if extropy hasn't got the same scientific underpinning as entropy.

I see these spells as order or information spells and I think the day/night spells for example fits really well within this category, also ebb and flow spells could be interesting spells along the same theme.
While I'm at it, map or monster stat reveal spells could possibly also fit within this category, as would spells for inscribing or 'capturing' enemies for use against other enemies/bosses later on.

That’s some thoughts, hope it brings something to the discussion 

[Nalgas]

I feel like entropy (see also: chaos) as a magic/element/damage/whatever type isn't that unusual, and it's usually partnered with order/creation (or some synonym for one of the two) if it's in a system that has opposing pairs.  Well, the use of the name is not uncommon, at least.

Actually using it properly thematically is another story entirely, and as has already been pointed out, it's totally not being done here, either; it's called "entropy" entirely because it sounds cool.  The spells in its category so far generally have less effect on overall entropy one way or the other than most other spells do, amusingly enough.  And "what he/they said" about light as its opposite.

On the other hand, it's no worse than pretty much any other fantasy/magic game out there, and I never would've said anything about it if no one else had.  Heh.

[keith.lamothe]

I'd suggest waiting until the game does more storytelling before worrying about the names of the primary categories of energy   Light and Entropy actually fit very, very well to that.  Origin and Dissolution on one hand, Reinforcement and Remolding on the other, etc.

[Martyn van Buren]

I'm pro light/entropy as they are.  I'm not sure I see any connection between the purple spells and the entropy I learned about in high school physics, but to be totally honest I'm not sure that a ruby and a walnut produce fireballs in real life either.  It sounds cool enough and surely that's what it's supposed to do?

[Nalgas]

I'd suggest waiting until the game does more storytelling before worrying about the names of the primary categories of energy   Light and Entropy actually fit very, very well to that.  Origin and Dissolution on one hand, Reinforcement and Remolding on the other, etc.

But...but...that's still not what those words mean.

I'm pro light/entropy as they are.  I'm not sure I see any connection between the purple spells and the entropy I learned about in high school physics, but to be totally honest I'm not sure that a ruby and a walnut produce fireballs in real life either.  It sounds cool enough and surely that's what it's supposed to do?

And this is why my previous post concluded with me saying that I never would've said anything about it on my own before, because it doesn't really matter when it comes down to it.  I'm pretty sure that not only does combining rubies and walnuts not make fireballs, no combination of anything makes fireballs shoot out of your fingers.  The entire thing is already an exercise in suspension of disbelief to begin with, just like almost everything with a  fantasy or sci-fi setting, so as long as it's interesting and fun, I don't find it distracting...except when people try to argue that it's actually correct.  While playing the game it's fine and I never notice it, though.  Heh.

[keith.lamothe]

But...but...that's still not what those words mean.

How easy it is to torment you

It's just connected concepts: an original purity or power dissolving over time into mixture or lesser-power involves entropy.  Remolding itself is just replacing one form of order with another, but often involves breaking it down somewhat first.

I'm pretty sure that not only does combining rubies and walnuts not make fireballs, no combination of anything makes fireballs shoot out of your fingers.

Well, there was this accident in the magma-fueled jeweler's workshop...

[Nalgas]

It's just connected concepts: an original purity or power dissolving over time into mixture or lesser-power involves entropy.

If you want to get picky, almost everything you do in almost every game (and absolutely everything you do in the real world) involves entropy.  Setting something on fire with a fireball involves entropy.  It is in a less ordered state after it's been burned, and your own resources have had that property of them expended in order to cause that effect.  You might as well call guns/bullets entropy magic by that reasoning.  Heh.

I'm pretty sure that not only does combining rubies and walnuts not make fireballs, no combination of anything makes fireballs shoot out of your fingers.

Well, there was this accident in the magma-fueled jeweler's workshop...

He pulled the lever, didn't he?  They always pull the lever...

[Gallant Dragon]

was he huddled in a corner and muttering about emeralds?

[BobTheJanitor]

Entropy just seems a little abstract. It's not a word that gives me a feeling of despair or evil. (although to be fair it isn't a word I'm hugely familiar with) It makes me think of a bunch of scientists (perfectly sane ones) in a lab conducting experiments.

I'm not sure where I got it, but the term entropy always brings to my mind a line of poetry, "Things fall apart, the center cannot hold/Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world."

I think the whole poem pretty well nails the idea of entropy as a rather dark, depressing, hopeless force. Have a read, for anyone that's curious:

 The Second Coming

    Turning and turning in the widening gyre
    The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
    Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
    Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
    The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
    The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
    The best lack all conviction, while the worst
    Are full of passionate intensity.

    Surely some revelation is at hand;
    Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
    The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
    When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
    Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
    A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
    A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
    Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
    Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.

    The darkness drops again but now I know
    That twenty centuries of stony sleep
    Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
    And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
    Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

- W.B. Yeats

[CoyoteTheClever]

What about Luminiferous Aether vs. Entropy? That has both the light connotations you like, and the hint of a real polar opposite (Aether being one of the classical elements in the Ionian Pre-Socratics idea of what made up the universe).

[Gallant Dragon]

I don't think Luminiferous Aether rolls off the tongue quite the same way light does.

[x4000]

That's my concern, too.  These pretty much need to be single words that are three syllables or less.