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 |  | Happy Birthday, Dear Grab Bag: |  |
|  | Posted By: Sanya Thomas | 2003-12-12 17:39:29 |  |
| |  |  Happy birthday to us! And by us, I mean the dev team that drops what they're working on to get answers for me, and you guys that send the great questions. But let's just cut to the column:
Q: I have a Traitor's Dagger that slices right now – can I trade it in for a piercing version after 1.67, or do I have to get another one? If I can trade it in, can I get the experience currently on the dagger transferred to my new piercing dagger?
A: You certainly can trade it in for a stabbing version, I'm told, but there's no system coded to allow NPCs to transfer experience. So the new dagger will be set to zero.
Q: I saw a patch note about mini-group window colors indicating the status of your group mates. I was wondering, what happens when more than one thing applies to a group member?
A: The order of precedence (meaning situational colors on the top of the list apply over things lower on the list) is:
- linkdead (blue)
- dead (red)
- mezzed (cyan)
- diseased (orange)
- poisoned (green)
- out of zone (grey)
- nominal (white)
Q: I read in the patch notes that salamanders now properly take damage from
cold based spells. Does this apply to salamander hatchlings as well?
A: It should.
Q: The difficulty of the Krojer champions seems to vary wildly – is this intentional?
A: Yes. None of the difficulty settings are incorrect. Some champions are much easier to defeat – and you only need to kill one to move on in the trial itself – but the loot goes to only the powerful that can beat all six champions.
Q: I'm a young mentalist, and I have what's probably a stupid question for the column. What kind of monsters can I charm with the different spells?
A: No questions are stupid – new players are joining the game all the time. Glad to have you :)
Spell --- What it can charm
Illusory Enemy --- Humanoid
Fabricated Enemy --- Humanoid, Animal
Imaginary Enemy --- Humanoid, Animal, Insect
Phantom Enemy --- Humanoid, Animal, Insect, Magical
Ghostly Enemy --- Humanoid, Animal, Insect, Magical, Undead
Dream Enemy --- Any monster
Q: The Shades of Mist cloak has a very poetic description on it ("used by those who move unseen and by those who stand at the front of battle") that I think describes me just fine. But I can't equip the cloak!
A: For the purposes of this cloak, "healer types and sub-types" are excluded. That means the following CANNOT use the item: clerics, friars, healers, shamans, druids, bards, and wardens.
Q: I recently started playing on Gaheris. The documentation I have found here on the Herald says that level 20+ can turn in seals for realm points. Where can level 20-25 characters go to earn these seals?
A: Keep raids. Also, if someone is nice and wants to give you a few seals, you can turn them in because we've set the "turn in" flag so low.
I'm also told that on Gaheris, you'll earn a realm ability point with each level over 20.
Q: I'm on Gaheris, and I just saw this Pendragon note: - Players can now use /bountyrent on personal houses with alternate characters on the same account as the character that owns the house. As a result of this change, the rent token merchants will be disabled in the future once this ability is on live servers.
Does this mean I can do this command with my lvl 50 reaver (who has over 13k bounty points) and it will pay for her house in Midgard AND my bonedancer's house in Albion?
A: This one wound up in the claws of our Product Quality dragon – he replied, "Using the PvE rule set any character on an account can pay the rent using the /bountyrent command on any house owned by any character on that account. The character paying the rent must be in the area of the house that he is paying the rent on."
Q: I got in an argument with some folks about how many times you can acquire and activate a particular artifact, and would like to have an official answer put in a grab bag, please?
Let's say I get an armor artifact all leveled up, and eventually wear it out (it being armor). Is it then possible for me to regain the artifact again just by completing the previous steps or am I (and everyone else) restricted to only gaining each artifact once per characters lifetime?
A: Each character can activate only one of each artifact – you can't go back and get a new one when the first one wears out. So if you've got a really, really cool artifact that you want to keep for a long, long time, use it sparingly.
Q: I'm curious for some more detail as to the question involving scroll farming from your last grab bag. If I'm looking for a scroll dropped by mob A, are my chances of getting that scroll better if I kill each spawn point of a mob, then move on to another spot where that mob spawns? EI. is every scroll "up" in the world at one point in time on SOME mob of the name which drops it? Or is it a matter of camping one named mob until that instance of the mob that holds a scroll appears?
A: If I understand your question correctly, you're asking if more than one scroll is "waiting" to drop at any one point.
That's not how our system works. Loot doesn't actually exist until the creature dies. Then the computer rolls to see what drops. Each monster has a percentage chance to drop whatever.
So, if a scroll has a 10% chance to drop, your odds are the same whether you wander killing all the creatures with the same name, or whether you kill the same monster over and over.
Your exp will be better if you move around, though.
Q: My question is about the new TOA magic item Attributes: Many add to your damage towards a particular class, i.e. Demons, Dragons, reptiles. If you have multiple items with increased damage to Dragons, for example, will they stack? Is there a cap?
A: The Item Mistress gave me this answer: "Items with Melee Damage, Spell Damage, Style Damage or Archery Damage bonuses do indeed stack up to a maximum of 25% bonus, provided they are versus the same enemy types. Items with a damage bonus versus Humanoids will only be effective versus mobs flagged as humanoid, but not against other players."
Remember last week, the link to DAOCMODS? If you liked the site, toss them a few bucks – the site's in danger of disappearing due to bandwidth costs. Or, if you've got a big healthy bandwidth pipe that you feel like sharing, give them a buzz.
I had a number of grab bag questions this week, asking if a particular scroll drop was broken. When you write in with that question, you need to tell me what monsters you're killing in an attempt to get the specific scroll. Some of the spoiler websites out there have incorrect information, and you'll hunt until the cows come home without getting your drop. I'm happy to get someone to investigate for you, but I need to make sure you haven't been barking up the wrong tree.
Two functions are going to be off for the next few days – you will not be able to copy characters to Pendragon, or remove every character on a particular account from your guild. These two functions should be back online next Wednesday – I'm sorry for any inconvenience.
Holy cheese dip and badgers. As of this night, the second Friday in December, the Friday Grab Bag is two years old. So much for a one time only feature. Thanks for all the great questions. Together we've turned up all kinds of stuff, and it's really helped to make the game better.
Time for me to go snarf some eggnog. Have a good weekend, and we'll see you Monday.
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