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 |  | It's Time For the Grab Bag |  |
|  | Posted By: Sanya Thomas | 2004-02-20 19:46:07 |  |
| |  |  Sunday always comes too late, but it's Friday -
Q: Insert question here about 4000 unit reporting, crossed swords, refresh rate, etc.
A: If you don’t know what that question means, get on over to the New Frontiers Transportation System page and see what everyone’s talking about.
I CAN’T answer the questions you’ve sent – because we just laid out everything we have in mind. Those are the paper plans and ideas, and we’re going to be working with our players to determine what the final design looks like.
I know that one on one fights won’t show up on the map, but how big a force it takes to get on the map hasn’t been set for sure – we need to see how it works in practice. We’re planning to have the map refresh every five seconds, but if that turns out to be bad for the server, we’ll change it. If 4000 units turns out to take the fun out of the game, we’ll reduce it. Who knows? We don’t, not until the beta gets going!
Think of it like an elaborate system based on the guard death spam – when that spam rolls, you know there is action in that area. Well, this is a GUI (graphical user interface, for you newcomers to our happy band) version.
Q: Okay, what’s all this talk about master level ten?
A: You got us :) It was a secret level, we just thought that would be fun. We’ve put stuff like that in the game before, and this was more of the same. You don’t know glee until you’ve planned a surprise.
But there you have it – Celestius is actually the final trial, and you get to the area by porting through the secret gates after you’ve completely finished levels one through nine.
Q: I have rolled a berserker and have 2 items on from TOA that add +3 to all melee skills. However, I have NO pluses to my Left Axe ability. Why is Left Axe not considered a melee skill?
A: From the Item Mistress: ” The Melee Skill All bonus is intended to increase a weapon skill when training in one usually excludes the others. For example, players are unlikely to be trained in both Sword and Axe and therefore will really only receive an effective bonus for one skill. However, training in Axe does not preclude training in Left Axe or Parry, since the player is likely to use both or all at once. If we had included any of the dual wield skills, we would have been giving those players a double bonus. A player trained in Left Axe always has another weapon trained, so increasing both was not a viable option.”
Q: Did I lose any experience on my artifact when 1.68 went live?
A: No. Before the patch, the percentage display was a number created by some horrible formula from hell that I don’t understand after three explanations. NOW, the percentage reflects nothing more than how much progress you’ve made to the artifact’s next level. When you ding the artifact, the number will reset to zero and you’ll start over.
Q: Was there any changes made to Galladoria? I've set up two raids there this past week to kill both the Conservator and Xaga, and out of killing them both 2 times over the past 4 days, we've walked away with only ONE single line skill respec stone (Luminescent Ceriac). Also, Darkness Falls seems to not be producing the amount of seals it used to.
A: Column regulars know I like to have the dev team look up drop rates, just in case things were accidentally changed while we were working on the spreadsheets. We looked up both of these for you. Galladoria has not changed – the chance to drop a stone is not a good one, so I think you just got lucky if in the past you’ve walked away with one every raid.
And the DF question? From the Mistress: ” There have not been any intentional changes to the drop rates for the seals in Darkness Falls. However, if you provide us with the names of the mobs you feel are not dropping the normal amount of seals, we would be happy to check for problems.”
Q: Why didn’t the player-run consignment merchants update the artifacts they were selling to reflect the lower bonuses in 1.68?
A: It has to do with the way we store data. There are literally billions of items in the game right now, and to go through them all to update the display would take years. So the system updates the display on active items – things in your inventory and bank vault are considered active when you log in. Items on the consignment merchants are not currently considered active until they are moved to the inventory of a player. The display then updates when an inventory check is done, which you can force by logging in and logging out.
The item itself had the bonus reduced in the patch, because when you use an item, it contacts the server to find out what it should do.
Sorry about any confusion, y’all.
Q: The artifact "Crocodile Tear Ring" says in the delve that it will gain xp from kills in enemy frontiers. As a Hibernian, this says to me that this artifact should gain xp while in the Midgard and Albion frontiers. The artifact does gain xp while in the outdoor areas of Mid/Alb frontiers but not from kills inside the frontier dungeons.
Maddening Scalars artifact was changed in 1.68 to gain xp in the frontier dungeons. Should my Crocodile Tear Ring also gain xp while in enemy frontier dungeons?
A: Again from our lovely Mistress: ” The Crocodile Tear Ring should gain experience from experience earned in the frontier dungeons. This will be fixed with the next patch. Thanks for the report!”
Q: I have the artifact named Guard of Valor. When I delve, it says that it levels in the realm’s frontier dungeons and a place called House of the Dead...where/what is the House of the Dead? I’ve asked around... and no one knows, not even in Map-a-lot.
A: Wow, there’s a blast from the past. House of the Dead was an old name, kind of a placeholder from an early design document. Oh, Mistress! ”This was indeed an entry error on our part. The delve has been corrected by replacing "House of the Dead" with the correct "Summoner's Hall".”
Q: Is anyone else having the problem where debuff storms are no longer hitting mobs? Dex/Quick debuff, starting with yesterday’s patch, was no longer hitting any mob I tried it on. Using duels I was able to hit buffed players with it, but even then it would not hit my opponent’s charmed pet. Was there a patch note I missed?
A: This one caused quite a bit of consternation. We’ve been digging all afternoon. Here’s the word, from the Moderately Evil Overlord: ”In version 1.68, we fixed a bug that allowed the Battlewarder to be used against monsters. As a result of this fix, many additional Master Abilities in this 'category' were inadvertently affected. We are investigating this issue and will look at fixes in a later version. The list of all abilities that fall into this 'category' is as follows: Cowering Bellow, Agony Transmission, Zone of Unmana, Primal Agony, Essence Shatter, Dissonance Trap, Snaring Tendrils of Power, Inexorable Defeat, Oppression, Demoralization, Power Leak, Sapping Strike, Power Trap, and Enervating Gas.”
I am really sorry, gang.
Q: Question concerning the one Perfector ability "Greatness" can u tell me what the ability actually does. Is the ability used for increasing the number of perment buff spells u can cast at once-- 20 spells capped for will it give you 4 extra perment buffs extra to cast or is it what it says increases conceration pool by 20%. Can you plz clarify this????
A: From our Balance Boy: ” Whenever you cast a concentration buff, it costs a certain amount of concentration points. Obviously, if you cancel a buff, you get those concentration points back. You are limited in the number of buffs you can cast based on your concentration pool. Greatness increases your concentration pool by 20% allowing you to cast more buffs.
HOWEVER, there is a second limit to the number of concentration buffs you can have cast at one time which is currently 20. This is a technical limitation and increasing that number is currently on our list of improvements to make.
The higher the level of concentration buffs you are trying to cast, the higher the chance that you'll run into the concentration pool cap before you run into the 20 buff cap. This is the case where Greatness comes into play by increasing your conc pool by 20% and letting you cast more buffs.”
I hate to be the voice of doom, but I feel like I should mention here that “on the list” means “no deadline has been set, but we do want to do this.”
Q: My question is regarding my Belkin Nostromo N52. It allows recordable macros which would allow me to craft without actually pressing any buttons.
Is this against the rules? My guildmates informed me that it may get me banned or my Alch skill reset. So, I have not used it yet. Please let me know.
A: Your guildmates are right on. From the head of in-game customer service: ”When we catch people using this, we first suspend the player for 5 days and wipe all of his tradeskills to zero. Second time is a ban.”
Q: I have a Shadowblade on Percival and was wanting to make an infiltrator on Guinevere with the same name. I checked the Herald and the name does not show up, yet when I try and make the character with name of choice, it says “name is taken.” I was thinking that all names would be on the Herald. Is this a bug, or can somebody have the name and not show on the Herald?
A: Really old characters that haven’t logged in for awhile may not appear on the Herald. We have never erased any characters (though please remember, Andred is closing on Thursday the 26th, and those characters will indeed be lost forever if you don’t copy yours to Mordred), so even a character around but unplayed since 2001 is still reserving the name.
If we ever wipe old, unplayed characters, we will post here with plenty of warning.
* * *
File it under “we are aware of the issue, and trying to resolve it”: Powertaps from Necromancers on any person that does not have a power pool causes the spell to not work - it takes their power, but does no damage. We are working on the fix – but it can’t be hot wired to the server, and I won’t know anything more until Monday.
I don’t have a lot of announcements tonight – we made them during the day :) Thanks for a great week, thanks for the great feedback, and I’ll see you here next week!
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