Grab Bag of Small Goodies

Posted By: Sanya Thomas 2004-04-30 19:45:06

Short on questions, long on announcements: Q: Where is the guild beta? A: We’ve decided that it will be better in the long run if we have a longer open beta, instead of multiple stages of closed beta. Open beta is currently scheduled to begin on May 5. Of course, that’s subject to change, depending on how testing goes over the next week. We look forward to seeing you in New Frontiers! Q: My guild leader has been MIA for a few weeks now, and I was hoping the autopromote feature would kick in soon. Is it working? A: It’s currently disabled – it had been acting up, and rather than risk any wrongful promotions, we turned it off. Unfortunately, the programmer responsible for fixing the feature is busy implementing the new realm ability system for New Frontiers, and needs to get that done first. Sorry, everyone. Q: Will 1.70 bring the release of Frontiers? A: That’s the plan. Q: I haven’t seen any style changes in the patch notes so far? A: Wince. I should have known better than to say anything. After looking at all the stuff we were doing for 1.70, and all the stuff we had to do in the next three weeks, it became obvious that something had to be pushed back until May. That something was the proposed style changes. We still have more than twenty changes currently designed, and we are NOT going back on presenting them to you – but they have to wait until the coders have time to put them in. Sorry, folks, but I had to tell you. Q: Will there be RA respecs with the new RA system? A: We’ve got it listed on the website, but I’ll happily say it again – YES. A total, 100% refund of all realm ability points will be given. Q: I am a new player, and I don’t understand some of your comments in the grab bag. For that matter, what the heck is a grab bag? A: A grab bag question about the grab bag. There’s something funny about that. Here are some definitions and a short list of the “in jokes”: Grab Bag – I used to try and do a weekly feature about the topic that garnered the most questions over each week. The fourth week of this, I had a week where the questions didn’t fit a theme, so I titled the column “Grab Bag.” It stuck. That was in December of 2001. Cheese dip – I was a game volunteer for another company in another lifetime. I had a habit of saying “more fun than cheese dip,” and the other volunteers would tease me for it. It’s just a shout out to those old comrades, and a reminder to myself to not get too far up on my high horse. Slushy –ice, fruit juice, and secret ingredients mixed in a blender at high speed. Often enjoyed on Fridays by responsible adults over twenty one who have designated drivers. Item Princess – one of our item designers and implementers, the much beloved KC. Item Mistress – another item designer, the equally beloved Yvonne. Moderately Evil Overlord – the live producer, Walt aka Copper. The Really Evil Overlord – the executive producer, Matt Firor. Quest Goddess – several ladies on the quest team have this title, really, but most often it’s our fabulous Jennifer H. Balance Boy – Mike, aka Mackey, currently doing work on the design team, and serving as the design team’s liason to the Herald women. Heaven help all four of us. Typing Chimpanzee – me :P Miss Julie, Miss Linda – the other members of the Herald team. Miss Julie handles community news and hangs out on the Vault (and recently has taken on several feedback folders), and Miss Linda is our Team Lead coordinator and den mother. Code Warrior – one of the programmers, Scott, who wrote many of the features of the Camelot Herald before moving over to the server programming team. He still slums with us when something falls down and goes boom, and answers code questions. Dan the Client Man – one of the programmers, cleverly named Dan, who does client programming and answers questions for me related to that. Miss Georgia – the programmer who wrote the rest of the Herald features and current web programmer, among other coding duties. There are probably other people I’ve got silly names for, but they don’t come up much in the column. *** Psst: Over there. On the left sidebar. There’s a link called “Account Splitting FAQ,” which will answer many common questions. There is one mistake in there right now – it says the destination account must be brand new. This is not true. You just need to be certain there are NO characters on the server you’re trying to move characters to. For those of you watching for our next product, we’ve got the basic, bare bones website up and ready for your perusal: Imperatoronline.com. Expect more goodies once E3 is over. What’s E3? Keep reading! Attention beta testers: the Jamtland Mountains entrance into the frontier dungeon does not work. We will get it back up on Monday. You’ll need to access the dungeon via the other frontiers for the weekend. Oh, and anyone on Pendragon trying out the new RA system (and you do NOT need to be a beta tester to do so, simply on Pendragon), please note that we’ve disabled the Static Tempest RA for the weekend. If you’re wondering, it was causing a permanent stun. Funny for the first couple minutes if you’ve got a sick sense of humor as I do, not so funny after that. We’ll be fixing it to work as the spreadsheet says it does next week. Please, please, please do not use the Herald feedback forms for reporting bugs. The Herald forms are categorized and sent to email folders on the Herald team, and each folder is only checked once a week. Using the bug appeal function from in the game means a human will see the report much, much faster. There’s one exception – send me dupe bugs or other major exploits straight to me, with a subject header such as DUPE or EXPLOIT. As many of you know, we reward our good citizens with swag, beta invites, and even free accounts depending on the severity of the reported exploit or dupe. Attention all website editors and reporters – it’s that time of year again, gang. I’m deep into my planning for E3 (Electronic Entertainment Exposition). For the third year in a row, I’m meeting with players, fans, and writers in Los Angeles to show them the new stuff we have in store and ply them with lanyards. Okay, not just lanyards, we have T-shirts, too. If you’re going to be there, and you’d like to come by the booth, contact me (Sanya AT mythicentertainment DOT com) with three twenty minute time blocks that you could spend at our private interview booth located in Concourse Hall. I’ll do my best to accommodate you. But don’t wait – I have to turn people away every year and it breaks my heart, so please, make an appointment now. That not tempting enough? The Moderately Evil Overlord is running the demo with me… If YOU’RE already booked up, and can’t come by, be sure to stop by our kiosk in South Hall, under the Vivendi Universal banner. All right. Let me thank all of you for your patience this week, and wish you a very happy weekend. We’ll see you Monday!