Grab Bag - Betcha Can't Ask Just One

Posted By: Sanya Thomas 2003-08-01 19:23:22

Crunch all you want: Q: I saw that you're no longer reading the Developer's Round Table (one of the many Vault message boards). How can I contribute my feedback and opinions? A: We're still reading Vault boards, just not the Roundtable board. We continue to read the more specific, smaller boards on that forum. (There are also several other fan-run message boards around the internet that we lurk at.) And while I don't answer the feedback forms very often, I do read them. That's actually WHY I don't answer very many - to make more time to read them all! The forms are almost always better written, anyway – the author isn't trying to prove anything to anyone but me, and isn't trying to outdo anyone else. Basically, we haven't so much stopped reading a board as we have refocused our energy into sources that give us a better picture of our player base as a whole. Q: There's a note in the 1.64 test patch notes about style and icon fixes. Can you be more specific? A: As noted in the 1.64C clarifications, we made over 200 small fixes to icons. Sorry, IRC guys, I was screwed up. The style lookover is still in the future. Q: Why did you not fix (insert name of style/spell/equipment) when you looked over similar things? A: I don't have a direct answer to your question, because there is a difference between a fix and a change. A change is when we alter something that works in response to ever-evolving design decisions and player feedback. Before reporting something as broken, be sure that you're not actually requesting a change in design. Bug appeals are not answered by our CSRs. Instead, those appeals are sent to the product quality team to read, investigate, and tally. Requests for design changes should be sent with a feedback form. Again, you won't hear anything directly (as I've said before, if I answered all of them, I wouldn't have time to read most of them), but rest assured your "votes" are tallied. Q: In the herald messages, I see that new /commands are being added all the time, but I don't always get to read the Herald before the postings go away. Would you please let me know if there is a database or listing somewhere and where I could get access to this? A: Our loyal and talented Herald programmer updates the list whenever a patch goes live. The link is on the left sidebar under "Game Documents." There's even a nice printable version. Let me know with a feedback form (there's a "Herald" category) if we left something off. Q: I know I probably didn't get a beta invite, but I had my junk mail being automatically being deleted so if it did go into my junk mail folder I never got the chance to see it. I was wondering if I get a second chance if I did get invited? A: Add us to your list of approved addresses! Okay, seriously – this round of testers was extremely small and consisted entirely of TLs, TL guests, and people who had a specific invitation from me to join all future closed betas. The next few rounds will no doubt consist of testers who have regularly tested things on Pendragon over the last few months. If you're not in those categories, you don't need to worry about having lost your invitation. Please do update your mail filters to accept mail from us, though. With so many people asking for beta accounts, we don't need to resend invitation letters, and I'd hate for anyone to miss out. Q: Are people allowed to take over the hunting spot I've camped for the last crazy number of hours? A: Yes. Technically, there are no "camps" that people can own. If someone tries to grab a monster you've already engaged, or tries to leech experience off a monster you're already fighting, then that would be an honor in combat violation. If you are unable to resolve **that** particular issue, you can appeal it as a harassment problem. But if another player grabs a spawn from "your" area, there's nothing we can do. Nobody "owns" a room in a massively multiplayer game. If you can make agreements with your fellow players, that's great – but we can't enforce those agreements for you. And even if someone is behaving in a manner that upsets you, you cannot break our honor in combat rules in retaliation. Q: I recently completed the Caledonia keep capture quest with one of my "younger" characters and was quite happy with the xp I got as a reward. I remember seeing a while back that there were similar quest for capture of Merchant Keeps in the enemy frontier zones. I believe there were 2 such quests for 35-40 and 40-45 level ranges. I think there was a realm rank needed besides the keep capture for each of these. Could someone fill me in on what RR I would need to attain for these level ranges? A: To complete these quests, you need to be Realm Rank 2 (if you're between levels 35 and 40), and Realm Rank 2, Level 5 for levels 40 to 45. Q: I bought an alchemy table for our guild house. I purchased an incantation merchant for spellcrafting and have noticed that I have to buy two merchants to get all the alchemy supplies. Why is that? Since you only have a limited number of hookpoints in the player houses (especially in the smaller houses), wouldn't it be better to have just one merchant like spellcrafting does? A: It would be… except there is no room to combine all of the alchemy supplies. Each merchant may only carry up to 150 items at this time, and there are more alchemy components than that hard limit. Q: I was doing a few trophies the other day and killed Faewren (who can be made into one of the Cat Trophies for Hibernia). However, it didn't drop remains, Since myself with my husband have been doing them on our Alb server since the beginning of Housing I know that if a mob drops remains it is on first kill. He was blue to me, and I did get xp for killing him, but he didn't drop remains. So I wanted another four game days for him to spawn again and killed him again and this time I got remains. While I was waiting for the respawn I reported it. When the CSR got there, he said that Remains don't drop every time on first kill. Can you please clarify this for me? A: You're both right. Not every monster drops remains every time. However, this particular creature is set to drop remains every time it dies, and if it doesn't, it's a bug. Q: I spoke with a CSR about a "bug" that displayed the DPS on a weapon differently in two locations. The item is a Balor drop and is named "Spear of Victory". When you simple right click the weapon it shows the DPS as being 16.4. When you use Shift I to get the delve information it shows the weapon being Base DPS 16.5. The CSR told me that the delve information is correct. A: The right click window truncates the value, so if it shows 16.4, it's possible that the value is really 16.4999999. The delve info rounds 16.499999 to 16.5. At any rate, delve shows the values that are used in calculation. Q: I have trained to Serenity 4, and I have Empowering Perfection mana regen 5. Do they stack so essentially I have mana regen 9, or have I wasted my realm skill points? A: Our spell designer told me, "Serenity stacks with spell-based power regen buffs." Q: I've asked several other people, and none of us can figure out what this means in the 1.64A patch notes: "Salvages on stacks of items will now reduce the amount of bars returned based on how full the stack is. A full stack will return the entire amount specified in the salvage count field, a half stack would return half that, etc. If there are not enough items in the stack to return anything, an error message will be returned to the player and the salvage will not go through." Can you clarify? A: I forwarded this question to our trade designer, and added that I too was very confused by the patch note, but I hadn't asked for a rewrite because I assumed crafters would understand. (For those of you new to the Herald, let me explain – I don't write the patch notes, but I request revisions when I think the notes might be confusing to the typical player.) He replied: "You aren't the only one that's confused, from what I've heard... it must be how it is worded. "It's probably also that most people don't realize that most of the SI common loot is salvagable. You just had to salvage them 1 at a time before. "If you have a stack of items, you can salvage them now. "If the stack can have up to 10 items, but your stack that you are salvaging only has 5 items in it, then you only get 50% of the salvage (since salvage is based on the total possible stack size). "If somehow the salvage is set up in such a way that you are getting less then 1 salvage point per item (i.e. for a stack of 10 items you only get 5 bars of metal) and you try to salvage a stack of 1, it won't let you, since you can't get a half bar." I'm still a little confused, but I hope it makes sense to you salvage operators! **** Two quick announcements: First, I know this is old news to some of you, but there's a fun little website out there for you trophy makers. They've got a good list up already, and are always looking for more submissions. Check them out at http://www.daoc-trophy-mobs.com/index.html. And second, our partner IGames has another event happening! They're calling it the month long LAN party – the Dark Age of Camelot August Extravaganza. Go to http://www.igames.org/programs/daoc_about.asp for more details. Well, stick a fork in me, I'm done for the week. See you all next Monday!