Srand Forum Posts
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This table does not contain all of srand's posts, but most of them. Please note that newer posts are listed higher in this list. Older information may be outdated.
Loud Sound Fixes
- Thank you, everyone, for all the lists! Not all of these will be fixed in the next update, but I've been getting tweaks in as I have time. This is subject to change, etc etc, but so far warning screens are slightly less blaring, quest dings of all types are a bit quieter, spiders don't shriek quite so loudly, and a number of the abilities you listed should be a bit more in line with the abilities around them.
- Everyone else, please chime in - what sounds really stand out to you?
Fox Artwork
- This is amazing! I absolutely love that foxy look.
Colorblind Mode
- There's no colorblind mode yet. I'm sorry. We are determined to add one, but for the moment it's lower than some other priorities.
Pets. Pets? Pets!
- I also would love more pets - it was one of the first things I asked Citan for! (I used to run Petopia, a WoW pet site. I had a slime!) Sadly other things have taken higher priority so far, but I am very much looking forward to playing with the AH pets eventually. Or at least plying Citan with 'helpful' suggestions while he tries to work on them.
Black Magic Code
- I can't claim to be the actual black magic coder in the family, though - that's Citan. My code work on PG has mostly been bug fixes and such on the client at this point. I've also been helping with other random grunt work - building some dungeons, mapping spawns, maps ... <shrug> I've done a lot of random stuff in my day - AC1 had such a shortage of staff when I was lead engineer there that all of us filled in for each other when we had to. (I made some quests I'm still vaguely proud of. I don't want to talk about the tsys boondoggle, though.) But I wouldn't call myself a designer either. I'm just a coder who is being forced ('forced') to do random grunt work because that's what's necessary right now.
Project Work
- While you could say that I did some writing in PG as well as previous games, it was entirely code. I am a coder. Sorry to disappoint!
- Edit: Although I am curious why you thought I did the writing.
Hair Colors
- Just to clarify, and extending the hair color example: the new color is permanent in the same way that the old color was permanent. It can still be changed with another potion. Permanent here means that it is not a 5-minute effect that wears off on its own. That sentence could be ambiguous, so I wanted to check that we're on the same page.
Horizon Terrain Bug
- If you are having trouble with the terrain in Rahu - if a blue thing is popping up through the ground in some places as you move - don't panic! We are working on this right now. In the meantime, we have a work-around:
- In Settings, under Graphics, at the very bottom of the list of regular settings is a toggle for "Show Advanced Options". Toggle "Enabled" on. This opens a long list of advanced settings that you can tweak. About halfway down the list is "Show Horizon Terrain". Toggle this setting on, and you will see a new toggle to Enable/Disable the horizon terrain. The default is "Enabled". Toggle that to "Disabled". You will no longer see distant horizon terrain - or the weird blue plane in Rahu.
Player Guides
- Just to clarify a bit:
- Guides are volunteers who have agreed to help answer other players' questions, and to help keep in-game chat a civil and friendly place. There is no requirement that they put in a certain number of hours; they are volunteers.
- Guides have very few special powers, and those are related specifically to their role. For example, they can turn their -GUIDE- tag on and off to indicate whether they are currently doing guide-y things. They can deploy limited short-term gags and bans if necessary to put out fires in chat. They do not have the power to spawn items or monsters, and they can't run what I will loosely call admin events.
- Internally, we think of events as being either player-driven - like the Poetry Jam - or admin-driven - like the recent lemon-themed events. We would love to see more player-driven events like the Poetry Jam! Guides can help players get events like this set up and rolling. Admin events are much more unwieldy. These events require a lot of work and a lot of high-level special commands, so not something guides will be able to do on their own. (Sorry, guides!)
- When we ask guides to do other things, we generally give them specific guide-only items - for example, the big pillars of light that guides can deploy to help players find them. And we give them access to some goodies like cauldrons to enliven player gatherings.
- If you are putting together a player-driven event - whether that is something big and recurring like the Poetry Jam, or just a little one-time thing like a character's birthday party - you can ask the guides if they can help make that happen. The guides won't magically make it happen for you, and there may not be any guides available - they are volunteers, after all.
- If you would like to give feedback on specific guide actions, please e-mail [email protected].
Dangerous Weapons
- So yeah, the plan is to update the dangerous equipment with something that makes sense for the original purpose of helping level 40ish players improve their gear. That isn't an immediate priority, so it may be a bit before we get those changes in.
- And please keep in mind that if you aren't level 40ish when we get a better system in place, you may be disappointed with your updated equipment.
BC Golem Solo/Group Toggle
- I like that suggestion! And Citan tells me that something like this will probably be added eventually. But golems programs use very old tech and will need to be updated - along with much of BC - before much can be done with them.
Happy Anniversary, Memorable Day?
- I know, right? I figured even I can't forget this one. (Plus, it's oddly apt.)
Wolf Cave Bugs
- We do appreciate all your bug reports! We especially appreciate them when you submit them through the normal methods so we can track them more easily.
- You can submit bug reports in-game - just click the ! icon at the top of the right-hand sidebar. This is the best way to report game bugs because those reports contain additional info, like your exact location and some very basic details about your character and computer. If the bug involves an item, you can also attach specific info about that item by dragging it into a spot on the report form. If you need to send us a crash dump, screenshots of the problem, anything like that, you can e-mail those to [email protected].
- We keep an eye out for reports on the forums - or I wouldn't be typing this - but there's a lot more space for a forum report to slip through the cracks. In-game reports and e-mails to [email protected] both have much better tracking systems so that nothing gets accidentally lost.
JSON Changes
- The only JSON file that will be going away in the near future is strings.json (which is effectively empty). The other two just got overlooked in the doc, I think. Thanks for letting us know; Citan will fix that up.
Maximum Entity
- Aww ... user beat me here. Yup, /zapresources will usually help in this situation. Just please remember to send an in-game report about the stuck resource from its location - or as close as you can get - so we can investigate and fix that location! (You should also include anything weird you were doing at the time. If you were jumping backwards over a cow while dancing and placing your fletching box, that might be important to know.)
Anniversary & Theme
- Thank you very much everyone! This marks 12 years of marriage for us (plus another 6 or so of serious cohabitation before that). I am thankful every day to have him in my life.
- Not as such, no. We flew ourselves and our mutual best man (Todd Berkebile from AC1) to Las Vegas. I insisted that we go do the paperwork immediately because I did not want to be married on April 2. A quick cab to the courthouse, another to an all-night chapel, and then off to drink!
Steam Discounts
- Ahha - I found a location that still mentioned the discount! During the transition period, we have different, sometimes overlapping, messages depending on how you log in to make sure we're getting information to the right people. This message was technically accurate (the best kind!), but the wording was pretty confusing - so I've changed it.
- As an aside: I was really surprised by how restrictive Steam is about sales or discounts.
Forum Accounts
- So far as I know, because the forum and game accounts are completely separated, linking your game account to your Steam account won't change your linkage here on the forum. However, we've gone through several iterations of how the forums tie in and I haven't actually tried it myself, so please take that with a grain of salt. (And hopefully if I am wrong Silvonis will chime in here and set me straight.)
Rahu Empty Space
- Plans, yes. (Also plans for the long-awaited Rahu sewers and other content.) But I don't have a solid timeline for you on any of that right now, I'm afraid.
Steam Release Accounts
- We won't be deleting registered accounts when we move to Steam Early Access, so as long as you have registered your game account - with an account name and password and e-mail and all - your character is safe. (An in-game account is NOT the same as a forum account! Basically if you enter a username and password when you log into the game, you're fine.)
- Now you will need to connect that account with a Steam account, and you will need to purchase the game (or have gotten one of the packages), but your character will be waiting for you when you do.
- We will probably be deleting unclaimed guest accounts - accounts that don't have a name, password, and e-mail attached to them - at some point in the future.
- Edit: Changed 'wiped' to 'deleted' for better clarity.
Serbule Hills Change
- It's weird, but the new map UI may be the single piece of the new UI that required the most underlying changes. Those changes opened up the way for a lot of new features, including some that haven't made it out to you yet, but it means that the new map UI is still lacking polish. For example, we can now do much higher res maps with zooming and support a proper mini-map, but the zooming doesn't quite work the way anyone would expect - it's not intuitive enough, I mean. (It doesn't help that we weren't able to get high-res versions of all of the maps in yet.) And there are plenty of bugs yet, including map pin scaling and the persistence of settings.
- The map is never going to be exactly what it used to be, much as Serbule Hills is never going to be exactly the same as South Serbule was. But the goal is the same: it should have the same basic features plus more, and it should be more polished and intuitive than the old version. Oh, and it should have fewer bugs.
- It's not there yet. It will get there, with your detailed and specific bug reports and feedback. We have been getting lots of those - and we really appreciate them! In-game reports are easier for us to track and manage, but we follow the discussions here on the forums closely as well.
- The one thing I would ask you to do, as we move towards that, is to please not assume that we are trying to screw you up deliberately. We aren't. We want this UI to be as polished and usable as you do. As with many things about PG right now, it's a work in progress.
- Edit: Ooh! You know what would be really useful for me? I would love to know how you are using the main map vs. the mini-map.
Preview Version of new UI
- A huge thanks to everyone who helped with bug reports, suggestions, and feedback during the preview period! The time you put into testing during the preview phase was indispensable.
- Today the new UI went live for everyone, so we're switching back to the normal bug reporting process. If you see something that doesn't work, or doesn't work quite right, or is confusing or weird, or if you just have feedback or suggestions you want to share, please send an in-game ticket - it's under the "!" icon at the top of the right-hand sidebar.
- Thank you again!
UI Update
- Let me repeat Silvonis' thank you. We really appreciate all the wonderful feedback and detailed reports. All of this is being compiled and sorted into a master list for fixing and tweaking, so don't worry about lots of short posts or duplicate reports - we'll sort those out. And we'll be working hard on this all week, so please do keep the reports and feedback coming! Your hard work is going to make the 'official' roll out so much smoother.
- The All channel is a special built-in 'channel' that always shows everything. You can hide the All tab in Settings->Gui, under the Chat section: "Include 'All' Tab On Chat Window". We figured that experienced players would want their tabs set up differently, and we don't want new players to miss anything in the beginning.
- For myself, I more or less replicated the old chat with a new chat tab (creatively called 'User') that includes Global, Help, Trade, Nearby (minus NPC Chatter), and Tells. (I have Party and Guild chat plus Tells again on another tab, because I prefer to keep those separate. But that's just me.)
- The icon for the wordhunt game is gone - it was a really old left-over of earlier development. You can use /wordgame or the Word Game scroll that Marna sells to pop up the window. You can use the scroll from the left sidebar - I have a non-combat loadout set up that way for hanging out in town.
Turtle and Beast Form Ideas
- Pfft. Speak for yourself. I want to be a mata-mata.
Placeable Brewing Kegs
- I believe that that is in the queue.
Music
- You can find Conor at conorbrace.com. We have found him to be incredibly talented, eminently professional, and a real joy to work with.
Crafting Recipes
- Please do let us know the details for any recipe that you think really isn't worth it! Many of them are almost certainly bugs we'd like to get fixed. You can send those details in through an in-game report so we can file and track them.
Hurricane
- Thank you! We came through safely enough. Other than a half hour or so where we were under a severe tornado warning, the winds weren't even all that bad here. (We stuffed the rats with us into an interior bathroom during that warning. The rats were not happy.)
- We have a lot of small debris on the ground - like leaves and small branches, and someone's roofing tiles - and a small sapling in the road down the street. But that seems to be it. And we still have power! (That is the benefit of living in the cheaper part of town near the power station, Citan says.)
- Much of the state was not so lucky. But it could have been a lot worse.
- Edit: Actually, while I am here I would like to emphasize how important having electrical power is for people in Florida. Air conditioning sounds like a luxury, but much of the state is almost unlivable without it. There is still a stiff breeze here and decent cloud cover, and it is already 86F out there. It will be pushing 90F (32C) tomorrow - and this is perfectly normal Florida weather.
- This is why it's a really big deal when half to 2/3 of the state still lacks power. Older people and people with special needs do not do well in a 90F house without air conditioning ... much less a 90F shelter packed with other people who can't go home yet.
- So we are very happy to have our own computers up and running - but way, way happier to have A/C.
Cash Shop P2W?
- So I'll just re-iterate the basics that I am very certain about: Citan abhors P2W and has no intention of taking development in that direction. The optional VIP subscription will really help illuminate that line, I think ... when we have more details on that.
- But as you know and probably get tired of hearing, we are very early in development and not everything can happen at once. So in the meantime we can only be very upfront with you about our goals - and we try to do that. And this is as true of game systems like Skills and combat as it is true of anything else.
Poetry
- In the first image, I am the elf in a bikini and boots standing all the way to the left.
Moon Phase App
- Oh my gods, Niph! This is wonderful!
- I especially love the statue diagram at the top - I installed before I read the overview, and when I figured out what that was I burst out laughing. But for me, the mushroom list (and attached comment fields) look incredibly useful. I'm looking forward to trying this out!
Citan's Birthday
- Oh he's going to love this! I'm really sorry he missed it, but he has to sleep some time. I'll make sure he sees it when he wakes up!
- (I just hope this helps him forget that I forgot his birthday ... again ... )
Scavenger Hunt
- I've seen the plans for this, so I can't compete myself, but I can confidently say that it looks like a real blast. I hope I can make it, if only to watch!
Animal Handling
- We know there are bugs with AH. We are working on them. And AH will almost certainly need some ability changes and other balance work after the bugs are sorted.
- So let's drop this escalating argument for now and get back to the original topic of the thread, okay? Seeing how people sell other players on a skill - or warn them away from it - is really valuable for another peek at what is working and what is not.
- Thanks!
Lich
- The word 'lich' does get thrown around here sometimes.
Monster Races
- Well, we've got playable werewolves, spiders, and giant bats already - not to mention cows, pigs, and even deer (<shudder>). Vampires were a stretch goal for KickStarter and will happen in the future.
- But as for creating your own individual race, we won't be able to support that.
Respawn Bug
- If you get stuck in a death loop (respawning in the void), you can use the I'm Stuck! report (under the ! icon, upper right sidebar) to get yourself out. And if that doesn't work for some reason, you can log in a different character and use '/unstickchar name' to move the stuck character. But you should be fine.
Dungeon Deletion
- So ... I accidentally deleted several dungeons. Whoops.
- In the meantime, please avoid the dungeon on Anagoge Island (that's the newbie island), as well as the Brain Bug Cave, the Crystal Cavern, and the old tutorial dungeon.
- Thank you! And my extreme apologies. :/
Words of Power
- The date on old WoP info that BetaNotus resurrected (and thank you for that, BetaNotus!) really surprised me. (2011? Really?) But it's true - the Words of Power system is very old and a lot of the features that were planned haven't been implemented yet. Worse still, the game has advanced in some ways but this system just hasn't kept up. We need to do a lot of work to get it up into the same gameplay usability ballpark (if that makes any sense) as more recent skills.
- Your feedback is incredibly valuable for that. It's great to have it on the forums, too, where others can join in with suggestions and comments. (And yes, some venting, I'm sure. )
- I'm sorry about the miscommunication involving your in-game report. We're only a few people and we sometimes need to go through the reports fast. On a quick reading and since it was marked as a bug report, yours looked like it just needed a quick 'nope, that's intended' response. That response wasn't meant to be snide or dismissive. I'm sorry it came across that way.
Barfight
- I am fairly confident that Citan has nothing against naked drunken fun-zergs. (And I do expect you to be both naked and drunk!)
Physics
- My immediate reaction: "Wait, did we add the Physics skill already?"
Vanity Armor
- This is how my Frostfell alt ended up dressed as Aquaman. And not the sexy new one either.
Name Change
- We will definitely have paid name changes, and the ability to change your avatar (including gender) is coming as well.
- But changing your race is much more complicated. There's not currently any tech for that, and it's not planned for the near future. Past that, we're not certain, but I wouldn't expect race changes before full launch. (That is, not Steam Early Access but full release.)
Playing with Pets
- You mean like a throwing stick or a catnip ball? Or ... err ... a salmon? I have no idea what bears play with.
Mini Map
- One of the things that can mess up your mini-map is the experimental GUI scale slider. That's under Options -> GUI and Windows, fourth slider down the screen; it's called "GUI Scale (experimental! smaller is bigger!)".
- The GUI scale can be useful for making chat readable but cause problems with the mini-map like what you have described, with the map pointer and any points of interest swinging wildly across the screen.
- So my first thought would be to try turning the GUI Scale back up to 100% and see if that helps. Let us know!
Alpha, Druid
- And there you have the essence of alpha! We call our current development stage alpha NOT to make us look good or defray valid criticism, but to try to let people who want to help test know exactly what they are getting into.
- Bugs, crashes, not-yet-implemented (NYI) stuff everywhere, sure. But that's typical beta stuff. Our alpha testers have to contend with much more than that: massive rewrites of the equipment system that invalidates half or more of their armor, entrenched bugs that cause them to lose money or items, constantly falling to their death from a great height while still on the ground, repeated crashes that won't let you log in for a week ... quite an awful lot of inconvenience all around.
- We are incredibly proud of and grateful to the testers who are willing to put up with all of that. You are a force to be reckoned with!
- Regarding druid events: We're reading and discussing the feedback - I'm watching druid feedback quite particularly myself - and we are planning changes and additional events around that feedback. It's also very useful to know how and why people are becoming druids and how you see that fitting in to a complete game. So let's keep this thread focused on feedback we can use for better druid events - and better druids!
JSON
- So as I understand it, the ServerInfo object isn't supposed to be included with the client version of the recipe JSON ... but the XP values are. So the XP values will be coming back in a different form. (And quickly, if we can. We want to make the wiki as useful and easy to work with as we can.)
Net Fishing
- My father taught me to fish with a cast net this way - with good beer, and a decent distance away from him so I wouldn't brain him with the lead weights. (It's a pity I was 12 at the time. The beer did not go down well.)
Reclaim Character Account
- I'm sorry - we don't have the ability to move characters between accounts yet.
- But if you remember your guest number - or if the game does when you try to log in - your can use that and a blank password to log into that guest account. If you don't have your guest number, drop us an e-mail at [email protected] and we'll see what we can do to help you out.
Dwarves
- There are plans for dwarves. <ominous and/or wise old-timer voice, your choice>
- Mind you, I have no idea what they are, but there are ... plans. (Okay, that one was ominous.)
Map UI
- The current map is limited quite a bit by the current UI framework. Once we get that sorted, we should be able to add quite a bit more functionality - it's just a matter (mostly, at least) of deciding what to add. So your thoughts here and going to be really useful when we get there!
Lice Removal
- You are not screwed!
- You can get back to the newbie island from the docks in northern (well, sort of north-north-west, I guess) Serbule. Talk to the boatman there - it's 300 councils for a round trip. Just ring the bell on the newbie island dock when you want to go back to Serbule.
- You can also borrow a lice comb from someone in town (*not* suggested in real life), or have it cured with a first aid ability - Treat Disease 1, I think, since lice is a basic disease.
Corpse Talking
- Keep in mind that you can share corpse-talking shallow graves - so you can, for example, hold the grave you found open for a friend who also wants that corpse's expertise. It will despawn eventually, or if you desecrate it.
- We're looking into the bug with getting that first XP. Corpse-talking isn't exactly the top of the list, skills-wise (), but I'll poke and get an update for you.
Bug Report Information
- The report includes your location, active skills, and form. (And remember that these are all based on when you file the report, so if you've changed your location or your skills between the time you saw the bug and when you filed the report, please mention that!) Right now, it's not feasible for us to look up your combat log or gear, so the more detailed info you can give the better. In particular, please include exact mod effect and the name of the equipment it's on. (We can often figure out what you mean without a problem, so if you forget to report until later you should still send in everything you remember, but if you can - the more details the better!)
Animal Husbandry
- User "I'm really hoping cattle farming is more of an abstract game in itself."
- Don't quote me on this (yet), but I am pretty sure that is Citan's goal with animal husbandry.
Guilds
- All the actual numbers are subject to change right now - caps, guild quest difficulty and rewards, guild XP, guild levels, guild credits ... It's going to take some time to get the numbers tweaked to a point where they are fun for different types of guilds. And we haven't had a chance to touch it much lately. But especially with the growing population, this is a good time for feedback on all things guild-related.
Pottery Suggestions
- I love these suggestions! And one of the great things about PG (if I may say so myself) is that this kind of stuff can be added relatively easily. Citan built the tech framework and content pipeline with the live game in mind - so stuff like this can make it into beta updates or the ongoing updates after release.
- ... which is why I keep a long, long list of suggestions for the future. And all the little details you can think of to help these skills fit into the world are absolutely wonderful - you think of a lot more cool stuff than we can.
Quality vs Quantity
- I understand exactly what you mean, Khaylara - quantity vs. quality is a very familiar trade-off for live game teams (that is, teams the expand the game after release). Do you concentrate on a lot of expanded content, whether that is in the form of expansion packs or monthly updates? Or do you fix the long-standing bugs, add a more modern chat system, maybe finally give the pointless cave in the mid-level zone some sort of actual purpose? Where exactly the trade-off happens depends a lot on the game, the players, and the dev team - but it is always a balancing act.
- But that's post-release. Where we are right now, in alpha, we still need to pin down a lot of the tech and the mechanics. We need to do the crazy stuff now. We are doing quite a bit for quality of life as we go - although admittedly at this point, a lot of it is less 'quality of life' and more 'why the hell isn't that basic feature there yet?', but still. Overall the current balance for us swings towards ... well, not quantity over quality, but bones over quality.
- Take Gazluk, for example. Even though Gazluk is a big shiny new zone, it serves an additional purpose: Gazluk contains tests of something like five new tech mechanics. Some of these are low-level enough (in the code sense) that you won't ever see them. Some are smaller versions of something that's planned to be a larger deal later. (Pennoc filled that purpose, for example.)
- Even something like skill prices has a testing purpose: We aren't punishing you or trying to slow you down, we're seeing how the math that looks good on paper actually falls out when it meets real players. (Insert quote about battle plans here.) Between your feedback and some basic metrics, we can improve the whole process for the next skill cap raise. Perhaps the best part of this stage of development is that, if something doesn't work, we can change it.
- I think part of the problem we are running into is that we have drawn out the alpha so long that some of our long-term alpha players are expecting more from us. That is completely understandable - and, honestly, incredibly flattering. And thankfully something that will improve as we move into beta and beyond and get a little more slack in our balancing tightrope. (Err .. wait - is slack good or bad on a tightrope? Well, hopefully you know what I mean.)
Mob Detection Range
- There was a bug in the outdoor mob detection range that we didn't know about for a long time. It got fixed more or less as a side-effect of another fix, and without getting on my radar for patch notes. But because a lot of the content was tweaked for the previous (bugged) range, a lot of content was unintentionally affected by the range fix. Some of it is broken entirely. (Deer mobs, I am looking at you!) Some of it is much harder than intended. Some of it works out pretty well and will probably be left that way. But we're going to have to do a pass back through the bad areas and fix things up again.
Bug Reports
- Remember, PLEASE report ALL bugs you see through the in-game report tool. (Under the big ! icon on the top of the right-hand sidebar). You can discuss them here, of course, but reporting them in-game makes it MUCH easier for us to track them and get them fixed!
The Second Forum
This table does not contain all of srand's posts, but most of them. Please note that newer posts are listed higher in this list. Older information may be outdated.
Extra Character Slots
- Unfortunately, adding new slots for each testing scenario isn't something we can do. But since this is a throw-away character just to go through and test the dungeon, you might make a second account for it.
Buff without name.
- That's the buff that keeps your floating gem floating. It's supposed to be hidden (since you don't really need to know about it or have it cluttering up your buffs), but it got unhidden by accident in this last update. We'll hide it again as soon as we can!
- (Great screenshot by the way! My first question would have been "Are you wearing a floating gem headpiece thingie?" but with the screenshot I didn't have to.)
Beards
- Now I am picturing cows with beards.
Legacy Loot, Free Loot #2
- Good question! If the extracted mod has changed, the augment will automatically change - not to something random, but to the new version of that mod. (Tech details: The underlying ID of the mod, which is what the augmengt stores, hasn't changed in many cases - just the text, effect, stats, etc - so it looks entirely new to you but not to the augment.)
- HOWEVER - and this is important! - in some cases this can leave you with a mod that is normally impossible - say, a foot-augment for something that now belongs on hands. If you apply this augment, the item you apply it to will become Legacy. So you'll want to be very careful about that. Check out the new version of the mod before you apply the augment!
- By the way - and this is also important - it is possible that because of the massive changes to mods, some items may be marked Legacy when they really shouldn't be. If this happens to you, don't panic! The new Alpha Tester golem who trades out Legacy items for random new items will tell you (before you do the final trade-in) exactly why he thinks your item is Legacy. If you think he's wrong, send us a screenshot of that info and we'll check it out. And hold onto the item in the meantime, because if he is wrong the item will become un-Legacy when we fix the problem. (This info will be in the patch notes also, so don't worry about it being hidden down in this thread.)
Don't whack people with free beer!
- Well, perhaps not completely free in the classic free beer sense - you not only need to show up, you also need to take a whack or two at something (which is something you shouldn't do to someone who is handing you free beer, by the way), or get in a group with someone who is whacking. As it were. But I've been told that the events are very liberal with loot. In other words, you shouldn't have to work too hard to get yourself equipped with a decent suit of the updated stuff.
- Err ... I think my analogy went way off course, there. Sorry about that. Did I help at all?
Legacy Loot, Free Loot
- Way, way back in the September 15 Dev Update, Citan talked about a preliminary plan for handling the major, major changes coming to abilities and treasure. It involved an NPC who could help you adjust your old equipment to meet the new 2-skill requirements by turning non-Generic effects into Generic effects for free.
- After extensive testing, we've thrown that plan out.
- Why? Because abilities and treasure have so many changes - in base stats, in mod effects, in the equipment slots that a mod can fill, in everything important - that merely changing your old equipment to fit the new requirements is mostly going to leave that old equipment in a sad, sad state compared to the new loot. It's just not worth it for you - you'll be much better off with new loot - and it's not worth it for us to spend more time testing this NPC when you won't want to use her anyway.
- So here's how it's going to work instead:
- When you log in after the update, any equipment you have that doesn't meet the split-skill requirements (described in more detail here) will become Legacy - which means it will keep working for 30 days only. After that, it can't be equipped.
- Starting with the update, we'll be running one or more exciting (and probably Halloween-themed) events that help everyone get new loot. If you remember last year's Halloween event, for example, it involved a way to summon horrible undead - of various levels - that dropped a lot of very shiny loot. We'll leave the events running long enough for folks to gather a decent set of equipment - not only to replace any Legacy gear, but to get a start on all the sexy new mods too.
- But! - you say - But! How will I fight the legions of doom when my old equipment sucks? What if I can't log in during the events and I don't get any shiny new loot?
- Well, here's the thing: Because a lot of mods have changed slots, a lot of players will find themselves doubling up on mods (intentionally or not) as they change out their equipment. In other words, during the 30 days after the update, some of you are going to be a bit overpowered. And that's okay - because we expect you to use that power for good, to help your less fortunate brethren get themselves up to date. This is alpha, but it's also a community - and it's a damned good community.
- Now this *is* a complication with testing - it's harder to get good data during a major switch-over like this - but in the end we decided that this was the best way to handle the situation without completely screwing you folks over. And as I've said before, we try hard not to deliberately screw you over when we can. :)
- So that's the plan. Tell me your thoughts, ask me questions, and I'll do my best to answer!
Treasure Combos
- I think some of the confusion here is coming from the source - what you've got so far is a couple of sentences in a somewhat stream-of-consciousness (sorry, Citan!) blog post.
- I can tell you that the goal isn't to tie you down to an set order of operations, but in fact just the opposite: to let you choose different treasure effects that work with your own ability choices in different situations.
- But I know that just telling you the goal doesn't really help until you have some details - to see if you think we can reach that goal with this change.
- As I understand it, if you want the 'organic combo bonus' to Fire Bolts + any Core Attack, you'll be giving up other treasure effects that are potentially more useful to you - depending on how you choose to use your abilities. (And you may well have multiple load outs, with and without that treasure mod.)
- However, having said that, I will see if I can get a better example out of Citan to illustrate what he is thinking and/or has coded this week - in the next blog post, at least, if not before. Hopefully that will help lay some of your fears to rest, Roekai. (And if not, we'll see what we can do to address them!)
- In the meantime, this part of the discussion doesn't have enough info to keep usefully going at this time - so I'd ask you to drop it for the moment and wait for more details. (And, as always, let's keep the all discussion calm and polite!)
Moderation
- If you have any questions about specific moderation actions, please contact [email protected]. Thank you!
MajorMUD
- Wow - it's been a long time since I thought about MajorMUD! I played a Kang Witchunter.
Mining
- I'm enjoying this thread, learning about what you like and don't like with mining. PG is all about iterating, so having "this is good, that could be better, and that other thing is really tedious" is very helpful when it's time to tweak the system. (Just remember that those tweaks can take a while - so many, many systems to iterate!)
Craft All button?
- I'll see if it's feasible to hack something in for now, but if not we will definitely address this after the UI update.
Druid Perks
- Nope. The inhabitants of Animal Town are well aware that those sneaky druids can turn into birds. So they assume all talking birds are druids and (therefore non-animals) when they see them.
- I just wanted to clarify that. :) And I do believe there are other non-druid group activities in the same vein coming, as well as hordes of skills and ... specializations? Is that the words I want? ... that haven't made it into code yet. You have to start somewhere, after all.
- But I wouldn't be too worried about non-druids being left out just yet.
Connectivity Issues
- Ack! I didn't even think about this, and I apologize - but Citan just reminded me that client.projectgorgon.com uses a completely different machine (in a completely different data center, even!) than the main game server. If you are having problems getting the launcher to connect, client.projectgorgon.com is the thing to tracert to, but for in-game disconnects it doesn't tell us as much. I am terribly sorry I didn't think about that when I first responded.
- I did poke the data center for the website/launcher, but Citan is following up now looking at connection status for the main game server
Display Prefs
- I wasn't sure this would work, but there is a preferences file in a different location that you can delete to set prefs back to the defaults. The file (on Windows) is "C:\Users\USERNAME\AppData\LocalLow\Elder Game\Project Gorgon\GorgonPrefs.txt".
- Note that that's in AppData\LocalLow instead of AppData\Local, so it's not necessarily deleted with an uninstall. (Which is probably a bug.
AFK #3
- First off, I want to say right up front that disconnecting a player after they have been inactive for a certain period of time - henceforth 'the AFK timer' for the sake of brevity - changes the way that some players have been playing the game, and changes it in a way that takes something away from current players. In that sense, it's a nerf. And some players are rightly quite annoyed about this nerf because it's not obvious why you were nerfed. Alpha is all about changes - nerfs and buffs and experimental new systems that don't always work the way they should - but when you get nerfed, it can feel really malicious if you don't at least have some idea what the hell the devs were thinking.
- Aside: I had mentioned in Global chat just after the update that I hadn't spent much time thinking about the AFK timer. That was me personally, by the way, not the dev team! But the fact is that I hadn't thought about it much personally because I'm used to playing games that log you off after a period of inactivity. I knew it was on the to-do list and would happen eventually, and I didn't consider it a big deal. Again, that was me personally. Reading all the comments here, I can see that I was missing a lot of the finer points about how players were using a limitless AFK. I apologize for that. I have a much better idea now why some folks are feeling attacked by the change. Since the update I've talked to Citan extensively about the AFK timer and his design goals - and it became very clear to me that he had done a lot more thinking than I had, especially in the context of performance skills and other game systems. (I'll get to that in a second.)
- So let's start by talking a bit about why we implemented an AFK timer, as well as why we didn't:
- The AFK timer and the druid events are entirely unrelated.
- The AFK timer is not directly related to the implementation of the new dance skill. That is, we didn't add an AFK timer in order to force you to level dance the 'right' way. The timer is indirectly related to the larger goals of the performance skills - again, I'll get to that in a second.
- The AFK timer isn't specifically intended to help with server lag. As Silvonis said, it can help with crowd control - that is, how many people gather where doing what - and that can help a lot with client lag. That's not the only reason that this change happened now, but it is a common reason that most games log you off after some period of inactivity, and a big part of the reason that the timer was on our eventual to-do list from the beginning.
- Okay, so what about the AFK timer and performance skills? Isn't it kind of mean that we made a system that encourages you to stay online AFK and then nerfed your ability to do just that?
- I touched on this briefly in another thread, but basically the goal for the performance skills was to be a fun social activity. More than that, gathering a bunch of folks to be social, play music, and dance was supposed to be an event. Not a druid-event kind of event, but a weekly-poker-night kind of event. A social event. We really didn't intend that you feel obligated to have a full-power music buffs in place every time you went out hunting. But as many of you have pointed out in this thread, that's exactly what is happening right now. You need people playing in town, even if they are AFK, so you can get your buffs and be as effective as possible in combat. (Or gardening!)
- The current system isn't what we were trying to achieve, and in a lot of ways it's just not fun. In fact, a lot of the feedback in this thread is really about the weaknesses in the current performance system, and why those weaknesses make limitless AFKing the logical way to play.
- So given the current state of performance skills, there are three tacks we can take:
- 1. Nerf the effectiveness of the performance buffs so they don't feel obligatory. (Of course, then they'd be worthless.)
- 2. Accept the fact that performance buffs are obligatory and nerf XP across the board, so that the planned leveling curves aren't thrown all out of whack by the buffs. (Ouch.)
- 3. Change the performance skills to move them closer to the original goal of a fun, voluntary social event.
- In case it's not obvious, we're aiming for #3. :)
- Okay, you may be saying, but given all that - why did we implement the AFK timer now instead of waiting until we had a better performance system ready to go? There were logistical benefits to adding the AFK timer now, but much more importantly: it's really hard to judge the success of a change when that change is overshadowed by the existing system. Iteration is the heart of our development process; every system goes through many iterations as we try things out, find out what works and what doesn't, and decide what needs to go back to the drawing board. There are almost certainly going to be many more iterations on the performance skills before we're satisfied. But if everyone is doing their normal obligatory-AFK-music-buff thing, then any changes we make as we iterate are going to be so overshadowed by players' existing behaviors and assumptions that we won't know if we're getting closer to fun or not.
- I hope that helps explain why we implemented an AFK timer in this last update. I've actually really enjoyed reading through all your comments and suggestions and I learned quite a bit, not only about how you play the game but also how you think about it. And that's really valuable. We can tweak the timer a bit if necessary. What's going to be harder - and what's going to take a lot of testing, feedback, and patience from you - is getting the performance skills right.
AFK #2
- Minor thing, but I just found this out and thought it might be useful to clarify: pretty much any sort of client interaction will keep the server from marking you as AFK, including in-game chat. (We can't tell if you're babbling away on Discord, unfortunately.)
Disruptive Druids
- I'm not surprised that the druid events are causing some consternation. They are intricate and complex code, this is their first contact with the enemy, and - let's be honest - there are some major bugs!
- We're not going to rip druid events out immediately and for good. We're going to fix the bugs as you folks find them, fix the rough edges as you folks report them, and then see if there is a fun event under there.
- This discussion is a good start! Just remember that there are bugs, and lots of room for tweaking.
Tanks
- I'm really enjoying this discussion. Since I haven't played a tank myself, I especially like to hear the about how it feels to you folks who have - what you like about being a tank, what you don't like, and how that works or doesn't work with where the game is right this second.
- Because you know we're not going to suddenly rip the entire concept of tanking out of Project: Gorgon - at least I hope you know that! - so getting a solid feel for what you folks are finding fun, or not, is the best place to start talking about any changes that may need to be made.
Feedback
- Feedback is good. Constructive feedback is even better. I know the knives are causing some consternation, from reports and from the forums. I know a number of other crafting changes are as well. But what I need from you is not bitching (as you said) but details about how these changes are affecting you.
- And I know you, McNasty, have sent me some specific reports on this already, so this isn't aimed at you in particular - but I've also gotten quite a bit of reports that can be summed up as 'you suck' and not a lot else. (I don't mind the 'you suck' part so long as it's not egregious - people get passionate about things they love - but I do mind reports without any details!)
- Anyway.
- This is an alpha. You know first-hand how much gameplay - combat and crafting and skills and everything else - can change. You also know - I hope! - that we aren't trying to screw you. So please, if you would, set aside the feelings of betrayal and give us substantive, detailed feedback on how the changes affect you so we can move the discussion forward in a constructive way.
AFK timer
- I also wanted to say a bit about the /afk timer. As I understand the design, music and dance are really intended to be a fun social activity to do during your downtime in town. We didn't really expect players to spend hours AFK playing music - and honestly, we really don't want to make hours of AFK time feel 'obligatory'. We'd much rather have this system be a fun, social (that is, present at the keyboard!) activity.
- Of course, what players actually do is rarely a perfect fit for how a system is designed. :) We don't really want you hanging out for hours AFK, but there was a reason people were doing that - so now the discussion can center on the reasons players were doing that and ways to make that work better for everyone.
- Btw, I'm not ignoring the other things brought up in this thread so far - I just wanted to drop this quick comment before I go back to juggling bugs. Remember to send an in-game bug report for all the bugs, possible bugs, and oddities you see. Feedback and suggestions on the changes are also a huge help for us, but may not get a lot of personal response from us until we get the blocking bugs out of the way. Feel free to start discussions with your feedback here on the forums - preferably in a new thread so I can keep track pf the topics better! - or use the in-game suggestion if you have thing you'd like to discuss less publicly. (Just remember to be polite!)
Guild Quest Rewards
- I just wanted to clarify that the current rewards were set more for ease of testing than anything else - so we could more easily back-calculate the progress if something blew up during early testing. (Which it did!) I expect those rewards to get tweaked again (and again and again), but at the moment they are especially egregious.
Bugs, Exploits, and You
- Note: This post is rather long. You can skip to the bullet point list at the end if you like - unless you plan to argue with me, in which case I strongly suggest reading the whole thing. :)
- In the May 23 update, we fixed a bug that allowed monsters to "see through walls" in many situations. That fix involved rewriting the entire monster-visibility system, so we knew it would probably have a lot of bugs at first.
- And we were right - there are a lot of bugs with monster visibility right now! For the most part, though, these bugs are less about monsters still seeing you when they shouldn't and more about monsters failing to see you when they actually should - like when you are right in front of them but at a slightly different height, or you've been knocked back into a wall, or you are standing in a bush ... or standing on their head.
- Yeah ... Monster AI isn't all that intelligent at the moment.
- Now most of you have been excellent about reporting these problems whenever and wherever you see them and then moving on with your regular gameplay. That's excellent! We love that! You rock!
- Some folks have been a little less forthcoming, though, and some folks have actively exploited these bugs to let them kill stuff fast and easy. This is a problem, not just because deliberately exploiting will get you banned - which it will - but also because we are currently gathering combat metrics to help with balance tweaks and planning the next set of combat skills and abilities. So if players get sneaky about hiding their exploits, then the data we get might show people killing stuff way above their level - and we may end up thinking that we need a major combat rebalance that we don't really need and screw up the fun for everyone.
- Now we know you can't avoid these buggy situations all the time, and we're definitely *not* saying that we will ban someone who stumbles into a buggy situation or one they can't avoid. But deliberately exploiting bugs like this for your own benefit is another thing entirely. This is, first and foremost, an alpha. We trust you folks to help us make the game better for everyone by reporting bugs instead of taking advantage of them.
- And let me assure you: We *are* working on fixing these monster visibility bugs. It's important. It also complicated and running smack into another priority, which is integrating the new UI system so we can fix some of those really bloody annoying UI bugs.
- So, to sum up:
- Do not *deliberately* exploit obvious monster visibility bugs like standing in a bush or fighting from a slightly different elevation.
- If you do, you will be banned.
- If you run into a monster or a location that is obviously bugged:
- Send us an in-game bug report with the monster name and a short description of what's happening - for instance: "It's on a hill," or "I got knocked into a bush and it can't see me." (The location is included in the bug report.)
- Most people are already doing this. Thank you! Did I mention that you rock?
- If you see someone who seems to be deliberately abusing a situation:
- Send an in-game abuse report with the name of the player and what they are doing - for instance: "He's hiding in a bush!"
- Don't get into fights with possible exploiters - just report them! But if anyone seems unclear about any of this, you should definitely refer them to this post.
- http://oldforum.projectgorgon.com/forum/general-gorgon-discussion/2676-monster-visibility-bugs-exploits-and-you#14453
Shipping Skill
- Well, I don't know what Citan will say but I think it's a great idea!
- (Disclaimer: I am not responsible for new features.)
Bug Reports
- On a personal note, I need in-game bug reports with specific details - skill levels, abilities used, pets used, pet attacks used, equipment mods, and autopsy reports are a great start! Getting some comparisons between correct-ish behavior (if and when you see it) and buggy behavior would be helpful also.
- And please do submit them in-game rather than on the forums - it makes it a lot easier for me to track all the variables and respond to you when I need more specific info.
- (And a big thank you to those who are already submitting reports. We're a bit behind in responding but nevertheless actively compiling the info.)
The First Forum
No information can be gathered from the first forum for the game at this time.
