Friday Grab Bag Comin' Atcha

Ogrelin

Q: Question about the Vista stuff you put in the patch notes. I installed Vista, copied over my Camelot directory, and logged into my main character. Everything seems fine. My old screenshots are where they always were, and my new screenshots are appearing where you said they’d be. My main character’s INI and IGN files are in the new location. But I thought I understood from the notes that the game would automatically copy the INI and IGN files to the new place… but I only see my main character in the new place. Bug?

A: Nope. You have to actually log in with each character for the file to be copied over.

Q: Could you please fix the bug where if you are porting from Ligen to anywhere and you so much as touch your strafe key, you are shot to Scath tower 4 and forced to walk back?

It's not so bad on my bard, but when I'm on my hero it's a long walk back.

A: It’s also not just that port – there’s a chance of it happening on ALL ports. We are working on a fix, but no ETA – I’m posting this mainly because I didn’t know about this myself, and I will now keep my talons FAR away from the strafe key during ports. Thanks for the note.

Q: Why do you not open new TL positions to the general public?

A: There’s actually no hard and fast rule – our choices depend on the circumstances. In this case, the circumstance was that we were about to have our last presentation meeting, and we wanted to get some feedback right away before we went any further. So we farmed a known, quality spawn point for the first Classic TL. We’ve had good luck with that in the past – the ability to listen to other people and present the viewpoints of others is an asset, and the experienced TLs can therefore usually fill a role very quickly.

(I can hear some of you going “Presentation meeting? Do what?” Here’s a brief explanation of the TL report cycle:

1. TLs write reports.

2. A dev skims through the reports and tries to help people clarify.

3. Missy puts ALL the issues into a single spreadsheet. This helps present all items with equal weight, no chance of the issues to be affected by personal relationships or unconscious bias or underwear on too tightly or WHATEVER. Devs are all too human, but we know we’ve got a responsibility to filter out the human cr… stuff.

4. We – me, Missy, the balance dev, and the most senior producer – have a weekly meeting where each item is read out loud, in order to guarantee each individual item is heard and properly considered.

5. Anything getting a “no” goes back to the dev team for an explanation of “why not.” It may not be an explanation anyone LIKES, but we at least try.

6. Anything tagged as “under discussion” or “needs research” gets assigned to a dev.

7. Missy puts in the results and resorts all the issues back into individual reports.

8. Anyone who got all “no” answers gets a second look.

9. TLs work with us to make the reports understandable to anyone who hasn’t been in constant touch with the devs.

10. You see the answers.

So, in my answer to the question you actually asked, we were towards the end of #4 when we decided that we agreed with the players asking for a Classic TL, and we wanted to fill the position on the spot.)

Q: I don’t agree with the information my TL gives you.

A: That is perfectly fine with me. The TLs are very important to us, and we couldn’t function very well without them, but they are not the end all and be all. You can send feedback forms or emails, and your opinion will absolutely be noted, counted, and included in the feedback the Herald team gives to the devs.

For example, some people felt that the new Classic TL was unfairly rushed and was not able to bring all of their issues to the table. I will say that much more is discussed on the internal message board than you can see in a TL report, and that to some extent people are worrying too much. Feedback forms and emails help us to fill any gaps there may be, however, and I do appreciate those of you who take the time and trouble to contribute in this way.

Q: Was just wondering why in Albion, Darkspire Jewelery is lvl 49, but in Hibernia, Darkspire Jewelery is lvl 50?

A: Two different devs working on the same project. And if I had to guess, working from a document that doesn’t specify an exact level for the items, but I could be wrong. They both love you, though, and thank you very much for letting us know about the discrepancy. We’ve got it on the list to fix, now.

Q: One of my accounts was invited to “Come Back To Camelot,” and the other was not. Why?

A: There are a few possibilities. For this month’s edition of Come Back to Camelot, we only invited you if:

A – Your account had activated TOA, but not Catacombs before you quit (in which case the invitation was actually to let you know that Catacombs was free now), or

B – You quit two years or more ago. I don’t know the EXACT date of the cutoff.

We have different parameters in every campaign, as you may know.

Q: - All items which previously had +power have been converted to have Power Pool %. Please note this does not affect Randomly Generated Objects (ROG) or crafted items.

Does this note mean that previously crafted and ROG items will not have their power stats converted to power% stats, but new items will have power%, rather than power?

More to the point: I'm working on a suit and I'm a little light on power%...If I craft power into it on pc armor, will it function as power%?

A: From the Bearded Wonder, JJ: “Power% does not work on crafted items, so they can only craft +power on crafted items. The patch note states it will not affect crafted items which includes old crafted items and items yet to be crafted.”

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A mixed bag, no pun intended. There should be some interesting times coming, this patch.

Don’t forget, next weekend in New York City! http://www.darkageofcamelot.com/roadtrip/2007/Feb_07_newyork.php

See you next week, y'all.

Posted By: Sanya Thomas