| |
 | |  |
 |  | Grab Bag, Full to Bursting |  |
|  | Posted By: Sanya Thomas | 2003-01-10 19:28:09 |  |
| |  |  And we're off!
Q: I am playing on the RP servers, and it seems like by the time a CSR arrives at the scene, the person I appealed for being a jerk in open channels has quieted down. The thing is, he’s been a jerk for two weeks straight, and I’m sick of appealing him. What can I do to speed up the process?
A: The first thing to do after sending us an appeal is /ignore him. If your ignore list is full, try taking some people off ignore – chances are good the first person you put on that list has moved on. (And of course, you are welcome to send me a feedback form requesting a bigger ignore list!) The reason I suggest ignoring the creature is simply because if it’s annoying you, it’s probably annoying everyone else in the area and we’ve gotten a hundred appeals on it. We will pull logs, and do whatever we need to do.
One thing you can do, by the way, is be sure you choose the "violation" option from the drop down menu that appears. (Type /appeal Muttonhead is using the /br channel to talk about Britney Spears’ wawas here in Jordheim, and has not stopped even though I’ve asked him to, hit enter, and choose "violation.") Those appeals take higher priority than the generic appeal, and will bring a CSR to the area that much quicker. If you’re wondering if you’re choosing the right options from the menus, check out the Herald sidebar, where you will see a new link called How to Appeal. Check it out!
(By the way, don’t forget to ask the offender to stop before you send the appeal. As with all harassment and channel violation policies, when we pull logs we need to see that you did make a polite attempt at handling the situation. We only step in if you tried and failed.)
Q: Respec stones on Ebay. Nice.
A: Yeah, I had a hunch it wouldn't take long for the farmers to whip out the overalls and tractors. Item sales are against our EULA, and we will take action against anyone we catch at it. We are also continuing to evaluate the respec situation in-game. Please feel free to send me links to illegal auctions.
Q: The book I bought says that as an assassin I get a bunch of skills when I level. But I don’t seem to.
A: The book is an excellent reference guide – I use it myself :) But like most things in life, it’s not perfect. Some of the abilities on that list aren’t level based, they are stealth spec based. Here’s the list:
5 Distraction
8 Danger Sense
10 Safe Fall I
16 Detect Hidden
20 Safe Fall II
25 Climb Walls
30 Safe Fall III
40 Safe Fall IV
Before I am swarmed by people who have issues with higher levels of safe fall and detect hidden, I would like to say that I have passed on the feedback.
Q: What does Danger Sense do?
A: Detects Scout monsters. As in, you’ll get a message that says something like "You detect you are being watched" if a scout monster is giving you the evil eye.
Q: In the 1.59A patch notes it mentions in the "Items" section "The
Deathsight Perfection Bracer (Albion) has had its magic bonuses slightly altered so that it will not continue to generate a "fails to affect you" message. The new magic bonuses are: resist darkness 6%, skill deathsight +6, power +1, stat int +9." My questions are: Since when is there a resist called darkness? What characters/monsters use the darkness type attacks? Will I be able to obtain resistance to that type of attack?
A: Whoops! This is a simple typo in the patch notes. It should have said "The new magic bonuses are: resist cold 6%, skill deathsight +6, power +1, stat int +9." There isn’t any such thing as a darkness attack.
Q: Does Mastery of the Arcane work on debuff spells as well as "buff" spells listed as stated on the Realm Abilities list? Spells such as the necromancer AF debuff series of spells?
A: Mastery of the Arcane does work on AF debuffs.
Q: Could you please explain the proposed (1.59a notes)change to necro power taps in more detail? The notes say "Necro power taps cast on monsters now cap the amount of power regained at the monster's current hitpoints or level, whichever is lower." I assume that means that if you use the spec 1 power tap on a Level 1 monster you get back 1 power at a casting cost of 2 power? Likewise if you cast the spec 25 tap on a L18 mob you would get a max 18 power back for a casting cost of 15?
A: This is correct. The cap does not apply when casting on players, of course. The effect of this is that in groups (where you are fighting higher level monsters), and in RvR (where you aren't capped by target level), you'll gain much more power, which are where the spell is really supposed to shine.
The current system is basically allowing for zero downtime in solo combat, which is not the intent for any class.
Q: Why can’t you character copy from Gaheris or the Dred servers over to Pendragon?
A: Because on those servers, a troll might be in Tir Na Nog when the copy takes place, and Pendragon is a regular ruleset server, and therefore said troll will be hacked to death by lurikeens and have no way to escape a horrible death loop and post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Q: How do scam artists GET our emails to send us those stupid attempts at password theft in the first place?
A: The most common way involves checking your profiles on message boards. Another method involves basically just taking your character name and adding @yahoo or @hotmail or another common free email service. My advice is to keep your emails private if the board offers you an option, or set up a dummy free account to use for things like board registration.
Q: What do you do to stop the scammers besides warning us on the Herald?
A: There are several things we can do. We report them, and we contact email providers and tell them their service is being illegally used. We have very good relationships with some providers – the guy at Hotmail, for instance, is the best when it comes to helping us track down and shut down cretins. If you work for an email provider and would like to form a relationship with us to help fight the battle, drop me a line!
Q: I never got your email about (insert topic here) because my free email account exceeded its storage space.
A: Many of the free services have premium upgrades that charge a very small fee for insane amounts of space. It's either that or clean out your inbox :)
Q: When I type /who nameofzone, I get back people’s guild names and zones I didn’t type in. Any way to limit my searches?
A: Yes. Type /who "Nameofzone" – the search needs the quotes and you need to pay attention to which letters should be capitalized.
Q: This question: "Q: I am level 40. I have Celtic Duel specced to 39, and Blades to 21. I’m seeing seriously conflicting answers as to whether or not I should take the blade spec higher" got a seriously wrong answer lo these many moons ago.
A: It indeed was quite wrong. Here was the word I got today – Celtic Duel and your weapon spec are two totally different skill checks. (You can’t directly compare CD with left axe.) Your spec in Celtic Duel determines only the percentage chance of you getting a second swing during that round of combat. Celtic Duel has nothing to do with the damage either swing can do.
The amount of damage done by the weapon is determined by your weapon spec. As we’ve all discussed before, raising your spec helps you to do more damage in two different ways. First, it raises the damage ceiling, meaning the maximum amount of damage a single swing can do. Second, it lowers your variance, meaning the distance between the minimum damage you can do and the maximum damage you can do, by bringing up the minimum damage limit.
Everyone has a base damage figure with any given weapon type, involving your class and level (among other factors). Being able to specialize in a weapon type means you will do your base damage times a percentage factor. (Remember, however, that the base damage number is also affected by what it was that you’re attacking – your target’s armor and damage types will also affect the damage.) The formula numbers given in August are all too low these days – part of the melee improvements a few patches ago was to raise those percentages significantly across the board.
So in the example above, I can’t really answer the player. Which is preferable to you? Having a greater chance to swing twice in a single round of combat, or having each swing count for more? How high you spec past half level depends mostly on which styles you want to use, although certainly someone who has fully specced in their weapon will be doing more damage, and more consistent damage, across the board. In the end, though, it’s up to you and the kind of character you want to play.
Q: I want to change my last name. Can I?
A: Sure. Go to the last name registrar and type /lastname Insertnamehere just like you did the first time you got a name. The registrar will charge you ten gold for the privilege.
All you fashionistas out there, there’s a terrific solution available to the question of "but does this color really WORK for me" - click here and see Dye Chart. The famous Maia, who updates for Catacombs and for The Grail Brotherhood aka Grail News put it together for another famous person, Darkflame from the Camelot chapter of Allakhazam's. Please remember, the chart was made with torches on, and in daylight conditions. Colors can look different under different lighting. Also, colors will appear differently depending on the computer system and the quality of the monitor – so what you preview at work might look different when you go home. But caveats aside, it’s a really nifty chart, and so a big thank you to Maia for all her hard work, and to Allakhazam’s for playing host to this useful tool.
(/public service announcement on) Y'all, speaking of community tools and websites, consider subscribing to a premium service or at least clicking on an ad banner now and again. If you use an Emblem Previewer or a Dye Chart or a Character Builder or a map site or a message board, or even if you just go to the same site over and over because their link list is better than your bookmarks, it costs the host money. If you found something helpful and worth a few bucks, give the author a little boost - if we the users don't support these sites, eventually they'll either shut down or charge big bucks to use them. (/public service announcement off)
I'm off the soapbox for the night, I swear. :) Time to log in! Have a great weekend.
|  |
| |
|  |
| |
|  |
| | |
Herald Features
Game News
