Telethon of the Avatar/Release 46 Postmortem



Transcript
Transcript provided by Rosemourne

Areas of importance:
(6:16) Expired items: Ghost pets, juggle skulls emote, zombie wings, demon wings, zombie one-eyed mask, zombie mask, ornate skull candle, spider 3-packs, stone zombie statue. (22:29) SOTA will not launch by the end of the year. Launch date will be provided in December. (24:28) COTO vendors are being expanded to have ‘everything’ on the addon store added to them eventually (34:25) Clockwork Helmet cosplay item is shown off. (58:57) All trees on the Novia overworld map are changing. (1:38:55) World Builders’ Tour (2:59:16) Chris reveals dragon killing numbers

Funding:
(14:45) $2,500 (21:35) $5,000 (32:07) $7,500 (40:17) $10,000 (Skull Cloak achieved) (44:01) $12,500 (46:05) $15,000 (47:54) $17,500 (54:15) $20,000 (55:10) $22,500 (1:03:06) $25,000 (Prisoner’s Mask achieved) (1:10:17) $27,500 (1:12:23) $30,000 (1:20:30) $32,500 (1:32:08) $35,000 (Torn & Tattered Wedding Dress & Tuxedo achieved) (1:55:43) $45,000 (1:56:50) $47,500 (2:35:48) $55,000 (Spooky Fountain achieved) (2:53:55) $57,500 (2:58:20) $60,000 (3:06:56) $62,500 (3:10:00) $65,000 (Dead Hedge Fence Set achieved) (3:20:43) $67,500 (3:24:45) $70,000 (3:32:42) $72,500 (3:41:52) $75,000 (4:02:22) $77,500 (4:05:20) $80,000 (Nightmare Statue with flaming mane and glowing eyes achieved)

Questions (Started at 22:29)
(22:29) Horton Irongate: Please update us on the new expected Release date & physical Shipment Date for episode one. Darkstarr: We’re getting closer, but we’re not ready and we don’t think the end of the year is the right time, so we’re going to give it a little more time. How much is a little more time? We’ll let you know in December and in December we’re going to give you an actual date and it won’t be much further than that. And we basically know when that’s gonna be *wink*. It will be soon™. Lord British: The same thing with physical goods. The exciting news for me is we’ve actually started talking about it, but we’re beginning to cost out parts and pieces and beginning to look at manufacturers for all the parts and pieces needed. The process has now begun for pulling together all the materials and the process of putting it together. It’s in progress now, at long last. We’re there. We’re over that threshold, and as opposed to ignoring it, we’re dealing with it. Darkstarr: [...] Our partnership with Travian has opened up some interesting possibilities for that physical goods resolution, so it’s happening. It’s going to happen. We’ll give you more details in December. It’s gonna be soon™.

'''(25:45) Rosemourne: Please consider November’s telethon rewards be Winter Holiday related so we’ll have them in R48 in December for use during the holidays. We’ll be getting Halloween’s telethon items in November, after Halloween! :(''' Lord British: Well said, we do need to bump things forward or try to make sure we deliver things before the holiday that we meant.

(26:22) froji: Will we ever see gold coins as a physical item? Darkstarr: I know Richard wants that. We actually have a task in the backlog for things like making a pile of gold, so probably, yes. Chris: And we still throw around the idea of making gold be a weight object and actually having the ways you can put it in.

'''(27:24) Name: When will there be some attention to the Passive bar? There’s not enough space for all the things needed on a regular basis and no way to swap them out. Or, can we have an additional bar for just crafting?''' Lord British: I will throw that on the ‘for consideration’ pile. That’s a good idea. Chris: And having a toggle for the bottom bar is not a balance-breaker. I have no opposition doing that. [...] Just having a key to toggle it between two would probably be the easiest. Darkstarr: That would also solve folks that we know who use things like the deck system to costume change.

(28:24) Datendrache: Would you consider making the Fine Oak Bookshelf its own item in the add-on store or for COTO instead of part of the Fine Oak furniture bundle? Darkstarr: Probably not in the store, but we just started, literally yesterday, the slow and somewhat painful, but is happening process, take everything that is on the store and get it inside the game’s crown vendor. In that case that will give us the ability to take things that are in larger bundles like the fine oak set and we could break it up into more individual things.

(29:17) Datendrache: Can we have some updates on the cool things Bread Vendor is working on? Darkstarr: Right now she is focused on the sounds for the Isle of Storms, so she’s doing a lot of polish work there. For instance, one of the things she just did yesterday was a re-recording for the audio for the oracle because she wanted to make it better. Lord British: The oracle bugs Darkstarr: [...] So she’s polishing that starting area’s audio.

(36:48) Bayridge: In previous telethon Chris mentioned he was going to try and change the timing reset from last received to a fixed point in the day of when the Oracle works, so it doesn’t become later and later in the day when you try to get it. Chris: Just for clarity, I do not actually do everything, I assign things to people. That got assigned around from person, to person, to person and got turned into a hot potato. I think it still might not be done. There’s two guys it keeps bouncing back and forth between.

'''(37:55) Ancev: Any thoughts on adding a PvP option to the Options/Multiplayer section for adventure zones? This way you could have groups of players moving from friends to multiplayer, and friends to pvp mode, etc.''' Darkstarr: I’m not sure I understand. Lord British: Yeah, say it again. Chris: I think, yeah, I’m not entirely sure how that would be implemented. Does that mean if you go into PvP mode, you couldn’t see non-PvP people? Lord British: You could always challenge each other. Chris: Or maybe he means when you go into PvP mode, you’re playing in PvP mode... [Audio cut out] Lord British: I know not. Chris: I talk to Ancev all the time. I’ll ask him to clarify.

'''(38:53) Rhiannon: There are a number of unbalances of costs to craft an item. Where and to whom can we post them so they will be seen and corrected?''' Darkstarr: Please post them to the bug forums if you can. [...] The more specific you can be, the better.

(39:18) Raven Swiftbow: Any ETA yet on the addition of 2nd and 3rd characters? Darkstarr: No

(39:33) Mykll: When will all the RMT be shut down, and those participating in it be banned? Darkstarr: Well, uh, we will not be shutting down Real Money Transactions (RMT) and we have a whole section of the forums where we allow it. We do periodically track and shut down botting, maybe that’s what you’re referring to? [...] We made a very conscious decision at the beginning of the project because RMT happen in all games and you basically have two directions you could take: Try to fight all of it, which is hard and you will never win. Or you can allow it to happen and at that decision point you can decide if you want to completely support it in the sense that you will put functionality in your game where you record every single transaction directly inside the game. Or in our case, where our decision was we’re going to allow it to happen. We’re not going to take the time to make all of those transactions happen inside the game [audio cut out]. But we’re going to have a section of our forums where players can make those trades happen. We’re not going to soulbind the items. And one of the reasons, too, was we’re going to have a shop where we sell things, but we want to allow players who don’t have cash to buy those things; to use gold to buy those things from players who do have the cash. We actually think that RMT benefit players who don’t have cash because they can use gold, if they have time, to gain by playing the game to buy those things that they wouldn’t have cash for.

(45:16) Falcon Rainfeather: When will we get armor from the add on store that is designed specifically for men? Darkstarr: I’m not sure what this is asking. We have lots of armour for all kinds of people, so I’m not sure what the question is. We have armour for everyone, but we’ll make sure there’s an equal representation.

(48:44) Falcon Rainfeather: When will we get more varieties of chain and plate armor? Darkstarr: [...] Eventually. Actually! There’s going to be a new, in the game, not on the store, in R47 there’s going to be a quest that grants you the chestplate of courage that has the bell of courage on it. So there’s going to be new plate.

'''(50:20) Stryker Sparhawk: Would you please please please consider adding the snow covered conifers from the SpeedTree library to the add-on store? I am looking for Blue Spruce as a primary, please.''' Darkstarr: I don’t think we wanna do the snow-covered trees, though, because eventually [Lord British wants] to do weather. Lord British: That’s a good point. I’ll make a note to myself.

(50:56) Stryker Sparhawk: Is there a chopping tree 2.0 graphic somewhere on the Jira horizon to replace the Release (single digit) chopping tree graphic? Darkstarr: It’s a tradition now at this point. We gotta keep that old tree in there because the tree has been with us forever. Like, It would be so sad to see that tree go. Like, we can’t update that tree, like, that tree is our friend. Like, that tree has been around since, like, the prototype. Chris: I’m with you Darkstarr: Like, that tree has to stay. Chris: Maybe we can leave that somewhere in a museum. Darkstarr: The tree-chopping museum? Lord British: [...] You’re talking about that tree you chop down? That’s a horrific tree.

(52:24) FrostII: If player one steals an item from a shop and gives/sells that item to player two, does any of the “bad karma” of the stolen item effect player two? Lord British: Too hard. But by the way, that’s kind of the question fundamentally, we shouldn’t answer. The reason why I say that is: [...] Here’s the thing about Karma. I will lobby them to stop answering Karma questions and the reason why is I know most you can work most of it out yourselves by hacking the code and watching the stream and figuring it out. But the reason why we don’t tell you at the moment you do something how much karma it affects is because people just min/max the shit out of it, and that’s not the point.The point of having a virtue test in the game is so you believe you’re being observed all the time whether or not there’s technically a test. I want you to know if you believe you’re getting fenced goods from somebody else, you should not take them. It is immoral to knowingly buy the stolen Mona Lisa. That’s immoral, it should be a ding against your virtues and the fact that we can’t, or have not yet, thought of a way to test for that is no excuse for you to be doing that and using somebody to mule that for you. In the end we’re going to put in as many of those things as we can. What he happened to say was the truth of the moment, but as a general rule we’re not going to answer those questions; if you’re dinged or not dinged, and if we find you guys are muling or cheating in some way, I’m going to find a way to punish you for that.

'''(56:10) Name: Can we get something that will turn off the quests off on your screen? I hide them and the next time I log in they are right back on my screen.''' Darkstarr: That’s a bug. Chris: There’s a Jira on that. It’ll be done this week. I put it on Undone.

'''(56:25) Rosemourne: Have you considered removing the merchant chat option, making it disabled by default, and then giving the option to enter a conversation by right clicking the NPC and choosing it in a menu? One fewer option to worry about cluttering up the interface.''' Lord British: The reason why that’s flip-flopped has to do with localization. We will clean it up. It is in process where they won’t both of them come up concurrently. We have a plan. Not this release, maybe the one after.

'''(56:59) Vladamir Begemot : Please create a way to adjust the volume of the instruments we are playing in game. Some are too loud during certain songs, but would sound great if the musician could turn it down a bit.''' Lord British: It won’t be urgent, but I’ll at least make sure we get a Jira in for it.

(57:51) Viola Vidason: Tabor and kettle drum have the same sound, can one get a new sound some day? Darkstarr: Yes. All of the instruments are going to get new sounds. All of them.

(59:33) Rufus D`Asperdi: Can we please have a Filter to Remove items that are Not at the current location from the Bank interface, and Friends that are Not online from the Social interface? Darkstarr: We’ve had this request before. Eventually.

'''(59:51) Echondas: Can we get an option to lock the camera zoom level? It gets really hard to see what’s going on sometimes, especially inside buildings, near objects, and in tight quarters.''' Darkstarr: [...] Otherwise you’d be intersecting with geometry, so no.

(1:00:36) Echondas: Could the journal be adjusted to open to the latest entry (last page) not the earliest? [Lord British believes the red ribbon on the journal takes you to the most recent task. He said he’ll look into it.]

(1:01:24) Echondas: Can the recipe book be made searchable from the “B” menu – not a crafting station and have recipes auto-sort alphabetically? Darkstarr: Yes. Eventually.

'''(1:01:42) Rhiannon: Will we see the graphics colors matching the items before release? Example: craft the cotton merchant shirt and skirt. The icon shows the colors are navy, red and white. Yet the item is actually brown and grey undyed''' Darkstarr: Whenever you see stuff like that, please post it as a bug.

'''(1:02:15) Lightiger8: Could we be able to see our weapons, and or fists in first person view please? It would make playing in first person much more enjoyable. ''' Darkstarr: Surprisingly more work than you think. Lord British: That’s not an episode one thing, but I’ll put a Jira in for it.

(1:04:54) Lightiger8: Is there a way we can get a day and night indicator on the compass so that I don’t end up missing the day light? Darkstarr: Pretty striking lighting difference between day and night. We also say the time on the compass. So, I don’t know why we need this. So we’re not going to do that.

(1:07:37) Almar: Is it possible to have an option where ONLY the stat box is on screen and not the paper-doll? Lord British: I like that! It will be low priority, but I will put in a Jira.

(1:08:01) Bayridge: Would you consider in future when switching decks to save hotbar configurations Darkstarr: It should be saving your combat bar. If it’s not, that’s a bug that we’ve never seen before [...] and we need to know about that.

(1:09:25) chrisjwhite: Can we get an option to sort our friends list by location? Darkstarr: Eventually, sure.

(1:09:39) Cypher Black: Will we eventually be able to maintain our buffs during the scene transition? Darkstarr: Well, certain buffs do, like the ones that we intend to. Like the long term ones like ones you get from, like, a devotional and ones you get from, like, the obsidian potions do. The ones you get from, like, casting the spells do not. Chris: And the general reason for that is, even the ones that do person… Time is ticking while you’re zoning and while you’re in Novia and most of those are generally shorter and they would be running out. So, again, buffs have been getting longer so, maybe, there is some reason for it now. But some of it is also players want to be buffed on the overworld so they can carry more. [...] We can reevaluate that Lord British: I would say submit the ones that you think should carry and we’ll look at them one-by-one.

'''(1:13:53) jiirc: Hey, Chris! A great stat for the post-mortem would be: How many people have death decay penalties under 10k and how many have over 10k? I’m curious how many times people's’ death decay couldn’t be covered by the 10k XP bonus they get every single day. Also, what do you think about adding the amount of death decay to the skills window? Would it be hard to do?''' Chris: So it is a little hard to do because we’d have to continually update it and it’s a pretty costly calculation. As for how many are over ten and under ten, people I think it’s level 68 is when 10k won’t cover it and that’s if you’ve made it to level 68 and you’ve spent every single point of experience and you’ve never died before because [Audio cut out]. That’s about where 10k doesn’t cover it. Now there’s plenty of times when a death will happen and you don’t have enough experience to cover it, because you’ve already spent your 10k prior. That’s really just it taking back your experience. There will be some big changes coming to decay. Lord British: I’m sure you’ll all be thrilled about it! Chris: You’ll all be thrilled about it. I’m not sure if it will make this release, but it will be happening probably by the next release. I’ve written up the design for it. But we’re basically moving to a system where unless you are above 80 skill level, the decay is not actually taken off of the skill, it’s applying to an experience debt where part of your experience earned goes to pay off that experience debt, which is what some games do. It honestly is the math that is the same, except for it feels better. It feels less scary. It feels like they’re winning. Darkstarr: [...] So do we have these numbers about how many people? Chris: I don’t happen to know how many people, I did not do a pull on this one. I did read this one ahead of time and it is like level 68. However many people are over level 68, which is quite a few, actually.

(1:16:32) Uncle Sven: When will we see the large amount of combos that you have eluded to in the past? Lord British: Damn good question. Wish we had a damn good answer. Darkstarr: In the future? Lord British: They’re slowly being worked on. Key word: Slowly. Chris: Though, just for clarity, we can add skills and combos, a couple a day, on the data side. The challenge has always been getting the visual effects, the audio, and animations to match. So that’s the thing that takes time. Right now I actually talked to [Denim? Somebody. Poor audio] about adding four different skills for a new spell and he said he was basically still under [Amen to the BFF? I couldn’t hear it]. So hopefully he will get caught back up on VFX soon.

'''(1:17:44) Uncle Sven: When will the changes to combat stop being driven by PvP? ''' Darkstarr: They’re not driven by PvP, so I think this about a perception issue. Chris: It is, and I think it’s because I’m the guy that talks about it and I also talk a lot about PvP. But, combat changes are not being driven by PvP, but PvP is being included as one of the factors. But generally one thing that hurts PvP is also the same thing screwing up PvE, it’s just more visible in PvP because players are going head to head and it’s obvious who wins. If you’re sitting there using earthquake and killing the guy that’s using air magic, then that’s not as obvious. It’s obvious if you get your ass handed to you [audio cut out].

(1:18:51) GreyMouser Skye: Have you considered changing enemy spawn behavior in Ep1 to something more on a Reinforcement mode instead of a “spawn out of the blue, usually directly behind you” mode? Lord British: You know we do that some. It’s actually the designer’s choice as to how they respawn. They actually have tools that will allow them to do either of those. So if you have a specific area or a specific place in the game you think would benefit from that kind of respawn interpretation, I would write it as a bug and again, put it in the bug forum. But it will need the detail of things like, ‘Hey I’m in this particular map and I’ve killed off all the kobolds, or killed off the undead, or whatever might be and it just feels like a place that vs reupped the status quo wouldn’t be as interesting, or reinforcements coming up the hill’, just say it and we’ll take a look at it.

'''(1:19:58) Bayridge: Banish Undead skill – the current animations show more of an AOE type of effect when activated, yet it only attacks the targeted mob. Can this be made where it affects more than one enemy to match animation or animation changed (like searing ray) to target only one mob?''' Darkstarr: Yes, we just need to update the visual effect

'''(1:21:41) Horton Irongate : We talked at SOTACON East about POT owners having more interactive types of adventures for their towns. We got the new Sieges, which are stupendous! Can we have different type of sieges(?) from Kobolds, Skeletons, bandits, etc. which react to POTs having other types of objects in our towns?''' Darkstarr: Right now the sieges are really tied to the cabalists, and the prophecies. Lord British: We could make it to where every zone in the map was, at least somewhat prone, to just normal things, such as undead, kobolds, and elves in the area, so I’ll think about it. Interesting idea.

'''(1:22:45) Horton Irongate: Can POT owners or house owners be allowed to purchase adventure tokens allowing a limited spawn of a certain MOBs? Such as placing a marker down to allow a set # of Skeletons to spawn inside their town centers, etc.''' Darkstarr: Deco spawners is something that we’ve wanted for a very long time. Chris: AND IT’S HAPPENING! Darkstarr: Eventually. Chris: So part of the reason this is something we want, we obviously know it’s a good idea, we really want it. The problem is the way we do spawning. There’s not a good way to spawn things dynamically, we kind of have to know ahead of time. This is actually blocking load times. Right now the biggest challenge left in load times, other than the situation where you load into a crowded scene with a lot of people doing stuff like [Audio cut out]. The biggest challenge is creating and loading the AIs and because we didn’t have this, we couldn’t defer the creation of AIs and we are going to be doing some optimization. Also, adding the tech so we can defer the creation of AIs, which will help us get into the scene quicker and then we can create up some of those as we go along, kind of like how we do with the houses. [Audio cut out]

(1:24:22) Womby: Does the XP cost of dying increase at level 80 or level 81? Chris: It is at level 80 right now, so yes I actually realized that after this release. I have all the numbers set to the obvious thing, the even one! So yes, if you’re at 80, I punish you.

(1:24:48) Beaumaris: Does the advent of the skill ‘heat’ system mean that expansion of the glyph combo system is dead? Darkstarr: No.

'''(1:25:01) Falcon Rainfeather: I like to know how a player archer that has been knocked down able to use rapid fire? Would that not seem a flaw in the game mechanic?''' Chris: That is called a bug. So we’ve got some issues with knockdown, with knockback, with stun, where there’s some ways that things break out of it that shouldn’t breaking out of it and it not actually being applied. And it being tied to animations, the animations get interrupted. There’s a number of bugs in that. We will be doing a cleanup on that type stuff because that is important.

(1:25:56) twofoldsilence: Would it be possible to add additional weaker tiered versions of bosses and mini bosses that can be killed by solo players like there are for all the other creatures in SotA? Darkstarr: Well, no, because then that would remove the desire for group play.So probably not.

(1:26:28) Coral: Will there be blood stains on the torn and tattered wedding clothes? Darkstarr and Lord British: Very likely!

(1:26:40) Tiina Onir: Now that we have a reaper, will a cowbell be added to the available instrument types? Darkstarr: I see what you did there. Lord British: We need more cowbell! Darkstarr: Don’t fear the reaper!

(1:27:28) RoStudios: Can we get some wand patterns? Darkstarr: Yes, eventually.

(1:27:40) Viola Vidason: Someday maybe placed items could be used but not taken, like instruments on stages, so people can play the accordion but not steal it? Darkstarr: [...] So we need a permissions setting, a use but not take it. Lord British: But not leave the property with… Chris: I thought we had this already, but I think it’s just I cheat. Darkstarr: Yeah, so we don’t have a ‘use but not take’ permissions setting. Lord British: I’ll Jira it.

(1:28:20) Rufus D`Asperdi: Now that we have Flame Armor, can we get Leaf Armor to go with the Leaf Shield and Spear? Darkstarr: For the next Spring Telethon we can!

'''(1:28:32) hroth: How do minor repairs affects weapon/armor/shield durability? ''' Darkstarr: When you do a repair, you’re repairing the current durability, so it doesn’t have any effect on total durability. Just the current durability. Chris: I will mention one thing that I still want to change on the durability and repair stuff works. Right now your durability erodes and the secondary durability at the same time. I would prefer that to be the durability erodes, the primary stays the same until you actually do the fixing of the thing and then [the current durability] goes up and [the primary durability] goes down. Lord British: That’s the way it’s supposed to work! Chris: That’s the way it’s supposed to work, but that’s not the way it works. Lord British: *Groan* Chris: I would yell at the guy that did that, but… And then that way you could do it that a repair kit repairs it in the field, it’s convenient, but it takes more off the long term durability. Where if you do it at the actual anvil or crafting table, you repair more while losing less. But because of how it’s set up right now, that needs to change.

(1:30:08) hroth: can you confirm the auto-attack only attacks with the primary? Chris: Yes.

'''(1:30:19) Warrior B'Patrick : .There are a lot instruments in the game but we need more. Just to mention a few: Vielle, Viol, Fiddle, Dulcimer, Cittern, and of course the Chitarrone “a 6ft long Flute.''' Darkstarr: Okay. Noted.

'''(1:30:55) Warrior B'Patrick: We need a way to display them in our music rooms. And for people to be able to take them from the display and play. We have Armor and Weapons racks so how about a Instrument “Rack”?''' Darkstarr: [Audio conversation between Darkstarr and Lord British cut out] Okay.

'''(1:31:20) Warrior B'Patrick: I have see many people selling sheet music and Cylinders. How about adding a music store next to the Bookstore? Or split the building into 2 sides, one book and 1 music?''' Darkstarr: Are you talking about the POT building? Um, we can consider it, but probably not likely.

(1:31:43) Alleine Dragonfyre : Can we could implement a Dance/Music system that provides hours long skill buffs? Darkstarr: Probably not for Episode 1.

(3:01:31) Brent S: Since Winter is coming up, how about Ice Armour? Darkstarr: That is a cool idea for a stretch goal for one of our winter telethons.

(3:01:43) StarLord: What is the status of locking items in the inventory to avoid accidental sales/trades? Lord British: There’s a Jira for that. We put the Jira in last time, but it will get there in time.

(3:01:55) Baron Drocis Fondorlatos: Could we please make summoned pets more useful? Chris: I think if I made them more useful I’d still get this question asked. Right now they’re fairly balanced. There will be some changes going in for pets, which will probably make them a little bit tougher, which is part of finishing out the chaos magic tree that I’ve got to go back and rebalance the demon. [...] There’s been a demon and a control demon spell which players can see, but at some point I will be finishing that and making that into a subdue demon spell, which will go back into the original design. TRYING NOT TO MUMBLE!! So there’s supposed to be the summon demon, which is supposed to summon a ferocious demon, and then a subdue demon spell which will bring him under your control. [...] But part of the deal with that is right now the demon that’s in there is pretty wimpy, I mean he’s not super wimpy, but he’s not as tough as he should be. When we move to this system where you have to keep subduing him every so often, spending that extra time and also if you summon a demon who’s super weak who will beat you down, then he won’t beat you down. So we’re going to be doing a tuning pass on the demon and probably do a little work on all the pets.

(3:05:27) infernal: have you considered instead of adding crafting skill decay, using crafting skill point pool like a currency for example if a vary rare carpentry and blacksmith recipe cost 100k crafting xp each to learn. Chris: I really like that idea. And I’d not thought of that. Darkstarr: We will consider it! Chris: [...] I think it’s a genius idea!

(3:06:12) Viola Vidason: Can supply bundles open like containers so we can see what we get? Darkstarr: Well, they’re not really containers, though. Chris: No, they’re not. Basically, you click on them and they expand. That’s the thing. They’re not really containers, they’re just a way that we can leave a surprised element in there and put a bunch of stuff together so you can be excited about it. Darkstarr: So, no. Chris: No, I don’t think so.

'''(3:08:50) pleasedrivefast: With brewing delayed last release, is this still expected as a priority crafting feature? There was no mention of brewing within the Q4 2017 Schedule Update.''' Darkstarr: That is correct, brewing is not something we are prioritizing for work in Q4. We definitely still want to get brewing done. Richard feels super strongly about brewing. We actually all do. It’s something we want to make happen. It’s something we want to make a factor in other parts of the game. It’s just not going to happen in Q4, but it’s definitely going to happen.

'''(3:09:41) pleasedrivefast: Batch agriculture is a welcomed bonus, but harvesting water manually is still a time sink. Are there plans to update water harvesting as currently it’s more economical to buy water and farm gold for it than waste time using fountains?''' Darkstarr: Yes. Lord British: I’ve heard this one, too. I don’t know if there’s a Jira in for it, but there should be. I’ll make sure.

(3:17:19) infernal: can you please make a open floor plan version of the Obsidian inn it would make a great mausoleum. Darkstarr: That’s a great suggestion!

(3:17:30) Cypher Black: POT tools have been mentioned in release notes in the past, when can we expect to see POT tools added, like the lawn mower? Darkstarr: Actually Burning Toad is working on the lawn mower as we speak, finally. I know it’s been forever. By the way, I know the reason it’s been so long is Burning Toad is also the guy in charge of our builds, so the reason you have a working version of the game in your hands right now, one of the primary reasons if because of Burning Toad. Chris: And also I should point out that he was supposed to be working on that today, but instead, he discovered when we were trying to compare Unity 5.63, the version that last release was on, and 2017.2, the version we might be moving towards for the next release, he did a performance test and found there is a 5 frame per second difference. He then found that if he walked across the map and walked back to the exact same spot and looked in the exact same direction, that his frame rate was actually 5-10 frames per second better and it turns out that there should be some things that toggle off to save performance that don’t toggle off until you walk by them a first time. So you’ll get a frame rate increase this release, thanks to the guy that should be doing the lawn mower, but is instead doing other crap.

(3:19:09) Cypher Black : Will we also be able to flatten out land? Darkstarr: No. Being able to modify terrain is a very, very, very different thing than, like, removing things like trees and shrubs and grass. Chris: Episode 2. Lord British: Maybe! Chris: It can be done, it’s just a lot of data to relay to players when they enter into the scene. There’s some ways we can simplify it, but it’s a lot of work. Lord British: I think we’ll do steeds and ships long before we flatten terrain.

'''(3:19:45) Rosemourne: I know how much you love adding options, but could we please get an option to disable theft? I’ve stolen three items accidentally and paid the fine thanks to wonky hitboxes and pressing E. Something like Decoration Mode for naughty boys and girls.''' Lord British: That’s an interesting idea. You want to override your own ability to accidentally to… Chris: Virtue mode. They want a Virtue mode so they can always be virtuous. Never accidentally steal things. Darkstarr: They wanna use protection. Lord British: Virtue mode, I like that. No accidental theft.

'''(3:21:43) froji: Could we get an option on the clocks to set the time ourselves? I want to see NBT, local time & in-game time on separate clocks''' Lord British: That’s a good idea. It won’t be high priority, but it’s a good idea.:

'''(3:22:10) Vladamir Begemot: Please create an OPEN sign that automatically turns itself off after a day or three. That way active shopkeepers can let people know their inventory is updated, and maybe even move our shops indoors without losing all business.''' Darkstarr: [To Lord British] That’s kind of like your, ‘make NPC shopkeepers sit down’ Lord British: This is a good idea. It’s a variation of a theme that I’ve already put a Jira in for. The Jira I put in was that inactive shopkeepers would sit down vs. stand up, but I also like the idea of something that would allow you to put your shopkeepers inside to get these all off of the street edge. Let me think about that. That’s a good idea.

(3:22:59) Vladamir Begemot: Please also make letters similar to the new numbers, or signs that we can have visible (not – mouse tooltip) text on, so we don’t have to name our vendors S Mart, etc. Thus vendors can have people names, and the store has it’s name on the sign out front. Darkstarr: Yeah, we should totally do a letter set like we did the number set. That’s a great suggestion.

(3:23:21) Vladamir Begemot: I forgot the most important one, you put item sale and location back in the chat log, but forgot to put the price it sold for, so we still can’t use it. Darkstarr: Yeah, we should bug that.

'''(3:24:02) SmokerKGB: I like the prison theme basement, would like more variations for village plots. I want more “gore” like blood spatter for walls & floors, I want a table for the gillotin, you know, to place the victim on, I want a basket for the falling heads, headless corpses to place, a set of heads, some criminal, some aristocrate.''' Darkstarr: Great suggestions Chris: And we’ve contacted the FBI to alert them of your presence. Darkstarr: Those are all great suggestions. Lord British: I’ll make a note of it.

(3:28:14) Rufus D`Asperdi: When will we see an expansion/rework of the permissions system to include Resident/Member permissions, and Item Use permissions for Items such as Vendors, Crafting Stations, and Planter Boxes? Darkstarr: We know we need to do this. It’s in the backlog. Maybe Q1? Chris: Just a reminder, every month we continue roll out more and more new stuff and that’s kind of the great thing. Every release we hear there’s a lot of stuff that players request, but every release it’s a little bit different stuff because we got some of that stuff done. So you always have something to look forward to.

'''(3:28:57) Almar: Can houses with tax that has lapsed be stored somehow rather than everything ending up in a mess at the bank, for instance a Magic Mover slot, if one is available? ''' Darkstarr: Yes, that’s the plan. We have a task already in the backlog for this. We just haven’t gotten to it.

'''(3:29:13) Almar: Can we get a warning before closure? In-game mail perhaps?''' Darkstarr: Yes, not only in-game mail, but the plan is for it to send you an actual out-of-game mail. That’s a task that’s also in the backlog, but that is also a priority.

'''(3:29:45) Warrior B'Patrick : Can we get a larger shed type building or tent to put on the stages so we can hold festivals. Something like a large open tent or porch?''' Darkstarr: So I guess what you’re asking for is one that has three sides, not four? So you have one open side if you’re asking to put something on a stage, so a three-sided tent. Great suggestion.

(3:30:11) Ancev: Will it ever be possible to rotate the top section of the Windmill house? Darkstarr: No, because the top section of the windmill house rotates with the wind direction, and that’s [while pointing at Lord British] for realism and immersion. Lord British: Exactly! Though, actually you could turn them away from the wind to shut down the mill, so an override is actually not unreasonable. But, it’s also, I don’t think, critical. [...] I’ll put a Jira in for it. Episode two!

(3:30:58) Horton Irongate: Can you fix the Chess, Checker games so that anyone can play them without letting people steal the items? Darkstarr: That’s a, ‘use but not take’ like the instruments. It will be along with the instruments.

(3:31:27) Duke Gréagóir: Do you know when POTs can finally place water markers on the docks? Darkstarr: No, but we know we need to fix that. It’s in the backlog. Burning Toad is unfortunately the person to fix that, but we get it.

(3:31:46) Xander: When are you going to put the spooky blue torches we used to be able to buy at book stores back in the game? Darkstarr: I’m surprised you were able to buy that at bookstores because those were a welcome torch as part of a Welcome Quest, so… Lord British: And torches have been lasting way, way too long. I just put in a Jira for that. They shouldn’t be lasting for a week! They should last a night. Darkstarr: So those probably won’t ever get sold in the stores because they’re part of a quest.

(3:32:14)Sir Holisy: When we recall to home, maybe we can choose ground floor or basement? [Not really answered due to fund announcement. I think Lord British put in a Jira, but not confirmed.]

(3:34:04) jack102367: Will there be dye for furniture added to the game? Name: Sort of. The long term plan for that is that you’ll be able to dye the cloth parts of the furniture, but the wooden parts will be coloured based on the type of wood you used. That’s not working yet, but that’s the long term plan.

(3:34:34) jack102367: Will there be pirate “things” added to the game like…..parrot for shoulder, eye patch, bonfire for beach, etc. Darkstarr: Yarr, there will be.

'''(3:35:17) Cypher Black: In earlier releases, some five skull areas (like Deep Ravenswood) were given ‘champ’ type areas. Will the Crag Foothills be getting this type of treatment?''' Darkstarr: Actually, thank you for the reminder. I need to add some Jiras. We need to do some of these Tier 5 spawns in some of the areas. We’ve been focusing on some other things, but we need to explore that.

'''(3:36:08) Belladonna Rose: Are there going to be more claritive instructions on the quests? For example, there aren’t really a lot of instruction for Banner quests and such.''' Lord British: I’ll look into that one. We are doing it tons of the especially early quests, but if you think any of them are not sufficiently clear, or well guided, which I don’t doubt, please put them individually in the bug tracking area. Because we’re literally taking them as we notice them individually. We’re not arbitrarily looking for them broadly.

(3:37:17) jschoice: How many scenes are left to be uncloned? Darkstarr: We actually have about, I counted, we have about 400 scenes in the game in total. It’s a lot. Of those, there is about 58 adventure and named towns on the cloth map left to unclone. Then there’s about 30ish PRTs which are like towns not on the cloth map that are basically extra housing towns. So about 88 scenes left to unclone total out of 400. Most of the scenes have been uncloned at this point, so we’re at the back end of it for sure. The most important part is most of the adventure scenes have been uncloned and all of the cities pertaining to the story have been uncloned at this point.

'''(3:39:21) Belladonna Rose: Is there anyway we can have a walkway with steps or even steps for the devotional? It is very annoying to have to jump into each devotional to use it.''' Chris: So this has been an ongoing thing that when they first came out, I did them and they had an area around them where when you got close it would trigger it. Then players complained, ‘well we want to put them side by side’ and then you’re hitting each of them. So then we made it just hanging off the front a few meters, that’s how it was a few releases ago, players still complained because they would say, ‘I accidentally walked in front of it and my buff got overwritten by one I didn’t want.’ So then we moved so it’s only if you take a bath in the water. Lord British: So why not make a step? Chris: We could make a little step so they don’t have to jump, but… Darkstarr: No, because that will then change the collision shape of it, so anyone who’s placed it and then places something near it will mess up their placement. Chris: Jump! Lord British: Jump! Darkstarr: The only way to really fix this would be to make it as a use to invoke. Chris: We could. It’s new tech.

(3:40:50) pleasedrivefast: What is the status of the quest reset feature? Darkstarr: It’s actually complete. We are now testing it for robustness. As you can imagine, it is probably the most complex feature we’ve ever implemented. Ever. [...] Theoretically, if testing goes well it could go live as soon as this release, but we’re debating that.

(3:43:27) Grimbone: Can we please get a Stables sign in the addon store already?!?!? Darkstarr: I actually already entered a Jira for this because I understand the importance and angst around this one.

(3:49:04) Draugur: A while ago Chris changed the way Riposte works in game yet it is still coming up in the masterwork list thus wasting other wanted masterworks to pick from Darkstarr: This is a great observation, thanks for letting us know! By the way, reporting this in the bug forums is super helpful. Reporting here works too, but also reporting in the bug forums works great. [...] I bugged this, and we’ll fix this probably in R48 because we’re going to try to come up with a suitable replacement.

(3:49:55) Fionwyn Wyldemane : Can the Baron’s Talking Mirror be made a deco instead of an NPC? Darkstarr: No, unfortunately it can’t because in order to have it’s conversation attached to it, it has to be an NPC. But, the good news is, we’ve got Eric Two-Bay who’s our AI scrambler doing AI optimizations right now who’s making really good progress right now. And that’s all he’s doing for this and the next release, all he’s doing is AI optimizations. That’s going to make NPC and AI do… Lord British: Faster, more efficient, and open the games for more and better things. Darkstarr: Which means we’ll be able to raise the limits for NPC placement on player lots.

(3:51:02) Warrior B'Patrick : Now that clocks are in the game how about a clock tower for POT? Darkstarr: Yes, we already have that in the backlog.

(3:51:24) Svahn: Regarding purchased addons, are you considering a “melt” or trade in-system? Darkstarr: No, not currently. However, that’s what, since no items are bound, we don’t do bind to player; We don’t do soulbound or anything like that and we allow player to player transactions of all kinds you can trade those items in the game. You can also advertise those items so you can sell them in the game for in game gold, but you can also advertise those items for sale on the player marketplace. So while we don’t allow meltdown, you can advertise those items for sale in the game or on the player marketplace.

(3:52:20) Svahn: Do you have any news on npc dialogue system improvement? Darkstarr: Yes, Richard, Lum, and I have been discussing one improvement. One simple, but broad reaching one is in relation to subjects that NPCs don’t understand that I think will improve how they react to that. Right now if you say something an NPC doesn’t understand, they basically just say ‘I don’t know.’ And we’re going to work on a way that, instead of just saying ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I don’t understand’, we’re going to try to make it so that they take what you have said and… Lord British: And guide you back, they guide back into things they do know about so it doesn’t feel like a dead end. It feels like a discovery. Darkstarr: So they’ll say, ‘I don’t know about flaming fish, but I’m here to sell you reagents.’

(3:53:39) Draugur: Since you have added Norgard hair and other new styles and will continue to add to the player creation database will all players get a New You token to use at launch? Lord British: I wouldn’t mind it, but I’m also not compelled to do it. We’ll noodle on it.

(3:57:20) Rufus D`Asperdi: Can we please have timestamps in chat? [Richard is confirming that there’s a Jira for it. Chris says it’s 5 minutes of work]

(3:57:40) Rufus D`Asperdi: When it becomes possible to dye / paint furniture, could one of the options be gold so we can produce gilt furniture? Darkstarr: Yeah, why not? Cool idea.

'''(3:58:12) Jack Knyfe: When will the stone and plaster basements be revisited to adjust the height of each floor so that they're the same height as the stone basements? (JIRA was entered by Starr personally in April 2015)''' Darkstarr: The Jira was entered by me personally in April 2015. Really? [...] I’ll have to look at that.

'''(3:59:02) Mekong: Will the Development team reconsider their stance on giving open API information? An in-game focus would be preferable. Providing all the information will deter from exploration and in game interaction. It also takes away from Undone working on the game.''' Darkstarr: I don’t understand the question Lord British: I know not. Lum: I think I do. He’s asking you not to do any API work because he’d rather the guy working on API work on things in the game instead. Darkstarr: Oh, I see. Okay. Chris: I think he’s only spent a day or two on this total. This is not a significant amount of time. It’s really just putting in a print statement with one string of data wherever we want to put one of these logs. We’ve had a lot of feedback that the API data is super useful.

'''(4:00:10) John Markus: Portalarium said they are partnering with NEVERDIE, we purchased NDC in their ICO. When can we expect to be able to use NDC coins for in-game effects ?''' Lord British: Not this year.

(4:03:21) Spoon: Could we have a telethon themed with Chaos Darkstarr items? Darkstarr: Yes! Totally! That is a great idea! That is a fantastic idea! I’m going to get right on that. Totally going to get right on that.

'''(4:03:38) Lord Andernut: Can we have POTs be somewhat identifiable in the API? Many of us would like to see some kind of statistics about their Town such as Heat Maps!''' Chris: This is one of those things that came up. Their town doesn't show up by name, it shows up by template, so everybody’s like ‘Metropolis_water’ and they can’t tell which town is theirs. So that is one that we need to get on there and I know we can fix it in 5 minutes. Lord British: Alright I’ll put that in.

(4:04:32) Rat: Can we filter out known recipes from vendors? Darkstarr: Yes, that task is in the backlog, we definitely want to do that.

(4:04:41) Ravnos FelRidden: Question: When will the grandfather clocks chime in game? Darkstarr: So they would chime a lot because our clocks [Tympanic rupture]