LadyCrimson
Wanderer
Demise QnA (Aug 14, 2009)
QUESTION #1
Why do vet rewards have such extreme requirements? I understand that they are rewards for people who have been playing for X amount of time. But any person playing for X amount of time could also find them on merchents at a much earlier date. Do these requirements have anything to do with acquiring (buying) items via donations?
Answer:
Vet rewards are in place to reward people for their continued support of the server simply by playing on it. A server with more people online at any given time of the day tends to draw in more players. People simply do not like to play alone.
The requirements for vet rewards has no correlation to the donation store. There are some items available in the donation store that mimic the functionality of a vet reward (donation ethies); however, those items are not as beneficial. Using the donation ethies as an example, a vet can cast/mount the reward statuette in 3 seconds. The donation ethie casts in 7-8 seconds.
Can a person who is not old enough purchase a vet reward item? Absolutely; however, the individual cannot use it until their age requirement is met. To prevent someone mistakingly buying a vet reward they cannot use instead of a donation item, donation items are appropriately tagged.
As for extreme requirements for vet rewards, I'll default to psz's comment on the question: "Our time requirement is, what, 1/3 OSIs? How is that extreme?"
QUESTION #2
Most of my main characters in UO have been tamers, and I love taking on new pets and get them trained and such. Recently I started training a Rune Beetle, or at least I thought I was training it, until after it had died a couple of times, and it's poisoning skill consequently dropping 0.3 points.
Now, these are special pets in regards to their skill-total, which is 8 rather than the normal maximum of 7 because they have all the magery skills in addition to their poisoning. Some of their skills also start out above 100 when tamed, mine for example had 118.9 poisoning and some 11x.x eval int.
How are the skills (total and individual caps) of these special creatures being handled in the code, once tamed? Given enough time and deaths, will my beetle end up with 0 poisoning? Is anything being done to address this, if so - what?
Answer:
Demise has undergone a LOT of changes recently, many relating to pets and other critters within the world. We are definitely trying to get the server to OSI standards for all skills; however, this question only address rune beetles. I would suggest giving rune beetles another try and note your observances. If you can test against OSI, then perhaps with research, a bug report would need to be created so we can get Demise working like OSI.
QUESTION #3
Why does detect hidden not reveal hidden staff? Bug?
Answer:
Absolutely NOT a bug.
First, the reason why it doesn't work (technically) is because staff characters are not "human" or "elf" in game. Staff are considered mobile items. This is why many skills do not work for staff and other game rules do not apply (I don't think I've opened a door on Demise in more than 2 years).
Now, the gaming reason staff are "above skill rules" is because how would we be able to adequately service the playerbase if everyone were revealing us? Doing research on a problem would be futile. There is no way we'd be able to do our jobs adequately if able to be revealed, tracked, found, noticed, etc.
Think of us as virtual undercover agents
QUESTION #4
There are lots of people that help making the shard better (or at least more OSI-like). Shouldn't they get some special reward, i.e. a legendary scroll of begging or a SC-2 tinker tool?
Answer:
Personally, I would love to be able to reward people for their hard work; however, logically, this just is not possible.
First, Demise does not promote special or unique event items.
Second, the staff work as volunteers, same as these other individuals who are doing a bang-up job for the server. If staff or these player volunteers were rewarded in anyway, it could pollute the concept of a "corruption free" server. Demise does not want a reputation of giving people preferential treatment. Everyone is on the same playing ground regardless of who you are, what you do, or if you choose to donate money via the donation store.
Third, identifying every person that has done everything is practically impossible, or at least improbable. Where is the line drawn? A person who validates 1 report on OSI - do they count? How do you validate time spent on an OSI server or researching documentation on OSI websites? Creating a definition of what is "contributing" and then setting a value to a person's time spent just isn't plausible - every volunteer, regardless of time or efforts put into the project, is important to making the entire project work.
I would like to do something at the reward hall but then questions come into play like how do you make sure every single person is recognized? I think a huge, global thank you is enough and should blanket everyone nicely
QUESTION #1
Why do vet rewards have such extreme requirements? I understand that they are rewards for people who have been playing for X amount of time. But any person playing for X amount of time could also find them on merchents at a much earlier date. Do these requirements have anything to do with acquiring (buying) items via donations?
Answer:
Vet rewards are in place to reward people for their continued support of the server simply by playing on it. A server with more people online at any given time of the day tends to draw in more players. People simply do not like to play alone.
The requirements for vet rewards has no correlation to the donation store. There are some items available in the donation store that mimic the functionality of a vet reward (donation ethies); however, those items are not as beneficial. Using the donation ethies as an example, a vet can cast/mount the reward statuette in 3 seconds. The donation ethie casts in 7-8 seconds.
Can a person who is not old enough purchase a vet reward item? Absolutely; however, the individual cannot use it until their age requirement is met. To prevent someone mistakingly buying a vet reward they cannot use instead of a donation item, donation items are appropriately tagged.
As for extreme requirements for vet rewards, I'll default to psz's comment on the question: "Our time requirement is, what, 1/3 OSIs? How is that extreme?"
QUESTION #2
Most of my main characters in UO have been tamers, and I love taking on new pets and get them trained and such. Recently I started training a Rune Beetle, or at least I thought I was training it, until after it had died a couple of times, and it's poisoning skill consequently dropping 0.3 points.
Now, these are special pets in regards to their skill-total, which is 8 rather than the normal maximum of 7 because they have all the magery skills in addition to their poisoning. Some of their skills also start out above 100 when tamed, mine for example had 118.9 poisoning and some 11x.x eval int.
How are the skills (total and individual caps) of these special creatures being handled in the code, once tamed? Given enough time and deaths, will my beetle end up with 0 poisoning? Is anything being done to address this, if so - what?
Answer:
Demise has undergone a LOT of changes recently, many relating to pets and other critters within the world. We are definitely trying to get the server to OSI standards for all skills; however, this question only address rune beetles. I would suggest giving rune beetles another try and note your observances. If you can test against OSI, then perhaps with research, a bug report would need to be created so we can get Demise working like OSI.
QUESTION #3
Why does detect hidden not reveal hidden staff? Bug?
Answer:
Absolutely NOT a bug.
First, the reason why it doesn't work (technically) is because staff characters are not "human" or "elf" in game. Staff are considered mobile items. This is why many skills do not work for staff and other game rules do not apply (I don't think I've opened a door on Demise in more than 2 years).
Now, the gaming reason staff are "above skill rules" is because how would we be able to adequately service the playerbase if everyone were revealing us? Doing research on a problem would be futile. There is no way we'd be able to do our jobs adequately if able to be revealed, tracked, found, noticed, etc.
Think of us as virtual undercover agents
QUESTION #4
There are lots of people that help making the shard better (or at least more OSI-like). Shouldn't they get some special reward, i.e. a legendary scroll of begging or a SC-2 tinker tool?
Answer:
Personally, I would love to be able to reward people for their hard work; however, logically, this just is not possible.
First, Demise does not promote special or unique event items.
Second, the staff work as volunteers, same as these other individuals who are doing a bang-up job for the server. If staff or these player volunteers were rewarded in anyway, it could pollute the concept of a "corruption free" server. Demise does not want a reputation of giving people preferential treatment. Everyone is on the same playing ground regardless of who you are, what you do, or if you choose to donate money via the donation store.
Third, identifying every person that has done everything is practically impossible, or at least improbable. Where is the line drawn? A person who validates 1 report on OSI - do they count? How do you validate time spent on an OSI server or researching documentation on OSI websites? Creating a definition of what is "contributing" and then setting a value to a person's time spent just isn't plausible - every volunteer, regardless of time or efforts put into the project, is important to making the entire project work.
I would like to do something at the reward hall but then questions come into play like how do you make sure every single person is recognized? I think a huge, global thank you is enough and should blanket everyone nicely
)
