Release Note discussion!

[Grapes]

Question, can you ride with just a shield, and draw your weapon as needed?

[Namino]

Question, can you ride with just a shield, and draw your weapon as needed?

I just logged in to test this, and you can still single-hand a shield and draw as necessary. The only issue then is that if you end up getting the worse end of the fight, you have to sheath your weapon before fleeing, presumably, or you will not move. However, this is at least livable for me.

I still am a bit concerned that this is happening after we were assured that the viability of older classes would not be undermined by new classes coming in, but in my opinion, this is inconvenient but not ruinous.

[Grapes]

Elves approve.

In response to the last post, not to be snarky, but for a long  time the mounted races, in melee combat, have had their cake and eaten it too. I understand it may be frustrating, but some of us have the world's smallest violin playing in the back of our heads. I understand it's less than ideal, and this makes encountering enemies, both PCs, and NPCs, in the wild more difficult... but the mounted races still have a huge set of advantages, which, as someone said, is kind of how it ought to be.

EDIT: Thanks for testing that, btw. Glad it's livable and not game-breaking. I do see your point.

[Veselka]

Question, can you ride with just a shield, and draw your weapon as needed?

I just logged in to test this, and you can still single-hand a shield and draw as necessary. The only issue then is that if you end up getting the worse end of the fight, you have to sheath your weapon before fleeing, presumably, or you will not move. However, this is at least livable for me.

I still am a bit concerned that this is happening after we were assured that the viability of older classes would not be undermined by new classes coming in, but in my opinion, this is inconvenient but not ruinous.

It's more a pain in the butt than ruinous. But it's still annoying to not get an announcement of it happening and having to figure it out. My current PC was able to ride with a shield and weapon for the last few months, so to suddenly not be able to is taking some adjustment.

[nessalin]

Moderated a few posts that were a tad snarky, others that varied between mis-leading and outright wrong, and others that delved a bit too deeply into uninformed opinions of game mechanics.

[nessalin]

Along with some other fixes identified from play testing, tomorrow should revert the functionality of riding with 0, 1, and 2 hands free for classic guilds to what it was before.

[Feco]

(bummer!)

[evilcabbage]

(i can read these you know.)

good to see that this is being fixed and is clearly a bug, not the end of the world some people made it out to be. was this just an unintentional side effect of the new guilds?

[Veselka]

Along with some other fixes identified from play testing, tomorrow should revert the functionality of riding with 0, 1, and 2 hands free for classic guilds to what it was before.

Thank you!

I figured it had something to do with the new guilds and wasn't a feature, per se.

I'm bummed that I can't try these new guilds in the beta...You hear that ginka? It's an invitation to RoCk!

[evilcabbage]

removed code that hasn't been used in 20 years? can you tell us what it was? was it SPOOOOOOOOKY?

[nessalin]

removed code that hasn't been used in 20 years? can you tell us what it was? was it SPOOOOOOOOKY?

Nothing exiting.  We used to define cities by blocks of hard coded room numbers, then switched to having properties on rooms.  All the old code was still there.  Stuff like that.

[Grapes]

Finding spice decay to be a frustrating concept, though I suppose realistic. I'll never get to play a dwarf who builds a house out of bricks of tho now... but it makes sense. Illicit drugs and medicines do decay over time, although, much slower than foods, I guess due to oxidation and weathering from humidity and the like. I can only hope they decay veeeeery slowly, but that's up to the concept the staff is working with.

A concern regarding spice decay: The source of spice is patches of it naturally found under the sand. It would seem to me that something found in such a manner would be resistant to rotting, and possibly the refined stuff being even more resistant, if not outright immune (finally settling the debate as to how refined spice is superior to raw spice, giving a coded reason).

An idea to facilitate storage and sale of spice in a world where spice rots may be advanced packaging methods whereby Kurac would have determined an effective way to store bricks, perhaps wrapping them in paper and coating the brick in wax... This would make it possible to stockpile and transport, until unwrapped and shaven off, at which point it would begin to degrade. Unsure if that is in line with staff's intention with this change, just musing.

[Morrolan]

Stuff

+1

[Veselka]

Yeah, having containers designed for Spice transport/storage (wrappings, wax-sealed boxes, etc.) sounds like a neat new addition to the Kuraci Arsenal for spice sales.

It'd be cool to see more adverse affects from using raw spice -- mutations, disease, or shorter lifespans. But I suppose that can mostly be RP'd by those living in Red Storm and using raw spice the most often.

I view refined spice vs unrefined spice as Cocaine vs Crack. It's the same substance, just cut with different stuff to make it worth more, worth less, and detrimental / not-as-detrimental.

More than anything i'd love for the 'addiction code' to output a variety of echoes depending on the spice you are addicted to. So if you are addicted to Thodeliv, your addiction presents as general laziness and yawning, and muscle atrophy sort of 'feels' and personalized echoes. If you are addicted to Krelez, you begin to act like a tweaker, getting hyper feels and paranoia. Addicted to Methelinoc, you begin to feel hazy, stupid, and forgetful. The current 'spam you with the come down message' doesn't do much in the way of encouraging RP -- It just makes you want to stop using to make the annoyance of the spammed messages cropping up every 5-10 minutes.

Attention to spice code makes me happy though, and I love that spice decays -- I think it's a great step towards making it a commodity to use and to seek out, rather than save up for a rainy day. It does present an interesting issue with Kemen...I suppose use it or lose it, or keep it on your person so it doesn't decay

[Akariel]

Spice kits have been a part of this game for the better part of a decade, if not longer. You may find that properly containing your spice in containers designed to hold spice, like the aforementioned, might significantly increase the lifespan on any spice you may have - though, in a pinch, any container will do a half decent job.

Suffice it to say there is going to be -plenty- of time to use your spice so long as you aren't leaving it on the rug at home.

[Veselka]

Spice kits have been a part of this game for the better part of a decade, if not longer. You may find that properly containing your spice in containers designed to hold spice, like the aforementioned, might significantly increase the lifespan on any spice you may have - though, in a pinch, any container will do a half decent job.

Suffice it to say there is going to be -plenty- of time to use your spice so long as you aren't leaving it on the rug at home.

I imagine the 'wrappings' that Kurac/others sell would be appropriate containers too?

[MatisseOrOtherwise]

in a pinch,

Heh. Heh heh heh. Heheheheh.

[Synthesis]

What was the point of changing spice to decay?

[Grogerif]

What was the point of changing spice to decay?

I'm betting it's use it or lose it.  Rather then just having spice sitting forever, it'll be sold, used or planted on some poor schmuck.

[Akariel]

The idea behind it was to better simulate supply and demand. Previously the demand for spice was very low because the people who could afford spice regularly usually could just find a cache of spice hidden around their estate that would last them and their next three successors the rest of their playtime. On the other end of the scale, the people who couldn't get spice on the regular but still puff puffed from time to time shouldn't see a huge difference because they don't tend to stockpile so much that they can't use it in the decay period.

Ideally, this will mean that people who can afford spice and should want spice now have a reason to get in contact with three clans specifically dedicated to getting spice into Allanak for consumption, and create new plots which were minimal and superficial - at best - and make them actually things that people may want to do.

[LucildaHunta]

Stuff...

Can't argue with any of that!

[chrisdcoulombe]

At first glance I didn't really agree with spice decay, after thinking on it reading Akariel's post, it makes sense.  More smuggling sounds like a good idea after all.

[WarriorPoet]

I love the changes to spice. Having played a spice hustler and been frustrated as hell, this is a good thing.

SPICE MUST FLOW. So smoke more of it.

[Bushranger]

Smoke spice every day!

[Is Friday]

Thanks for the explanation. Good change.