What IS the official stance on storing mats / items on the vendor? Is this allowed or is it an exploit? [Submitted by marct]

This is not an exploit, and is allowed.

Now, we are perfectly aware that this is not the best thing ever, as it can be annoying when you're looking for raw materials or items. That's one of the reason why we increase the inventories' size, and we may also rework the vendor system to handle it in a better way - this is not decided yet. In the meantime, try to stick to some good rules of conduct : give high prices to the items/materials (so storage can't be mistaken with items really for sale, and can be easily filtered), and keep it to a minimum. Thanks !

How many members does a guild need to have a specific number of officers/high officers (for example 20 members for each HO, 10 for each officer)? [Submitted by mrozzy]

The maximums are :

• 1 leader
• 5% of the number of guild members can be high officer, with a minimum of 1 high officer
• 10% of the number of guild members can be officer, with a minimum of 1 officer

A question that has often been asked casually is: Do the devs actually play the same game as the players, that is without csr characters and on the live servers? [Submitted by xenofur]

Of course ! We would have a hard time understanding you, if we weren't playing on the same conditions. We play on the live shards, without CSR characters; for example, I actually play a young female fighter on Aniro (here is a little game : try to find who I am ;) ). We also have people on Arispotle and Leanon - we usually play on the server of our native language, but there are some exceptions.

As a rule, we don't disclose our real identity, as we just want to relax and play. :-) But that's also a good way for us to hear what you have to say about the game, since we get real comments and experience, not only the reactions on the boards and the Klients.

It is now quite a while that all your "Glimpse of production" articles start with the sentence "Our current focus is on a general spring clean on the game." and lots of the features you mention in the articles themself are very nice but not avalilable on the live shards. (And just some of them on the ATS). Maybe it would be a good idea to post another article wich focuses on the CURRENT patch release process [Submitted by tridman]

Yup, you're right : the features mentionned on my Glimpse of Production articles haven't reached the live shards yet. The main reason is that I started writing the glimpses while we were reworking some of the core components and systems of the game; a simple and casual change can already cause a lot of issues - with a core component, it's *a lot* worse : issues are popping everywhere. The consequence is that it is necessary to spend more time testing & debugging afterwards.

A good example is the inventory rework. A lot of in-game subsystems depend on it : player/guild/appartment/mektoub inventories, but also looting, harvesting, items exchanges, vendors - basically, everything which is item-related, and that's a lot of things on a MMO.

So, the patch release process article is still valid. It's just the test & debug time which has been extended. I will sit with Jessica after E3, and we'll see how we can work to give you better information here. Also, have a look at the next question, you will see that the items mentionned in past Glimpses of production are coming. :)

When is the next content patch?

Quoting Jessica Mulligan :

We plan to include the following elements in the next content patch :

[ M I S C E L L A N E O U S ]

• A new command is added: /random [min] max (the min default value is 1).
• Titles are now granted at the beginning of a branch tree (51 instead of 50 for example) except at 250. If you are at a such level (like 20) you will loose your title until the next level.
• Titles for fighting bare hands after the level 200 are now correctly allocated to the corresponding skill. It is therefore possible to gain levels in that skill.
• You can now have stack of 999 items (except for pre-patch tickets).
• The /afk command is back, and is not interfering with some animations anymore.
• Your target_s HP bar could have been not empty even if the mob was dead. This is now always correctly displayed.
• The Karavan guards wearing laser weapons fall when dying.
• Thanks to the spring clean, getting all your character's info while logging into the game is faster.
• If you are moving using the two buttons on your mouse and then launch the auto run, you can release your mouse's buttons, you will keep running.

[ G U I L D S ]

• The guild inventory slot numbers is increased to 1000.
• Offline members' names are correctly displayed in the guild listing.
• Your guild inventory is displayed fully and correctly.

[ I N T E R F A C E ]

• If you reach the end of a branch of your skill tree, and when you begin one of this branch child, the part that is done is now colored with green.
• The number of slots in a bag is now 500 and 1000 in a player's apartment.
• Colorisation of sender name in chat and tell window for better readability.
• You can now adjust some graphic options with Direct 3D in the window mode.
• The mektoubs mounts and packers names are correctly displayed on the compass.

[ M E K T O U B ]

• If you get a new Mektoub, it will be specific to your race. They are all still going at the same speed.
• There are 500 slots in a Packer inventory.

[ F I G H T I N G ]

• You can buy some Kami or Karavan pacts that resorb faster your Death Penalties. You can note the pretty icon going on with the pact ! Please note that you can see those pacts only if you have some DP.

Also, we are trying to schedule this patch for next week. As Jessica said, it won't happen if we aren't satisfied of the sanity check tests currently being performed. So, don't take this for granted, but we are doing our best to release it quickly.

How long does it take for a source to contain some materials again? [Submitted by mrozzy]

There are two different cases here :

• If you have broken a source, the delay is quite short : generally only a few minutes.
• If you refer to the sources with a limited supply of raw materials (such as those in the prime roots), the delay to get a full source again is dependant on which one you're harvesting. It ranges from 1.5 day to more than two weeks - but to know more, you'll have to try it yourself. :)

When do you expect to have the clean-up completed? [Submitted by borg9]

Jessica said :

See the answer above, :D. We'll work on keeping you better informed of our progress on these items; I'm a firm believer of at least giving you an idea of what is happening, :D.

Why don't you allow player to teleport themselves to the newbie islands ?

The original reason was to avoid interferences between newbie and veteran players. We wanted new players to be able to try the game in an environment designed to help them, where they can learn the gameplay without having to understand the barbarish written style and customs we all use after a few months of play. :)

But we are aware that currently newbie islands aren't really good to get new players hooked to the game, as they aren't populated enough. We have plans to improve the situation here, more about it later.

--
Xavier.