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Answers To Questions From The Boards - 2005-07-27
Among this week's Q&A ingredients...
- 1 small update about Nevrax' team mood, chopped
- 1/2 cup loosely packed fresh learnings from the community
- 2 small crafting system details, finely chopped
- 1/8 teaspoon death penalty
- 1/4 cup fresh crash reports
- 2 teaspoons outposts
- 3/4 teaspoon PvP & fame
- 1/2 cup episode 2
How are things going at Nevrax? [Submitted by dc77066 (EN)]Pretty well lately! We have now been able to let the reorganization and the spring clean behind us, to focus on what we like to do: making Ryzom a better game.
I also have to bow, in the name of the whole team, to the improvements made by Jessica to the way we work. Her experience has brought fresh air to the development studio, everything seems to run more smoothly, and the different teams are even more motivated than they were before. Grats Jess!
What have you learned about the Ryzom community in relation to the Q&A section and your other involvement? [Submitted by dc77066 (EN)]
As you can imagine, I learn a lot at your side, and everytime it only opens new horizons. The Ryzom community is mature, dedicated, smart. Everytime there is some way for you to contribute, either by commenting a new concept, giving ideas or simply using the Ryzom game and universe to create, you systematically outperform our expectations.
Also, I knew from past experiences that honesty always beats the wooden tongue, but Ryzom is a great proof and confirmation of this hypothesis. There is nothing to gain in trying to hide the nasty stuff - you always figure it out anyway. To the contrary, a willingness to discuss even very negative aspects results - most of the time :) - in constructive exchanges. In the end, this is beneficial to our common goal: improving the game.
Also, I knew from past experiences that honesty always beats the wooden tongue, but Ryzom is a great proof and confirmation of this hypothesis. There is nothing to gain in trying to hide the nasty stuff - you always figure it out anyway. To the contrary, a willingness to discuss even very negative aspects results - most of the time :) - in constructive exchanges. In the end, this is beneficial to our common goal: improving the game.
Can you please elaborate a bit more on the 'crafting' system, as you did for Kami Tolerance or prospecting? the success rate is well known and related to your skill level and aimed quality, but what impacts the rate of degrades and the final quality obtained? has been it tweaked recently? do materials tools, gear, bonuses have an impact on this? [Submitted by iphdrunk (EN)]
Sure. The degraded items are partial successes; it works in a similar way as the partial successes in fight, for example. The percentage shown on the interface is the complete success rate; you have also a percentage of partial success, linked to the difference between your level and the crafted item quality, using a static table similar to the one I was detailing this Q&A (3rd answer). And no, it hasn't been modified lately.
To your last question: yes, medium and heavy armors have an impact on your success chances and on the item quality, and no, the existing material tools do not have an impact on this.
Do Death Penalty Pacts stack? what's the benefit of buying a 'hug', 'breath' and 'kiss'? (afaik, it is possible to buy a small, medium and big one. If a small increases rate 20%, medium a 50% and large a 80% for example, buying the 3 DP is removed 150% faster? [Submitted by iphdrunk (EN)]
No, death penalty pacts don't stack. If you buy the a low one and then an higher one, the lowest will simply be replaced by the higher.
What happens with our crash reports when we get kicked from the game? [Submitted by eilan (DE)]
They are sent by mail to an automated system, which sorts out the crash reports by date and type, and depacks the memory dumps (which gives the state of the game at the time of the crash) on a central file repository for handy access by the developers. This way we can track crashes through time, set priorities according to the number of players impacted, and see the effects of a patch by looking at the numbers of reported crash occurrences. This is very helpful, but I guess I'm a bit biased here, since I was the one writing the little piece of code handling the process. ;)
How is the work on Outposts going? [Submitted by dc77066 (EN)]
It is going well; in fact, since we have finished the spring clean, we have been able to dedicate more resources to the tasks related to the outposts: design fine-tuning and gameplay improvements (following the tests we made on the ATS), integration within the general PvP system, code, etc. So it's moving forward faster now.
However, we have still some work to do before reaching the ATS testing phase where you'll be able to participate.
With the impending Kami/Karavan conflict heating up, will players still have access to the trainers (and traders) of the opposite faction? Or are we just wasting our time developing skills we wont be able to progress in once the fight starts. [Submitted by iwojimmy (EN)]
You will still have access to the trainers and be able to continue to buy and keep all the actions currently available to you. However, we may attribute fame prerequisites to *new* actions.
Supposedly players will be getting fame for defeating opponents in PvP, will the targets fame have any relevance to the reward? Or will it just be another (gain kami/lose karavan) / (gain karavan/lose kami) thing. [Submitted by iwojimmy (EN)]
We have currently no plan to attribute direct rewards for defeating opponents in PvP - doing so just doesn't work usually, it is too exploitable. For example, what would prevent two friends playing opposed characters to chain kill each other, just to get the rewards?
Currently, PvP rewards are linked to specific goals to achieve (like taking the ownership of an outpost for example), instead of the simpler equation of 1 kill = 1 reward.
Like Jessica before you, you are talking about a mysterious "episode 2" and give no information about what we could expect (Or have I overread something). Is this a new Addon (since the cover of the game shows a big 1 on it) you are working on, or a big Patch to the game, or what? [Submitted by tridman (DE)]
None of this! Sorry, we should have explained it better. This is simply a way of referring to the series of events happening in game and being part of the general storyline.
We started to use this terminology after the reorganisation, when we begun to put a bigger emphasis on events, since now bigger teams are involved in the production of roleplay content - they have to be able to quickly refer to specific portions of the storyline.
The production of episode 2 (currently in the works) involves storyliners, level designers, coders and event managers, who work together to make the events more lively and to give the proper gameplay grounds to the events.
What is the logic behind the fact that it is the *personal* fame and not the *global* fame which determines who are our friends and our enemies and our color on the radar when we enter a FvF zone? [Submitted by Billie21 (FR)]
Simple enough: that's the only fame value which can't be either positive or negative on both sides. However, keep in mind that the whole fame system will be revamped; "global" fame will be handled differently, so you can see this as temporary.
Do you have the possibility to move a mob population *in real time*? (for eg. during the december invasion: would have it been possible to make the kittins fly away as a united mass to the prime roots? Or is "depop" the only solution to make them disappear?) [Submitted by allezkwa (FR)]
In the case of your particular example, no, or it would have to be prepared in advance. Event Managers are able to trigger different parts of a scenario in real-time, but an invasion are complex pieces which need to be carefully crafted.
Why can't we put some money in our appartment? [Submitted by ceolima (FR)]
Because it is useless. :-) Since money doesn't weight anything, there is no need to put some in your apartment. Allowing it would require a dev spending some time developing something you wouldn't use in most cases.
I am in a FvF zone, I teleport myself to GoC where a Vispa just caused some troubles: 2-3 homins are down. I try to resurrect them, and I'm said "Impossible to cast this spell on an enemy", since I'm still flagged PvP, while they are considered, I think, as neutral. I have then to wait 2 min to rez them. Shouldn't PvP be deactivated when we TP? [Submitted by arduous (FR)]
If we deactivated PvP upon TP, we would open the path to exploits, like being able to be fully regenerated without on-site help when you're almost dead in a FvF conflict (just TP somewhere else, get healed, and re-TP nearby); when used by large number of players, it can make a real difference.
Generally speaking, when FvF fine-tuning is involved, also keep in mind that the work on PvP is not finished; the current FvF implementation is only the first version. As pointed out in the letter from the PvP Strike Team: "Players tagged with the PvP flag and as non-neutral toward the major factions would be directly involved in worldwide Faction PvP. The only safe zones for them would then be near the town guards, who would attack enemies on sight."
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