September 17, 2007

A Hotfix for the BFD!!

Another hotfix with glorious hotfix goodies...

OneEye posted in 9/17 Hotfix:
-Dungeon logout timer fixed
-2nd confirmation option added when rebuilding your house from a deed
-Increased Broken Finger Lever Boss chance.


I have no idea what the "dungeon logout timer" is. But points two and three are good news.

September 16, 2007

Beware of Deeds (bltn edition)

Tempester started a sort of "help the homeless" topic when Dell accidentally had his house rebuilt when he clicked on a deed in the middle of his home.

By the way, if you have a house and you click on a blueprint, you're asked if you want to rebuild the house. If you click yes, you lose everything in the home and you start back at an empty plot. This just goes to show you that you need to be very careful and read before you click.

There was some confusion over whether this was a bug or a feature. OneEye did comment (and further down in the thread) gave us some input on a solution to keep this from happening again.

OneEye posted in Donations for Housing Fund:
The clicking deed to rebuild house was a feature that users asked for awhile back. It says something like "are you sure you wish to destroy your house?"

For a future update I have added a "are you really sure you wish to destroy your house?" 2nd step.

I'm not sure how this could be considered a bug.

Later on...

i tested it the other day when i saw the report and then looked at the code. Before this change to the deeds, you would get a message that said "can't use deed here". A bug was put in that when using the deed it would not show that message but give you the prompt to rebuild instead. It seemed like a reasonable request as most people do read the warning messages when they come up - but like I said, I've added a double warn message for a future patch.

Whether or not this extra message will actually stop people from accidentally bulldozing their homestead remains to be seen. Personally, I wouldn't mind a timer between the time when you schedule your house for demolition and when the house is actually demolished. I mean, it would be pretty hard to make a mistake if you have time to correct it, right?

What's the deal with "bltn edition", Nwellyn?

Oh, you noticed that, did you? "bltn" stands for "Better Late than Never"--meaning that I'm covering this a few days (or up to a week) after the fact. Sorry I couldn't get this posted sooner. Life has a habit of taking the time you've got and investing it in stuff you don't want to do. :p

September 07, 2007

Some interesting stuff about the Broken Finger Dungeon

Midnight started a thread not too long ago about how the bosses weren't spawning in the Broken Finger Dungeon. Well, it's not necessarily about how the bosses weren't spawning. It's more about how you're paying extra to get access to premium content and not receiving all the content. Naturally, this upsets those players who regularly go.

Both FujiQ and OneEye had some information on the matter. Quite a few players have asked that the timer count only when you are in the dungeon. FujiQ responded on that.

FujiQ posted in Broken Finger Dungeon: The Ingenious Scam? (Page 2)
We've been asked if the BF dungeon worked so that the 8 hours only counted for time spent in the dungeon but the way the game is architected keeps us from being able to do that.

Lara Orcsplitter responded to this and asked why a second NPC couldn't be added to stop the timer. Perhaps this can be looked into. But I keep thinking that people would still complain because they forgot to talk to this NPC.

A real shocker (at least to some people) came in the form of OneEye's input on the content there.

OneEye posted in Broken Finger Dungeon: The Ingenious Scam? (Page 3):
BF was designed as a 1 hour experience, if the dungeon was changed to a in-dungeon experience, the timer would be reduced accordingly.

So what we're really getting for 15 tokens is the ability to experience "everything" in approximately 8 opportunities. In reality, it's probably more along the lines of a little over 6 times. It's almost like getting 15 pulls at the nickel slots except the jackpot is some exclusive items.

Hotfix and a couple of bugs are fixed.

Proof that they're still alive in Austin comes in the form of a couple of quick bug fixes.

OneEye posted in 9/7/2007 Hotfix:
-Mukkarama portal bug fixed
-Lloyd Dogen quest bug fixed

Probably related to this thread.

September 03, 2007

Bit of an editorial...

I normally don't do this. And my goal for this blog wasn't to do any commentary beyond what's been posted by a DEV. But the latest responses to the new expansion just seem to be off the wall.

Here's what we know about the current plans by the DEVs. We know this, because they've been posted. I've even blogged it in my previous entry, Another Expansion in the Works, and You Can Name It! But some members of the community seem to think that this new expansion is going to mean that there will be no more updates until the expansion hits.

Now, keep in mind that over the past couple of weeks, we've had several updates to the program. Lag issues are being addressed, quests have been fixed, and so on. But, naturally, people want to believe that the DEVs are doing nothing. We often fall into this fallacy when we focus on specific bugs that we think are important but aren't necessarily important to the overall game. Issues like hair, taskmasters, etc., while important to some people, rank lower than issues like lag or missing items. Lag effects us all. Taskmasters effect those who regularly take advantage of them.

The only thing we know at this point in time is that there will be an update to the game to fix some bugs and issues and that an expansion is in the early planning stages. Beyond that, there's only two camps that can make a prediction about what actually will happen--IWG and Psychics. So all of these claims that IWG will do nothing while they plan and work on an expansion that's still in the planning stages are mostly hot air. They know just as much as the next guy. And we've all been told what IWG is working on.

One final note: Stop acting like IWG doing these expansions and so on for money is a sin. We all pay for a subscription to this game. Most of us have bought expansions so we could enjoy more of the game. What I truly find funny is that those people who are on the "IWG just wants to make more money" bandwagon have purchased many things from the store, either with their own money or trading for tokens. So what's the point of trying to levy that attack? We all know that this game isn't free to play (yet). Why complain about a fee that you're already paying? Honestly, if $6.00 a month is putting a strain on your pocketbook, consider that the fees you'd pay playing the other major MMO's are over double the amount you pay for Ashen Empires. How is paying $15.00 for an expansion in AE worse than paying $40.00 for an expansion? Someone explain that one to me.

Seriously folks, stop posting about how we are all screwed nearly a year before anything actually happens. You might just start having fun again.