Dragon Lair Update: November 1, 2005

[Pharcellus]

Before getting down on TG on anything remotely connected with lairs, I suggest that if at all possible you get dragon on Blight with a lair plot and play around with it. (I was lucky, I had a level 100 dragon copied over months ago for the AROP and he had enough moneyto buy a lair plot -- their temporary price is one gold each regardless of size. Since I don't play bipeds I didn't have a biped plot on the live servers and just bought my plot. I'll sell it before they go live.).

I want to do exactly this to help test. However, I can't because Blight still checks to see if you own a plot on the other shards. It shouldn't, it should be Blight-only. My Dragon toon is holding a guild crafting plot, and I have another box copy cdkey which I am going to use when lairs go live so that I can move that plot over to another toon, and then I can buy ny Lair. However, I don't think it is fair to get the cdkey SOLELY just to test. So, when they fix that problem, I will be HAPPY to jump onto Blight, buy a Lair and test the hell out of it. Until then, I will continue to lament the fact that there will be less testers, less eyeballs, and more bugs that slip through to live.

If you aren't utterly and absolutely blown away by what you see then there is no freakin hope for you.

Neat and pretty will be nice until I hit the first major bug, then any "blowing away" will go RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. They've got many people willing and able to test. Not availing themselves of the resource makes for huge disappointment and no excuses when serious bugs hit live.

[Vignar]

Whooo! This is a funny thread...and not haha funny. It amazes me how so many dragons complain and complain that "we don't have as much content", "We are broken", "We don't have things bipeds have", "We are weaker than bipeds"...

Months and Months of work is put into basically nothing BUT dragons, with tons of new content, advancements, and what ever else; but, there are those that still find something to complain about the new things we are getting that they were whining that we didn't have before. Wow.

As for "stealing experience" for your craft school, that IS rediculous. First off, how many bipeds would be GLAD that some random stranger wanted to build on their plot for FREE just for the experience? Second, if you are afraid that your whole lair is going to get built before you get to 100 laircrafter, you have many choices available to you. Go to another dragon's lair and "steal their experience" or a better term, HELP them build a home! You can also move aside a small section of your lair for the sole purpose of gaining experience. Make a T6 room that requires a lot of resources, and just keep building it. If the room gets fully built and you are not 100, take it down and sell the Novians to other dragons that want a lair but don't want to raise laircrafting to max. If you build all the parts of this room for your current level and can't gain anymore, TAKE IT DOWN and sell the Novians to other dragons...

It is surprising that anything thinks they will "run out of things to build" when it is a few simple clicks to destroy something and place a fresh, unbuilt room.[I] Wow.

If anyone wants to steal my exprience, go right ahead. I can't wait for you to build my lair for me for free.

[Death-knell]

First off all this work they did on dragons was just to catch us up, things that bipeds have enjoyed for over a year that dragons didn't have. With lairs and lairshaping we're mostly at the same level as bipeds even though we are still missing some critical crafting quests.

And any biped would love to have someone come build on their plot because so many biped builders have gotten burned out due to the repetitive nature of biped building. There are also a heck of a lot of biped plots, where lairs will be new and while theres enough for everyone there will not be enough that are convenient to resources. Thats where people are worried about having their XP stolen. The dragons with remote lairs will have nothing to worry about. The other reason people are concerned about XP is this isn't biped construction where you can just power level your way through with another higher level craft. You actually have to build something and from what I understand theres not even con/decon we can use. So increasing your proficiency is going to be pure building.

[Goriax]

[img]/Web/Themes/Generic/images/icon-quote.gif[/img]Goriax wrote: Before getting down on TG on anything remotely connected with lairs, I suggest that if at all possible you get dragon on Blight with a lair plot and play around with it. (I was lucky, I had a level 100 dragon copied over months ago for the AROP and he had enough moneyto buy a lair plot -- their temporary price is one gold each regardless of size. Since I don't play bipeds I didn't have a biped plot on the live servers and just bought my plot. I'll sell it before they go live.).

I want to do exactly this to help test. However, I can't because Blight still checks to see if you own a plot on the other shards.

I'm sorry you couldn't try it out. It truly is awesome. I readily admit that the only reason I'm able to do this is I never used the plot I'm allowed and I plan to dump my plot on Blight before this goes live. My suggestion if you really want to do this is to activate that second CD key a bit early. Maybe it goes against your grain to do it a week or two early just to test, but it couldn't mean much difference as far as money goes (I hope you're not on THAT tight a budget and if you are maybe you shouldn't activate it at all) and it WOULD give you a heads up on what's happening. If they're releasing in a week or two I'd be surprised they got it set up before then let you buy a plot on Blight.

If you aren't utterly and absolutely blown away by what you see then there is no freakin hope for you.

Neat and pretty will be nice until I hit the first major bug, then any "blowing away" will go RIGHT OUT THE WINDOW. They've got many people willing and able to test. Not availing themselves of the resource makes for huge disappointment and no excuses when serious bugs hit live.

If the first bug will totally destroy any enjoyment you get you might as well quit right now. While it looked pretty solid to me I'm sure there are bugs, will be bugs, and will always be bugs.

I have no firm idea how much effort it would be for them to exempt Blight from that checking, but it probably isn't just clicking some check box somewhere. Most likely it would be far easier for you to just activate the key a couple weeks early.

You have a solution if you wish to use it. It's your choice.

And it really did look awesome; although there are going to be bugs regardless. There always are.

[Pharcellus]

I've been asking for this capability for over six months. If they haven't been able to find the time KNOWING FULL WELL in advance that people were going to need it to help test, all I can say is "oh well". No, it isn't probably some checkbox somewhere, but it IS one decision made somewhere in the code. A query is performed to see if an account holds plots. A comparison is made. A branch is taken. One or more of those simple steps has to be changed, and poof! Done.

Of course, you and they will argue that it is hideously complicated because it involves changing the NIST time library used in the game which downloads a Java applet from time.gov, directs the output to a virtual screen, scrapes the screen for the time, checks to see if it is Tuesday, dials the server's modem to connect to the local NWS forecast service to check which way the wind is blowing, and then gets the current Instruction Pointer address, all to be used as variables in a set of simultaneous linear equations to generate the query. "Oh my god! We can't change all that!".

No, I don't have a solution, precicsely because THEY don't have a solution. I'm not paying EXTRA to test. That is just....wrong. It is incumbent upon them to ENABLE testing, because THEY need it done.

No, I don't plan on quitting on the first major bug I encounter with Lairs. I plan on coming here and beating them up over the FACT that they DIDN'T LISTEN YET AGAIN to the needs of their customers and released MORE CRAP that they could have avoided. The resource is there. It doesn't take a mountain of effort to effect a minor change to utilize it. Not utilizing it gives them no excuses when the result of not utilizing it bites them on the ******.

No, they're never going to get ALL the bugs. However, logic dictates that the more testers, eyeballs, etc they have looking at, poking, prodding, playing with the system, the MORE bugs will be found.

They could also offer to give us a time-limited cdkey to test. I don't care what it is, but I will be GOD DAMNED if I am going to pay to test at this point.

[Vignar]

First off all this work they did on dragons was just to catch us up, things that bipeds have enjoyed for over a year that dragons didn't have.

My point was not the reason why or why we don't have what bipeds do, it was that some still complain when we get attention. I guess there will always be someone dissatisfied that tries to spread their misery to others.

And any biped would love to have someone come build on their plot because so many biped builders have gotten burned out due to the repetitive nature of biped building.

As I have read and tested myself of Blight, ours is also repetitive and a bit more complex, which leads back to my point. When my lair is ready to be built on, I will post its location on the forum "Laircraft Experience Gain Available"

...lairs will be new and while theres enough for everyone there will not be enough that are convenient to resources. Thats where people are worried about having their XP stolen. The dragons with remote lairs will have nothing to worry about.

There aren't any lairs that have to worry about experience stolen, even the ones with a view of resources. Other than pride, no one is being stopped from taking down rooms and placing fresh ones to add to.

The other reason people are concerned about XP is this isn't biped construction where you can just power level your way through with another higher level craft. You actually have to build something and from what I understand theres not even con/decon we can use. So increasing your proficiency is going to be pure building.

While this is dishartening, things change. Bipeds will be under the same rules. I have never tried raising mining or gathering then powerleveling a biped constuction school, so I don't know how that compares. As it was, a 100 dragon crafter could easily get to level 20 laircraft in under an hour doing nothing but cutting bricks or smelting ore. Even as a dragon that gained those levels that quickly, it didn't seem right. "How do you learn to build a lair (or plot) when you just make bricks (or tools)?"

As I said, just make a dummy room for building experience. If your plot had quick, easy access to raw materials and craft machines, why not let others know so it becomes a Community Experience Building location? I would. It seems selfish to purposefully deny others the opportunity to gain experience when it hardly affects you. Everyone is so proud of this game's community, but what I have seen is disappointing.

[Goriax]

It's your right to ********** and moan and make a pain of yourself over anything or nothingas long as you don't violate the board rules. I think that if you're not willing to activate a key two weeks early then you obviously don't wantthis verybadly no matter how big a stink you raiseand why should they jump through much bigger hoops (sarcastic comments aside)? I'm of the actions speak louder then words school when it comes to deciding what people REALLY want.

You refuse to do anything which looks like paying to test, yet that's what everyone with a main character on Blight is doing.

Personally, if I were in your situation I'd have activated the key at the first hint of the lairs getting into a useable state on Blight. I figure that for the extra7 bucks, if it gives me a few hours of entertainment it's paid for itself (it already did that last night). But I admit I'm not inyour situation and you can certainly do whatever you want to do.

I doubt there's so many people in your situation (plan to activate a key once this goes live, absolutely refuse to activate it two weeks earlier) to justify much effort on their part when that would mean taking away from something else. Maybe they'll decide differently in the remaining week or two in which case you'll getlucky. I wouldn't bet too much money on it though.

If you can't be bothered to activate that key now that's your business. You'll see the lairs when you do. I suppose if your posts become too shrill I can justnot readthem. That's my right.


P.S. And I still think that the lairs were looking awesome.

[Pharcellus]

Oh, I want it VERY badly. I've made the commensurate effort to ask and plead with them to include it for SIX MONTHS. Every dev chat. Repeated requests in IRC. Repeated private messages and private conversations. Repeated posts on the subject here. I'm getting ascerbic over it now because I care enough that I want to see it happen, even with time as short as it is.

I'm willing to help test, and I have done my part, when it hasn't cost me anything extra. That's MY rule. I've already made a signficant contribution in that regard, so my actions should already speak for themselves.

Yes, people who play their mains on Blight choose to pay to test. That's their prerogative. I test for free. I already pay my time and attention to help test. I shouldn't be expected to pay money to do so. That's ludicrous to me.

There may be no one else in my situation (of course, I know it isn't the case, as I know of several folks also waiting on this who would have been testing the whole time as well). However, it means that there is one less tester. One less set of eyeballs that MIGHT just catch something that others have missed. Something big. Why not make it happen? The potential payoff is far more valuable than the cost.

I don't care if you read my posts or not. They aren't meant for you anyway.

[dorrin]

here's a disheartening bug for you.. the crystal shaping bench doesn't even work yet.
looks like i either have to ditch the work i did on part of my lair (the first piece) and try to find something that doesn't require a lattice or just wait. man, that really sucks......

[JorgNep]

here's a disheartening bug for you.. the crystal shaping bench doesn't even work yet.

The Blight patch notes for today state that they will work with this patch.

Crosses his claws...

[dorrin]

yes, they were fixed. however, i now have another problem... the lair planner blanked out because of a problem with craft room objects not working right.. or something.. heh. ranqthas from choas explained, but i don't remember exactly. baela had to purchase my plot and then sell it back so i could buy it again. unfortunately, i'm having the same problem again on one computer, but not on the other. if i only had one computer i'd be screwed :( i hope this gets fixed very soon. bottom line: lairs aren't going live next week (or at least had better not). for what it's worth, MOST things seem to be going smoothly, though some problems with the quests were also discovered.

[Vignar]

66Helian & Lunus Chambers
Consigner 1-6
Crystal Shaping 1-6
Essence Shaping 1-6
Gemworking 1-6
Grand Hall 6
Hall 1-6
Lair 1-6
Library 2, 4, 6
Pawnbroker 1-6
Shrine 3
Silo 1-6
Smelting 1-6
Stoneworking 1-6
Vault 3

Do any of these include a Spellcrafting bench?

[Nisse]

The spellcrafting bench is in the essence chamber, as it resembles the biped's scholar building, with its essence channeler, etc in it.

[dorrin]

and presumably there's a scaleforge with the smelter, and both a cutter and a stone pedestal in the stoneworking room

[Dragoniade]

While this is dishartening, things change. Bipeds will be under the same rules. I have never tried raising mining or gathering then powerleveling a biped constuction school, so I don't know how that compares. As it was, a 100 dragon crafter could easily get to level 20 laircraft in under an hour doing nothing but cutting bricks or smelting ore. Even as a dragon that gained those levels that quickly, it didn't seem right. "How do you learn to build a lair (or plot) when you just make bricks (or tools)?"

Nope. Haven't you read the post where it was said that MAYBE bipeds will get the change?
And from their past promise, I'll bet they won't. Not until it is too late anyway.

[Dragoniade]

I'm not totally familiar with how they are doing the laircraft school, but I think there will be quests out there too. So that leaves three ways to xp. Build up your plot, help someone build their plot, or do quests. (a fourth could be from processing the crystals and stuff)

Sure. Quests that are going to give you 1000 Xp when you need 75000 to level.
And after 5 time, you'll only get 500 Xp per level. So at this rate... 155 quests to do for a level or something.

Quests never were the way to level a school. The experiences would go down way too fast when doing them until you reached the next tier.