Big Grab Bag for this friday!

This is straight from Sanya at the Camelot Herald. Could we finally have a Quest Contest winner? Read on and find out!:

Q: When a group that had the LFG flag on becomes full, the flag does not automatically go off. Is this a bug?

A: No, it’s a design choice. Let’s say your group is full. Suddenly the only healer says “I have to study for midterms” and the main tank says "Oops, the kids will be home from school soon, I need to get dinner started." Both of them say they can stay for another fifteen minutes. The group is full, but you still need to put the LFG flag on.

The flag not automatically turning off is not a bug – but I am told there is a problem where group leaders cannot turn the flag off even when they want to. I am looking into this.

Q: When a dragon dies on his perch, the loot falls through the mound. Are you aware of this bug, and what are you doing in the meantime to make sure everyone gets their loot?

A: We’re definitely aware of the bug, and we are working on fixing it. Meanwhile, we do have a policy. From our in game support supervisor: "If we can prove that the loot fell through the ground, we return it. Thing is, though, we can only pull inventory logs on high level monsters, level 75 and above. Dragons, Legion, etc."

So if loot from your big raid can’t be picked up, just let us know. (By the way, if only the raid leaders appeal with the problem, we will be able to get through the process much faster – not everyone on a raid needs to send that appeal :))

Q: I submitted a bug report on a ROG (random object generator) object in January, and have not seen any patch notes or fixes on it. What is up?"

A: From the mouth of our Content Producer: "To duplicate ROG bugs, our team needs the monster name, the item name, the bug, and the location where the monster was killed - your bug report may not have had enough information for us to track down the bug. Please resubmit any ROG bugs with this information and our team will track this down."

Remember (and this is true of ALL bugs in game), we need to be able to duplicate the problem in order to correct it. The more information you give us, the faster we can help.

Q: 1.55 Patch Notes: "If you take over an enemy's keep and that realm has at least one of your relics, if you upgrade the keep to level 10 it will spawn a corpse summoner NPC. If you die in PvP and type /transfercorpse "keep name" without the quotes your corpse will transfer to that keep, although you will still need to be resurrected once you get there. Note that enemy players can kill this NPC and if they do so, the /transfercorpse command will be unavailable to you for that keep until he respawns (in one hour)." I have found that he respawns much faster than one measly hour.

A: The notes should have said "(up to an hour)" – there is a timer on him at the present time, so if the timer comes up right after he dies, he might pop right away.

Q: What are the bounty quest items and who accepts them?

A: Bounty quests are quests that can be repeated multiple times. (Regular quests can only be done once.) Basically, if you get a quest that doesn’t appear in your journal, you’ve found a bounty quest. Some can be repeated until you never want to see another bandit ear, and others can only be done a handful of times.

You don’t get experience for completing these as you do with all other quests (although you get the usual mob exp for killing the creature), but the item you eventually get when you turn in the bounty item sells for more than the loot off the target generally sells for. (The aforementioned bandit ears in Albion, for instance – they sell for squat, but the medal of merit you get (after turning in the ears to get the letters to get the medal) sells for a nice amount.) All the realms have a bunch of these bounty quests. Be sure you talk to all the NPCs you come across in your travels!

Q: I know of a person who is continually trading accounts with people, he tells them he does not remember the secret word. He trades accounts, changes their secret word to one he picks, and then call you and gets his own account back.

A: That’s pretty awful. But we have no way of knowing what’s going on in emailed conversations or talks on the phone, so for us, the person who owns the secret word owns the account. Do NOT trade accounts with or buy an account from someone who doesn’t give you a secret word. This person may not be trying to cheat you, but better safe than sorry.

Q: Where are the theurgist staffs in SI? I really want my own “glowie.” ;)

A: With the Random Object Generator, it’s hard to be specific. (See the next paragraph.) I can promise you that there are the same number of theurgist staffs as there are of the other types. I can also tell you that the "glowies" only drop from named creatures. (For those of you new to our world, "named" means they have a capitalized name – "Sanya" instead of "arachnite warrior.")

By the way, I can’t search our database for "theurgist staff" – the items are rarely named that way. An equal number of staffs are planned to boost stats and specs specific to each type of caster, but then the final designs are entered into the database as "Glowing Staff of Niftiness" as opposed to "Theurgist Staff #7." Add in the ROG factor, and I can’t get a quick answer as to whom you should kill to get your staff. I truly didn’t mean to duck your question, and I hope I’ve given you enough reassurance to keep looking!

Q: What does "proc" mean? Sorry to ask such a newb question.

A: Everyone is a newb at first. Every grab bag has questions that seem simplistic to game veterans, but new players join the world every week. Don’t be sorry, and suggest to anyone sneering at your question on a message board… whatever you’d like to suggest they do with such an enormous amount of free time.

The answer is it’s short for "process," a term for a triggered action. You swing your sword, and that action may trigger a process.

Q: What is the max. effect resist that you can have? With all the magical items I have, certain resists display 60%+, however I believe I read that the max effective resist is 20% (or other number I don't recall). When asking other folks, I get a mix of answers ranging from 10% to unlimited. I've attempted to search the archives for an answerto this question, but can't seem to find it anywhere =) Would you be able to clarify this for me? Thank you =)

A: There is a limit as to how much of a resist stat you can boost from any one source:

The max from items should be 26%
From buffs, 26%
Racial resists might add in up to 5%
The RA “Avoidance of Magic” can add up to 15%
The RA “Brilliant Aura of Deflection” can add up to 35%.

By the way, I realize that all of those things can under the right circumstances add up to more than 100%. Even if ALL the resists are stacked together, I don’t believe you can make yourself completely impervious to a particular attack type.

The answer to the question is you might be displaying 60% resist, but if all your resists are from items and only items, you’re only getting a 26% effective resist.

Q: I am an Arboreal specialized Animist. I would like to know if my Bomber elementals receive the 3% per level damage increase with the Mastery of Magery realm ability, and if they receive the additional 5% chance to critical hit per level with the Wild Power realm ability.

A: Yes to both.

Q: For a reaver, is it true Flexible weapons are based on the same stats as thrust weapons? (50% Strength, 50% Dexterity)

A: Yes. By the way, our reaver team lead asked me to add that speccing slash or crush does not affect flexible weapons in anyway.

We have a new person working behind the scenes on the Herald team, as you can see from the redesign – less scrolling, more reading, pretty buttons. Her presence is helping us with something more – the bane of my existence, my private Waterloo, the running joke that is my life… the Quest Contest!

All entries have now been read. There are seventy (yes, seventy) semi-finalists. I must confess, a little tear came to my eye as I cross checked the semi-finalists against the account database, and found that most of them are still playing – and many of those on their original characters. I noticed a trend – the original characters tend to be on roleplay servers. You roleplay types are amazing, wonderful people.

Not to say that having an active account will make a difference in the final judging for this particular contest (since it’s entirely my fault the contest got back-burnered for so long) – good writing is good writing. No purchase necessary to win.

At any rate, one of our best quest people will be picking winners next week. (Her time has indeed already been scheduled for this task.) I do not envy her the task.

Ten points and a cookie to the person with the best "one year later" joke!

And on that note – yes, I am blushing, and for those of you who were at the Camelot Roundtable last summer, you know how red that is – have a good weekend, everyone.

Camelot Herald