Q: Why don't you have a Roundtable Roadtrip stop in Atlanta/Toronto/Portland/North Dakota?
A: Whoa, got a lot of these. When we planned the schedule, we had to take a lot of things into account. Site availability, our commitments, and our development schedule are but three of the many variables.
I especially regret not being able to get to Atlanta. I love that city and was very disappointed when we had to cancel last year. I thought for sure we'd be able to reschedule, but it was not to be.
As a side note, if a group of players puts on a gathering of their own, the event planner should email the Herald team with the date, location, and number of attendees. You can request that Mythic send someone (or at least some loot) to your event, and we love to come out if we can.
Q: I have a question about a certain mob that never has a camp bonus. This mob is the "venomous spores" that live (for a short time, anyway) out in Cothrom Gorge of Hibernia's Shrouded Isles. Is the reason they don't have a camp bonus because of the way they spawn, i.e., from the little sporelings that float down from the trees, "settle into the ground", and then respawn as the venomous spores?
A: Encounter Man Rob replied: "Your first theory about how they spawn is correct. Monsters that spawn naturally in the world will usually gain a camp bonus. Monsters that spawn through alternative methods such as through another monster or some other forced trigger won't gain the camp bonus."
For new players - the "camp" bonus grows as monsters sit unkilled in the world. Monsters respawning in a rarely hunted area gradually lose their bonus the longer they are camped.
For the player who sent this question: Your feedback about the drop rate on these creatures has been passed on.
Q: Are you aware that the Frontier on the Devon cluster was crashing a lot last week?
A: Yes - we had one corrupted character file, so whenever that poor guy zoned into the frontier, those zones would crash.
You don't need to appeal when the zone crashes, by the way. A report is generated to a few dozen people for investigation whenever a zone or (knock on Formica) a server crashes. I do apologize for the frustration and annoyance, and for not posting about this issue sooner.
Q: Your European customers would like to be part of Camelot's planning. How can we participate in your polls?
A: Because we do not run the European servers, we cannot put log in polls up for you. However, the Herald feedback forms take feedback from around the world - just put your server name in correctly so that we know you're playing on a Euro server, and we'll count your "votes" by hand.
The latest poll asks what sort of expansion you'd like to see (if any - you are free to choose "none of the above"). While the poll gives the expansion names, we're really looking for the type of expansion you want - PVE high end, PVE world in general, RVR, quest-centric, feature-centric, etc.
Please note that if you're outside the US, you need to send your feedback in English. I'm sorry about that. I can swear in several languages, which does help me translate a certain number of emails, but for example it took me quite some time yesterday to figure out what a pretre d'arawn was, and I STILL don't know how to make the little ^ go over the first "e."
If English is not a language you can write in (and you're reading this because someone kindly translated my words into your language), please just send your feedback to our partner companies. They do take it seriously, and bring things to our attention all the time.
Q: Why was "no expansion, please" not an option in the poll?
A: It was... sort of. There's "none of the above," of course, that's the general answer. A more complete answer is that if we have no clear mandate to do one type of expansion over another from this poll and our feedback forms, then we will not do one, and focus our efforts elsewhere. Or, putting it another way, if we don't have one big dominating winner, we won't try to make something INTO the winner.
Q: Question: how, exactly, does MoS work with regards to whom it affects? The reason I ask is because so many 'veteran' players have conflicting ideas about what MoS does and does not do.
A: This one went to the Balance Minion to answer and the Code Warrior to review. Here's what the Minion sent back:
1- MoS provides a speed increase to stealth movement regardless of your class.
2- MoS provides increased detection range regardless of your class.
3- MoS bonus detection range is negated by Camouflage.
4- MoS bonus detection range is negated by Detect hidden. In other words, if two classes have detect hidden and MoS, it is not factored in when detecting each other.
Q: As the game progresses there is an increasing number of items which can only be in your packs. Can I get more inventory slots?
A: This question also appeared on a TL report, and we told him that more inventory slots is the kind of feature we would include in an expansion (that's due to the amount of work it would be - inventory slots are hard coded in Camelot).
However, the Content Queen hastened to add, "However, if there are quest items you cannot place in your vault, please appeal those as a bug."
You heard it from her! Let us know, so you can get those items out of your bags until you need them.
Q: Why do you only answer "easy" questions, or questions that only a newb would ask?
A: Well, for one thing, I only answer what I get. New people come to the game, old friends return after long absences, and even those of us who have been here since the beginning find new things we'd never seen before. There's really no such thing as a newb question.
Some questions are hard to the point that I can't get the answer for you. If a programmer has to choose between spending an hour tracking down my question or implementing a raft of class changes for 1.82, well, it's no contest. The only time one of our coders should be spending an hour on a question from me is if the question raises the possibility of a bug.
I do get a number of unanswerable questions. "Why do you hate my class/realm" is a common one, and I am often tempted to answer it. I have been asked not to be overly sarcastic in public, and for that matter, with my coworkers, so I can't really answer it the way I would like. The translated version of my answer is that it would not make financial sense for us to "hate" any portion of our customer base. Also, those of us who play the game are evenly split between the realms, and you can find every type of player and every class among us. We've even got a warrior specced in thrown weapons. No, really, stop laughing. He did it on purpose.
There are classes who have not had a turn at the old improvement bat in a while. It has nothing to do with emotions (silly, non-paycheck generating emotions) and everything to do with us being unable to address every class and every spec in every patch. We are trying our best to get to everyone starting in 1.81., and I hope that the patch notes show some proof of our intentions. The feedback forms are driving more change than ever before, and the team lead program has never been more important.
But I will probably never answer "why do you hate my class/refuse to make this one change" type questions in the grab bag.
***
One question I get every day is "What's your patch schedule going to be like?" The answer is "If I tell you, do you promise not to get upset if we're forced to change that schedule?"
Just kidding. Some hybrid classes and assassins are up for changes in the next patch, if you missed an earlier comment that I made. That patch is scheduled to go live in late February. The patch after that is penciled in for late March or early April. We go to E3 in May, so we can't usually patch that month. The next patch is penciled in for June. Clever people noticed I didn’t mention what classes are scheduled for the April or June patches. That is because we have not decided. We will decide only after we finish the February patch, read the monthly feedback reports, and consult with our volunteers.
And all of that is assuming all goes smoothly and according to plan, so don't tattoo those dates on any body parts that show in public.
That's all I've got tonight, everyone. Please keep an eye on your friendly neighborhood Herald for the patch notes that are coming in the very near future, and have a rockin' weekend.