Ask the admin (09/26/2011)

[lanzer]

Hello everyone!

Bid blast is a little feature to help give away some prized items for the everyday Gaian, though there's still many kinks to work out so that it'll work smoothly.

It's spring cleaning time again, hope everyone had put in their feedback. Which feature do you want us to work on the most?

[armadillodreamer]

Hi Lanzer! It's that time again. How about an update on the wing issue? I was very disappointed to see that the new animated wings layer behind long hair.

armadillodreamer

Hi Lanzer! Two weeks ago, I told you about an issue with back wings: that most layer BEHIND hair, making all wings look rather poor with long hairstyles, and many of the smaller ones are almost or entirely invisible! You said...

Lanzer

I just talked to a number of artist and we'll look into the issue you've mentioned. I can't promise anything yet, but do check in with us and I'll give you an update.

[Sagebomb]

Alchemy

First up props to pans leading feedback after the announcement of the level 10 prize. A few questions from that though.

There are currently walls in Alchemy, the most common one right now is the level 3 wall. To get past it you need to complete one of a few level 3 formulas (or create a lot of a couple of level 2 formulas). All the formulas involved have very rare components.

For faustos formula you need...Faustos formula.
For Sundays treat/fondue...gum and used tissue.

All of these have epic low numbers reaching MP. (no tissues listed 21 sold in the past month for example).

Pan suggested item flow tweaking is happening, but as someone who checks MP on these items several times a day, for at least a couple weeks (I lost track of when I started tracking) I can say there is no change in their vend flow.

1. When can we expect to see a heightened flow of components needed for level 3+ formulas which have left a massive bottleneck, capped by a wall.

2. Alchemy item recycling (through dd) is good to see, how’s progress, do we expect to see it starting this week still?



Trying hard to be hard core, but finding it hard XD

Bid Blast.

I have a lot of hope for this future and all the fixes which are being brought in were ones I (and many others) asked for. So thanks on that.

3. When can we expect to see the next round listed?

4. At what rate will new items (to bid on) be added (as in can we expect to wait a few days between listings like now).

Scavenger Hunt

Looking forward to this.

5. Any clues on how close we are to the release of this?

[Pilfer von Durem]

Lanzer,

Did zOMG! make enough money quickly enough (Don't forget the cookies. The proposal for zOMG!'s addition of a flash animator is one of the highest cookie earners.) to prove to the stuffed shirts that it is relevant, popular, and worthy of a larger team?

I asked around and nobody remembered. What is the name of the female pirate NPC shown with the slideshow picture set that included an NPC with a backpack? It was at a con, I think, and wasn't a preview of the Pirate Queen from zOMG!
She was discussed in a previous AtA over a year ago.

Lanzer

Which feature do you want us to work on the most?

zOMG! Whomever made the decisions to downgrade the game really screwed the pooch. We have at least 3 major towns left to see made into expansions. Isle de Gambino has been worked on slightly, but we need Durem and Aekea.

Followed by Towns 2.0. A reboot, not remaking it.

[Corinth Maxwell]

twisted *wonders which members of Gaia's staff will answer these questions* twisted

1. What do you think would be worse -- losing your internet access, or losing your phone service? stressed burning_eyes

2. Which game/game series do you like more -- "Metroid", "Castlevania", or "Shadow Complex"? ninja emotion_dealwithit

3. What's your favorite kind of pasta/rice/etc.? emotion_kirakira emotion_omnomnom

[Platonix]

USEFUL LINKS

The home of past Ask The Admin topics: Ask the Admin Archives subforum

AskED the Admin: Answer Compilation (built and maintained by yours truly)

[Sagebomb]

Lanzer

Which feature do you want us to work on the most?

Definitly a focus on leveling for alchemy, checking where bottle necks are and making it easier (not easy) for people looking to get past level 3. (and then 4 XD)

But right now supply isnt being released fast enough to even meet a fraction of the demand (vend stalker on these items).

That would be my number 1.

[Sifen Yamishi]

Evening Lanzer.

I would like to know whether you'll be updating Inventory Search so it will be as up to date as the Marketplace itself.

Also, there happens to be a glitch revolving around Inventory Search and the new pose format. When you click on a pose that has your avatar holding an item, the avatar does not show after clicking on said pose.

Are you aware of it?

Other than this, that is all I have to ask for tonight.

[Sagebomb]

ata seems to be moving really slow, or massivly post lagging.

As such I will also ask

How is Debugging of DMS coming? It was awesome to see the amulets sell out in such good time. There is good support behind it.

[Purloined Parfait]

Hey Lanzer!

I have been wading through the Spring Clean-up Forum and the proposals but I haven't been able to do daily votes. In fact unless the cookie button has been glitched to be stuck in appearance, I don't think I've been able to second vote anything until the reset of votes went out today. Any thoughts?

[lanzer]

armadillodreamer

Hi Lanzer! It's that time again. How about an update on the wing issue? I was very disappointed to see that the new animated wings layer behind long hair.

armadillodreamer

Hi Lanzer! Two weeks ago, I told you about an issue with back wings: that most layer BEHIND hair, making all wings look rather poor with long hairstyles, and many of the smaller ones are almost or entirely invisible! You said...

Lanzer

I just talked to a number of artist and we'll look into the issue you've mentioned. I can't promise anything yet, but do check in with us and I'll give you an update.

Following your request, the team did tried moving the wings to the front layer but because many of the wings are rather big, they look strange when they start to cut off the taller part of the hair. I'm sorry for the bad news.

[Existential Existence]

I would like to see zOMG, some forum issues (like the ignore system), and the avatar arena worked on. I don't think anyone made any proposals in the Spring Clean forum about the arena though.

Too bad.

Since the bloodstone amulets for zOMG sold so well, will there be plans to sell more DMS tickets before or after the opening of DMS?

Got any more hints on the Halloween event?

biggrin

Annnddd care to share who the artist of the Prince of the Sea EI is? If not it's okay. I was just curious.

[lanzer]

Pilfer von Durem

Lanzer,

Did zOMG! make enough money quickly enough (Don't forget the cookies. The proposal for zOMG!'s addition of a flash animator is one of the highest cookie earners.) to prove to the stuffed shirts that it is relevant, popular, and worthy of a larger team?

I asked around and nobody remembered. What is the name of the female pirate NPC shown with the picture set that included an NPC with a backpack? It was at a con, I think, and wasn't a preview of the Pirate Queen from zOMG!
It was discussed in a previous AtA over a year ago.

Lanzer

Which feature do you want us to work on the most?

zOMG! Whomever made the decisions to downgrade the game really screwed the pooch. We have at least 3 major towns left to see made into expansions. Isle de Gambino has been worked on slightly, but we need Durem and Aekea.

Followed by Towns 2.0. A reboot, not remaking it.

Well technically zOMG's support is limited but we're still putting in time and resources in updates. Not a large and dedicated team unfortunately.

I don't think she has a name, it was a design done by Saka as a sketch, because the NPC never came to life we never named her I think.

[Panagrammic]

Just got out of a meeting about alchemy, actually.

The fundamental issue here is that the components are too rare, and that's making it difficult to proceed past level 3. Components are contained in the Philosopher's Cache. So, we'd like to get many more Philosopher's Caches created. To that end:

• we're reducing the difficulty of the GGB formula
  
• in appreciation to those folks that soldiered through the existing GGB formula, we are going to back-granting GGBs to anyone that created a GGB to compensate so that they get the advantage of the easier formula
  
• we are adding an alternate path to the Philosopher's Cache and Alchemist's Case that is constructible through farmable components

Many users wanted to have the components in the gold shop, but pricing the components fairly is difficult in that case; we'd like to see how the components price out with this strategy, and then if we need to improve the liquidity we can have a limited time sale in Dernier Cri or something.

With regards to the recycling:

This week, we'll use the marketplace for any item above a certain marketplace value. However, we'd really like to use diving dumpster instead (it's more fairly redistributive), so we'll be experimenting with that next week.

Bidblast:

Should be up later this week, with the changes discussed in the dev notice.

Sagebomb

Alchemy

First up props to pans leading feedback after the announcement of the level 10 prize. A few questions from that though.

There are currently walls in Alchemy, the most common one right now is the level 3 wall. To get past it you need to complete one of a few level 3 formulas (or create a lot of a couple of level 2 formulas). All the formulas involved have very rare components.

For faustos formula you need...Faustos formula.
For Sundays treat/fondue...gum and used tissue.

All of these have epic low numbers reaching MP. (no tissues listed 21 sold in the past month for example).

Pan suggested item flow tweaking is happening, but as someone who checks MP on these items several times a day, for at least a couple weeks (I lost track of when I started tracking) I can say there is no change in their vend flow.

1. When can we expect to see a heightened flow of components needed for level 3+ formulas which have left a massive bottleneck, capped by a wall.

2. Alchemy item recycling (through dd) is good to see, how’s progress, do we expect to see it starting this week still?



Trying hard to be hard core, but finding it hard XD

Bid Blast.

I have a lot of hope for this future and all the fixes which are being brought in were ones I (and many others) asked for. So thanks on that.

3. When can we expect to see the next round listed?

4. At what rate will new items (to bid on) be added (as in can we expect to wait a few days between listings like now).

Scavenger Hunt

Looking forward to this.

5. Any clues on how close we are to the release of this?

[Panagrammic]

You can only vote once on a proposal -- but we clear the votes in the main forum every so often.

Terrible Storm Coming

Hey Lanzer!

I have been wading through the Spring Clean-up Forum and the proposals but I haven't been able to do daily votes. In fact unless the cookie button has been glitched to be stuck in appearance, I don't think I've been able to second vote anything until the reset of votes went out today. Any thoughts?