Dark Age Of Camelot: Let It Snow... Grab Bags

Here's this week's edition:

Q: Is there any way at all to change my character's name?

A: Unless the name somehow violates our naming rules, we do not change first names. The character's name is the only identifier other players have to remember reputations and past behavior. I realize this caused consternation among the population when an account trades hands, so caveat emptor.

Q: May I log in using the command line workaround?

A: Should you? No. You're bypassing the patcher, which means you might be missing vital files and bug fixes. It's also bypassing our account security system. Should you have any technical problems, or should you lose control of your account because you used the command line log in, we will regretfully not be able to help you.

Q: Can we move characters between accounts?

A: This is a commonly requested feature I have passed up the food chain. It's under discussion, although I don't expect to hear anything in the near future. Seems like every other email was about this, this week.

Q: Instead of actually using my bow artifact, I used two other weapons in my weapons slots, and kept the artifact bow in the two hand slot, thus not causing any con loss. To my surprise, it levels up
even when I don't use it. Is this working as intended?

A: There are several reasons why this is all right. For example, changing it would make leveling up an artifact bow prohibitively difficult. After all, bow users typically pull monsters to them with the bow before switching to melee to finish the monster off. It's just as you said later in your letter - something nifty. Thanks for checking, though, I appreciate it.

Q: How long do you guys keep accounts that are not being paid for? I have been deployed overseas and will not be able to play for the next six months.

A: We promise not to delete accounts for three weeks after the account's billing is canceled. However - I think you'll be all right. We have never deleted any accounts at all, and if we suddenly needed the room, we'd start with characters that had not been accessed since 2001. And we'll announce that purge here on the Camelot Herald.

One key thing to note - sometimes people delete their characters, and we're happy to restore them *IF* the backups haven't been purged or written over. (If you delete a character and realized to your horror that you didn't really mean it, do not create any new characters until you've appealed and had your character restored to you. And make that appeal as soon as humanly possible.) So! If you delete a character, close the account, and at some point reopen the account, you can't expect us to be able to restore the character - because the backups will be long gone.

Q: I won the lotto for the key to the chests in Cetus's lair. You can imagine my disappointment when I received a very uninspiring unique object generator item.

A: Our Item Princess explained to me how the treasure chests work: "The treasure chests are set up to be triggered unique object tables. When you use the key, the chest checks your class, and rolls for an item off treasure tables set up for your class. As for the magic bonus distribution, normal unique object standards apply... sometimes you get nice items, and sometimes you get something not so useful to you."

One of the gentlemen with this question also told me about a club with a blade bonus on it. Yikes. We fixed the generator bug, so no one else will have this problem. Because items created using the generator are unique, fixes can't be retroactively applied to the bugged items. If you've got a unique object generator item that makes you go "hrm," such as a club with a blade bonus, please appeal it as a bug.

Q: I'm having trouble finding piercing artifacts - the two most obvious candidates, the Traitor's Dagger and the Crocodile's Tooth, are both blades!

A: The existing design is not wrong - teeth and daggers can indeed slice things. But I see your point. Quoth our Princess: "The 1.67 patch to Pendragon will be adding a thrusting version of the Traitor's Dagger and the Crocodile's Tooth for Albion and a piercing version for Hibernia." Thanks for the feedback.

Q: I am a Reaver, and as you know, we really do like our flexible weapons. Yet despite many hours of hunting, I have not found a single flexible weapon in TOA. Can you give me any hope?

A: Your description of waterlogged armor broke my heart. The Item Mistress told me you were basically having horrible luck: "Looking at Reavers in particular, one in six mobs in Oceanus eligible to drop gear is able to drop Reaver equipment, including flexible weapons."

If the area you're hunting does not yield any equipment of the sort you dream of, try another area.

Q: For the artifacts that are blades and are left hand usable, are they considered a left axe (Midgard) when equipped in the left hand?

A: Again with the Mistress: "Swords that are set to be left hand usable in Albion and Hibernia may only be used in the main hand in Midgard. However, left axe artifacts do exist."

Q: Scroll farming: If a Scroll of Uberness 2 of 3 has dropped off of an Uber Naxos Dude in Meso at 25k 47k, will that same mob type drop the Scroll of Uberness 2 of 3 if he is at a different camp located in Meso at 12k 56k? Or in other words: Is the drop table dependant upon mob type or loc or both?

A: The short version is "mob," but that's a little misleading. Here's the long version from the Mistress: "The scrolls are placed upon individual mobs. However, there can be multiple mobs with the same name, and each of those might drop different scrolls.

For example, there are six different mobs all named setian stormlord, but only three of those six drop XYZ Scroll while the other three drop ABC Scrolls. Additionally, some of those setian stormlords might spawn in multiple camps in which case they would drop the same scrolls in each camp."

So, while the it may appear that the camp has something to do with the scroll, it actually does not.

Q: Why do artifacts decay?

A: The decay rate for artifacts is intended to be much slower than it is for regular items, just to make sure you can still get good use from one after you've leveled it to its maximum power. But we don't ever want to put items into the game that don't decay at all. Getting an item into a game is essentially a function of time. Without removing items somehow, an economy becomes completely clogged, and special things are no longer special.

Many people who have made something of a hobby out of game world economies have written essays on "mudflation" (MMORPGs have their roots in Multiple User Dungeons - text based games) - I even know people doing their graduate school thesis papers on the topic. Something about a game economy being a nice microcosm of a real economy. If you've got dreams of being a game designer, it's certainly a good concept to be familiar with.

But anyway - if you think your artifact is decaying too fast, please report it via bug appeal. Include information such as the item's DUR at the start and finish of your play session, how long your session was, how much combat you saw during the session, and the decay rate of a "regular" item you had equipped for the same length of time. We will not be able to respond personally, but we will definitely investigate.

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An interview with our UI Guy is up at www.daocmods.com. Y'all should hit that link anyway, if you're into customizable interfaces - tons of useful information, and premade mods you can use. I can't pick a favorite to give some love to, so I'll just give the love to the guys running the site and the forums, and to the intrepid interviewer "Acliley." And if you like the site, remember there's no such thing as a free lunch. SOMEONE has to pay for the bandwidth used when you download a mod, or the site goes the way of the dodo.

Computer Gaming World magazine has a free DVD-ROM this month, featuring Dark Age of Camelot. "But I already have the game, k thx," you say? If you're currently running the classic edition of Dark Age of Camelot, and you have a P3 1.4 gig machine with 256 RAM (and a 32MB 3D video card), grab the magazine and use the DVD to upgrade to the Shrouded Isles engine for free. You won't get the Shrouded Isles content - for that you need to get the expansion - but you can get the graphics and the performance. Next year at some point, we're going to be phasing out the classic engine. So upgrade for free now, and save yourself the trouble later. (If you forget, we plan to offer a low-cost engine upgrade if you really, really don't want to get Shrouded Isles.)

And on that note, I'd better skedaddle before more scary white stuff falls. This is the DC area, after all. For some reason, the locals fear precipitation, and I certainly wouldn't want to weather the coming FOUR INCHES OF WINTRY MIX without two hundred rolls of toilet paper to call my own. Have a good weekend, everyone.