Asherons Call: The Dev Q& A Express Has Just Arrived !

Question: Pit_HG - Question for devs on Tattoos....
[li]1) They appear to be droppable on death...at 30k value, that's trickier to cover. As a quest item, any chance they are going to become no drop?
[li]2) It was mentioned they might get an Impen spell...anything further on that?
[li]3) Are all the Bobo rewards just random?...the XP you get, the tattoos, etc.? In other words, do I have the same chance of getting reward X the first time I run it as the 50th?
[li]4) Finally, this chick I know has the ugliest Tazmanian Devil tattoo on her #$*&#*...what should she do about it?
Answer: Orion-Turbine - [li]1) I'll look into it.
[li]2) Outlook looks good.
[li]3) If I told you that I would need to kill you.
[li]4) Collect some money to have the tattoo lazed off.

Question: Cao_FF - The Harbinger's spirit has been more restless lately. Ok, I read back in Nov this was supposedly a repeatable quest now (for 20% TNL and a title) but since that one report of it, I have yet to see anything on it. Does anyone know if this quest trully exists, and more importantly, how to spawn it?
Answer: Orion-Turbine - The Harbinger Quest is random and happens when it happens, there is no predictability to it at all.

Question: Real_Logan - Orion: Q about Tatoos. Would like to know the droprate of them... because I camp bobo now and have two tries per week and need (want) the meleedef and magicdef tatoo (as I am an item only melee) How long do i have to stay there if i have avarage luck? I read a post from you that a Imp spell on them is considered...any news on this?
Answer: Orion-Turbine - I'm not giving you guys the drop rate info... But the outlook on the Imp 5 is very good.

Question: Oldin_HG - Could a dev please say if its possible to change the look of pp hoary robes to something different. Could a dev please say if its possible to change the look of pp hoary robes to something different than what the ones you can get now look like? I'm just wondering if it is possible, not if its going to happen. The only reason I'm thinking it might be possible is that the icons are different, but I dont konw really. But is it possible? hehe Thanks =] Just wondering because it would be nice to have a noticeable difference between the old robes and current ones, for status items only...like ppgsa is.
Answer: Orion-Turbine - They are the same item, so no.

Question: -Vlaid- - how many items can be hooked at a mansion?
Answer: srand - Funny you ask ... So a long while ago we added more hooks to mansions. We told you then that there were 100 hooks in a mansion and that you could use all of them. Now we immediately had reports of people who could not use all the hooks in the mansion, and I investigated and determined that a) the server thought 100 hooks were in use, and b) not all hooks were in use. I also investigated similar cases in cottages in which the server thought 25 hooks were in use, but by counting I could tell that only, say, 22 hooks were in use. So I concluded that there was a bug that was causing the number of hooks the server thought was in use to be out of synch with the actual number of hooks in use. I had to table that bug until some other work with the housing system was completed, but in the past few weeks I have been working hard on the housing system. And just today, in fact, I discovered two important things.

[li]There is a bug causing # of hooks in use to get out of synch, and I think I have fixed it.
[li]Mansions actually have a total of 141 hooks, of which you can use 100.
So most of those mansions I looked at were probably not suffering from the unsynch'd bug -- they were perfectly normal. We just screwed up when we said that mansions had 100 hooks and that therefore you could use all of them. Sometimes I really have to laugh at us -- 'cause otherwise I'd have to cry. So the answer to your question is: 100.

Question: TheMinus - Um...skill sell back question.....info needed.... Can you not sell back a skill that has been maxed out? I had 1,000 unassigned XP and kept getting this message... "You have too many available character points to be able to absorb the experience from your Magic Defense skill. Please spend some of your character points and try again." I will NEVER have below 1,000 unassigned xp. Was almost impossible to get it this low. Any advice?
Answer: srand - We designed the system to *not* let you lose xp, because losing xp is something that would make most players pretty unhappy. So if your unassigned xp plus the xp from your skill would cause your unassigned pool to roll over, you can't sell back the skill. The exact amount of 'space' you need in your unassigned xp pool depends on how much xp you have in your skill -- if your skill is completely maxed out -- you bought the last point, and then you kept earning skill xp through use until you couldn't earn any more, or you used a tessera or what have you to get above the old max -- then you will need 0 unassigned xp. But if you are in a situation where you can't buy another point of the skill, but you never earned any xp above the last point you bought, then you'll have some more wriggle room.

I suggest you try to figure out exactly how much xp you have in the skill. I've found calculators like RainPea to be useful in this respect. I suspect, however, that if you can't sell back with only 1000 xp then you are probably completely maxed out in your skill, and you'll need exactly 0 unassigned xp to sell back. Have you exhausted all the avenues for spending small amounts of xp, such as breaking allegiance and putting points into Run or Jump?

Question: MeiHarada - How Do Special Properties(i.e. Olthoi slayer) work? What do these actaully mean in mechanics? is it a damage mod? a better chance to hit against a certain creature? For instance my nifty Gaerlan bow (can't spell without looking up, sorry;) ...what happens mechanics wise when I shoot an olthoi vs. a tusker (spec property "olthoi slayer")
Answer: srand - Slayer weapons increase the damage against the target creature type. They apply a bonus multiplier to damage based on your attack skill. The maximum bonus, however, depends on the weapon.

Question: -Vlaid- - With the Queen Quest timer change, I think there is an even greater need for a token... to be returned that changes your title if you want it. The harbinger quest is a very rare quest, for example, and I'm sure there will be some people out there that want the 40 mil exp and the head without their title being changed. Will anything like this ever be done, or is the quest to stay as it is?
Answer: srand - There were a few very minor changes to the Queen's Quest that didn't make it into the LttP (but will be in the dev notes if I have anything to say about it). One of these is that in February the QQ will be tokenized -- that is, when you hand in the head, your title will not be changed on the spot, but rather you will be given a token that can be turned in at any time to change your title to Queenslayer. (Your title doesn't affect the Aun calling you Queenslayer -- that's just a quest flag -- so turning in the token long after you complete the quest will not delay your ability to repeat the quest.)