Dark Age Of Camelot: The Short, Waterlogged, Lost Power Grab Bag

And that was the week that was. Now, let's read the snack sized grab bag:

EDITED 6/13, 1:15 PM EST

Q: New server information now please.

A: Next week, I'm hearing, we'll be releasing the first bits of information. Man, I hope so.

Q: I was wondering, why doesn't my Tartaros Gift level five ability work on my necro while in shade form? I also have three other artifacts on him (Gem of Lost Memories, Nailah Robes, Traldors), and they all work in shade form...just not Tartaros? Thanks for any information.

A: The quick and dirty answer is simply that the effect is used offensively. The more complete answer comes to us from she who is in charge of spells (and thus item procs and abilities), the Spell Goddess: "Offensive charges on items are not passed through the pet when used/cast. This causes a problem when the necromancer uses the offensive charge on a monster: the monster's hate is directed towards the shade, not the pet. Since the shade does not take any damage, the necromancer is able to exploit by maintaining aggro on him using offensive item charges while the pet attacks the monster."

Or, put another way, we tried it and the resulting exploit took it off the table.

EDITED FOR CLARITY:

Our Goddess is as compulsive as I am about checking forums after these columns are posted, and posted the following clarification over the weekend. Thanks to the gang at Catacombs, who noted that the answer and the question didn't entirely match.

"When Sanya sent me the question, it was before she had done any grammatical or spelling "corrections. The question originally said, "ml 2" ability, not mcl 2. I assumed that with ml 2, they meant the second charge ability on the item...so my answer was tailored to that (I have seen artifact spells referred to ml 1 and ml 2 item abilities).

"When I saw the question on the Herald though, I coulda slapped myself.

"It actually does have some bearing on the answer though...we don't have settings for items to enable just one of the charges for shadeform use. It's either enabled for both, or disabled for both. Since Tartaros does have an offensive spell at level 10, it was disabled for shadeform use - necromancers can't use any of the charges in shadeform."

Spell Goddess, or Jen on the weekend, revealed one of the dirty secrets of the grab bag - I forward your questions exactly as you mail them to me, but I often do extensive editing before I post them. This one I think gets chalked up as my fault for not translating the question for her in advance.

Q: Got a faction question for you. I did the Skyros Order quest 5-7 times, and got faction. Funny thing is, I went to hunt them today and lost faction after a number of kills. I know people that have hunted these things for hours and still have faction....the question is, why did I lose it so quick and what can I do to not lose faction?

A: The newly promoted Duke of Quests responds: "You are dealing with three variables here regarding faction. You have the 'faction threshold' which you need to reach at first (you did so by running the quest 5-7 times). You also have the 'penalty' each time you kill a member of that faction. You then have the 'quest bonus' to that faction.

I can't reveal exact numbers (note from Sanya - because he's not allowed, otherwise he would) but I will say that each quest bonus should cover more than 10 kill penalties. Killing members of the opposing factions should give about half the positive value as the penalty you take for killing a member of the Skyros."

Q: Is autopromote working right yet?

A: We're working on the new improved and one hopes functional version for 1.76.

Q: On The Camelot Herald web site it states that Quickness affects melee speed. There is no mention of what affects bow release time.

Please let me know what shortens the time it takes to release an arrow (I am not talking about reduced time due to level or amount of points in longbow). For example, the Dex/Qui spec buff from a cleric causes a shorter release time (makes the bow fire faster).

Does Quickness cause the bow to fire faster?

A: Yes.

Q: I tried to delete a character but keep the same name on Pendragon. I can't. What happened?

A: The invisible Hector is to blame, according to Code Ed. Remember when we were testing out clustering? We copied a number of characters over, and the name you want was on Hector and Pendragon. You erased it off Pendragron, but Pendragon can still see Hector (even though you and I can't). So the name is not available. The same issue crops up on the live server clusters. The "Bob of Server X" dodge was only implemented so that people whose characters existed pre-clustering would not be unduly punished.

I am sorry for the annoyance.

***

Speaking of annoyance - I have never been so glad to see Friday come in my life. I was beginning to think I was cursed - my hard drive at home melted down, my Mp3 player committed suicide, power loss and flood at the office, spreadsheet crashes, oh my. Oh, but it is slushie time, right after these announcements.

Add this old friend to the list of top notch articles on Darkness Rising:

http://www.classesofcamelot.com/clog.asp?mode=post&id=16

An alert reader from Ohio told me that Hilliard is no more a suburb of Columbus than the Bronx is a suburb of Manhattan. Good to know! So, everyone, if you're a local from Ohio, check out the Roundtable Roadtrip taking place in Hilliard, Ohio - which is NEAR Columbus, but in no way a mere satellite of that fair city.

Speaking of Roundtables, the next roadtrip stop is in Chicago on July 23rd. Save the date!

Sorry about the brevity of the column tonight, guys - this week was... a little chaotic. I've already got some stuff out for next week, however, so stay tuned. Have a great weekend, everyone.