Sanga

How about "Jinx"? After the seventh or eighth time you've tripped over her, you'll think it's appropriate... Or "Mystique", since you'll never really understand her.

Remember, this *is* a fantasy game. So instead of books, have "Crystals of Knowledge" that give you access to the knowledge, but only as long as you have the crystal. Or a "Spell of Knowing" that grants the knowledge until the spell fades. Such gimmicks are hardly unheard of in the fantasy genre...

The idea sounds pretty good as is, but here's another variation on that theme: You go to a library, and "check out" the desired book. Have both public (no fee) libraries (with a very limited selection, of course) and private (fee based) libraries (which could specialize in a particular skill). Once you check out the book (no reading time), you have access to the associated knowledge... but with a substantial negative to the associated skill level when using that knowledge. The rational behind this is that you aren't working from your own knowledge, but have to keep consulting the book while working. The penalty puts some practical limits on how people can use these books - no use checking out that "S2E of Fire" book if your manufacturing skill minus the penalty is too low to have any real chance of making one. The penalty should be variable depending on the book - a percentage of the recommended skill level for using that knowledge (25% ?) And if you're thinking "that would still be too easy" - while using the knowledge associated with the book, there is a very small chance that the book will be destroyed (After all, if you have the book sitting there open on your workbench, an accident is always possible). In which case you would not be allowed to check out any other books at that library until you provided the library with a replacement. Which could get expensive... And one other limiter - while you have a book checked out, your normal research freezes until you return the checked-out book to the library (though if the book is destroyed, research would start up again). This type of implementation would create risks for using the libraries (there are no risks with the original idea, just clearly defined costs), but I think there are still enough benefits that people would still do so.

It is OK to buy a huge sword and ram it through a panda, or bring long dead animals back to life, yet somehow morally wrong to drink a potion? hmmm well last time I looked the world didnt have an over abundance of " rapier wielding panda killers" but does have a major drug problem . As I stated I dont have a problem with drugs etc being in the game, I was just asking if it might give the game the wrong image ?, and wether it is right or wrong people do view virtual drugs as BAD and ebul compared to virtual bear killing. I think you're getting hung up on the word "drugs" - for instance, if Entropy had called them "enhancement potions", would you still be as worried about EL's image? We ALREADY have drugs in the game. What else would you call potions of evasion, or potions of accuracy? The only difference is that they don't have a potential negative side effect (although maybe they *should*). Or True Sight potions, which are an odd case where the "negative side effect" is the main reason people use them. And the reason the world doesn't have a problem with "rapier wielding panda killers" is mostly do to: A. A genuine shortage of panda's in the real world. B. The fact that anyone trying to kill one with a rapier would probably wind up as "bear chow".

Same problem - unless the server tells the client the name of the NPC who started the quest, the client has no way to tell what name to file it under. It would *still* require more info from the server than is currently provided.

The question is: how much actual work is involved in changing those dialogs? Depending on exactly how those strings are stored, it could be possible to handle all of the modifications with a few "sed" and/or "awk" commands. Or as bad as having to manually edit a whole slew of quest-related files. Since this is server-side, it's entirely up to you whether or not it actually constitutes "too much" work.

Just throwing out an idea here: 1. Modify the messages that the server sends for quest-related messages, to preface them with an identifier for the quest (and the name of the NPC). For instance, for messages in involving the "Seridian Journey" quest, the message would something like "<marker>Seridian Journey<marker>Wraith<marker>message text" where "<marker>" is some arbitrary marker/separator character, like <TAB>, that won't appear in the normal text. 2. Modify the "questlog.c" file to read the entire file, setting up a separate buffer for each quest as it's encountered, and putting the text into the appropriate buffer based on that identifier string (have an "Unknown Quest" buffer to handle any messages in the file that don't have the identifier. Then, combine the various buffers into a single buffer for actually displaying the now-sorted-by-quest info (adding some extra lines to identify the various quests. Here's a rough example of what the final buffer would look like: This would be far from perfect (you'd still have to scroll around to find a particular quest), but at least it would be organized. A somewhat more sophisticated expansion on the idea: Convert the text into some sort of XML structure, and then use something like the Encyclopedia's interface - the first page would list all identified quests, and clicking on one would bring up the buffer for that particular quest. Not quite as slick as adding a new tab for each quest, but probably easier to do. The first idea (just sorting by quest) appears to be pretty easy to implement. Any comments?

Two words: market value. SR's are a high-demand item. You can easily sell 1K of them on the market channel, and you can usually find half a dozen bots that will buy them in 100-500 qty. So with SR's, you not only get the exp from making them, you get the GC from selling them. In contrast, BR's are a very low-demand item. Trying to sell 1K of the on market channel is nearly impossible, and I've yet to see a bot that will buy them at all. So while BR's are slightly better exp, SR's are both good exp and *profitable*. For most players, that's a combination that's hard to beat.

First, as suggested, have the person's guild rank show in the "#list_guild" command. Then, add a regex to the command, so that "#list_guild 19" will list all lines that have "19" as part of the line (similar to how "#storage ..." commands work). You'd get some false hits (with characters names such as "UberLeetPker199" or such), but for the most part it would meet your requirements without requiring too much effort on the part of the devs (the regex stuff is already there, after all). If an effort is made to modify the "#list_guild" command, I would like to suggest another addition - have it show an asterisk for those who are currently online. Yes, I'm aware that Gossip can provide this via the "guildies" command, but she sometimes takes a while to realize that a person is now in a guild.

I don't know how difficult it would be to pull this off, but what about having something like a double-right-click open up the encyclopedia page for the item under the cursor? Just a wild thought...

I hate to tell you this - not fixed. I got exactly the same results as before (selling 500 FE's this time). I *was* able to complete the sale, by using the "cancel Accept" and "Accept again" workaround.

Okay, that means that, for some reason or another, she didn't figure out that the cash had been added to the window. Hopefully I'll find out why if this happens again (since I haven't really fixed it, just added more messages, it seems unfortunately likely). Yay I just did a test. Here's the exact sequence: 1. Initiate trade with Vakana 2. Place item to be sold in trade window. 3. Click on Accept. My accept turns yellow. 4. About a 2 second delay, then appropriate amount of gc appears in Vakana's side of the trade window. 5. Nothing else happens. Her "accept" never turns yellow. 6. After about 30 seconds, I abort the trade. I made 3 attempts. The first time, with a single FE, moving at "normal" speed. The second time, with a single FE, allowing 5 seconds between each of my actions. The third attempt, using a Serpent Stone, allowing 10 seconds between each of my actions. The gc amount placed on Vakana's side of the window was correct for each of the three attempts. With the same results for an EME, and FE, and a Serpent Stone, it's a pretty good guess that the item makes no difference. I simply can't sell anything to her. Hopefully your log file will show something that provides a clue as to the problem. Let me know if you need me to do another test.

To clarify - I made a number of attempts to sell to her. The first few (2 or 3, I think), I put the item in the trade window, and waited for her to put up the cash (i.e. the behaviour for most bots, and I believe the way she used to behave). When she didn't put the cash into the trade window, I aborted, which accounts for those "no trade happening" events. I didn't mention those aborts in the message because they were purely user error - I was expecting Vakana to act like most of the other trade bots, and put up the cash as soon as I put the item in the trade window. I then went and sold some other essences to SilverLeaf, and then came back to Vakana. For those attempts, I actually read her message about having to click accept after putting the items in the window, and for those attempts the sequence of events was as described in the initial post. I do *not* believe that it was a case of my going too fast. I would put one EME into the trade window, and click my "accept", which turned yellow. She then totaled it up, and put the appropriate amount of gc into her side of the window. But her "accept" remained red - it looks like she never sent the "accept trade" message to the server after putting the gc into the window. If I were confusing her, I wouldn't expect the correct amount of gc to appear in the window. I'll try selling something to her the next time I get on, and see if I can duplicate the sequence. I hate not being able to sell to Vakana (she's pays very good prices on many items), so I'll gladly help in sorting this out.

I was trying to sell some enriched essences to vakana today, but I couldn't get the transaction to finalize: 1. Initiated Trade. 2. Put Essences to sell into window. 3. Click on Accept 4. The correct amount of GC appeared on vakana's side of the window. And that's it. Sat there for a minute, and nothing else happened. Is there some command required to tell vakana "The gc is acceptable, now finalize the trade"?

Call it "Ironfist". In addition to the harvesting aspect, it should also add to your base damage when fighting without weapons. This can be considered either a plus *or* a minus - for training purposes, you want to do as little damage per hit as possible, so having this perk would reduce your attack exp when fighting without weapons. That said, it's a pretty valuable perk. Just the benefit of not having to carry spare pickaxes would make harvesting most metals/minerals somewhat easier. To balance this a bit, code it so that if a player with this perk hits a "pickaxe break" event, they get a "radon pouch" event instead. It would have some effect on the economy - those bots that make money by providing pickaxes near mining sites or to antis would lose some business. But since these items aren't actually manufactured by players, it should be a minor effect. I'd say 5 pickpoints and 50k gc would be about right...