Ask your Producer: August 2015

Ula

this isn't a technical question, but I was hoping @sarapis and other Divines could talk about their influences in regards to writing events and such. I am aware that much of the nitty gritty writing is done by immortals and what not. Most specifically I sense an influence of joseph campbell, and I was hoping someone could expound on that influence..

Trevize

If you could pick a new project, any concept not current being worked on or active (known by us or not), that you'd most like to add to Achaea, what would it be? On the level of major projects, like ships, mining, multiclass, autoclass, etc.

edit: for the fun of it, ignoring technical limits or whatnot!

Also going to add a second question in here I've wanted to ask. If you could build your own class from any three existing class skills, for the sake of RP/combat/whatnot, what three skills would you choose and what would you name this class? Something different than all the current classes.

Morthif

Now that all the robes of the grand magi talisman sets seem to be claimed any chance of bringing it back for sale? Unique items are nice but not having a thousand bucks or so to throw at a promo one specific month shouldn't be punished either.

Austere

How many hours a week do you spend logged in working(not counting hot pocket runs [not all of us get to embrace death]).  Does it ever cause stress rl, or are you able to let it all slide away the second you qq.

Do you ever take free days in Achaea where you just start an alt and see how far you can get in 24 hours, to test the current playerbase on their friendliness towards new players, or to check how x faction does their requirements for y(surely you're allowed to create throw away alts for testing)

Last one, I swear: Have you ever considered moving for work? 

*Feel free to dodge the personal ones.  I just like knowing their is a real person on the other side.

Adet

Not sure whether this is even something you monitor, but it's one I've been curious about for a while: what proportion of players have CONFIG ROOMDESC set to VERBOSE rather than BRIEF?

Jurixe

Tecton said:

Bluef said:

For almost 3 RL years, several clans I'm a part of have made inquiries about high clan status. Each time, we've been told that the Garden is evaluating the future of High Clan status, so there's been no decision as to whether Achaea will be accepting new high clans or discontinuing them.

Real life years is a really long time for such assessment. Can you clarify what exactly is being evaluated? What factors are going into deciding whether, if ever, we're going to see applications accepted again for these non-city/faction-based player-run organizations?

Also what are the current plans, if any exist, for measuring the performance of already-created high clans in terms of actively promoting their mission? Could we ever see the fall of some high clans and the rise of new ones with similar missions, for example?

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

We're evaluating whether to continue the program at all, and whether the orgs are actually contributing to the RP landscape of the game, making the time drain on the admin team who evaluate, monitor, and patron these organisations worth it.

While I understand why this might be given the limited number and time of Divines, this is unfortunate to hear as a founder of a clan that would have sought High Clan status one day. I would suggest perhaps a compromise: allowing those who have achieved High Clan status to put in requests re: events and customisation of items and clanhalls, without specifically needing a patron. That might also solve the odd patron situation that some clans have had to face.

Are you, at this stage, more likely to scrap the programme? If so, will there be anything to replace the system for clans that do have an impact on the world at large?

Taraus

Tecton said:

Bluef said:

For almost 3 RL years, several clans I'm a part of have made inquiries about high clan status. Each time, we've been told that the Garden is evaluating the future of High Clan status, so there's been no decision as to whether Achaea will be accepting new high clans or discontinuing them.

Real life years is a really long time for such assessment. Can you clarify what exactly is being evaluated? What factors are going into deciding whether, if ever, we're going to see applications accepted again for these non-city/faction-based player-run organizations?

Also what are the current plans, if any exist, for measuring the performance of already-created high clans in terms of actively promoting their mission? Could we ever see the fall of some high clans and the rise of new ones with similar missions, for example?

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

We're evaluating whether to continue the program at all, and whether the orgs are actually contributing to the RP landscape of the game, making the time drain on the admin team who evaluate, monitor, and patron these organisations worth it.

In the event the Garden decides High Clans aren't worth the time/effort, what happens to existing High Clans? Will they be relegated back to regular clan status, or dissolved entirely?

Ruth

I would hope not! It took a lot of effort to convince the Garden to let High Clans own ships! Also because PoM is really fun.

Ognog

Any sign of a new Moon on the horizon? So sad that Lady Ourania only looks upon Her children from afar these days.

Also (more of an IRE wide thing), I was wondering if the browser plug in could be extended to allow simultaneous log in and display of multiple IRE games(/alt chars?) so we can track new messages and news on each.

Tahquil

Tecton said:

Tahquil said:

Has anyone learned every (currently) available language?
If so, list the people who currently know more languages than I do.. for uh.. deliveries of puppies...Yes, puppies.

Nobody has learned all of them, would need to write some code to audit everyone to find out who has the most, but from a quick check of the people who I know learn a lot of languages, you're on top!

Fuck yeah, going to send puppies to myself!

Aegoth

For the longest time, people who have gone dormant have to endure the hardship and pain of restocking curatives (health, mana, etc). Some other games have offered a solution to this: Liquidrift that hold your health, mana, mending, etc and can be linked to vials where you can sip directly from the rift. Will this ever be a thing in Achaea? 

Tecton

Sobriquet said:

While I understand it is not practical to move away from telnet for the connection to Achaea for gaming, are they any thoughts about using an encrypted connection for the login process? With a lot of people using campus / work / public connections to connect to both the game and the forums, it seems like a possible weakness for losing character reputation at best, entire characters at worst. While the issue with Daes being hacked brought in login failure attempts to be monitored and enforced, it would be nice to have confidence in the fact that any credentials being sent to Achaea would be encrypted.

We've certainly considered it, and done some proof-of-concept testing, but the overhead was a bit much when dealing with multiple hundreds of connections. Something we'll keep plugging away at, as it's something that's important in this day and age.

Tecton

Trevize said:

If you could pick a new project, any concept not current being worked on or active (known by us or not), that you'd most like to add to Achaea, what would it be? On the level of major projects, like ships, mining, multiclass, autoclass, etc.

edit: for the fun of it, ignoring technical limits or whatnot!

Also going to add a second question in here I've wanted to ask. If you could build your own class from any three existing class skills, for the sake of RP/combat/whatnot, what three skills would you choose and what would you name this class? Something different than all the current classes.

Project: Graphics

Own class: Domination, Woodlore, and Subterfuge.. It'll be called Swarmlord, because you're going to get swarmed by ents.

Tecton

Morthif said:

Now that all the robes of the grand magi talisman sets seem to be claimed any chance of bringing it back for sale? Unique items are nice but not having a thousand bucks or so to throw at a promo one specific month shouldn't be punished either.

No plans to bring them back, still a few robes pieces out there though!

Sarathai

Tecton said:

Morthif said:

Now that all the robes of the grand magi talisman sets seem to be claimed any chance of bringing it back for sale? Unique items are nice but not having a thousand bucks or so to throw at a promo one specific month shouldn't be punished either.

No plans to bring them back, still a few robes pieces out there though!

Now I'm curious: of the pieces out there, are there enough to actually assemble a full set of robes?

Tecton

Austere said:

How many hours a week do you spend logged in working(not counting hot pocket runs [not all of us get to embrace death]).  Does it ever cause stress rl, or are you able to let it all slide away the second you qq.

Do you ever take free days in Achaea where you just start an alt and see how far you can get in 24 hours, to test the current playerbase on their friendliness towards new players, or to check how x faction does their requirements for y(surely you're allowed to create throw away alts for testing)

Last one, I swear: Have you ever considered moving for work? 

*Feel free to dodge the personal ones.  I just like knowing their is a real person on the other side.

Hours: Anywhere from 50 - 100, depending on project load at the time. I'm pretty much always thinking/planning/plotting, even when I'm not online, which leads to many sleepless nights!

Free days: Never a full day, but quite frequently I'll make a character and play around for a few hours, looking for areas to improve.

Moving for work: Have done in the past, but thankfully this job is pretty easy to do anywhere that has internet and is relatively free of distractions.

Tecton

Adet said:

Not sure whether this is even something you monitor, but it's one I've been curious about for a while: what proportion of players have CONFIG ROOMDESC set to VERBOSE rather than BRIEF?

Hrrm.. 11% of all characters have VERBOSE room descs from my quick check. 

Tesha

Now that Hashan has only one entrance, Inside the gatehouse (indoors) a few rooms from the entrance blocks flying as a way to infiltrate. Targossas had a similar indoors room blocking flying as a way to infiltrate and it got changed. What would normally be a good way to point out it looks like something's been overlooked?

Tecton

Jurixe said:

Tecton said:

Bluef said:

For almost 3 RL years, several clans I'm a part of have made inquiries about high clan status. Each time, we've been told that the Garden is evaluating the future of High Clan status, so there's been no decision as to whether Achaea will be accepting new high clans or discontinuing them.

Real life years is a really long time for such assessment. Can you clarify what exactly is being evaluated? What factors are going into deciding whether, if ever, we're going to see applications accepted again for these non-city/faction-based player-run organizations?

Also what are the current plans, if any exist, for measuring the performance of already-created high clans in terms of actively promoting their mission? Could we ever see the fall of some high clans and the rise of new ones with similar missions, for example?

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

We're evaluating whether to continue the program at all, and whether the orgs are actually contributing to the RP landscape of the game, making the time drain on the admin team who evaluate, monitor, and patron these organisations worth it.

While I understand why this might be given the limited number and time of Divines, this is unfortunate to hear as a founder of a clan that would have sought High Clan status one day. I would suggest perhaps a compromise: allowing those who have achieved High Clan status to put in requests re: events and customisation of items and clanhalls, without specifically needing a patron. That might also solve the odd patron situation that some clans have had to face.

Are you, at this stage, more likely to scrap the programme? If so, will there be anything to replace the system for clans that do have an impact on the world at large?

Not sure the extent we'd change the program, in the event that we decided to discontinue it. In the event that it did wrap up, we'd still accept RP requests as normal, and those for orgs doing good things would certainly be given a high priority.

Tecton

Taraus said:

Tecton said:

Bluef said:

For almost 3 RL years, several clans I'm a part of have made inquiries about high clan status. Each time, we've been told that the Garden is evaluating the future of High Clan status, so there's been no decision as to whether Achaea will be accepting new high clans or discontinuing them.

Real life years is a really long time for such assessment. Can you clarify what exactly is being evaluated? What factors are going into deciding whether, if ever, we're going to see applications accepted again for these non-city/faction-based player-run organizations?

Also what are the current plans, if any exist, for measuring the performance of already-created high clans in terms of actively promoting their mission? Could we ever see the fall of some high clans and the rise of new ones with similar missions, for example?

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

We're evaluating whether to continue the program at all, and whether the orgs are actually contributing to the RP landscape of the game, making the time drain on the admin team who evaluate, monitor, and patron these organisations worth it.

In the event the Garden decides High Clans aren't worth the time/effort, what happens to existing High Clans? Will they be relegated back to regular clan status, or dissolved entirely?

They'd go back to regular clans, we wouldn't dissolve them!

Tecton

Ognog said:

Any sign of a new Moon on the horizon? So sad that Lady Ourania only looks upon Her children from afar these days.

Also (more of an IRE wide thing), I was wondering if the browser plug in could be extended to allow simultaneous log in and display of multiple IRE games(/alt chars?) so we can track new messages and news on each.

Not really going to comment on the activity of gods here, sorry!

As for the extension, I can certainly bring it up with the team, but our efforts are solidly focussed on the Nexus client at the moment, so not sure when it would happen even if it was approved.

Tecton

Aegoth said:

For the longest time, people who have gone dormant have to endure the hardship and pain of restocking curatives (health, mana, etc). Some other games have offered a solution to this: Liquidrift that hold your health, mana, mending, etc and can be linked to vials where you can sip directly from the rift. Will this ever be a thing in Achaea? 

We've got the backend in place already! We added the capability when we overhauled our rift system in the past year or so. We've not had the time to sit down and really puzzle out a good frontend to date!

Tecton

Tesha said:

Now that Hashan has only one entrance, Inside the gatehouse (indoors) a few rooms from the entrance blocks flying as a way to infiltrate. Targossas had a similar indoors room blocking flying as a way to infiltrate and it got changed. What would normally be a good way to point out it looks like something's been overlooked?

Issue, or a message/email to me is probably easiest! Obviously, not needed in this situation.

Tesha

Okay! Also, is there any data on what city/house has the highest retention rate of new players that aren't xfers from other IREs? Do you have any suggestions for how to handle new players to keep them interested?

Morthif

Will Targossas get a chance to go through the Renaissance? We have one to many houses.

Tecton

Tesha said:

Okay! Also, is there any data on what city/house has the highest retention rate of new players that aren't xfers from other IREs? Do you have any suggestions for how to handle new players to keep them interested?

Data: I don't have that on-hand, and probably not to that granularity (just based on how our metrics work, they're all game-specific).

Keeping new players interested: Forging good social bonds is one of the best way of keeping them interested. Supplement that with a variety of -fun- activities for them to do in order to advance and progress in your orgs, and you're off to a flying start. Naturally, there's no "one sure method" of retaining players, otherwise we'd have pushed it out for all of our orgs! 

Tecton

Morthif said:

Will Targossas get a chance to go through the Renaissance? We have one to many houses.

No plans to, no, they were the unofficial "first" Renaissance.

Medi

Tecton said:

Morthif said:

Will Targossas get a chance to go through the Renaissance? We have one to many houses.

No plans to, no, they were the unofficial "first" Renaissance.

Have Mhaldor/Ashtan blow one of them up! (Or Hashan)

Aelios

@Tecton... What is this? You have shirts for your lackeys? Brilliant!

Jurixe

Just another quick clan thing while I have time to squeeze it in:

Will it ever be possible to have clan-owned housing, and so would you be willing to give a vague ETA? Clan-owned housing would be great for many aspects of the game, ranging from and not limited to family clans, clans that fill a particular niche, or maybe people just want to make a hangout for their friends.

Also when will the next housing update be? *twiddle*