Questions for the week of 5/23 through 5/30 2011

Jemmus Asks:

How do the animals interact with each other? If we have bears in an area, do they drive away/consume the deer? If dogs, do they drive away/consume chickens? Do dogs and coyotes get along? Basically what I'm wondering is if there's a check and balance among the animals. If we, say, conserve bears, are we losing deer population?

P.S. Where are the pumas? : )
Aggressive creatures (bears) do attack and kill non aggressive creatures (deer). Some creatures tend to run and hide from others so they will move from one area to another. We will implement some creature tracking tools soon so that we can observe the results of our current system and balance things as we go. The pumas are hiding.

Aiden Asks:

What kind of options are being looked at for transport/travel (pack animals, carts, etc) and is there any kind of timeline on implementation of those systems?
Carts (pushed by humans and creatures) are on our task list, but we don't have a timeline for this. It all depends on how things go with the new programmers and how well our plans to continue to expand this summer go.

Are there any plans to do away with the "same-type, same-color" requirements for crafting/architecture? For example, will I eventually be able to make a spiked log wall out of several different types of logs (as long as I have 10 logs available)?
No current plans for this.

Are there any plans for totem decay in the future? I know it will need to be awhile (many people may come flooding back in after combat, etc). Just curious.
Yes, but totems will take a while to decay. I think a minimum of 6 months, but this will be discussed with players before it's implemented.


MrDDT Asks:

Are there any plans to help exporting of items other than killing yourself and respawning at your totem? Carts, mules, take a rope and tying stuff up and dragging it, sleds etc?
Yes, pack animals and carts. We'll look into the possibilities after the combat revisions and agriculture system are done.

Skill decay? Soft cap? Hard cap?
We have a soft cap on skills that needs to be balanced. When we balance this skills will decay. This will be looked at in June.

Stats WTF? They almost never change. Planned? Going to be changed? (IMO I think they should change much much faster based on skill usage)
Balancing this is part of the plans for June.

How are the pools going to be split up? Are there going to be pools like talked about before with Combat being one pool, crafting another, misc another etc.
Skills are grouped as follows:
Combat
Crafting
Construction
Resource gathering
Physical actions
Trade skills

Trade skills is the group that will grow the most in the future and will include skills such as healing and cooking.

HP system seems a bit off. Right now combat skills do not give exp (Pretty sure) also there are only a few combat skills. So to be good in combat you must trade every skill in the game just to get HP. Is this going to be reworked?
Combat will give experience and increase skill much more with the combat revisions being worked on right now.


NorCalGooey Asks:

How are you going to prevent warring tribes from abusing ALT ACCOUNT safe zone tribes???


Meaning that even if there is a REQUIREMENT for warring tribes to have their home totem area completely unsafe because they are attackers themselves, that doesn't make their items unprotected. People think outside the box.
We'll have to think about this when the time comes. We don't have everything perfectly worked out and of course issues like this will arise.


Krimara Asks:

Are we going to able to terraform rocks, such as granite and the like in the future?

Sorry if this one has already been answered. I haven't been able to find anything relating to it so far.
Yes, though we will first see if we can implement tunneling.


ColonelTEE3 Asks:

Currently you need to open a bag and drag and drop your weapons to change them out.

Are there plans to make switching weapons easier, or add weapon hotkeys, to allow for people to change easily and swiftly from archery to melee back to archery during combat?
We have this on our suggestions list and will consider it when we have time.


Gandhi Asks:

Good evening,

Is there a skill decay for the crafting and gathering skills? I leveled up several of these skills, but i dont see any decay. I think that is a big problem of this game, because it enforces the problem of almost every tribe being self-sufficent, when everybody is able to produce everything.
Currently no, but skill decay will be worked on in June.


KeithStone Asks:

Are safe zones going to be removed at some point where we need to use walls/gates to keep people out of tribe zones?
Starting with expansion totems, yes. After we see the dynamics that happen when tribes war over expansion we plan to allow tribes to turn off their safe zones permanently to allow them become warring tribes. The option to remain a safe tribe will be in place during the Prelude. The future will depend on how the game evolves and this will be requesting feedback from all players regarding this (through emails and surveys, not just on the forums).


Thraz Asks:

When will cooking and farming be implemented?
We don't have a set date, but we've started working on farming, which will be accompanied by cooking. It will be the focus after combat revisions are in place.


Subspace Asks:

First off, wanted to say I think you guys are doing great.

Here are my questions:

1. Do you see value in allowing us to have global chat for the purposes of buying and selling. We could only access it by building a HAM radio, and only use the radio in our settlement. It would give us a reason to use the carts and transports mentioned by others above.
Yes, we are considering linking chat between allied tribes for the purposes of trade. We don't know when this will be looked at though.

2. 6 months from now, how many additional skills will have been added to the game?
I'm unsure, but cooking, healing, farming and metalworking are in the works.

3. Will PvE elements such as ruined cities be added to the game? Underground cave systems? Will we ever run into modern technology?
Unklikely during the Prelude. When we expand Xsyon after this year, yes.

4. I notice that some of the tents do not have the ability to enter. Are these symbolic structures that you will eventually be able to get inside of and have more space, or is the intention to be what-you-see-is-what-you-get in terms of usable space?
These will be fixed so that all tents can be entered.

5. Having played many client/server based games, I am unaccustomed to such long loading times. Can you please explain what is going on behind the scenes in making loading so slow. Are there plans to speed it up, and what is your best guess on what the eventual load times will be.
Loading times are erratic as not all players experience slow loading times (for example, the game always loads within around 2 minutes for me). A few things seem to be happening, and one is a conflict when many players are entering the world at the same time. Because of the changeable terrain and construction projects, a lot of information does load when you enter the game. We plan to reduce the loaded area to about 1/4 of what is loaded now and then continue to see what can be improved to reduce loading times. This is slated for soon after combat revisions are done.


fatboy21007 Asks:

i have 1 question. What is your version of content and when do we expect to get that version of a content update?
The question isn't clear to me, but we have a lot of physical content that we plan to add in June and July including architecture components, furniture, female armor sets, two handed weapons and terrain beyond the mist. Most of the actual content has already been patched out but we need to catch up with recipes and some necessary code adjustments.


Perefim Asks:

how long does it take to find chalk? I stood, ran, hopped, skipped, ate and crafted on above water lvl limestone today for 2+ hours and received 8 flint but no chalk...

if my demands are not met within 48 hours, I shall build campfires across the entire server.. and we shall enter a second age of apocalypse!!!!
Chalk has the same discovery rate as flint, but you must be in a limestone area. Have you started your wall of campfires?

I have a serious weekly question. zombies, they going to spawn at night, kinda like minecraft, regular animals during day... then muties, freaks and hell things at night.. would really make night time shelter needed and a blast to defend city during night.
When we introduce undead (technically called revenants, not zombies) they will arise from the ground at night and usually hide during the day.


Drevar Asks:

Will woodworking and masonry remain relegated to "secondary" skill status or will they receive content that makes them desireable as primary skills?

It is more work to get woodworking to 100 than toolcrafting, yet the "rewards" are very far from equal.
Woodworking and masonry will be expanded when we add furniture. You can expect some furniture in game this summer. One step at a time.