Grab Bag - August 3, 2007

Searching for answers? We've got 'em!

Edit 8/6/2007: Added Clarification to the Theurgist question.

Q. I was recently kicked out of a dragon raid because I used a weapon that procced, and the raid leader insisted it was the cause of one of the dragon's attacks. Do weapon procs determine which attacks the dragon uses?

A. The Lord of The Flies insists: No. The dragon's attacks are completely random. They aren't triggered by any player attacks.

Q. For this weekend event on Pendragon in Thidranki, is it level 24 or are they making it level 50 ???

A. For the event on Pendragon only, there will be an NPC set up in the capital cities that will grant access to Thidranki for level 50 characters. These will be located next to the Pendragon Teleporters, and they'll be named "Testeract" with the title "Porter to the BG Event."

Q. What happened to the Clustering of Tintagel?

A. As I answered on the boards earlier last week: Right now there isn't much I can say about this issue except that it's obvious to me even after just one day back that it's the number one concern of players on Tintagel (and elsewhere) at this time. What I can tell you is that your concerns aren't falling on deaf ears. There's definitely a complicated discussion going on internally right now regarding clustering, please keep an eye on the Herald for more info when it's available. I know that it's frustrating to be in the dark and I'm really sorry. I wish I could say more. Thanks so much for your patience.

Q. Can you confirm for me whether named Sinovia shields actually drop for Midgard? I've gone so far as to check cm explorers on Devon, Killibury, Caerleon, and Tintagel for shields whether priced or not. All I've been able to find were a couple that weren't even usable: had an Albion realm req on them. You'd think if they're dropping at all there'd be at least one on a cm, even if it's not priced. After reading various posts on forums and seeing pictures of Mids wielding them, I'm coming to the conclusion there was either a change taking the shields away from us or the posts/pics are from a co-op type server.

A. It looks like the pics were from a co-op server. According to Bearded Wonder: There is no equivalent shield in Midgard. Instead, they have an extra sword and hammer. It wasn't the intention way back in ToA days to give equivalent items in all three realms.

Q. At the end of the Dragon's Revenge campaign, if quests are left undone connected to the cloak, medal or dragonslayer rewards, will you be unable to complete those quests and receive those rewards?

A. The Dragon Princess explains: The dragon campaign as it exists currently will only be around until the end of summer. These campaigns were designed to provide a dynamic aspect to the world, thus things have to change. You will have the rest of the summer to work on them, but they will be turned off after Labor Day.

Once the campaign is over, an abridged version will be available. This will provide many of the same rewards, although they will be more difficult to obtain. The armor and weapons will become available through these quests.

The cloak and medallion rewards will not be given in the abridged version. These items are going to be associated with campaigns in general. Variations on the cloak and identical medallions will be available in the late stages of future campaigns, but these rewards will only ever be offered to people participating in the campaigns when they are actually live, and will likely never be part of the abridged quest rewards.

So get out there and do those quests, before it's too late!

Q. Simple question: does duration bonus affect physical stun ? (i.e. 25% duration bonus increase the slam stun duration up to 9s x 1.25 = 11.25s)?

A. The Redhead says: Yes, + duration will affect the duration of the stun from slam.

Q. I was told by someone that the pbaoe radius is increased by having a plus to casting range. The question I have is this correct ?

A. No, +range will not increase radius, it will only increase range, says the Redhead.

Q. Regarding this year's Seattle Road Trip (which I've already RSVP'd, of course!), do I need to also sign up for anything at the Conference Center itself, like game conventions or the like?

A. The Road Trip and the game convention are two completely separate entities. If you're just coming to see us, all you need to do is RSVP. Also, attending the Road Trip at the Bell Harbor Event Center does not grant you access to the Penny Arcade Conference being held at the Seattle Convention Center. You will need to purchase a separate pass to PAX if they plan to attend the conference.

Q. The RR5 theurgist ability releases around 8 pets. So this means if I have more than 8 casted pets out, my RR5 ability will not work. This seems unfair. Can this be fixed?

A. From the Redhead: If you're at your pet cap, the RR5 will still cast and work just fine. However, if those pets take you to or above the 16 pet cap, you'll not be able to cast until they die.

This means that you can cast Minion Rescue even if you're already at the pet cap (or if it will put you over the pet cap.) But, if casting Minion Rescue puts you up over the pet cap, you will not be able to cast any additional pets until you're under the cap again.

Q. When using the new patcher that went live on Pendragon yesterday, I get an error message: 'This client cannot update your Dark Age of Camelot installation because a large number of key files are missing or corrupted. Please re-install the game from your installation CD and try again.'?

A. This error means you haven't logged onto Pendragon in a very long time and there's too much there to download. This is only the case for those who use a separate directory for Pendragon files. Each patch has its own maximum threshold, so a message such as this would be received by those who haven't updated Pendragon for a number of patches. The easiest thing to do in this case would be to copy your live directory to your test directory and then re-patch Pendragon.

Q. When trying to patch using the new patcher, I get a 404 error. Why?

A. An Error 404 means you don't have the new notes.htm file required for the new patch process. The cause for this would mirror the cause above - Pendragon has not been patched in awhile. Normally the notes.htm is the first file copied to your computer, but if you don't have the most updated patch client (camtest.exe in this case), then that needs to download first. Copying your live directory to your test directory and re-patching Pendragon should fix this problem. However, the cause could also be your Internet Explorer settings.

To find the new patch notes html file you would find it here:

{DAoC_Install}notesnotes.htm

Where {DAoC_Install} is the directory you installed DAoC.

Examples of default directories:

Labyrinth: C:Program FilesElectronic ArtsLabyrinth
Darkness Rising: C:MythicDarkness
Catacombs: C:MythicCatacombs

So if you had Labyrinth installed in the default directory, you would find the notes.htm file in:

C:Program FilesElectronic ArtsLabyrinthnotesnotes.htm.

Thanks to the Harpy for screaming out the above replies for us!

Q. When I click a link in the new patcher, it opens in Internet Explorer even though my default browser is Firefox. How can I set the patcher so that it uses my default browser?

A. The Inzane Coder explains: We chose to use the embedded IE browser control that comes standard with every version of Windows. This guarantees that every user will have it and that it will work without resorting to building our own proprietary product. The caveat here is that any link that you click on will open up within IE as any browser, by default, will naturally open in a window of the same browser. There is no way that a website that you click on within any browser can tell your computer to open the link in a different browser. Therefore, when a link is clicked in the embedded IE browser control, it follows these same rules and it opens within the same browser type.

Q. My patcher is messed up. It doesn't display the bottom half of the patcher, and buttons are missing even after I downloaded the patch and restarted the patcher. Why is this happening?

A. We troubleshot this and found a fix earlier today, which went up to Pendragon just a few minutes ago. Once you repatch, you should be able to view the window properly. Sorry about that!

**

If you haven't downloaded the new patcher on Pendragon yet, you should! It's very cool looking, imho. You're going to have to do it anyway, so that you can get ready for Joanne's Battleground Battle event on Sunday.

It's not too late to send in your Team Lead application! We're looking for the following: Runemaster, Spiritmaster, Enchanter, Druid, Necromancer, Infiltrator, Bainshee.

Don't forget to RSVP for the Seattle Roundtable if you're planning to go. Joanne will be there, and so will some of her favorite devs.

Well, that's it for this week. Have fun, and be safe out there! I'm off to get me a slushie.