Zyrxae

I unwittingly timed this about as poorly as could be. Grateful as I am for the sponsorship, this quest is on hold until more becomes clear about how the recent scene modifications will operate. With any luck they'll allow for more recipes, or even--better yet!--make this quest obsolete*... * not sarcasm

It should say something about the general will toward Phantom Orchid that she is able to speak or idle in public as a fugitive. as you're surely well aware. No one, if someone's mere presence near you frustrates you this much, that speaks more to your own character than the person's. At least here we have an ignore list.

My connection has never been great, but I've now been getting a multi windows alert just about every other time I try to attack someone or move faster than a scene per 30 seconds. Ping times are generally downwards of 200 ms, which seems reasonable enough (I never tested them before the server move, but load times seem about the same--very slow.) On a possibly unrelated note, ever since the move I seem to have immigrated to the Czech Republic. (I revived an alt this morning and it came up American; midwest USA here.) I did use Tor to access MD several days ago, but in the past my flag has reverted to normal after having been using proxies. Not that I mind this or that it needs fixing; it's more a curiosity/possible symptom of some hidden routing issue. Overall, with quite a few exceptions, it looks like the Old World's beating the New.

I don't know of anyone who uses it regularly (though many may and just don't mention it.) Personal experience: it makes Flash run so slowly on any browser that I've blocked the cloud with Adblock Plus. Together with the recent issues with the PMs-to-email feature, which was previously an invaluable if somewhat un-MD failsafe, and the usefulness of the search function, I don't see much of a need for the cloud feature (though I'd certainly mourn its passing were it to ever go.)

A given individual would want to take on a leadership position in the Community Garden because they: - are particularly interested in gardening/applying this interest to MD's setting - consider themself an effective leader - seek some sort of material reward - have spare time to commit - don't want to see this effort die out or some combination thereof. The first one isn't a necessity, but might well make for a more interesting or engaging leader. Then again gardening/farming are generally demanding enough in reality that dedicated growers would likely find themselves in Rumi's predicament. Effective leadership generally entails clear communication, reasonable expectations, and decent amounts of trust and respect. These aren't always easy to come by; recent realm history is littered with examples. Do just not have enough people with this innate set of qualities? Aren't training them well enough to lead? Not so! MD's new players are a vast, mostly untapped resource. Feel free to correct me on this, but in recent times newbies haven't really taken on or been encouraged to take on leadership roles in the community. The air of "sure you're interested today but we don't know if you'll even be here six months from now" doesn't help. (Newbies, rest assured we bet and discuss your staying power.) MD has a fairly long learning curve, but if we encouraged new people to take up positions such as this one while they learned the ropes, I'm inclined to believe they'd be more likely to stick around. For those motivated primarily by personal I agree with dst's emphasis on palpable incentives and with the sentiment of the following, if not all its details: One of the successes of the RPC era is that it did reward quest creators with RPC/PWR status and abilities appropriate to the rewardee's role. The Q docs and other rewards for birthday quest creation also especially benefited active new players, to whom such prizes would be even more valuable. Similarly, it can be hard to get people to do even something they want to do if they don't feel their efforts are worthwhile. While the next Community Garden leader shouldn't act out of selfishness, they will be human and thus motivated by human desires. Much as I disagree with working explicitly with a goal rather than a process in mind, rewarding this leader could be seen as an encouragement for them to spend more time on the Garden. Stray thought: hold an election of sorts through which the community can choose from several applicants the next leader of its garden. Yes, the organic process is more natural, but so far it doesn't seem to have gotten very far. People want quests to participate in involving the garden that they feel are reasonable. I've been faithfully watering the pair of avocado pits spiked through with toothpicks (the internet says it works..!) sitting in my kitchen window for the past month or so and not so much as a rootlet has come of them thus far. Those of us with not-so-green thumbs need not sit twiddling them, however: a schedule for garden work could set a structure for other Garden quests. TL;DR: Involve newbies more; reward quest creators, including the new leader; hold an election for the next leader; make a definite plan for garden work/quests, reemphasize that we all benefit from the garden if we can get it off the ground.

Zyrxae Some flowers

Fixed, thanks. (No excuse to be had but that they're one line down and a whole screen across from each other on the spreadsheet..)

There will be a log, but this map and Vall's spreadsheet make for a nice overview. Maybe it's obvious but the arrows on the diagram mean "owns the leash of". Edit: should be correct now.

Udgard, I've wondered that too, and resolved the issue by attempting to vote as if I couldn't see the rep of the post in question. The effectiveness of this strategy increases with the transparency of the reputation system (see below). -- Might a poll help decide this? Something along the lines of: 1) Pick the option you most prefer. Transparent means everyone can see how everyone votes, opaque means only you can see how you voted. The current system is translucent: you can view who likes what, but it's a hassle to do so unless you're a moderator. "Like" system, transparent "Like" system, translucent (current) "Like" system, opaque +/- rep system, transparent +/- rep system, opaque (previous) +/- rep system with +reps transparent and -reps opaque +/- rep system with +reps opaque and -reps transparent (Rhaegar's suggestion) no rep at all 2) Select your second most preferred option. [list as above] 3) Select your least favorite option. [list again] 4) Select your second least favorite option. [guess what goes here] Or it could be third favorite instead of second least favorite or whatever other changes seem appropriate. Vote for whether you'd like a poll by +/- repping this post (à la last year's development focus) -- ah wait, no, we can't do that using this system. Hm.

In light of the recent (2569) announcement (though the idea certainly predates it) and in the spirit of slicing through what viscosity may be gumming up your creative juices, I present you a quest that's remarkably similar to one that ran two years ago. Your task: Write a recipe that could function within the realm. Guidelines: Despite the name, a "recipe" in MD is by no means limited to food items or consumables: it is the term for a set of instructions for creating finished products on a reproducible scale. While it need not be in the official recipe format (see linked topic), it's to your advantage scoring-wise to write it as such. Besides, the lower the barriers to implementation, the better for us all. "Limiting your device to existing resoruces and situations will give it a much better chance to be implemented than if you make up new resources." To this end I wrote up this spreadsheet a while back; hopefully it inspires you to look first to what's already here before inventing willy-nilly. If you feel you really need a new resource to complete your recipe, you may, but see the point above.* Be realistic. If you find yourself stretching things ridiculously just to make them 'fit', consider looking elsewhere for inspiration. Be creative! An original idea and an ingenious execution make for a compelling combination. If people are really reluctant to using the PHP format then I may write up a form so that reticent participants aren't penalized. You may submit up to six recipes, but they will each be scored separately. It's much better to submit one great recipe than five mediocre ones. You are strongly encouraged to make use of the new item combiner feature, although it may be a good idea to learn something about how it works. I know only as much as is in the announcement, but we may hear more "soon". NEW: You are welcome to incorporate creature totems into your recipes, although the above guidelines of sensibleness are still in effect. These guidelines may be changed; watch the Mood Panel for updates. * From the Cauldron topic: (reformatted but otherwise as written) "Potential resources that will be acceptable (because i am planning to add them for some time): bilogical materials like leather, horns, hair, etc, from existing creatures only metals or metal as a general resource herbs, in detail or in general unusual but very md style things like color in a bottle, or get inspired from things like the memory stone and current resources :) Understanding what i mean by md spirit/style is obviously essential to create a suitable item. Amaze me." NOTE: Times have changed in the past few years, and these planned resources may not be implemented for quite some time. This is even more reason to stick to what we have unless doing so would severely cramp your style. Judging: Currently taking applications for judges. Categories will likely include creativity of idea and execution (separately), coherence, MDishness, and plausibility. More details to come. Rewards: So far I can only offer a morph, some colored creatures, and some spellstones, but will probably be able to badger or scrounge up something more soon. Implications: I haven't yet asked our new Council whether there's a chance of any of these being implemented, but I plan to contact them upon posting this. It's possible that while none of these recipes will be implemented in the form you submit here, ideas for items or steps you devise may be incorporated into another form somewhere down the line. Submitting: Due to some uncertain phrasing in the previous topics about what parts of the recipes should be kept secret, you will probably be asked to submit entries by forum PM. The deadline will be approximately two months from now, depending on what I hear back from various entities. Ideally submissions would be due before the start of summer festivities. Note: Despite the attempts to stress realism in this, I can guarantee nothing with regards to implementation. There is a good chance that this will just be a "fun" quest with little impact on MD's development. That said, this is a very creative community, and great ideas deserve airing. Let's see where this takes us.

Ivorak, I strongly agree that we need more constructive criticism. Showing who has neg-repped a given post should serve this purpose, as those who spam neg-reps without justification will in turn be looked down upon by the community, which is a strong incentive against the tear-down we've all seen. Currently we can't do this. 'Liking' someone's post adds a point to their net reputation, and if a post gets five or more likes, it is starred as popular. We can't see who has liked our own posts or the posts of others, or see the number of likes a post has. Edit: It's still a minor annoyance to have to log out to see who voted how, but thanks for the tip. Impressionistic data mine, here we come... Accurate by what standard? I'd argue that the old system where we could neg-rep with relative impunity less accurately represents the view of the community than a transparent system, although this depends to what extent you think the opinions of these cowards constitute a valuable part of the community's input rather than mere spam. I agree entirely. To recap--possible systems:+/- rep as before+/- rep with transparencyCurrent 'like' system (see above)'Like' system with transparency (I've seen this as a 'favorite' system on non-IPB forums, and it may be possible here)+/- rep with transparency for neg reps but not +reps (Rhaegar's suggestion; not confirmed whether this is possible)To that last one, I'd say that if we all can see just who's sucking up to whom, it should cut down on the ass-kissing and friend/landmate-back-scratching.

Personally I'm in favor of both positive and negative rep, as I feel having both more honestly represents the sentiments of the community. Negative reputation conveys as strong a message about a person's online interpersonal communication skills as positive rep does. I'm personally fascinated by the truths in each "Let's see how many neg reps xyz gets for asking literally the same question I did", but this isn't the main point here. I much prefer being able to see the number of likes/upvotes on a given post, which we can't do currently. Much as I dislike its like-only system, Facebook at least allows this, albeit at the cost of anyonymity, which I consider extremely important: like polls, the +/- reps allow people to more openly express their opinions of a given post or topic without fear of consequence. To take a recently reread quote not very far out of context, [10/01/13 00:36] Muratus del Mur: we are now a handfull of people that just have one or the other friend and lots of grudges and complains, that will lead nowhere A common sentiment seems to be that neg rep only increases divisiveness. But isn't it really more a symptom of the current fractured, fractious state of the realm? ------ EDIT: After some conversations and reconsiderations, I would support having the old +/- rep system reinstated along with the ability to see who has voted how on a given post. This change would hold people accountable for their votes while still retaining our ability to briefly express dissent. (DD, there are reasons people spam you and not everyone else. If it was one person continually bringing you down then a moderator would have taken care of it long ago, but you, Fang, and Seigheart seem to have personal hate squads. The community should by now be fairly familiar with the reasons for this.) There's a good chance that enabling voter viewing will cause more short-term conflicts as people grumble about who upvoted whom wherever, but I believe that overall, knowing that we could be called upon to justify our actions will lead people to be more considerate in their voting.

[b]Name:[/b] Zyrxae [b]Duration of service:[/b] to be decided by the highest bidder. [b]Reason: [/b]I have relatively few privileges but several talents whose use you may request as my master.* From least to most actualizing, I can: - serve you up a fresh batch of log-room data (within reason) - organize information -- I tabulated the votes for the Personal Request Month and the second Day of Fear, as well as various other column'd documents scattered throughout the realm. - edit your words, especially if you're not a native English speaker and wish to communicate a specific feeling. - draw, if not accurately then intriguingly. See my papers or avatar. - analyze things or behaviors or statements or systems and just about anything else you can think of. - write. This usually takes too long, but it's worthwhile in the end. Or isn't..see for yourself. - ??? Buy me and find out. [b]Percentage: [/b]to be determined by the highest bidder. [b]Conditions:[/b] * Vulgarity will be met with heavy sarcasm and unrequitance. Willing to grovel, just not ironically.

Because seventy-two pages of log isn’t insignificant, a summary for later lookers-on— [b][u]Quest rewards:[/u][/b] [b]Darkraptor: Paint Your Aramor![/b] 1—No one—Anniversary Aramor + independent memory stone collector 2—Dan Planewalker—Anniversary Aramor + item of choice* 3—dst—morph [b]Dan Planewalker: DOM[/b] 1—Eara Meraia—Anniversary Aramor + mirror item 2—AmberRune—Anniversary Aramor + own leash 3—Zyrxae—morph [b]Official Challenge #1—Find the dummies![/b] 1—AmberRune— Anniversary Aramor + access to Fields of Fear 2—dst— Anniversary Aramor + 5 gold 3—No one—2 gold Additionally: Peace, MRAlyon, and samon—8 silver apiece [b]Official Challenge #2—Who stole the party gear?[/b] 1— Valldore Nal and AmberRune—Anniversary Aramor + morph each 2—Soothing Sands and Syrian—Anniversary Aramor + 5 gold each 3—Clock Master, samon, dst, Dan Planewalker—2 gold apiece [b]Tom Pouce: My Pet is at MD BDay[/b] 1—Kyphis—Anniversary Aramor 2—MasterB—2 gold [b]Tom Pouce: Anniversary Sweet Treat[/b] 1—Valldore Nal—Anniversary Aramor 2—Ackshan Bemunah—5 gold 3—Tipu—2 gold [b]Sephirah Caelum: MD Birthday Card[/b] Best Handmade Card: dst—Anniversary Aramor Best Message: darkraptor, dst—an Anniversary Aramor apiece Most Creative: Eagle Eye—Anniversary Aramor [b]VertuHonagan: Vertu’s MD BDay Quest[/b] 1—Nimrodel—Anniversary Aramor 2—dst—5 gold 3—Elthen Airis—2 gold [b]The Warrior: I’ve lost my marbles![/b] 1—Dan Planewalker— Anniversary Aramor 2—tankfans—5 gold 3—dst—2 gold [b]Master of Ceremonies: Embarrass your favorite fossil[/b] 1—Burns—wish* 2—No one—morph 3—dst—morph [b][u]Mur Egg[/u] [/b](avatar goldening)[b] [u]recipients[/u]:[/b] Sunfire, Dan Planewalker, No one, dst, Shemhazaj, Princ Rhaegar, Chewett, lashtal [i]Edit: [/i]AmberRune, phantasm, Sephirah Caelum, Kyphis and possibly a few others got yolked at other points during the celebrations. [b]Miscellaneous rewards:[/b] Menhir—MR flag BFH Lightning—Anniversary Aramor + wish* rikstar—half of MoC’s 8 Odd-Shaped Rocks Neno Veliki—Anniversary Aramor [b]All quest creators received Anniversary Aramors and some WP codes.[/b] Tom Pouce, darkraptor, The Warrior—an Anniversary Aramor each + “some” WP codes were stated in chat; it can be assumed that Dan, Sephi, Vertu, and possibly other quest creators received this as a reward. —— Total rewards (for the inflation hawks out there—this should make it even harder to ever sell these two morphs..ah well. For posterity!): 18 [b]Anniversary Aramors[/b] were given given to questers, two to realm helpers, and at least six to quest creators for a [b]grand total of[/b] [b]26[/b] distributed at this ceremony alone. Someone knows the grand total for the birthday, and they’re not me. Seven custom wishes were promised; six morphs, 48 gold coins, and 24 silver coins were distributed, as were copious quantities of tea and kake. A good time seems to have been had by...maybe a handful here or there. ——— [b]*[/b] Master of Ceremonies: “We can't kill anyone, make anyone fall in love with you or ressurect dead persons.” And—of course—no wishing for more wishes. [size=3][i]Edit: [/i]+eggings.[/size]

- Security letters and logout cooldowns are the rule, not the exception. - Drummer for..the who? Keith Moon was a Legend Speaker, not a musician..

Kumquat here. The most fun part of this sort of analysis, for me, comes in responding to others' perspectives. Hopefully you're not all so exhausted from the writing that you wouldn't be up to discussion yourselves..

Every script I try to run gives the typical incorrect location error ("#Add (locations COORD) on the first line of your script, replace COORD with the location where the clickable is. You can specify multiple locations that can run this script by adding whem with comma") despite the correct location setting [(locations 1_2x1_1) for the brick at Wind's Game, for example] being present in each. I've tried this on several clickables, RPC and Grade 4, as well as browser fixes (cleared cache/cookies, updated Flash), none of which made a difference. I'm probably overlooking something obvious, just can't figure out what that might be.. EDIT: This seems to be working now, but only after changing another part of the code, not the location setting. Possibly the error's a misnomer..or that there's only so much trust we can place in error messages.

[quote name='Nimrodel' timestamp='1364196394' post='134404'] The quest feedback form isnt public. This one is. Hence the voting. [/quote] Then why not just copy the current quest voting form, Likert scale and all? That would solve the following issues in one fell swoop, but would be much vaguer. Besides, I can’t think of a good way to convert the reasons for joining/not joining questions onto a straight five-point metric. Perhaps this poll is unsalvageable or doomed by its very nature, but I’ll take a shot. Chew and others please poke holes in this where constructive. 1) Why did you join the quest? > “Because Mur sponsored the spell doc” has undertones of “I thought Mur would protect me”. Something like “The potential reward outweighed the potential consequences” is perhaps almost overly biased in the opposite direction, so maybe “For the reward” would be preferable. > “Because I thought since someone big was sponsoring, the quest might not be a troll quest like the ones before” Equally unbiased would be “In my greed for the spelldoc I didn’t look before I leapt”. Redundant though this option is, it’s a specific opinion that several people seem to hold. Possibly: “The sponsorship allayed my concerns.” Those who chose this option could detail their concerns below. 2) Why did you not join the quest? > “I didnt want to be trolled participating in seig's quests like before” could be split in two (these are checkboxes and not radio buttons so this should provide more information): Change’s “I feared the consequences of joining” and a Seig-specific “I was wary of the organizer”. > Add “I didn’t have time”. 3) How was your quest experience? > Copy the Quest Voting page for this one. Troll is an offensive word, and name-calling does your own image no kindness. 4) What all did you find good in the quest? (tick the ones you think were done well) > “None - Did nothing at all about this quest impress you? (please check this option if you think the quest didnt deserve any kudos at all)” to “None - I disliked every aspect of the quest.” I think this rephrasing more accurately reflects the harshness of the respondent’s stating that they disliked the event from start to finish. > If you’re really interested in fairness then I suggest having people rate organization, adherence to theme, quality of challenges, aptitude of reward, judging, and enjoyment EACH on three- or five-point scales. You may wish to combine some of these positives to keep down the length. 5) Do you expect some sort of intervention for higher powers regarding the various issues faced in the quest? > What you consider “various issues” others might view as simply part of the quest. “Did you expect higher powers to intervene in the running of this quest?” should suffice. > Those that didn’t join the quest probably also have an opinion about this. How about: - Yes, and I joined - No, and I joined - Yes, and I didn’t join - No, and I didn’t join Even with these modifications, the whole idea of this poll being public feels somewhat ‘off’ or cruel, and the criticisms leveled so far seem less than focused on constructiveness. We won’t “all have our chances winning the same prize from better, proper quests in the future” if people are scared off creating them or participating based on the negative feedback that this quest received. — — Q4, “Other”: I liked - that this quest got people talking and thinking in a way that I haven’t seen happen publicly in recent times—in a very “MD” way. - the twist of killing those people voted to save. - seeing a new location. - the question posed in Stage 2. - the challenge of reviving myself and attempting to help resurrect others. - that Stage Four was kept a secret. I consider this also to be a clever twist. I disliked waiting, although waiting is for better or for worse very present in this realm. I’m very curious to see others’ entries and for some insight into the scoring mechanism involved.

[quote name='Valldore Nal' timestamp='1364146251' post='134389'] What about the dead ? Do you actually have any plan or they are supposed to look for other means to revive themselves ?[/quote] [quote name='Seigheart' timestamp='1362200305' post='133293'] There are real repercussions to failing, so be prepared to complete the examination. I will not reveal the repercussions until they are handed out. [/quote] Honestly I'm somewhat surprised at the leniency of these repercussions. Of all the possible ways to punish a person in this realm, death with many exits seems a fairly light sentence for less-than-successful attempts at divining the methods of the mind of the Day of Fear's creator.

While player-run/scripted quests and events* and built-in (Loreroot guards, Broken Pattern) puzzles are enjoyable and rewarding, they lack the sense of unification present in the time of the Adventure Log. This collective sense of purpose has been important to the coherence of the realm, and I feel MD is missing some part of its core without it. When the Log last splintered it was in no small part because people had come to view it as less of a realm-wide storyline and more as a tale of a few select players. Without this overall direction, MD is and will remain a scattered series of pleasurable episodes. * [size=2]Day of Fear, the Month of Free Lands, Maebius’ monthly quests, Eye of the Beholder, holiday quests, even the Dominion Journey; indeed[/size], every quest that has run in the past couple years.

[color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Name: Zyrxae[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Age: 662[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Sex: F[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Association: [/font][/color]Archives/Between [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Affiliation: Strivation[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Greatest Strength: [/font][/color]Passion [font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif][color=#282828]Greatest Weakness: Apathy[/color][/font]

[quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1362639962' post='133559'] Legally all the artwork belongs to MagicDuel and therefore you are not permitted to rehost them. However provided you remove them as soon as you sell he artwork and state that you are using the images in a way that conforms to fair use policy then it should be fine. Did you speak to the artwork approvers for the legal aspects? [/quote] I hosted these remotely due to your concerns regarding limited space in the forum gallery and chose Picasa for its privacy settings. Currently this album is viewable by anyone with the link; this is less of a hassle than and about as secure as having to type a password posted on this public forum to view one hosted at an easily-guessable/generatable URL. I have removed sold artwork from the gallery and placed it into a private 'Sold' album whose privacy setting I may temporarily change to 'anyone with the link' in order to show to prospective clients seeking a better idea of prices. Just emailed the artwork approvers with this information for a final word but am open to changes in the meantime.

[quote name='Ackshan Bemunah' timestamp='1362628283' post='133557'] What made you change your mind about display? [/quote] The brief poll on this topic and points raised in discussions with several individuals, including my conscience: -> People are still far less likely to [i]consider[/i] buying based on a very subjective description than if they see an image up front. A picture is worth...well, several gold, potentially. -> Avatars belong (in the mind of the public) to their wearers; seeing an avatar in a shop doesn't devalue it --> Not so; seeing an avatar anywhere but on its wearer is a small sacrilege. (A sole voter in the poll and no one I talked to agreed with my conscience in this statement.) ---> If other people don't see an action of mine as wrong, I'm probably the one who should back down. The ends (suiting mental images to visual ones) justify the means (openly displaying the latter sort of images). Besides, I should be less headstrong overall- Flexibility- I'm open to input in deciding how long to wait before removing images of previously sold avatars from the shop. Leaving the images and prices up gives potential buyers an idea of their worth, but people might be turned off knowing that their avatar of choice would remain on public display.

Edit: I misunderstood Miq; he asked what I would charge to sell others' avatars for them. Again, this is to be determined case-by-case, if anyone is indeed interested in such an arrangement.