Handy Pockets

I have mostly finished my exams at Uni for this semester. The exam period took longer than month, mostly because I did not manage to get some subjects on the first try. I was very close to droppping out because of one programming subject, but after lots of stress I managed to get it done. The next semester starts in a few days, so I don't really have time to relax, but I am glad that I may continue in my studies. 
Also, if all goes well, I will begin my first job (paid internship) during summer with one of the IT companies which cooperate with our school. 

Unfortunately for the last year or two work has become busier and busier... this has meant that I end up doing a lot of things that I don't really want to, but need to, and not doing what I would like too....
 
At work I took over from my boss and I have been playing another one of those mobile games where I walk a lot. Walking is good and since starting I have walked 875,781 steps! Taking over from my boss has meant even more work, but I am hoping in the next year I will be able to reduce that after we get all the things that were not in control, under control....
I am hoping by the summer I can have a plan to reduce some of the various things I am doing so that I can have a bit more free time.
 
How is everyone doing?

Marind Bell...
Fine grades of clay harvested from the banks of the river
Pottery shaping tools for roofing tiles, sewer pipes, pots, cups, and dishes.
A kiln to fire any of the above.

Necrovion .......
Get special rocks specifically lime/carbonates using mining tools.
Grind & cook in special furnace to give cement.  Add rocks, maybe gravel, to get mortar or concrete respectively.

Hello Chewett,  I see you are looking for me.  

Finally, I am in my new apartment. It is wonderful. The first night here I felt
a difference, it was easier to breathe, and I even think it was easier to see. I
know that is odd comment but I think I will stick with it. NO BLACK MOLD

I am tired, very tired. I wish it was a better time of year to move.
One night I moved furniture, the temperature was 12 degrees Fahrenheit, and my fingers were so
cold I could not feel them and had to stop to warm up. It was worth it.

I am amazed. I don't know where to begin. There is more to this story, this Adventure Log, that we
will do not see now. There are three more players who had a big part in the story.
You read the beginning of the Adventure Log and assume it is all that there is to the Adventure.

This game, this world, is unique. I live in the Eastern part of the United States, my time is different
than, lets say-- Peace, I rarely see her awake, is that because she is not here? I don't think so.
Chewett, I see awake less often. And I know they are very active in game. There are High School,
University, and work schedules to attend to. The three others in this AL, who, as of now will not be
read about, live in their time zones.

The AL is not bound to only those that were in the Adventure, their story transpired, it is a history of
the new land.

It seems we are a culture. I am reminded of a term from my Cultural Anthropology class, Ethnocentrism.

very nice, and i love the ferrier.

I agree with Grido. and of course with Seigheart. Seigheart, it is the way you stated your concerns.
Do 'we' know why Abra is on GG? What is the history behind his being kept there? What is his history even?

these are questions to look into perhaps?

I will try to be at meeting, but my schedule does not always allow me freedom to do as I want.

Congratulations,


*cringes at the do not feed after midnight suggestion*

All in fun. Enjoy

I was passing by the park today, and this is what I found :
[attachment=4102:1.png]
the sparring grounds. Empty. And a new player over there, she/he must be wondering 'okay... umm where is everyone?'
just thought I'd let you know...

Please do not take small pits of what i said. I was not here in the time of RPC's and GM don't blame me for not wanting a change.

These are just examples. i have atleast 10 ideas that i'd love to have implemented but i keep my mouth shut because in the end they are just restrictions upon restrictions.


Edit:

Also i'm not against all that has changed in my time. Ressuces and tools for example are wonderful. Just the overall tendency feels to be towards making it a "second life"

Congratulations Awiiya.

It was many months ago that you planted the four seedlings for me to water while you went away for the summer. You were/are always
thinking of ways to 'plant seeds' of ideas, and to bring them to fruit.
With your new position I see it as a wonderful way to help continue the growth of the realm which is one of your strong desires.

See you at Awiiya's Way...

Congratulations Awiiya.

It was many months ago that you planted the four seedlings for me to water while you went away for the summer. You were/are always
thinking of ways to 'plant seeds' of ideas, and to bring them to fruit.
With your new position I see it as a wonderful way to help continue the growth of the realm which is one of your strong desires.

See you at Awiiya's Way...

Congratulations Awiiya.

It was many months ago that you planted the four seedlings for me to water while you went away for the summer. You were/are always
thinking of ways to 'plant seeds' of ideas, and to bring them to fruit.
With your new position I see it as a wonderful way to help continue the growth of the realm which is one of your strong desires.

See you at Awiiya's Way...

This puts me in a somewhat awkward place.

I feel disappointed that the Council could not make an in game meeting, but their reasoning seems believable, and I do agree that a number of people would use it exclusively to determine their identities. I am willing to compromise on that. You addressed the issue at hand, which is what I most wanted.

Even though I still find anonymity distasteful, I will continue to maintain a degree of trust in Mur's original judgment and the Council's ongoing one.

There remains many questions that I would like answered and still consider critical to the realm's understanding of the Council, for instance, how many members and what current projects are rated most highly, but this new role perhaps puts me in a place to find and share the answers to those questions.

I remain as I was before unsatisfied with the Council and believe that a better job could be done, but it would be idiotic of me to turn down the position they offer, mainly because it puts me in a position to fix a good number of my issues: communication being the foremost. Creativity, it seems, is again crippled by coding, but that may find a solution sooner or later too.

I will say this upfront: I am human, and I will fail you at some point or another. I ask that when I do fail you, tell me, so that next time I can fail better.

So, I will accept this position and channel my burning desire to improve the realm into it. This is not an end to the Council-needs-change movement, it's a beginning.

[b]How I look in this role[/b]:
How to reach me:
1. I am available in game primarily, on most nights around 7:00 game time give or take a few hours, and available through messages, which will be replied to within a day unless I'm away on a vacation. It should be a no-brainer where to find me, I don't move. I regret that there's a gate that has such a high Action Point cost, but there's little I can do about that.
2. A forum message is a backup, but I would encourage you to find me in game. Who knows, you may have some fun. Remember fun?
3. YIM, email, etc. are not appropriate means of communicating with me. Those who have my YIM may continue to talk to me as usual (which... by usual I mean the barely ever you contact me), but I won't respond to requests related to this role. Apologies.

The information:
1. I will share whatever the Council provides me either in person, in message, or on the forum in the public board. I will not hoard or reserve information for myself. Those who know me know that I promote transparency, and seldom shirk a question.
2. I imagine that Chewett will open up a forum board so that I can carry out the updates that the Council asked for.

This changes little about my current role and function, i.e. expect that I remain a somewhat insane philosopher on the edge of the realm who will confuse you often.

But in communicating with the Council I will be clear and precise. That, I think, you all deserve.

And let's see if this lumbering beast can't be streamlined a little (read: a lot).

Awi

[quote name='awiiya' timestamp='1339712908' post='114806']
I'm not necessarily 100% sure of One Leader to Rule Them All. What I like most about the idea, however, is that it gives us a central point to go to and talk with. And it allows us to give feedback in a far more manageable way. We don't currently have that.
[/quote]
Yeah, its much more useful if we can all go to complain to one single person... i wouldnt want to be that person because that would be hell. See my point RE rendril...


[quote name='awiiya' timestamp='1339712908' post='114806']
How more efficiency - appoint someone to communicate with.
[/quote]
That says more paperwork to me lol. you essentially force someone to deal with the public, all the time. Have fun

[quote name='awiiya' timestamp='1339712908' post='114806']
How more creativity - appoint someone in the realm whose job it is to be fun and imaginative. Give them free reign. Let them be public, it's good to have characters that are in front of the scenes. Ask us.
[/quote]
Its all well and good saying "yeah we know what to do" I can claim that council needs to work on angiens and bring X Y Z into play. But the thing is that not everything can be done right away.

I really like the Development Focus threads because it gives us a chance to properly say "we would like X to be done first" because there isnt the time to do everything.

What about we, publically, appoint someone to collect ideas, and plans things together, and who relays these to the council? Personally i would think that they will be swamped with all interesting and cool ideas, none of which can be made because of time constraints.

How many of you honestly issue personal requests to council asking for this and that? Maebius mentions it. I was always under the impression that asking for personal stuff was considered bad form for Mur, and therefore iv applied it to council. But knowing people, i would bet numerous emails will still be asking for X and Y stuff.

Again, it falls back to, how much time do council have, and how are they currently using it, feedback is nice council

[quote name='awiiya' timestamp='1339712908' post='114806']
And yes. I do think it's a good idea for the Council to answer questions on the spot. It's not like we'll be asking them to decide the future of MD. More like, Who are you. What do you do. Do you see what we hate?
[/quote]

Whats the reasoning for "on the spot" answers? I see little use of them, apart from trying to "trick" them into revealing themselves, by saying some form of personal information that reveals who they are.

I can see a conversation saying, "yes we are watching" and pretymuch ending there, i dont really see what you want to ask. I personalyl want more information about waht they do, and what they are spending time doing. If X is taking a lot of their time, then we as a public could say "yeah just send offensive messages to everyone asking for personal requests" or something along that line.


[quote name='apophys' timestamp='1339720616' post='114814']
Note that Mur being away might be partly an experiment to see how MD handles itself for the most part; to see whether his brainchild has grown independent enough yet. I suspect that Mur may be trying to make MD self-sustaining and, more importantly, self-evolving without his input being necessary.[/quote]

Mur being away was not planned by Mur. End of discussion.

[quote name='apophys' timestamp='1339720616' post='114814']
Replacing the council with anything without knowing the full extent of their duties is a [b]very[/b] bad idea. They are doing their job, slow and unpopular as it may be, it gets done. Anything new may not do it at all.
However, something must be done to fix the issues at hand.
[/quote]

Si, without knowing what they do, its relatively hard to judge if they are doing it badly. Its very easy to say someone is doing a bad job, when you are ignorant of what they do. You may say, for example, that chewett is very slow with doing forum related changes. But you might not know that i also handle forum backups, hosting details including talking with them, Skin modifications to fix forum related bugs, adding/removing features that invision decide need or dont need to be in it, run the wikia as a representative to wikia.com, and manage md-archives on the admin side, and make backups for it. Not to mention the various works that needs to be just done as the forum admin such as banning and other parts.

There is no one really that can judge what im doing, since no one else knows how long i spend on it, and such.

[quote name='apophys' timestamp='1339720616' post='114814']
As a first step, we need to get the council to sit down and talk.
A discussion, in game or on the forum, is absolutely necessary to gather information about the situation at hand. For this, the council needs a permanent representative, even if this representative remains anonymous and is unable to make any promises or decisions. Master of Ceremonies would do for now, but probably not permanently.
[/quote]

again, people seem to think a "representative" is a good idea, maybe it is, who wants to be spammed to death.

Personally, i think awiyya would be an interesting rep, since they would be dealing with a tonn of rubbish. Although, my only concern in "nominating" them as forum rep, is that the timezone is bad for the majority of people, where most MD's are in EU time-zones.

[quote name='apophys' timestamp='1339720616' post='114814']
[b]I suggest that we also elect a representative for the talks[/b], so that the council representative is not swamped with questions from all sides. And we need to make a list of topics that our representative would bring up in talks.
[/quote]

An organiser, whome runs the event is a good idea, not someone speaks for everyone... need o say game manager again?

[quote name='Kyphis the Bard' timestamp='1339749381' post='114831']
I'd assume whoever the council nominates as their mouthpiece (if they choose just one person, they do have the option of discarding annonymity as a whole, remember) that whoever they choose would become nothing But the mouthpiece.

ie still part of the council, in that they get all the correspondance, but they no longer get to make any decisions of their own in council matters.

Logically, I would assume they just get whoever is doing the job of forum mouthpiece to extend the role into MD >.>
But that is just me <.<

All that said, from my interaction with the council I strongly suspect that it is organized so that certain types of tasks are handled by individuals. So it isn't necessarily the whole council that isn't working right.
[/quote]

again, we dont really know how the council works, a meeting or post to at least explain a few things to us would be nice. I dont really care which format its in, just information is wanted by us peasants lol

[quote name='Chewett' timestamp='1339431302' post='114354']

I now sit at GoC, dead. I don't have any time to roleplay some event to revive myself, and I will not be paying anyone to revive myself. Death to someone who doesn't roleplay means only that either the community will roleplay for them, and the gods will deem them worthy to be brought back, or that they pay.

Clearly in spars case, he couldn't pay, and sadly I didn't see too much action for the roleplay so he faded away.

This is entirely stupid, there needs to be more mechanics so that people who have died, have some way to be reborn that isnt paying someone an extortionate amount of coin or roleplay that isn't guaranteed to work. When Mur gave out revival items, it was obvious that they would slowly move to the highest bidders, those who would keep them for themselves. The "normal" person has little chance to be revived by an item, unless they have friends that hold said items. Death seems unfinished, especially when it is exceptionally hard for someone to be revived. In Spar's you just tell him to go away, he cant play MD anymore.

Many of you wont have bothered to listen to spar, But hopefully someone is going to listen to what im saying. Quite simply, I'm just going to wait, I don't have time to do any roleplay to save me currently, nor will i be wasting my coin buying the use of a revival item. Lets see if I last longer than Spar until some change happens in MD.

[/quote]


As far as I understand it, Many did not want to help Spartiatis because he went so long without trying to do anything to help himself. So with you doing the same, what makes you think your "life" is more valuable than his? Especially if you are going to do nothing to help yourself just as he had done. And pretending not to care about being killed, that it was a cool thing to add to the game after you were even seen cursing like a sailor, breaking rules doing so, in the mood panel and even saying here that this is stupid... Seems a bit confusing to me. Again, you don't decide to go against something unless it involves you personally.

I am completely ignoring the fact that the alliances were removed. It has happened, i feel we should all move on.

However, i do feel the rule is incorrect and that it should be changed.

I shall be opening this poll, i shall also be writing to the council with the results of the poll and asking them to consider removing Murs Rule, I do not think it fits.

The poll does not specify if the rule should have the number changed, But whether the concept of disbanding alliances based on member count.

Please vote on this matters and do not turn this into a "return X alliance back" thread. What has happened has happened. Both alliances were started to be "hibernated" so there is a chance to regain them if we, the community, wants to. But we should speak out and say we do not feel a rule should be applied.

I am sorry to see you resigned Princ Rhaegar.
come run through the land with me.
Explore the land again with new eyes.

[color=#0000cd]Split from [/color][url="http://magicduel.invisionzone.com/topic/12348-skill-damage-block/"][color=#0000cd]here[/color][/url][color=#0000cd] ~Burns[/color]

no lone wolf... point is only elite will be able to win shield from skill dmg, meanin they will be able to keep up trainin

ya are distributin shield in same manner as skill dmg, thats biggest problem (in addition to others i already said in previous post), it will all finish where on eon, or some other lucky winner who is also one of top fighters soz i dunt see point in that

and no again, everybody can beat anybody is nut called spells, its called usin creats in smart way by anticipatin wut defender is usin and then usin yoar brain wut to use against him, this concept is lost since stats became ubber high and when ya combine them with tokens good auras and uber creats, ya created unbeatable rit

yeah i am also against idea of buyin stats from shop thats idiotic imo, and they increase by percentage... even worse, thing is nobody complained that ya can buy shitload of ve attack and def, why? cuz everybody wants to use that option one day when they think they are ready and get few dozen million of stats over night and hopefully bypass eon, and hit the roof of sky with their head, why i didnt complained, well idc actually just sayin how things are, if folks like it like that then np idc really cuz i dunt fight anyways

if ya ask me, md needs to get rid of stats and rework whole combat system from scratch, md needs one new dev just for that (which md cant afford), and need to implement new ideas that aint affect with stupid numbers, i dunt understand why every game sooner or later has to fall on that: hey lets raise our number value in "damage" then lets raise this up too..... etc etc and we are pro, i hate that kind of approach, the reason why almost all games use that kind of system is becoz its easy to implement, its finished solution, ya dunt have to think much, since implementin system that is both fair to veterancy of fightin and to be balanced while nut usin some stat crap is very hard, well ya can notice that it cant really be done, but ya must that md initially was set towards that path with some quazi-stat system, back then stats didnt mattered ya had some it helped ya but nut much and that was point, mur never anticiapted they would grow up so much, and thats problem, and also addin other things that effect combat like items, spells and tokens well it makes things worse and its too late to go back and fix things up on way they were intended to be, back then spell were oke they were this op as today, but today they are and they need to be cuz of all other stuff that is scalin up, but still they aint good solution to balance things up, which is obvious

anyway back on topic, by implementin this shield of yoars, we could say yeah its oke we solved problem of stat dmg (read up wut i think about stats....and ignore it for this paragraph since atm i am writin in ideal situation thats nuw actual and from yoar point of view) but then ya would have ppl still complainin and sayin stuff, then they would get reply: "win bhc earn shield", and then the angry poster would reply back and say how the heck am i supposed to win bhc to guard myself from skill dmg if i cant train up stats high enough in first place to win it, so seeeee this aint fixin problem but rather makin it even deeper

but as i said, skill dmg is there to lower down stats to reasonable levels they were meant to be, but skill dmg aint doin its work succesfully, since acquirin stats is still much higher, and eon is immune to it, it can only slow down others from gainin stats

all this talk about skill dmg, while actual problem are stats

point of stats (i am repeatin myself) is to act as small bonus for fightin veterancy (or dedication towards it), its nut meant to be ultimate tool for destruction

imo very good solution to all this would be to make base multipliers for each stats used in combat (init, power, luck, att, def) and then make relative system which would compare amount of stats two confronted players have and then make ratio which would be multiplied with base multipliers (which are same for all) and then add those relative stats in combat and use them instead, so if somebody has 10 times more attack for example and if multiplier is for att is 10, then ya get 10 att for that fight, and he gets 100, simple as that, it would make ya stronger in fight so yoar trainin wasnt for nuthin, but it still would be the ALFA&OMEGA of whole fight, ofc there needs to be exceptions for cases such as player with 10mil att attacks dude with 10 att that would make first one still get insane amount of stats in actual fight, so it should have some exception to it

redesign of system like i proposed in last paragraph would solve many things, but thing that ya propose would just add another thing into system that is already crowded and wouldnt solve anythin, current combat system doesnt need new counterbalances, IT NEEDS TO GET REDESIGNED

There are several threads concerning BHC currently on these forums. They have some overlap and to make some points in these threads I’m tempted to argument things that’d make them go off topic. In an attempt to avoid this, I have written the following here:

The general consensus appears to be that BHC Is a contest for the ‘elite fighters’ as a display of skill and strength. I’d assume the aim of participants ought to be to win. As a side note I like to think it’s supposed to be fun.

Let’s first have a look at the fighting part. Back in the day having to get a victory was introduced to make it more challenging (Ann. 395). Through time the challenge has become smaller and smaller, angiens, unholy priests and tokens have resulted in the stronger players simply being able to crush the weaker ones and get a victory out of it. The ritual I personally use I’d also be likely to use in a tournament or torch contest in outgoing fights for the best chance at beating my opponent. Those that are weaker than the one they’re attacking generally use mirrorritual which enables an easy victory. Frankly through, there’s not a lot of fighting going on.

So what does happen? Well other than the spells being thrown about making people unable to attack or attack the way they intend there’s a lot of movement. Back when I participated in the normal HC what you’d do if someone took your heads is either hit them back right away or wait. There wasn’t that many places they could go and if you waited you might be able to take the more efficient path. They’d never get that far as AP counts were low as well as other people going for the heads. Now, it’s different though. Because of certain items and high max AP counts, people don’t run out easily. Assuming two players click at the same rate, you’ll need to chase to the end of the map to have a shot at catching up. This is not a huge problem with people hiding in Golemus or Loreroot as they are essentially a circle and you could catch up from either side with multiple contestants. Necrovion is a bit harder but manageable.

The edge of the map is a long way with the current size of it. Most of the new scenes available are located in the tribunal. They have high AP cost and it takes a long time to get through the tribunal even if you use all the consumables you can produce. There is one exception to this: People with tribunal land loyalty. With enough of this they can go all over with barely any AP limitations. This makes it near impossible to catch someone who does have plenty of land loyalty there. The difference in AP cost is just too big even if you were to chase with several people.

As for the rewards, personally I’m not really willing to put in effort for the difference between first and second place. Don’t get me wrong I’d love to have a BHC medal and an extra morph for the collection does look fancy. However, I considered skilldamage a downside to winning first place, a price you have to pay. Second place offers a tainted, which is worth roughly the same as a morph according to recent sales, is a lot less effort and the BHC medal versus the skilldamage is a close call. In addition to this I don’t really find BHC in its current setup enjoyable.

Why don’t I have fun in this contest? It’s boring. There’s hardly any action, head balls get picked up and shipped off to remote locations, if you approach the location the people there have an advantage and are gone before you get there. When you get the heads, all you can do is sit somewhere and wait for people to come for you. You can’t hunt heads because you’d enter territory with high viscosity making you run out of AP and turning you into a sitting duck. I don’t find it enjoyable to merely be able to refresh my screen every 15 seconds or so to see rather someone is moving towards me. The contest is way too long to be able to maintain that as well. It will take a long time before anyone hits 400k. On top of the value difference between first and second place in my opinion is so small, I’m rather content to just pick up second. Currently, I appear to be able to do this while hanging about MDP.

BHC has become a test of endurance; most people can’t compete because they lack the creatures or spells. Amongst the remaining there’s hardly anyone finding it enjoyable and for the time required to be invested should it really be a competition the rewards are lacklustre. BHC is currently merely grinding higher return than your investment. A test of endurance. It should, however, not be mistaken for a contest of strength or skill.



[color=#808080][size=2]I’d appreciate people out to discuss certain specific points in detail to open a new topic and avoid derailing this one.

Should you have need for clarification on what I’m trying to say, a PM would be preferable to a post as it avoids cluttering the topic and makes it easier to read. If needed I will edit the clarification into this post.[/size][/color]

Find Sunfire, I gave him the code for your Avatar. I do not want credits or items.

I guess it's better to have 20 persistent mp4s than 2 active mp5s and 18 that went inactive due to the slaughter and skill damage that is present on mp5.

It takes quite a determined guy/gal to come young to mp5, see that Eon is always awake and everywhere, and press on fighting, nursing combat skills despite the fear of going idle in the open due certain stat loss. The most common results would be either abandoning combat or abandoning the game itself.

Find a balance to encourage people to get to mp5 and stay on mp5, rather than focus on the most determined bunch of people. MD needs some "2-clickers" as well.

I don't think I've seen MD more dead than now... Subject to ponder on.

There is a very simple thing called life. Life its not complicated, its very simple.
The things that cause it, are too complex to fully understand. It might be the counter balance of an infinite, and dead, universe. It might be a coincidence, or whatever..
Its results are also complex...but can be described by one word .."consciousness".
Of course life means much more, but "consciousness" is "everything" ..and i am to tired to detail what i mean.


I was contemplating something recently, and i realized that a very simple and obvious thing came as a conclusion to a series of unsolvable issues and troubles. I want to share with you this simple finding. All of you probably realize it, but maybe if I am the one to say it allover again, you will put more value on it.


How do you define a good life? Is it by its length? By its intensity? By how happy you are? by what you accomplish during it?
hmm..

the natural answer is that the value of life is a sum of all that.

Its pointless to live a long and "stable" life where nothing happens. It is like "surviving" life, preserving yourself for when death comes. Its also pointless to live a dangerous life and die young, you will miss a lot of thing you could have experienced otherwise. There are some cue points in life, like "love" and "achievements". I will skip the details because you all know what i mean.


I truly believe that the value of life is defined by how you find that balance of how to live "fully" and at the same time not to shorten your life too much while doing so. I also believe that "life" is a shared thing. my life is your life and your life is my life sort of thing. We are all "one". In this sense, the value of life is shared with those we get in contact with. We are defiend also by how the others see us, not only by how we actually are. Thats why "achievements" are important, they are landmarks for others to remember.

We all die. Even the universe dies. It matters how powerful, in feelings, we lived our life.

[b]The 'moment' beats eternity.[/b]