10 ******** Questions

[Prince Caspian]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....

1 - Is there going to be another phase of turn-in? Or is this it?
2 - How many real days until a boat collapses?
3 - I could swear there were once places that were "hot spots" for MiBs fish-ups. No luck on any of them lately. Was this ever the case?
4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you?
5 - I have 120 Healing and Anatomy. Do the enhanced bandies really do anything more for me?
6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?
7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?
8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father.
9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood....
10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear?

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....

1 - Is there going to be another phase of turn-in? Or is this it?
2 - How many real days until a boat collapses?
3 - I could swear there were once places that were "hot spots" for MiBs fish-ups. No luck on any of them lately. Was this ever the case?
4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you?
5 - I have 120 Healing and Anatomy. Do the enhanced bandies really do anything more for me?
6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?
7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?
8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father.
9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood....
10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear?

1.
NO
7. EE's can be controlled and are harder to dispell and can be healed by the mage.
10. Yes for the arty. Dont know abou the chest.
4. Yes perma hide. I have had a characture hiding for 927 days.

 

[Skylark SP]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....
6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?

I "farm" scroll vendors at times. They all start at 20 scrolls, and if you purchase all of them, in 15 or 20 min or so when they spawn again, they double the amount. They continue this pattern until they reach 999 scrolls...if no one keeps buying them at 999, the next respawn is 20 again

7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?

Can't speak for others, but I prefer to use earth ellies because they go where I tell them to, and because I can control 2 at a time and still ride my ostard. *edit* I think they made earth ellies take 3 control slots a good while back - I always have a pack animal with me these days so I am not sure you can even control 2 earth ellies at a time now - but at least you can control them, whereas an energy vortex just randomly wanders and kills stuff. I recall energy vortexes being a problem when doing stuff with reds that were not in your guild/alliance.

-Skylark

 

[Lord Drakelord]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....

1 - Is there going to be another phase of turn-in? Or is this it?
No clue till they say something at uo.com.

2 - How many real days until a boat collapses?
not sure, but we lost an entire fleet when our cable was down for 5 days
3 - I could swear there were once places that were "hot spots" for MiBs fish-ups. No luck on any of them lately. Was this ever the case?
man if you fine it, record the location!!!

4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you?
don't move, yes, reveal~ well depends on some luck there

5 - I have 120 Healing and Anatomy. Do the enhanced bandies really do anything more for me?
only person in our group that using them is the pallys, as for 120 skills no idea.

6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?
When you go around and shop for blanks, the first run will be 20, when you reture to that shop say 15, or 20 minutes later, there will be 40 on that NPC, 15-20 minutes later ~ 80, 15-20 minutes later ~ 160 etc..

7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?
EVs get depel most times quicker where EEs can get a few more hits in.
8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father.
Peace or discord tamers are still around, normal bards are rare, I have a prov that I am also training discord on, you have seen her at Doom.

9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood....
you need to join Tiger's quest for that tree, {PAS inside joke}.

10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear?
I have seen people get arties off paragons that I helped bring down and I got nothing, but the very next one we killed, I get an arty they got nothing, so I am assuming its a rate of kills. As for the chests, there is percent of REAL luck that a chest will spawn on a paragon, I been out with a high luck suit and saw no chests, yet a char with no luck in game can fine one.

My answers are above.

 

[Sarphus]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....

1 - Is there going to be another phase of turn-in? Or is this it?
2 - How many real days until a boat collapses?
3 - I could swear there were once places that were "hot spots" for MiBs fish-ups. No luck on any of them lately. Was this ever the case?
4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you?
5 - I have 120 Healing and Anatomy. Do the enhanced bandies really do anything more for me?
6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?
7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?
8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father.
9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood....
10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear?

1. unlikely

2. < 30 days lol

3. probably, but it also probably died along with 8x8

4. Passive detection occurs only when you are stealthing.

5. I think they do

6. already answered by others

7. EE are harder to dispel and hit for physical damage. EE hit harder, but for energy damage

8. Other stuff became more powerful than it was... bards stayed the same. they're still quite powerful if you play them right, though. Also, they are unexpected. I killed a pk with provoke a couple of months ago. He was probably wondering why every time he got near the greater dragons, they all started attacking him even though he had run off screen and invis'd

9. Somewhat... I don't do it.

10. As I understand it, top damager's luck is applied. Everyone in the group can loot a chest if it spawns. If an arty drops, it is randomly distributed to someone in the party. THat could be wrong, though.

 

[Ni-]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....
6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?

I "farm" scroll vendors at times. They all start at 20 scrolls, and if you purchase all of them, in 15 or 20 min or so when they spawn again, they double the amount. They continue this pattern until they reach 999 scrolls...if no one keeps buying them at 999, the next respawn is 20 again

With each spawn they are doubled or halved. If they are all bought then the next spawn the quantity is doubled(max of 999). If non are bought then the next spawn the quantity is halved(min of 20, I believe). So if noone buys them at 999, the next spawn should be 499 or 500.

7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?

Can't speak for others, but I prefer to use earth ellies because they go where I tell them to, and because I can control 2 at a time and still ride my ostard. *edit* I think they made earth ellies take 3 control slots a good while back - I always have a pack animal with me these days so I am not sure you can even control 2 earth ellies at a time now - but at least you can control them, whereas an energy vortex just randomly wanders and kills stuff. I recall energy vortexes being a problem when doing stuff with reds that were not in your guild/alliance.

-Skylark

EVs and EEs are both 2 control slots each. You can have 2 out and ride a mount at the same time, but you could not also have a packy at the same time.

 

[love2winalot]

I want to add my question. Why does siege not let you sell stuff to Npc's? What is the point of killing stuff, and having to leave the crappy armor/weapons on the corps, instead of being able to sell it at the provisioner shop? Yea, All it does is increase the time it takes to get gold. If you can not sell it, then why even have it spawn on them in the first place?

 

[Ni-]

I want to add my question. Why does siege not let you sell stuff to Npc's? What is the point of killing stuff, and having to leave the crappy armor/weapons on the corps, instead of being able to sell it at the provisioner shop? Yea, All it does is increase the time it takes to get gold. If you can not sell it, then why even have it spawn on them in the first place?

Well, NPCs don't buy stuff to make the shard a vet/difficult shard. The stuff still spawns on Mobs because that would require more code. More Code could lead to more bugs.

 

[Tina Small]

My answers to some of your questions below:

4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you? Being hidden through use of the hiding skill doesn't wear off like being hidden through use of the invisibility spell or an invisibility potion will. I believe there are different rules for passive detection and detecting through use of detect hidden skill and reveal spell in Trammel vs. Fel, so if you are worried about being detected by other players you have much more to worry about in Fel than you do in Trammel.

6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen? The quantities of blank scrolls sold by NPCs doubles progressively (up to 999) in much the same way as reagents do. Don't forget that in addition to mages, blank scrolls are also sold by scribes, real estate agents, and mapmakers. Timing for replenishing stocks seems to differ by type of NPC, and mapmakers seem to be particularly slow at replenishing the supply of blank scrolls they sell.

7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this? As others have stated, they are easier to control and sometimes are just a better choice in a particular situation, based on the damage they dish out compared to EVs.

8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father. I've got peace tamers on a few shards and love using them to go out and explore some of the nastier areas in the game (e.g., just to see what's there or to mark runes) and their peacemaking skills come in handy when taming aggressive monsters or for holding off a monster or two if my pet's getting in over its head. I avoid routinely peacing what my pet's killing though because it seems to affect the pet's skill gains and it nullifies honoring a monster before killing it. I've also been experimenting with putting music and peacemaking skills on my miner/lumberjack characters to make it easier for them to do resource gathering in areas with monster spawn. I'm also experimenting with building a thief/lockpick character that's also a bard. Haven't decided yet whether it will work or if I'll just end up soulstoning the stealing and putting on cartography instead.


9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood.... You CAN still find trees that give frostwood, heartwood, bloodwood, and yew. So far, I've had my best luck finding them by lumberjacking as large an area as possible and marking whatever good trees I find and then visiting those trees over and over again for the next few days/weeks. Repeat the exploratory lumberjacking session every other week or so or as needed when the previously marked spots change the type of wood they yield.

10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear? Not sure on the formula for getting Ilshenar type arties and whether it's different from the Treasures of Tokuno formula used for the 10th anniversary artifacts or for Doom arties. I am pretty sure that if an Ilshenar-type paragon drops a chest as loot, there's only one dropped per paragon. Have never heard of more than one non-partied individual getting a chest from the same paragon.

 

[Lord Kotan]

1 - Is there going to be another phase of turn-in? Or is this it?

I've heard, unoffically, This is the last phase..

2 - How many real days until a boat collapses?

I believe it's 7 days

3 - I could swear there were once places that were "hot spots" for MiBs fish-
ups. No luck on any of them lately. Was this ever the case?

I used to fish.. I never noticed hot spots.

4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you?

Permanently hidden

5 - I have 120 Healing and Anatomy. Do the enhanced bandies really do anything more for me?

They add +10 to healing and vet. You have to have room for it to benifit you. If you are at 100 healing and use them, you have to have 110 cap to see the effect. At 110 healing, and 110 cap, there is no effect. It only effects heal amount, I don't believe it actually increases your chance to, say rez.

6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?

Someone else bought the scrolls up? and they are currently decaying?

7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?

EEs are harder to dispel. At DF, EEs take the heat off of dexxors sometimes. EEs have more HP I believe. You can command EEs

8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father.

There are just much better ways to kill stuff now than slow voke; when sometimes you only got a 20-40% chance. It might take you 20-50s at that rate!

9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood....

I still LJ... Not really for color wood, as for every 60k normal logs you get.. you get 500-1000 bloodwood, forst wood, heartwood (each).

10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear?

1 in 8 chance for it to drop... then it rolls to see what player gets it.

 

[Llams Anit]

My answers to some of your questions below:

9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood.... You CAN still find trees that give frostwood, heartwood, bloodwood, and yew. So far, I've had my best luck finding them by lumberjacking as large an area as possible and marking whatever good trees I find and then visiting those trees over and over again for the next few days/weeks. Repeat the exploratory lumberjacking session every other week or so or as needed when the previously marked spots change the type of wood they yield.

Yes follow this person into the woods to find your frostwood and that's only after 3.5 hours

 

[Tina Small]

My other post reports the amounts of various types of wood gathered in 3 1/2 hours. It doesn't say it took 3 1/2 hours to find a tree that gives frostwood. I think I found the one tree mentioned therein about an hour after I started looking and I went back to it 2-3 times during those 3 1/2 hours. It was still yielding frostwood logs as of last night, but never gives more than 20 or 30 logs at a time.

 

[RavenWinterHawk]

My other post reports the amounts of various types of wood gathered in 3 1/2 hours. It doesn't say it took 3 1/2 hours to find a tree that gives frostwood. I think I found the one tree mentioned therein about an hour after I started looking and I went back to it 2-3 times during those 3 1/2 hours. It was still yielding frostwood logs as of last night, but never gives more than 20 or 30 logs at a time.

Kudos to you for putting in the effort.
And showing it works.

Actually never thought you could mine the trees for a while before they poofed.

How many would you say you can get from a tree of frostwood before the tree goes?

 

[Tina Small]

Actually never thought you could mine the trees for a while before they poofed.

How many would you say you can get from a tree of frostwood before the tree goes?

Honestly, I don't know, Raven. I've been tapping this one tree for frostwood one or two times a day now for about a week and so far have gotten 380 frostwood boards from it. It's in Trammel, so I'm guessing the yield might have been double that if it was in Felucca.

Have been doing the same for the yew, heartwood and bloodwood trees I found in that same 3 1/2 hour search. Am down to only 9 yew spots, 4 bloodwood, 2 heartwood and 1 frostwood location. But the yield after a week of hitting each of the original spots that are still good (a couple seem to change each day to another type of wood) once or twice a day is 7660 yew, 2330 bloodwood, 1430 heartwood, and 380 frostwood. I'll probably try to do a long lumberjacking session on that shard this weekend and see if I can find some new trees to get through another week or two of just hitting the "good" trees.

It works the same for mining...you find a good ore spot and mark a rune and then keep visiting it until it runs out. I try to wait at least an hour between visits, but am not sure how much that helps. There have also been some theories that mining or lumberjacking a spot until it gives no more ore/wood on that visit makes the good stuff dry up. I haven't found that to be the case, though. I always mine all the ore or take all the wood from the spot and then try it again later. Haven't bothered yet to try to keep track of how much I've gotten from any particular spot because it's impossible to tell if I'm the first, subsequent, or only visitor to that spot.

 

[Emil Ispep]

Indulge the forum ignoramus, folks....

1 - Is there going to be another phase of turn-in? Or is this it?
2 - How many real days until a boat collapses?
3 - I could swear there were once places that were "hot spots" for MiBs fish-ups. No luck on any of them lately. Was this ever the case?
4 - Does a successful use of the Hide skill keep you permanently hidden as long as you dont move or nobody reveals you?
5 - I have 120 Healing and Anatomy. Do the enhanced bandies really do anything more for me?
6 - When I pop around collecting parchments (Mage shops) it is almost always 20 blanks for sale. But every once in a while there will be 500 or so. What are the circumstances that let that happen?
7 - I notice some mages using EEs instead of EVs. What are the advantages of this?
8 - What happened to Bards? I used to see them all the time a few years back and they pretty much owned spawns. Nowadays they seem rare, other than Discording a baddie or provoking on a Dark Father.
9 - Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood....
10 - When a paragon is brought down by a group, does everyone have the official determination chance of an arty (ie 1 in 8 for a para balron, etc)? Also, if a chest appears, is there only one, or can several appear?

1.> No phase 4. Only 3. However, i accept tickets for ale.
2.> Same timer as an IDOC.. except boats decay from placement.. i forget, 10-11 days or somthing like that?
3.> For me, fishing has always been hit or miss. Some days ill fish up 7 pearls in a few hours.. other days not one..
4.> Yes. Timers only on the spell, and potions i believe..
5.> Dont think so.. i think they just give a skill bonus, but your maxxed. I thought they were supposed to heal more damage too.. dunno though..
6.> Once you buy everything an NPC vendor has to offer, when he re-stocks, he has double. 20 to 40, 40 to 80, 80 to 160... and so on. Caps at 999.
7.> Think the Earth eles do more phys damage? Not entirely sure.. i use EVs since they dont need commands.
8.> Bard tamers.. hmm check destard.. or better yet, HAVEN.
9.> 100% lbj = 20% DmI w/ an axe... i think it was 20%.. but you def need SSI on the axe.
10.> I always thought the artys from the paras drop by chance. But then again im not entirely sure if they drop to the person(s) who do the most damage?

 

[Garaba]

Number 10

when dealing with paragon loot this is what happens.

Everyone has their own chance for a minor arty drop. Everyone gets the same base chance of getting the artifact, no matter how many people get rights. The base chance is modified by the persons own luck, not the top damage dealer.

I almost forgot, if 2 or more people get an arti, it will be the same arti.

The chest is spawned once the creature becomes a paragon. It happens moments after its spawned. The chest is randomly assigned when the corpse is instanced.

 

[Specialshoes]

Durnit you just made the FOF for two weeks.

 

[Lariat]

I have had a characture hiding for 927 days.

Camping an "Owned by OSI" IDOC?

 

[Coranthe]

Durnit you just made the FOF for two weeks.

Your math's as bad as Jeremy's! That's at least 4 weeks worth.

 

[Llams Anit]

My other post reports the amounts of various types of wood gathered in 3 1/2 hours. It doesn't say it took 3 1/2 hours to find a tree that gives frostwood. I think I found the one tree mentioned therein about an hour after I started looking and I went back to it 2-3 times during those 3 1/2 hours. It was still yielding frostwood logs as of last night, but never gives more than 20 or 30 logs at a time.

Did I say it took you 3.5 hours to find that frostwood tree? All I did was provide a link to your results in a 3.5 hour period.That's all nothing more....

The OP asked ....Is a lumberjack even worthwhile any more? I mean in the sense that I aimed to use him to gather frostwood
The OP wants to find frostwood and your results showed us what frostwood you found in 3.5

Here is one link for the OP and RavenWinterHawk and here is another for whomever else cares

"Can we go over the spawn rates for the various woods? This came up at the Town Hall - people are complaining that the higher-end woods seem disproportionately rare."

Leurocian and I scoured the lumberjacking and mining code and discovered that the spawn rate for Frostwood is 1% (as intended.) We couldn't find any bugs or inconsistencies that would make it spawn any less - it's marginally more rare than Valorite, but we're talking four tenths of a percent more rare. The other rare woods are 2%, 3%, and 5% as intended.

However.

There is a factor that could make Frostwood harder to gather. It's kind of twisted, so bear with me. See, each 8x8 area has a finite amount of resources - be it ore or wood. The amount is comparable between mining and lumberjacking, but there is a critical difference. Each swing of the axe nets you 10 wood, whereas each swing of the pick nets you at most 2 metal. This means you can drain a node in fewer attempts in lumberjacking than in mining.

Why does this matter? Because you're not guaranteed colored resources each swing - you have a 40% (or 60% if you're elven) chance to get colored wood or ore with each swing. If you take fewer swings, you get fewer chances to get colored wood before the node is dry. If that's one of the 1 in 100 8x8 areas that has Frostwood, you may well get no Frostwood at all. Whereas with mining, you get a lot more chances to get at least some colored ore. This can affect how much colored wood you actually get, and it REALLY affects your perception of how much of the rarer woods there are - you may never know that that was a Frostwood tree, and it may randomize away before you can try it again.

There is a simple solution to this - make Lumberjacking give less wood per chop. Pluses are more chances to get colored wood, comparable to metal, and more chances to get a skill gain. Minuses, well, it just takes more chops to get the same amount of wood. Thoughts? Questions? Let us know!

------------------------------------------------------------------------



"For us learning impaired, what causes a resource field to change? Say, ore zones. Does the zone need to be worked, or is there a chance it will change when it is "refreshed" without it even being touched?"

There are two ways for ore (or wood) zones to refresh: when the zone is mined (not necessarily mined out, just mined,) it has a chance to reroll its resource type. At this point, it sets a timer. After that timer is up, the next time it is mined, it has a chance to reroll again. (The timer prevents it from cycling too fast.) The second way is a general chance that affects the entire subserver, and that is unpredictable - so even if a vein is never mined, it may still switch ore types from time to time.

 

[Dor of Sonoma]

There is a simple solution to this - make Lumberjacking give less wood per chop. Pluses are more chances to get colored wood, comparable to metal, and more chances to get a skill gain. Minuses, well, it just takes more chops to get the same amount of wood. Thoughts? Questions? Let us know!

That's a joke, right?

Right??

Good grief.

 

[Zodiac19]

#5

This from the FoF on Jananuary 25, 2008

"Enhanced Bandages - do they help if you're already at your skill cap," redux:

Leurocian looked over this again, and it turns out while we were partly right, we were also definitely wrong:

"Using enhanced bandages - even if you’re at your healing cap - will affect the amount of hit points healed. Enhanced bandages essentially adds 10 to your healing skill for the purposes of calculating the amount of hit points healed."

What they do NOT do is improve your success chance (say, for resurrection, which is 64% at GM.) So if you're capped out, they do provide a benefit, but it's a very specific benefit.

(Note: if you're NOT at the cap, one other thing enhanced bandages can do is bump you up over the minimum skill requirements for curing poison (60) and resurrecting (80.) You'll have a pretty low success chance, and you won't be able to gain skill from those attempts, but you can try 'em.)

Thanks to Athos for very kindly pointing out that we'd overlooked something

 

[Llams Anit]

That's a joke, right?

Right??

Good grief.

Is it?

 

[Prince Caspian]

Just wanted to post a quick thanks to everyone. You guys never let me down.