Layonara 3.21.2 Patch Release

[darkstorme]

That's not what Gulnyr was saying, Primalfear.  What Gulnyr said was:

Plan for the end product, not the intermediate product, and gather accordingly. Work in smaller batches and use the intermediate supplies you have before you make more and your inventory will not fill up with too much stuff.

In other words, don't have essences on you.  Don't have long staves.  Don't have bolts of cloth, or cloth patterns.  Keep anything with which you intend to craft in its most compact form, so as to avoid clutter.

[Hellblazer]

yes well the problem with that, is that you need those things to craft. And if you don't make them, then you need to get what you need for those, actually creating even more clutter. If by keeping the intermediary things that can not be bought you actually prevent yourself from carrying 3 times the amount of the basic things needed to create the intermediary items, then I think it's actually best to keep them. think of it. To make one essence of cure, you need two green stone dust, one vial and two aloe. Which is causing more load/creating items? The one essence of cure, or the 5 other items?

it's even worse with stave's as you need the branch, then the saw dust, the water bucket, the sand bits, the Arabic gum.. I think you get what I mean.

There is so much that can be asked of the player, but at some point things have to be adjusted. It was adjusted with bringing the bank chest to 20, and with the Ox having 40 spaces that is a total of 60, not bad. But just count how many items it will take to make simply 10 moderate potions. And you will see that the 60 space becomes obsolete real quick.

I made a suggestion earlier today for new type of housing areas or npc warehouses, that could help solve a big part of the problem. I think it should be looked into.

[SteveJW]

And I got a new wrinkle for you...breakable tools...

Everyone...yes everyone...has at least 3 or more of the same tool in case the one they use breaks.

I myself carry at least 5 mining picks in my inventory. Each pick takes up 8 inventory spaces. Broke 6 one time in one session. It is time consuming to run out of the tool and have to fight your way back to get replacements. This basically ends the night for someone with limited time.

[Gulnyr]

You have missed the point again.  No one is saying, "Don't make intermediate craft items."  No one is saying, "If you can't play for hours at a time, you should not craft."  You are reading more than is written.  Stop it.

The point is to stop focusing on the Essences and start focusing on the potions.  Jennara crafts a lot of Heal potions, so I'll use that as an example.  With the newly changed recipe, a Heal potion takes two Essences of Healing, four Ginseng Roots, one Bodak Tooth, and one Flask.  All of those are raw ingredients except the Essences, which are each composed of two Purple Mushrooms, two pinches of Sapphire Dust, and one Vial.  Cool, right?

Let's assume Jennara is somewhere on West.  Let's also assume that Jennara has gathered Sapphires previously and has several available (which is something I do sometimes when I have a brief window to play).  Looking at the rest of the ingredients, I can see Bodak Teeth and Ginseng are going to be the limiting factors since they are the least readily available and the most needed ingredient, respectively.  Since the most common location to get Bodak Teeth will let me get two teeth from a single run, I'll plan to make two Heal Potions.  See how I'm focusing on the final product?  Since the quickest Ginseng to gather might not yield eight roots on one go, I'll grab that first, then try for eight Purple Mushrooms, then go for the Bodak Teeth, then come back for Mushrooms and Ginseng if I don't have eight of each.  And if there is more of either than I need, I don't have to take it all and make a mess of my inventory.  So, that's one round trip and leaves me near Hemp for crafting.

Now I can buy four Vials and two Flasks, then grind the Sapphires, then take everything to the alchemy tables to make the four Essences and two Heal Potions.  And when I'm done, I have four Vials and two potions (or four Vials and two Flasks if I rolled bad) and a little Sapphire Dust probably, not a pile of Essences doing me no good and clogging up my inventory along with odd bits of extra CNR.  Plus, I've had a nice trip around Mistone and gotten to have some fun.

I craft on a regular basis; that is how I spend the majority of the time I'm logged in.  I have had and do have times when I have little time to play.  I have not always had storage space to keep crafting supplies.  I have always crafted in small batches and I have never felt that I was not making progress just because I could not make thirty attempts at a time.  

If you could please, explain how gathering a lot of one thing is somehow less wasteful of time than gathering many different things to complete a crafting project.  I really don't understand that.  Here's an example: Yesterday, I crafted a lot of roasts.  I had everything I needed except enough Sage and Butter.  I ran between the wheat field and the Sage bushes a few times until I had the Sage covered, but then had to basically camp the wheat to get enough for milk to make enough Butter.  It would have been so much better to be able to run around gathering all sorts of stuff and feel like I was making use of the time than to have to park and wait for the wheat to respawn, which was truly wasted time.  I really should have made several trips instead and crafted two or three roasts at a time rather than try for one big batch, but I was in moron mode, I guess.  So, please, since my experience shows that focusing on the intermediate is the way to waste time, I'd appreciate your explanation of how focusing on finishing a few is the bigger waste.

[Hellblazer]

Gulnyr good for you, but you can not ask every one to be the same as you. If you are not like most people on earth that needs to see progress when they do things, well good for you. But you are probably an exception to the rule.

It's easy for someone that has advanced a lot to say, don't carry a lot of things. But I am pretty sure that most of the people here who have gotten where they have, didn't do it by crafting bits here and there. They have gathered what they needed to do a good bunch, and some of them even had help from other people to gather stuff for them, or buying the things they needed to craft.

We could pitch semantics and rhetorics all day long, with different scenarios. But it boils down to this. What you are asking may have worked fine for you, but I know it wouldn't work for most people. And it would actually hinder their playing time with other people as they would have to run constantly to gather things, if they wanted to see some results in things that could maybe help themselves and those they are playing with. I know I am like that. I don't even use the healing potions I make, I hand them out to people I play with.

I'll just make my previous example a bit more complete this time, to show a bigger picture here.

One medium cure potion (target) needs:

Essense of cure:
2 dust of greenstone (if you are lucky you can make 4 with one greenstone, if you fail you get two, so that's not to bad)
1 vial
1 aloe

The actual potion of Cure moderate wounds (target) needs:
2 comfrey roots,
1 empty flask
2 essence of cure

So basically you already have at minimum 11 items right there for one try, fail or succeed. So if you want to make a good batch, lets say 20, you would need 220 items. Detailed that is 80 greenston dust, 40 vial, 40 aloe, 40 comfrey roots, 20 empty flask.

Now to get the Aloe, you need to go either to the gobling camp, or run to hempstead take the boat and go to the whitehorn forest. To get the green stone you either have to go to the red light cave, or to the cave in the glooms wood (if it's greenstone there, but i think its malachite) To get the comfrey, well the only place on minstone is Lake palden. All of that excluding what you have to fight. is already a 20 minute hike for not even half of what you need to make those 20 potions. Probaly closer to 30 minutes if you have to sneak past the baddies, or fight them, which at lower levels, yould surely die for fighting the spawn that are in those place.

20 potions is not a big crafting run at all when you can make them in one shot. But it is a big run with you are 60% or lower and fail most of the time.

So I hope you can better appreciate the point here. Some people actually also want to play with their friends in between crafting sessions. So they just gather what they think they will need to actually have a good successful run at a target they have set themselves. Some like you have low targets, other have higher.

When you look at things, you need to find a middle ground. Yes people can probably carry lower amounts of things, but also, there have to be a way for them to carry less, without infringing on their playing style, and time. The only way for that is to give player more storage space that is not on their character. My example of making 20 potion is a good way to show that the space we have is not on par with what it takes to do as low as 20 potions. But it has gotten better that is for sure.

[orth]

The only way for that is to give player more storage space that is not on their character.

If that was the only way then we wouldn't be having this big discussion and I still don't even see that as a solution to everything.  There is space for rent.  The banks have 36 spaces now.  Oxen have 40.

There is no longer a need to carry 8 canteens.
There is no longer a need to carry 10 healer's hugs.
There is no need to carry 8 empty buckets.
There is no need to carry a full box of cook's special fare.
There is no need to carry four boxes of molds.
There is no need to carry three boxes of silk.

I'm talking about carrying these around on your every day person.  I'm not talking about between crafting runs, and yes there are acceptable reasons to carry multiple crafting tools.

[Hellblazer]

I thought the bank only had 20 items? when did it go up to 36? And I know what you were talking about. But thanks for clarifying it.

[Gulnyr]

Will you please stop reading what is not written?  I did not ever ask that everyone be like me.  I offered a method that works and does not leave lots of extra items in inventory after a crafting session.  Take it or leave it.

I don't understand why it takes twenty attempts to get the feeling of accomplishment, and I probably never will, so I'm letting that go.  I don't understand how crafting five potions at a time rather than twenty somehow eliminates the chance to RP with others, nor how traveling to gather is automatically a single-person task, and I'm guessing you can't explain it to me, so I'm letting that go, too.  I have a strong desire to see your data supporting the claim that crafting a few rather than a lot at once "wouldn't work for most people," but I'm fairly certain that's totally off the hip, so I'm letting that go, too.  I can very much appreciate that people have different styles, but I cannot appreciate arguing for a packed inventory on login when we have been asked explicitly several times not to have them.  

Look, if you can gather enough in one gaming session to craft twenty potions in one go, awesome.  That's no problem.  You don't have a limited playtime, though; that's a lot of stuff that takes a long time to gather.  If you want to make twenty potions at a time and you have a warehouse to store things in until it's time to craft, awesome.  That's no problem.  I do that with sandpaper.  But if you take several sessions to do that and you're storing it on your character rather than in crates somewhere, you're just being inconsiderate to everyone else by storing up everything and lagging everyone when you log in rather than crafting smaller batches that you can handle in the time you have to play.  That's all I'm saying.  "If you can't clear the CNR in one session, either by using it or storing it in crates somewhere, you're trying to do too much for the time you have.  It would not hurt you to reconsider your method."  Things happen and you may have to log out with an inventory full of stuff sometimes.  No problem.  Just try not to.  If you're logging out with an inventory full of stuff on purpose, though, you're being an [a word the forum will not allow goes here].

And I got a new wrinkle for you...breakable tools...

Everyone...yes everyone...has at least 3 or more of the same tool in case the one they use breaks.

I myself carry at least 5 mining picks in my inventory. Each pick takes up 8 inventory spaces. Broke 6 one time in one session. It is time consuming to run out of the tool and have to fight your way back to get replacements. This basically ends the night for someone with limited time.

This is only a problem if you aren't dropping things off or using them up, and even then only if you have a lot of junk in your inventory besides.  It's nice to have extra tools for insurance, but you don't have to carry them all the time.  It doesn't matter how much you carry while you're in-game, only how much you log in and out with.  You can easily keep your picks in the bank chest and pick them up after you log in, then drop them off again before you log out, along with whatever CNR you're still hauling.  The bank chests span the world now rather than being server-linked, and there are banks more or less close to you wherever you are, so they are reasonably convenient.  

It doesn't hurt us each to rethink our methods and habits for the good of the game and our fellow players.

[Hellblazer]

I thought the bank only had 20 items? when did it go up to 36? And I know what you were talking about. But thanks for clarifying it.

Eh just found out when grr, speed reading is not my thing at time.

probably because 5 potion will be used up in no time. And people actually look at the ranks and percentage gong up and the things they did rather than how many items they didn't do in the end. I know, and speaking for myself here. That a failure is not fulfilling, but seeing a stack of potion made and having gotten to a easier state of doing them, is a job well done. So instead I gather a bit every time i pass beside something I know I need, and when I have enough to make a set target I do them.

And actually I do have a limited play time. I get up at 8 in the morning to do stuff around the house and for my home business, then I leave at 10 to go to work and I am not back before 10.. 10:30 pm. Then there is the things call talking to the mother, 2 brothers (who now play here) sister, friends etc, eating and sleeping. Which Mean that most days. If i don't cut on my sleep time. I will probably have 4 hours max.. if I push it, to play.And that is because I do other stuff while I play.

But I do read between the lines, because sometime people write things in their own perspective without realizing how it could affect other people, and yes, myself including. Some time it is better to debate all side of the dice, objectively even if they don't necessarily apply to you, so other people are not left out of the loop. This is what I was doing here.

[Gulnyr]

Do you understand that you are arguing that the selfish desire to see an advancement on the crafting leaderboard trumps consideration for everyone else playing the game?

I made no comment regarding your specific schedule.

[Hellblazer]

Well I understand,that is the desire of most people that do things, they want to see result of doing it. And in a game that level are implied, they want to see the levels go up. it's human nature. Nor am I the only one doing it, and will not be the last one either. But I do fully understand how frustrating, the lack of time and space can get. I also do fully understand people that some wants to spend time rping all the time and don't go venturing or very seldom, then there is those that mainly go out and bash things in groups, selling what they find to make their money and don't craft at all or very little. And then there is those that basically can only do crafting while they are on, because of RL issues, kids, business work, etc you can name it out. So they come here gather, and then have to log, come back later gather a bit more to complete what they needed to craft and then go craft. And then there are those, like one of my chars. that his main revenue is to go gather supplies for other, and deals with multiple order at once.

I'm not just talking of myself here, but I have plaid with enough different types of people to have a good Idea, having run a crafters guild widen my perspective on the matter. If thinking for all those kind out there that plays, and don't have the same thought pattern is making me selfish. Then I guess I am. But if you actually look at Fehriel, who is my crafter for potions. Well he only has one box of aloe, one half of a box of comfrey, and getting the rocks to make the dust. That is hardly hording I think. But that is me, and there are those that craft many craft at once when they are on, so they need lots more of items and space. As Orth said, his point wasn't to talk about crafting resources, but the things that people used to have in multiple quantity like buckets, axes and all. It got drifted to intermediary items needed to craft, and that is when I chimed in, not only for me, but also those kind of players I mentioned earlier in this post.

[Gulnyr]

I don't care how you craft.  I don't care how much you craft at one time.  I do care how much junk you log in with.  If you, Hellblazer, are not logging in with ridiculous amounts of things on your characters, then I am not talking directly to you.  If you do log in with lots of junk regularly, then I am talking to you, and I am asking you to stop it.

Do you understand this is only about what's on characters when they log in?

[Hellblazer]

Err I wouldn't be pleading for more storage space out of the character if I didn't. Would I? I'm not totally daft. although some time I wonder.

Now can you understand that what you want, will also affect what other are enjoying here?

it's a balance that needs to be done, and you can't balance human nature. But you can give the tools for them not to carry all that junk around. Part of it has been given, But one chest in the bank wont change the root of the problem, which is the complexity of the crafting system and the number of things needed to make the items. The only way to remedy that is to give more space outside the char, part has been done, more could be done. THAT is what I am talking aobut. Read my earlier post, and read my suggestion in the suggestion thread. IF that is done, then you wont have anything to complain about? how about that? then again there will always be exception to the rules.

[Gulnyr]

I have read your request and I have read what you have written here.  This is what I have understood, which may or may not be exactly what you intended to say:

You have a preferred method of crafting that involves gathering a lot of materials first and doing a lot of crafting all at once later.  This requires you to carry a lot of stuff on those characters that do not have a lot of storage space, which leads to logging in with a lot of stuff sometimes and causing unnecessary lag.  To remedy this problem, you have requested that someone else create some sort of new storage, whether some sort of minor housing or warehouses or both, rather than take it upon yourself to try a new method or contact a player-operated establishment that already exists.

Is that the gist of it?

[Hellblazer]

I am not the only one who has asked for them in the past, if you read the multitude of thread asking about houses. But in essence I have proposed a way to answer that need for storage in a way that wouldn't put a strain on the server area numbers.

Right. WHo runs houses here. Oh I do, with lex, but I can't put my char here. Also, huntemara runs a house, but since she is nto always there and since the key issue has been changed, she, who act as a care taker, can not create new keys. Hum being that all my chars but one, eslar, have housing storage space. I am not part of the problem, making assumption there Gulnyr. But eslar doesn't, and I have looked around for those I knew had rooms to rent, and most of them are seldomely here, beside merlin who has picked up gaming a bit more in the past months. Now who else, Cariad has a house that was aimed to be rented, I would be the one running it for her, if I could make copies of the keys, but can't. Muireann, who has seen her in the last 4 months? I used to rent a room at her house, before I moved to an other one due to rp.

SO really please don't read to much and assuming things. I have made some search to see who were renting rooms, and well there ain't many, even less that advertise it, beside the twin dragon inns and also the arms in, who had problems with owner ship, which is why I didn't go there.

So I came up with a solution, that would not result into having a player needed. The npc warehouse. Or one that could have new houses brought into the game without havint to result into making new areas. Since you could move multiple houses into one bigger areas. and use the already existing areas, expanded in tile set, to make new houses.

If you fail to see the solution in that, well I can't help you much. And you seem very fixated on blaming me, or other people that may or may not have went through the same step, without maybe asking them what step they took and were left dry?

[orth]

The problem with your solution Hellblazer as opposed to the one I am asking is it requires someone to build the area, script the required persistent storage access and create a different kind of database.  This is not trivial stuff, it's much easier to just ask "Hey can you guys take into consideration your fellow player when looking at your inventory".  

That's all I have been asking. Throwing more development at the issue when we can just ask to be a bit more courteous in our small community seems a bit overboard.

Incidentally through all this discussion I have noticed that our latest tweaks did in fact improve things somewhat.  Not sure if anyone else noticed, but compared to before it is better.

[Gulnyr]

Okay, I misunderstood the part about which of your characters have storage, so the part about you, specifically, having to login with a lot of stuff was wrong.  You did mention elsewhere that Eslar is your gatherer, and a gatherer without storage sounds like it could be a problem sometimes, but maybe not.  I'm sure you can see the confusion.

I'm not blaming anyone for anything.  As for fixation, you seem to be fixated on doing anything other than change your preferred method of bulk crafting, which I mentioned and you skipped in favor of harping on housing, but if you aren't logging in with lots of stuff in inventory there's no particular reason you should have to change, so that's irrelevant.  I will offer the opinion that as long as any housing is available, there's no reason to consider adding more, and adding more is a pain for somebody anyway, but my opinion is irrelevant, too, so you can safely ignore it.

Instead of taking this personally, why don't we shut up and let someone else tell us what they think?  Maybe it's not as either of us thinks it is.

So, please, if anyone else reading this can tell me how it really is with crafting supplies in your inventory, I'd like to hear it.  I promise not to say a thing.

[Hellblazer]

I know it would Orth which is why I didn't propose it a few months ago, when I actually had it in mind. I don't know if it would create more coding beside the npc script that would sale the keys and check which room is free, as you have already the coding for the door lock. Also, why would it have to create a different database than the one that is already existing, since you are only moving houses around, it would still be using the same database. I am probably unaware of certain details, but in essence all that you would need is already being used in game.

[Hellblazer]

The problem Gulnyr is that there is little housing available anymore. And those that runs houses have no way to duplicate the keys anymore if they are not the owner. All opinions are worthy as long as they are not drunk opinions like the one that is pestering me now on msn... *grr*

I wouldn't mind making houses, in fact I rather enjoyed making areas when I used to do it for an other server. The real big change would be to take the houses that are existing now, export them, and import them into new areas with other houses. That could actually free up more areas in the module than one think. I may not be clearly explaining this. But if you have one area of the max size, that have 4 houses of the regular size we have now, then that is 3 less area in the module. You set each houses to one of the area corner, leaving a gap in the middle of void space. This way the privacy of each house is respected. All you have to do is reroute the existing transition, to the new doors in the new area. That's probably the most time consuming things as you have to redo the tags of the transitions. But the benefit could possibly outweigh the time. Heck, I would volunteer to do it, but then I am not part of the team.

Anyhow hungry.. strangely debates does that to me.

[darkstorme]

There are other problems, Hellblazer.  I don't know the intricacies of the housing system, but I can make a guess at it.

Given that, at the moment, houses are unique areas, I'm guessing that the area tag is the primary index of the database that records the location, orientation, and contents of all housing placeables.  By putting more than one house in an area, you would need to create an entirely new database which indexes by something else (owner, perhaps, or an id attached to a given key).  You would also have to migrate all the existing information, or (more likely, because all the locations are going to change relative to the area size) require that everyone clear everything out of every house. (!!!)

Now, on top of that, any script that employs the existing database would have to be altered as well.  Persistent chests, the deeds, the house-content-loading script, the key scripts, the door scripts, and, likely, the real-estate scripts.

Serving larger areas also provides a drag on server resources - one of the principal guides to PW development says, multiple times, that larger areas cause massive lag - so avoid them.  Areas with 800+ dynamic furniture objects (four or more houses in the same area with the maximum number of placeables) would be nightmarish.

So no, it's not just transitions, Hellblazer.  This would be a major overhaul of an integral system