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Post by woooooooo on Jan 27, 2008 13:35:41 GMT
Sheral, wtf is a chocolate fireguard?
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Post by Pharcellus on Jan 27, 2008 16:50:51 GMT
That was me. course, its part of the confectioner revamp. Squirrel is the fruit of the Arbotus. You can barbecue it, boil it, broil it, bake it, sautee it. There's, um, squirrel kebabs, squirrel creole, squirrel gumbo, pan fried, deep fried, stir fried. There's pineapple squirrel and lemon squirrel , coconut squirrel , pepper squirrel , squirrel soup, squirrel stew, squirrel salad, squirrel and potatoes, squirrel burger, squirrel sandwich... That's, that's about it. Heh ZOMG! After all those years of saving the squirrels! After all the write-in campaigns to the Empire! After all PAC slush fund parties! Now we are going to be KILLING and EATING the poor things ANYWAY?!?!? How.... US government of us. SAVE THE SQUIRRELS!!! *chains himself to the biggest arbotus in the forest*
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Post by sheral on Jan 29, 2008 1:08:48 GMT
Sheral, wtf is a chocolate fireguard? Well, a fireguard is a thing that goes in front of a fire (coal/wood) to stop sparks from jumping out onto the rug. It's like a metal mesh that you can still see/feel the fire through, but fine enough to stop stuff coming out and setting fire to the house. It also stops little ones from poking things into the fire. I grew up in a coal-mining town and our only form of heat was a coal fire, so we used fireguards all the time. A chocolate fireguard would be very useless indeed. Hence the expression, 'about as useful as a chocolate fireguard'
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Post by FrithRae on Jan 29, 2008 2:21:52 GMT
mm...sounds like Bubba Squirrel's is opening
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Post by woooooooo on Feb 4, 2008 17:17:18 GMT
Sheral, wtf is a chocolate fireguard? Well, a fireguard is a thing that goes in front of a fire (coal/wood) to stop sparks from jumping out onto the rug. It's like a metal mesh that you can still see/feel the fire through, but fine enough to stop stuff coming out and setting fire to the house. It also stops little ones from poking things into the fire. I grew up in a coal-mining town and our only form of heat was a coal fire, so we used fireguards all the time. A chocolate fireguard would be very useless indeed. Hence the expression, 'about as useful as a chocolate fireguard' Ahhh, well Im used to hearing them called "screens" or "grates" or if your a redneck like Pally, "cooking surface".
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Post by Deth on Mar 10, 2008 18:50:18 GMT
The cold snows of February have just about been blown away as windy March races in. What is that saying about March coming roaring in like a lion? Well here at Virtrium, it isn't just the weather that is roaring in this month. Our whole development team has been hard at work on many projects and the results are beginning to show.
Testing of character transfers from the Unity database is coming along well; we have successfully transferred characters for our five brave volunteer Unity players. Included in the transfers are items from the character's inventory and vault. What about the items on their plots you might ask? Well, we're still working on that - specifically allowing the contents of storage structures - and doing some internal testing. Barring the unexpected, we hope to be able to begin the Unity transfer before the end of the month. (That sound you hear is the vast numbers of “lost souls” rejoicing as they read this).
We have patched the majority of the confectioner revamp to Blight and testers have been finding new herbs and spices all over Istaria. Quests for confectioners to obtain garnish processing forms have been added to Fillet, Julie, and Estelwen. Each garnish has a unique quest and you must have a sample of a harvested garnish in inventory to obtain it. While the new foods were added, balancing the effect these foods have on death points will continue into the future. Players should be aware that multiple deaths in a short period of time can now bring a much harsher impact on your attributes than it did before (the penalty can rise as high as 75% now, it was capped at 25% before). The duration of death points has also been increased on a tiered basis (8 hours + 4 hours per tier). However, the duration of the death penalty has not been altered.
In addition to all the confectioner changes, players will also find smaller changes in each of patch to Blight. For example, the monk school received a bit of developer love in this most recent patch with a change to how the starting quests for the school were given out, and a new medallion reward that greatly boosts resistances and unarmed combat skill. Tier 6 metal and gem resources previously unavailable as resource nodes were also added in these latest patches.
Our client programming team has been equally hard at work to bring an updated client to the Blight test server. Included in this client update are changes from new features to long awaited bug fixes. Cargo disks that used to “haunt” players long after the owner has left the area or unequipped their disk should no longer appear, and music which did not fade out properly should now stop looping when you move from one area to the next. The ability to cycle through enemies and friends using the “cyclenearestfriend” (abbreviated /cn) and “cyclenearestenemy” (abbreviated /cne) commands have been added in this client update as well. Brand new features include the ability to support custom made themes to change the appearance of the user-interface. Special themes created by a player volunteer will be patched out with this update as well for those who wish to alter the look of their UI. Also new with this updated client is the ability for dragons to “glide” off of high places. A dragon who “falls” from a cliff or object high enough will have the ability to turn on an option so that they begin to fly rather than fall to the ground. This will also allow hatchlings who have not ascended to adult status to practice flying by gliding to the ground rather than falling quickly. Note that this feature is disabled by default. Look for a more detailed list of the changes on the Blight server forum once this client is released for testing.
This month we're also launching two new programs to bring those interested in volunteering their time to help improve Istaria together. The first program, our Herald Program, includes volunteers from each of the shards who are interested in writing roleplay-based stories about the happenings in Istaria. This small group of volunteers will focus on creating news items for the front page of our website that share community news, special shard events, and highlight guilds and communities on each shard. The second program, the Emissary Program, will focus on the game play part of the game. Emissaries help with testing, with collecting player feedback on the status of the game and changes, and will help build the website Knowledge Base. If the Heralds are the “fiction”, the Emissaries are the “facts” of what is happening. We're very excited about both programs and look forward to bringing volunteers in to help make Istaria a better place.
As you can see, the first two months of 2008 have been incredibly busy and we aren't planning to slow down any time soon. Our art team continues to work hard at making the models used in plot design and construction cleaner and smoother to help improve performance. Our design team is looking forward and starting to plan their next tier revamp. The staff at Virtrium has really hit the ground running in 2008, and I'm excited to see what maintaining that pace will bring for the remainder of the year.
Hopefully March will decide to go “out like a lamb” for us all, and we'll be soon patching to our live servers all the changes in testing on Blight as well as welcoming long lost friends from Unity onto our live servers.
Until next month,
-Amarie
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Post by FrithRae on Mar 10, 2008 20:35:44 GMT
can't wait for the Unity players to join everyone ..yeaa!
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Kulamata
Unemployed
Mane Man
Posts: 1,362
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Post by Kulamata on Mar 11, 2008 5:10:04 GMT
It's still a bit of a shock to see Virtrium lay out a proposal, listen to the respondents, and cleverly incorporate the responses into a clearly improved program. Vi is certainly deserving of every success.
No mention of Vista progress; are Virtium perhaps waiting for SP1 to gel, since there seem to be changes in RC1 that affect the Hz/Vista interface?
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Post by maddwarf on Mar 12, 2008 20:18:38 GMT
It's still a bit of a shock to see Virtrium lay out a proposal, listen to the respondents, and cleverly incorporate the responses into a clearly improved program. Vi is certainly deserving of every success. No mention of Vista progress; are Virtium perhaps waiting for SP1 to gel, since there seem to be changes in RC1 that affect the Hz/Vista interface? to little to late. HZ is never going to make Vitrium loads of cash. That boat has been sunk. So I wonder what the folks at vitrium get over this ? Are they hoping they get noticed for future investor $$$ so they can develop another title ? Surely they can't be doing it for the love of it !! why do I ask ? They sure seem to be paying attention now. They also are not repeating the mistakes made under Bowman. But really despite all that HZ is never going to get much bigger than it is now player wise. I wonder if thats paying the bills and sending people home with a decent enough paycheck. Vista progress ? I think thats a big bear thats going to take some time to fix. So instead of mentioning it they are not going to set the player base up for disappointment. Which is nice and change from previous managements standard practices as well.
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Post by Darkwater on Mar 12, 2008 21:10:27 GMT
You're right, it'll never compete with WoW.. better cancel HZ now...
Seriously, if its making money, and not losing money.. even if the amounts are small, its still a profit.
Should every tiny convienience store owner just pack up shop and quit the business, because thier 100k profit doens't compete with millions a big chain makes?
I mean, come on.. fuck dude...
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Post by Deth on Mar 13, 2008 0:11:44 GMT
Yea it's people liek you at Microsoft that said Marvel Online will not close down WoW? Fuck it not worth the time close it down.
By the end of the month they hope to have a jump in subs with the Unity merge. Personally i hope they get it done and we do see a nice size jump in the number of players. The game is growing I just read the other night Chaos is starting to hit 100 players in Market, which I assume is a recent high.
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Post by maddwarf on Mar 13, 2008 2:02:09 GMT
boot up brain
I did not say HZ needed to compete with WoW.
Now I know reading comprehension is hard in the digital age here...
But do you think Amon is making the industry average $75,000 a year a developer makes ? How much did Rick Simmons sink into HZ ?
I hope at the end of the day when all is said and done both of them , heck everyone at vitrium can say it was worth it. That their families did not suffer because they had to work long hours. That their bank accounts and the future retirements can say " Yup Horizons was worth it all !!"
Cause I do not care what anyone says. HZ will never hit big time numbers. Not enough where Amon should be making his industry average wage.
Is it worth it ? Worth it for you all to continue to have your little sandbox to play in ?
I hope so.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Mar 13, 2008 2:46:56 GMT
Horizons is my part-time job, so I'm not worried about it paying my bills. And no, nobody expects to make 75k a year off of it. But we enjoy it and its good to see it alive and doing well.
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Post by Darkwater on Mar 13, 2008 3:58:15 GMT
Um yeah. Maybe look up the words analogy and sarcasm...
As to whether it was a bad investment or not, I have no idea with no figures to compare. But if its making a profit, its still running at a net profit (after expenses like salaries are paid, assuming Amon is telling us the truth).
Is it worth it? That's for those involved to decide.
50% of new small businesses fail in the first few years. Yet if people didn't have the courage to try, the rest of us lemmings (employees) wouldn't have the jobs they provide.
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Post by Deth on Apr 26, 2008 12:44:20 GMT
I just saw a post on the boards about Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 that is a free virtualization software for Vista that might let me play. Funny they have to create a whole program just to let Vista be used with some older programs.
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