Aug 30 22:48:01 Pharaoh here... : 08-30-2004-21:40:00 Aug 30 22:48:02 Great to see people filtering in. : 08-30-2004-21:40:00 Aug 30 22:48:04 We'll wait until 6:00 or so to get started. : 08-30-2004-21:40:00 Aug 30 22:56:01 Wow, people I haven't seen in ages. : 08-30-2004-21:48:00 Aug 30 22:56:03 I think I'll just warp around and chat on ENN. : 08-30-2004-21:49:00 Aug 30 22:56:05 I'm not sure yet how many gathering sites we'll have. People are logging in quickly now. : 08-30-2004-21:53:00 Aug 30 23:04:02 One party will be on Taera's Island, which I'm told is being decorated. : 08-30-2004-21:55:00 Aug 30 23:04:04 So aside from the Amnesty part of this celebration, there's a few other things I want to do... : 08-30-2004-21:58:00 Aug 30 23:04:06 Everyone talks about "communities" in MMOs, which always sort of bugs me (and I'm guilty of using the word) - somehow it seems like they're talking down to the people who play their games. : 08-30-2004-21:59:00 Aug 30 23:04:08 When things are running right it fells, to me, like a bunch of people who know each other playing together in this big sandbox. Everyone is sort of doing their own thing... : 08-30-2004-22:01:00 Aug 30 23:04:10 *feels : 08-30-2004-22:01:00 Aug 30 23:04:12 I'm writing part of the story, and Egypt's mentors are writing another. The hardcore players, the builders are expanding what we see in the world, the casual players are building camps, and always up for an interesting conversation. Aug 30 23:04:14 : 08-30-2004-22:03:00 Aug 30 23:12:03 And so one thing I'd like to do in this Amnesty sesion is to recognize some people that I thought did amazing things for this whole experience. And for those people, I'm going to give them a little gift that carries over into Tale 2. Aug 30 23:12:05 : 08-30-2004-22:05:00 Aug 30 23:12:07 It's a colorful chat bubble. I know that some like to play a truly new character; the bubble will be an option, no need to use it in Tale 2 if you don't want. Throughout this session I'll just recognize people one-by-one, and not all at once. Aug 30 23:12:09 : 08-30-2004-22:07:00 Aug 30 23:12:11 Patronage Message from F:Ingenia: The Body Monument is finishing up! A wp is available to anyone that would like to come watch! : 08-30-2004-22:09:00 Aug 30 23:12:13 So first off, my business partner Nekhmet (Josh). He's not as visible in the game, but most of the cool toys that make up the crafting system are his doing. As is the client-server architecture, and the 3D engine. So, you can imagine why he doesn' Aug 30 23:12:17 t have much time to chat... : 08-30-2004-22:11:00 Aug 30 23:20:04 All of the best parts of the game are the result of one of us coming up with an idea, and then the other tries to shoot holes in it, and we refine it to something fun. : 08-30-2004-22:12:00 Aug 30 23:28:05 Guess the client doesn't like rendering 127 lightning zaps at once : 08-30-2004-22:20:00 Aug 30 23:28:06 Was just saying... : 08-30-2004-22:22:00 Aug 30 23:28:09 I'd like to thank Pluribus for being my emergency system administrator, and for single handedly doing the Linux port of the client. : 08-30-2004-22:24:00 Aug 30 23:28:11 And a million other things. : 08-30-2004-22:24:00 Aug 30 23:28:13 Some players that deserve to be recognized (in no order). : 08-30-2004-22:26:00 Aug 30 23:36:06 First off, Dendii, for mentoring and receiving shrines from (this is not a typo) 48 people. : 08-30-2004-22:28:00 Aug 30 23:52:11 Well, the server couldn't handle that crowd scene... : 08-30-2004-22:48:00 Aug 30 23:52:11 Big rollback because the servers were lagging so badly. : 08-30-2004-22:49:00 Aug 30 23:52:15 I upgraded the server codebase to the Tale 2 server, which should handle the load. : 08-30-2004-22:50:00 Aug 31 00:00:10 GMs are setting a WP at each monument so you can come visit! : 08-30-2004-22:51:00 Aug 31 00:00:12 GMs can provide warps as needed during AMnesty. : 08-30-2004-22:52:00 Aug 31 00:00:14 Patronage Message from F:Ingenia: Trying the wp again ;) Come on down and see the new Body monument! : 08-30-2004-22:52:00 Aug 31 00:00:16 I'll broadcast from the Worship monument for a bit, and move around. I'll also set a waypoint here. : 08-30-2004-22:54:00 Aug 31 00:00:18 Once again, to listen in, type /join ENN : 08-30-2004-22:56:00 Aug 31 00:00:20 SO I was in the middle of recognizing Egypt's finest mentors... : 08-30-2004-22:57:00 Aug 31 00:08:12 Some of these are people without "Oracle of ..." in their titles... : 08-30-2004-23:00:00 Aug 31 00:08:14 /who : 08-30-2004-23:00:00 Aug 31 00:08:16 But of course our Oracles would never have completed the monuments without Mentors introducing new people to Egypt. : 08-30-2004-23:02:00 Aug 31 00:08:18 These numbers are astounding: 48 Dendii, 39 Mekhu, 36 Jodpar, 28 Tweetiti, 23 BradH, 24 Esme, 24 TCLogik, 22 silver, 21 brightshadow : 08-30-2004-23:03:00 Aug 31 00:08:20 BTW, I'll be warping around to each monument. To avoid concentrating 200+ people in one spot, we'll just designate all the spots as our parties... : 08-30-2004-23:05:00 Aug 31 00:08:22 And so be sure to warp around. : 08-30-2004-23:05:00 Aug 31 00:16:13 Should we get to some amnesty secrets? : 08-30-2004-23:06:00 Aug 31 00:16:15 Manymonths ago I posted an encrypted text file on our server...\ : 08-30-2004-23:07:00 Aug 31 00:16:17 And said that when a certain event happened, I would post the password. That event happened not long ago.. : 08-30-2004-23:08:00 Aug 31 00:16:19 The password is: serpentskin771327 : 08-30-2004-23:08:00 Aug 31 00:16:21 The secret, of course, had to do with the toxic brew known as Speed of the Serpent... : 08-30-2004-23:09:00 Aug 31 00:16:23 When we decided to do the various "Stranger Techs", SotS was, in my then-opinion, the most devilish of all, possibly the most radical content in the whole game... : 08-30-2004-23:10:00 Aug 31 00:16:25 I wanted for a long time to simulate drug use in ATITD... : 08-30-2004-23:10:00 Aug 31 00:24:14 And every design I cam eup with could easily be games. What I needed was a way to addict the player, not the character. People are easily addicted, characters in games, not so much :) : 08-30-2004-23:12:00 Aug 31 00:24:16 But I worried, what would happen if the "addiction" worked too well - what if we ended up expelling 100's of players from the game. If it *really* worked well, it would have been the end of eGenesis. : 08-30-2004-23:13:00 Aug 31 00:24:18 GMs have all 7 monuments/ monument sites UP on waypont, feel free to assist or view thee monuments! : 08-30-2004-23:13:00 Aug 31 00:24:20 So part of the design was that there would eventually be a cure, with (ultimately) scientists dragging near-dead people back to the universities so they could continue paying for the game. : 08-30-2004-23:14:00 Aug 31 00:24:22 But that would certainly look like a last-minute effort to salvage the game, when in fact it was planned all along. : 08-30-2004-23:15:00 Aug 31 00:24:24 So I explained everything in the message, encrypted it, and said "when a certain event happens" I would reveal the key. In fact, SotS didn't have so many victims that we had to pull out the dragging-near-dead-bodies part. : 08-30-2004-23:16:00 Aug 31 00:24:27 Which makes more sense anyway. : 08-30-2004-23:17:00 Aug 31 00:24:29 I see that Brant has decoded the text itself. Visit http://www.skylagoon.com/usr/brant/atitd/secrettext.txt and crush his server if you'd like to see the original. : 08-30-2004-23:18:00 Aug 31 00:32:15 Ok, any questions you guys have been wanting to ask? : 08-30-2004-23:19:00 Aug 31 00:32:17 (use /tell pharaoh ...) : 08-30-2004-23:19:00 Aug 31 00:32:19 Ah, the mineral map. : 08-30-2004-23:19:00 Aug 31 00:32:21 Yes, let me dig that out. : 08-30-2004-23:19:00 Aug 31 00:32:23 Ok, I'll talk about the STranger's Rocks first. : 08-30-2004-23:20:00 Aug 31 00:32:25 Ricardo, one of our Artists came up with a really cool stylized logo for The Stranger. It's his face that is on the rocks... : 08-30-2004-23:21:00 Aug 31 00:32:27 The Stranger's Universities were going up... : 08-30-2004-23:22:00 Aug 31 00:40:16 If the building had a symbol on it that people had seen and wondered about... : 08-30-2004-23:23:00 Aug 31 00:56:18 party island reopened : 08-30-2004-23:48:00 Aug 31 00:56:20 Anyway, quick recap: Zanix and others did probably the best in-game science with plant genetics that I have ever seen... : 08-30-2004-23:49:00 Aug 31 00:56:21 Plants' genomes are a string of letters, where substrings are genes that are expressed differently for each plant species. : 08-30-2004-23:49:00 Aug 31 00:56:24 Beetles' genomes are done with a different system. Beetles shells are rendered by a series of about 12 cellular automata, with the result one one automata feeding into the net... : 08-30-2004-23:50:00 Aug 31 00:56:26 *next : 08-30-2004-23:50:00 Aug 31 01:04:18 And the length of time each runs, and the initial conditions based on the genome, which is a set of integers. : 08-30-2004-23:51:00 Aug 31 01:04:20 Question about wine tasting... : 08-30-2004-23:51:00 Aug 31 01:04:22 The Wine tasting system follows the University of California Davis "Wine Aroma Wheel". You can google for that. : 08-30-2004-23:52:00 Aug 31 01:04:24 Wine flavors are geography based, just like real-life. : 08-30-2004-23:52:00 Aug 31 01:04:26 In RL, I'm very much into wine collecting, and so I wanted to completely go over the top on that system. : 08-30-2004-23:53:00 Aug 31 01:04:28 You probably noticed that the first flavors you learn to taste are general things like "Fruity" : 08-30-2004-23:54:00 Aug 31 01:04:30 And then you'd notice more specific things like "Citrus Fruit" : 08-30-2004-23:54:00 Aug 31 01:04:33 And finally "Graprfruit" : 08-30-2004-23:54:00 Aug 31 01:12:19 Things like alcohol potential, tannin potential, sugar potential are all genetics based. : 08-30-2004-23:56:00 Aug 31 01:12:21 They're all potentials, which can be approached by careful vintners. : 08-30-2004-23:56:00 Aug 31 01:12:23 The way the wooden barrels worked was a bug. : 08-30-2004-23:56:00 Aug 31 01:12:25 I tested that so many times trying to understand why people werenot figuring out the system of microclimates. Each time I tested it was on a clean barrel. : 08-30-2004-23:57:00 Aug 31 01:12:27 And so to me it just looked like a hard puzzle that nobody had unraveled. Only after rereading my code for the zillionth time did I realize that cleaning the barrel wasn't resetting the microclimate x,y pointer. : 08-30-2004-23:58:00 Aug 31 01:12:29 And yes, in Tale 2 there's no bug, and no such thing as "Steel Lined Barrels" : 08-30-2004-23:58:00 Aug 31 01:12:31 That is, BTW, the sort of things I do to avoid simply changing stuff out from under everyone. : 08-30-2004-23:59:00 Aug 31 01:20:21 But I've got other ideas to make it not quite so hard. : 08-31-2004-00:01:00 Aug 31 01:20:22 BTW, if there are any very large crowds, try to disperse to other monuments. I see the server is struggling. : 08-31-2004-00:02:00 Aug 31 01:20:24 Giving the server a minute to write this checkpoint file. : 08-31-2004-00:06:00 Aug 31 01:20:26 (I'm lowering the visibility range for players to help the servers out) : 08-31-2004-00:09:00 Aug 31 01:20:28 Question about Alchemy... : 08-31-2004-00:10:00 Aug 31 01:20:30 I can have GMs warp in groups so that there are 50 or less total. : 08-31-2004-00:11:00 Aug 31 01:20:32 Oops, wrong channel. : 08-31-2004-00:11:00 Aug 31 01:20:34 Had a question aimed at members of the Crossroads guild about whether XR will be returning to Egypt in Tale 2. I see a few XR people here - anyone know about plans? : 08-31-2004-00:13:00 Aug 31 01:28:21 The ringleader himself... : 08-31-2004-00:14:00 Aug 31 01:28:23 Hold on, let me grab the ENN mic. : 08-31-2004-00:14:00 Aug 31 01:28:25 Ok, type /join ENN to listen in. : 08-31-2004-00:16:00 Aug 31 01:28:27 I have been invited to a wine tasting from the *'03* vintage after Amnesty. I will definitely attend that. : 08-31-2004-00:20:00 Aug 31 01:28:29 I'd like to chat about the monuments for a bit now... : 08-31-2004-00:22:00 Aug 31 01:28:31 I think that Leaders of the monuments really have explified their disciplines, however, one Oracle has been especially true, and that is Ajars. : 08-31-2004-00:24:00 Aug 31 01:28:33 TheConflict Discipline strugged during most of this Telling. I have some theories why that is, and have talked extensively with many in that discipline about it. : 08-31-2004-00:26:00 Aug 31 01:36:22 And because there has not been a high amount of competition in Conflict, except among the most dedicated practicioners... : 08-31-2004-00:27:00 Aug 31 01:36:24 Some people were able to "game" the tests by having friends throw games. : 08-31-2004-00:28:00 Aug 31 01:36:26 And Ajars, in leading construction of the Monument of Body, (where I am now standing) made a strict rule about who would be accepted into his monument construction team, to the point of putting the monument's existance into jeopardy. Aug 31 01:36:28 : 08-31-2004-00:29:00 Aug 31 01:36:30 People who gamed the Tests of Conflict were allowed as low-level filler, but were not allowed to occupy ranks of Journeyman or higher. : 08-31-2004-00:30:00 Aug 31 01:36:32 *monument of CONFLICT : 08-31-2004-00:30:00 Aug 31 01:36:34 If you asked me two weeks ago if I thought Body would be completed, I'd have certainly said no. : 08-31-2004-00:31:00 Aug 31 01:36:36 Patronage Message from M:Dwadja: We are The Trystero. If you have found us, we do not exist. Yet we do exist. We have no purpose save for the purpose we make ourselves. We are throughout Egypt, observing. We understand the workings of Maxwell' Aug 31 01:36:39 s Demon. And we will someday make use of it. : 08-31-2004-00:31:00 Aug 31 01:36:42 Not only has the monument been completed, but I think that the Test that the Monument defines will be a highlight of the Discipline in Tale 2. : 08-31-2004-00:32:00 Aug 31 01:44:23 There's the matter of "The Mystery Tincture" : 08-31-2004-00:35:00 Aug 31 01:44:25 We'll chat in ENN for that one. : 08-31-2004-00:37:00 Aug 31 01:44:27 Patronage Message from M:Hile: It's usually so lonely here. Come see the quaint camp of Hile and Sara. : 08-31-2004-00:43:00 Aug 31 01:52:25 Question about how close I am to passing Acro. : 08-31-2004-00:44:00 Aug 31 01:52:27 I am, in fact, at 6/7 in exactly 7 moves. : 08-31-2004-00:44:00 Aug 31 01:52:28 If this was Tale 2, I'd be flying thru camp :) : 08-31-2004-00:44:00 Aug 31 01:52:30 (In Tale 2, offroad run speed increases with Dexterity, Onraod with Speed) : 08-31-2004-00:45:00 Aug 31 01:52:32 Question about which system didn't work at all as planned (biggest screwup) : 08-31-2004-00:45:00 Aug 31 01:52:35 Gotta give me a minute on that, scanning thru files list. : 08-31-2004-00:46:00 Aug 31 01:52:36 For Tests, Set's Ladder, ut that's not really a system. : 08-31-2004-00:47:00 Aug 31 01:52:39 The ecology system never really drove the game as much as planned... : 08-31-2004-00:49:00 Aug 31 02:00:26 The idea was that there are all these layers representing things like soot (given off by certain buildings), Acid (mining, other buildings), Nitrogen (eaten by some shrooms, consumed by others), and a few others. : 08-31-2004-00:50:00 Aug 31 02:00:27 And mushrooms were supposed to thrive on some layer values while modifying others. : 08-31-2004-00:50:00 Aug 31 02:00:29 Sort of a complex version of the wolves/rabbits ecosystem. : 08-31-2004-00:51:00 Aug 31 02:00:32 And we tuned it and tuned it, but never really got it so that everything followed comprehensible patterns. People got good at hunting for shrooms, but I never heard someone say "hey, after I pollute this area with soot, then SLaves Breads no longe Aug 31 02:00:33 r grow. : 08-31-2004-00:53:00 Aug 31 02:00:35 Question about "whatever happened to wheat" : 08-31-2004-00:53:00 Aug 31 02:00:37 Patronage Message from M:DungeonTax: Come one come all, see the amazing Obelisk Brothers and their 'electric' personalities! : 08-31-2004-00:54:00 Aug 31 02:00:39 Actually nothing dramatic there. Was just one of those things we never got around to introducing (there are plenty of others!) : 08-31-2004-00:54:00 Aug 31 02:00:42 Blue glowers... : 08-31-2004-00:54:00 Aug 31 02:08:26 Tin, Copper, Charcoal, Saltpeter, Clay. : 08-31-2004-00:55:00 Aug 31 02:08:28 Beermaking research... : 08-31-2004-00:55:00 Aug 31 02:08:30 Yeah, we screwed up big-time on that. : 08-31-2004-00:56:00 Aug 31 02:08:32 Josh timed how fast he could grow barley, and then we assumed that people would end up doing it 2-3x as fast, and set the numbers from there... : 08-31-2004-00:57:00 Aug 31 02:08:34 Turns out that Josh is a champion barley grower :/ : 08-31-2004-00:57:00 Aug 31 02:08:36 Uranium doesn't actually exist in the mineral map. It was put in the code to see if people were reading the .dcf files. Which they were. : 08-31-2004-00:58:00 Aug 31 02:08:38 For Tale 2 you're goinna have to learn to use a debugger :P : 08-31-2004-00:59:00 Aug 31 02:08:40 But actually for really secret stuff there are controls in the script language that let us set which stuff is pushed to the client (predctive) and which is not (laggy). : 08-31-2004-01:00:00 Aug 31 02:16:27 A few more players I'd like to recognize... : 08-31-2004-01:04:00 Aug 31 02:16:30 Art and Thought monuments are almost complete, (thought had to rebuild): please chat sigil or hekatef to offer support : 08-31-2004-01:05:00 Aug 31 02:16:31 Some people don't pass many Tests, but affect the game in profound ways.... : 08-31-2004-01:05:00 Aug 31 02:16:33 I can't call them hardcore, but they're not what I think of casual players... : 08-31-2004-01:06:00 Aug 31 02:16:36 Maybe "hardcore casual" is a good description. The one thing about this group of players that I notice is that they seem to be having the most *fun* of anyone. : 08-31-2004-01:06:00 Aug 31 02:16:38 Kind of doing their own thing, coming up with their own strange goals. : 08-31-2004-01:07:00 Aug 31 02:16:40 And so some of thos players are: : 08-31-2004-01:07:00 Aug 31 02:16:41 Shelomit, who started the Nileside Cafe and Nileside Lounge (which last I checked was the biggest guild in the game), and for this whole idea of "Egypt News Radio" which was interviews of dozens of Egyptian citizens. : 08-31-2004-01:08:00 Aug 31 02:16:44 Hellinar who created Egypt's currency, and really did run a "bank" in this world. Trustees, policies, the whole works. And the TN is still used as a barometer of worth in the game, even though it is not directly used often. : 08-31-2004-01:10:00 Aug 31 02:24:28 Freakshow, who's play "The Sleeping Gods" was one of my personal highlights from this Tale, an event I'll always remember. : 08-31-2004-01:11:00 Aug 31 02:24:30 Many more to recognize. : 08-31-2004-01:12:00 Aug 31 02:24:32 Question about the monuments... : 08-31-2004-01:15:00 Aug 31 02:24:35 Yes, they will physically appear in Tale 2, Tale 3, etc. : 08-31-2004-01:15:00 Aug 31 02:24:36 But builders' chat channels will not carry over. (You're playing your descendants. Also too hard to code that :) : 08-31-2004-01:16:00 Aug 31 02:24:39 Names of monument supporters will carry over into Tale 2. : 08-31-2004-01:16:00 Aug 31 02:24:40 Ah, there's one mystery that I wanted to keep from myself, but accidentally discovered a couple of months ago. : 08-31-2004-01:18:00 Aug 31 02:32:29 Some of you remember a GM named "it" : 08-31-2004-01:19:00 Aug 31 02:32:31 The problem was that "it" was a fantastic player. Brilliant. : 08-31-2004-01:19:00 Aug 31 02:32:34 And we have a rule that GMs can not "be prominent" as players. : 08-31-2004-01:20:00 Aug 31 02:32:35 So we decided that "it" should retire, and the same player would make up another character to play. : 08-31-2004-01:21:00 Aug 31 02:32:37 I won't reveal that player, but I'll give him a chance to. : 08-31-2004-01:21:00 Aug 31 02:32:39 I wanted to figure out, just from play style, who the new character was. The rules I set for myself were that I could look at Test passings, or any other game data... : 08-31-2004-01:22:00 Aug 31 02:32:41 But not use things like the IP matching routines, or installation IDs. : 08-31-2004-01:24:00 Aug 31 02:32:43 One day I noticed a familiar email address, which I recognized as it's, so it was game over. : 08-31-2004-01:25:00 Aug 31 02:40:31 Does anyone here know the person? Guesses? : 08-31-2004-01:27:00 Aug 31 02:40:33 Some of you are guessing some of my early guesses, including Quizzical (but I disregarded this when I saw that Quizzical started before it left)... : 08-31-2004-01:29:00 Aug 31 02:40:35 TpcT, also a believeable choice. : 08-31-2004-01:29:00 Aug 31 02:40:37 NosajOfOxicropolis, also a good guess. : 08-31-2004-01:30:00 Aug 31 02:40:39 Sigil, also believeable. : 08-31-2004-01:30:00 Aug 31 02:40:41 Ajars, believeable. : 08-31-2004-01:31:00 Aug 31 02:40:43 The answer is... : 08-31-2004-01:31:00 Aug 31 02:40:45 Od-Al. : 08-31-2004-01:31:00 Aug 31 02:48:32 And it makes sense... : 08-31-2004-01:32:00 Aug 31 02:48:33 Noted mushroom expert, one of the most complex systems in the game... : 08-31-2004-01:32:00 Aug 31 02:48:35 The thing that threw me is that Od-Al never passed Demi-Pharaoh, which is one of the things that it was intrigued by. Od,Al, if you're watching, did you participate in Demi-Pharaoh at all? : 08-31-2004-01:34:00 Aug 31 02:48:37 Question about eGenesis people making Bureaucracy "especially challenging". : 08-31-2004-01:36:00 Aug 31 02:48:39 I'll spill a few general secrets there, but it's up to individual players to say who they are. : 08-31-2004-01:37:00 Aug 31 02:48:41 The Test of Bureaucracy was conceived as a more modern Test of Trust, which will probably be removed in Tale 2. : 08-31-2004-01:37:00 Aug 31 02:48:44 A few Tests are like that: Cicada is a more modern Bedouin (though I'm not set on removing Bedouin)... : 08-31-2004-01:38:00 Aug 31 02:56:32 Phoenix is somewhat similar to Towers. : 08-31-2004-01:39:00 Aug 31 02:56:34 I did recruit agents of The Stranger for purposes like upsetting Bureaucracies. Often these were played by trusted long-time players, but not always. : 08-31-2004-01:41:00 Aug 31 02:56:36 Many are asking about Fadi... : 08-31-2004-01:41:00 Aug 31 02:56:38 Fadi, if you're other character is online, get ahold of me. : 08-31-2004-01:42:00 Aug 31 02:56:40 Patronage Message from M:Teao: Please do my bijou here so I can be a thought student. Vote fairly, IF you can do it. :-) : 08-31-2004-01:44:00 Aug 31 02:56:43 Guess that one will remain a secret. : 08-31-2004-01:45:00 Aug 31 02:56:44 There were 9 undiscovered tinctures. : 08-31-2004-01:45:00 Aug 31 02:56:47 Ok, a few more players I'd like to recognize... : 08-31-2004-01:46:00 Aug 31 03:04:33 Especially noteworthy because Architecture wasn't one of those "three" : 08-31-2004-01:47:00 Aug 31 03:04:35 Silver and Rehpic for some amazing genetics work on Flax. If you were to add up the time savings across Egypt for their strains of flax, the number would be staggering. : 08-31-2004-01:48:00 Aug 31 03:04:37 Miranda for early work in Flax genetics. : 08-31-2004-01:50:00 Aug 31 03:04:39 Patronage Message from M:Jodpar: Come and see the 9 out of 16 PoFL's that have been built in SVoK : 08-31-2004-01:52:00 Aug 31 03:04:41 GarrettH for organizing wonderful Pyrotechnics contests. : 08-31-2004-01:52:00 Aug 31 03:04:43 (Mistake in the above - RehpicSilver was acually named Silver as the 2nd in a planned 3-release strain of flax.) : 08-31-2004-01:53:00 Aug 31 03:04:45 Sadly, GarrettH succumed to the effects of Speed of the Serpent before seeing the Monument of Art complete. : 08-31-2004-01:53:00 Aug 31 03:04:47 Quizzical for research in many systems, including Cooking and Alchemy. Probably Egypt's most feared Heket's Rake players as well. : 08-31-2004-01:55:00 Aug 31 03:12:34 I also have to recognize FaceAnkh, a friend to so many in ATITD. : 08-31-2004-01:56:00 Aug 31 03:12:36 Susan, for really "playing the hell out of the game." She completed projects that whole regions would complain are too hard, : 08-31-2004-01:57:00 Aug 31 03:12:38 Including building her own Megalopolis! : 08-31-2004-01:57:00 Aug 31 03:12:40 Susan also found some of the most devilish exploits. Boy am I glad she's on my side! : 08-31-2004-01:59:00 Aug 31 03:12:42 Some stats... : 08-31-2004-01:59:00 Aug 31 03:12:44 We played 1.9 million hours altogether. : 08-31-2004-02:01:00 Aug 31 03:12:46 In a human lifetime you'll work about 100,000 hours in your whole life... : 08-31-2004-02:01:00 Aug 31 03:12:48 Yes, those are TeppyHours. So we're over 20 million "normal human" hours. : 08-31-2004-02:02:00 Aug 31 03:20:35 I've told this story before, but it's a good one... : 08-31-2004-02:03:00 Aug 31 03:20:37 I was at Game Developers Conference a couple years ago, attending a session titled "Addictiveness in Games" : 08-31-2004-02:03:00 Aug 31 03:20:39 And it was a pretty good session, talking about ways to make games more addictive. : 08-31-2004-02:04:00 Aug 31 03:20:41 And then it devolved into a big touchy-feely mess about "well, we *can* make games more addictive, but *should* we? : 08-31-2004-02:05:00 Aug 31 03:20:43 And then *the creator of Tetris* stood up... : 08-31-2004-02:10:00 Aug 31 03:20:45 And said "what the hell are all you people talking about? I *cherish* the time I'm addicted to games. What else am I going to do - read some stupid book?" : 08-31-2004-02:11:00 Aug 31 03:20:47 That got the session back on track. : 08-31-2004-02:12:00 Aug 31 03:20:49 Ok, award for the most hours played... : 08-31-2004-02:12:00 Aug 31 03:28:36 Will take a minute to figure this out. : 08-31-2004-02:13:00 Aug 31 03:28:38 NoMaD, 'gratz. You beata me, but just barely. : 08-31-2004-02:17:00 Aug 31 03:28:40 With 6912 hours. Honorable mention goes to Rehpic, Tamutnefret, and Pameow. : 08-31-2004-02:18:00 Aug 31 03:28:42 And me. : 08-31-2004-02:19:00 Aug 31 03:28:44 Let's see, what other statistics can I do... : 08-31-2004-02:20:00 Aug 31 03:28:46 Tadpoles... : 08-31-2004-02:21:00 Aug 31 03:28:48 77 million of them in game. I'll code a use in Tale 2 :) : 08-31-2004-02:22:00 Aug 31 03:28:50 Popularity contest... : 08-31-2004-02:23:00 Aug 31 03:36:36 I win. But I probably don't count... : 08-31-2004-02:25:00 Aug 31 03:36:38 I'm on 434 people's friends lists. : 08-31-2004-02:25:00 Aug 31 03:36:40 Second is FaceAnkh with 336 : 08-31-2004-02:25:00 Aug 31 03:36:42 And then 261 Esme, 260 Tweetiti, 242 Jodpar, 237 TpcT, 236 Qetesh, 232 Kir, 220 Rehpic, 201 Shelomit, 194 MissBarbara, 187 silver. : 08-31-2004-02:27:00 Aug 31 03:36:44 Couple more player recognitions, then we'll wrap up... : 08-31-2004-02:32:00 Aug 31 03:36:46 I'm always amazed at the fansite "Friends of Mihe" for all of the beautiful screenshots. A wonderful site that doesn't get the recognition they deserver. : 08-31-2004-02:32:00 Aug 31 03:36:48 Tickle and Shadez, thank you. : 08-31-2004-02:33:00 Aug 31 03:36:50 Tickle says that if there's any special artwork that you'd like her to preserve as a photo, contact her in game. : 08-31-2004-02:34:00 Aug 31 03:44:37 Tchrin for ATITD.NET, for his work as a GM, and his wisdom. Also TheDude for picking up ATITD.NET for Tale 2. : 08-31-2004-02:35:00 Aug 31 03:44:39 Devalin for ATITD.INFO, and for always being available to help me with some of the really tough webiste stuff that's needed to be done. Nobody realizes how many times he's helped me out. : 08-31-2004-02:36:00 Aug 31 03:44:41 Tweetiti for atitd.mondespersistants.com, a fantastic resource for French-speaking players. : 08-31-2004-02:37:00 Aug 31 03:44:43 And the GMs... : 08-31-2004-02:39:00 Aug 31 03:44:45 I could never have organized things without Bellah's help. She's set a standard of professionalism for the whole GM team... : 08-31-2004-02:39:00 Aug 31 03:44:47 Tweetiti, Tchrin, Silvanis, Rhys, Rosethorn, Pluribus, Petis, Omael, Hapi, Caedar... : 08-31-2004-02:41:00 Aug 31 03:44:49 Every one has put in countless hours making new players feel at home, helping people out. : 08-31-2004-02:42:00 Aug 31 03:52:38 Otter for building most of Egypt! : 08-31-2004-02:43:00 Aug 31 03:52:40 Some of her work doesn't jump right out at you - instead you may think in the back of your mind what a nice comfortable place your camp is in, or enjoy atrip over a winfding path, and that's Otter's work. : 08-31-2004-02:44:00 Aug 31 03:52:42 Gentry, who's in a submarine somewhere in the world right now. He's helped me find bugs, been a great GM, great help with so many thing. : 08-31-2004-02:45:00 Aug 31 03:52:44 Patronage Message from F:Cassie: BPOC Meeting : 08-31-2004-02:45:00 Aug 31 03:52:46 Forgot Kona! Great GM, always willing to help out. : 08-31-2004-02:46:00 Aug 31 03:52:48 /sb Ah, and almost forgot to mention the people behind one of the most used resources on the game - the ATITD Wiki - Kem and MJR. I've consulted it myself dozens of times. : 08-31-2004-02:47:00 Aug 31 03:52:50 Our French-speaking GMs Omael and Caladrius. (And Tweetiti) : 08-31-2004-02:48:00 Aug 31 03:52:52 Shep has been the one behind some of out most successful events. His planning is exact, detailed, and every time I've heard nothing but raves about the events. : 08-31-2004-02:49:00 Aug 31 03:52:54 Choule, our link to our German speaking friends in Kemet. : 08-31-2004-02:50:00 Aug 31 04:00:39 Our IRC moderators: jw, TheDude, FaceAnkh, Tamutnefret. Am I forgetting some? : 08-31-2004-02:51:00 Aug 31 04:00:41 Also Dyant. : 08-31-2004-02:52:00 Aug 31 04:00:43 Knightmare : 08-31-2004-02:53:00 Aug 31 04:00:45 Ok, a little mischief there I guess :) : 08-31-2004-02:54:00 Aug 31 04:00:47 I'll post the mineral map a bit later. (I need to extract it from the server, and I think doing it with so many people on will be a sure crash. : 08-31-2004-02:55:00 Aug 31 04:00:49 Patronage Message from F:Esme: Come see all 5 of Egypts monuments in one place! It is amazing :) : 08-31-2004-02:56:00 Aug 31 04:08:40 I know I'm forgetting some people... : 08-31-2004-02:59:00 Aug 31 04:08:42 Oh, gotta mention someone who was instrumental back in the Tale 1 testing days, who is back with us now - Apophis. Welcome back, Apophis. : 08-31-2004-03:00:00 Aug 31 04:08:44 Obiwan, who lives only in character form - the player died during this Tale, and he is certainly missed. : 08-31-2004-03:01:00 Aug 31 04:08:46 Varen, for early cooking and winemaking research. : 08-31-2004-03:02:00 Aug 31 04:08:48 Ok, I think it's time... : 08-31-2004-03:02:00 Aug 31 04:08:50 As I mentioned, the plan is to end our first Tale in the Desert on Thursday, sometime around Noon. : 08-31-2004-03:03:00 Aug 31 04:08:52 ATITD II will begin at Noon on Friday, though there's a chance I'll delay that by a day. Generally I'm feeling pretty good about the state of ATITD II (much, much more polished than ATITD 1 was at release) : 08-31-2004-03:05:00 Aug 31 04:08:54 Ok, before I go.... : 08-31-2004-03:07:00 Aug 31 04:16:41 Does everyone know the secret to Garlic Seeds? : 08-31-2004-03:08:00 Aug 31 04:16:43 Ok, growing garlic has always involved a "personal knack"... : 08-31-2004-03:08:00 Aug 31 04:16:45 Meaning that unlike all the other vegetables, you had to discover your own growing locations. : 08-31-2004-03:09:00 Aug 31 04:16:47 The seed secret was also just a few spots that *you* could grow garlic and get back 2 seeds. The server prints something out when this happens, so I know that people have done it by luck. : 08-31-2004-03:10:00 Aug 31 04:16:49 But there's a catch... : 08-31-2004-03:10:00 Aug 31 04:16:51 It only works if you haven't planted any garlic in the last 10 minutes. : 08-31-2004-03:10:00 Aug 31 04:16:53 So when someone went to try making seeds again it was guaranteed to fail. : 08-31-2004-03:11:00 Aug 31 04:16:55 *harvested, not planted. : 08-31-2004-03:11:00 Aug 31 04:24:42 But you got 4 of the secrets, not bad! : 08-31-2004-03:12:00 Aug 31 04:24:44 (The person controlling the Mafia character at the time of the infamous incident is not around to reveal him/herself. I'll encourage that secret to be revealed when the person is around. : 08-31-2004-03:14:00 Aug 31 04:24:46 (Tasting the '03 wine.) : 08-31-2004-03:15:00 Aug 31 04:24:48 Finally, thanks to all of you. When we started eGenesis Josh and I attended a conference of some sort, I forget which... : 08-31-2004-03:16:00 Aug 31 04:24:50 It was called "So you want to build an MMORPG"... : 08-31-2004-03:16:00 Aug 31 04:24:52 And they said "Step one, get ahold of $15M, because that's the least you'll be able to do it for." : 08-31-2004-03:17:00 Aug 31 04:24:54 And then the rest of their rules were things like "be sure you can get at least 100,000 players", and "be sure you have a publisher committed ahead of time". : 08-31-2004-03:18:00 Aug 31 04:24:56 I think the guy putting it on was from Sony. : 08-31-2004-03:19:00 Aug 31 04:24:58 And so we learned the first REAL rule of building an MMORPG - don't believe everything you hear. : 08-31-2004-03:20:00 Aug 31 04:32:43 I know that the bleeding edge players encountered many bugs in Tale 1, but I hope that most players encountered few. : 08-31-2004-03:21:00 Aug 31 04:32:45 When there's a problem, we tried to fix it as fast as possible. And we'll continue that in Tale 2... : 08-31-2004-03:22:00 Aug 31 04:32:48 And I have to say that I'm thrilled with how Tale 2 is turning out so far - we've broken so many records (including 973 online at once!)... : 08-31-2004-03:25:00 Aug 31 04:32:49 I can't wait to see what surprises Tale 2 brings! : 08-31-2004-03:26:00 Aug 31 04:32:51 Good luck, Egypt, completing the final Monuments... : 08-31-2004-03:27:00 Aug 31 04:32:53 And good luck to all of our descendants in A Tale in the Desert II! : 08-31-2004-03:28:00 Aug 31 04:32:55 Pharaoh out. : 08-31-2004-03:28:00 Aug 31 04:40:44 One last request - don't salvae Egypt's finest art, though puzzles, or sculptures, etc. I have an event idea for late Tale 2 when some of that may resurface. : 08-31-2004-03:38:00