Someday, I shall leave this frozen land and move to a place where I do not need earmuffs. But until then, I will write this column. Ah, who am I kidding, I couldn't leave you people:
Q: "Mezmerization and Stun spells are now calculated when determining Realm point distribution. The spells are looked at as if they were damage spells cast upon a player."--per your recent patch notes, does this mean that multiple cast mez spells will be looked at as attacks and break any mez that may already be on a character and set the immunity timer? Groups running with 'spammable' or multiple CC characters often hit cast these spells in the attempt to mez everyone even if resisted. These spells, now being considered attacks, would reasonably set an immunity timer if resisted, and break the current mez if this character was attacked yet again by another spell. A: I sent this to the Code Warrior. He replied: "No, the realm point calculation for crowd control spells is entirely separate from the system that determines crowd control immunity timers."
Q: You said Dreamweaver was fixed, but when I activated Shades of Mist, and then dispelled it, I came back to a different form than the one I started with. Why didn't I return back to the form that Dreamweaver gave me? A: Because if you shapechange a shapechange, the server doesn't bother trying to remember everything. The Code Warrior says, "The problem is that when you change the second time, the server can't remember what your first shapechange gave you. Before 1.81, you would simply go back to being what you were. With 1.81, the server recasts Dreamweaver when you dispell SoM. Since the first cast of Dreamweaver chooses a random form, it has to choose another random form when it recasts. The bug that might randomly turn you into a tree or a dragon, however, has been fixed."
Q: In the "1.81F" patch notes you mention being able to use the "realm point remover" NPC if you are level 44 or below. Does this include those that have "mini-dinged" to 44.5? I'm only asking because this sort of thing could easily slip through the cracks. ;) A: You are absolutely right, this sort of thing does tend to wriggle through cracks. But I checked, and the team assures me that the mini-ding won't affect you.
Q: Does the change to the Player RP formula hold steady for the battlegrounds, too? By my calculations, that would make a level 24 player that was 1L4 worth 36 rps, instead of the (seemingly) current max of 4 rps. Also, will it have any effect on Killaloe? Or will kills there still be 1 rp max? A: The new and vastly improved realm point system (more points, and more ways to get them) applies to the BGs, yes. That's one of the reasons the point wiper NPC is in both the capital cities and the BGs themselves - you'll need to use them if you want to stay more than a handful of playing sessions!
Kills in Killaloe are typically around one realm point, but not because we've set a cap in the code. The number of points you were worth to your killer used to be purely a function of your level and your realm rank, and you could only gain points in a few ways. So players in Killaloe tended to be worth less than a point, which our system rounds up. Now that we've opened up many new ways to get points, and greatly expanded the formula (see the grab bag from 12/2/05: http://www.camelotherald.com/more/2275.shtml), you may see bigger numbers. Like FOUR. ;)
Q: I posted both of these on Alliance chat and also a large BG chat and no one seemed to be positive about the answers: 1. Does having more than one STR Relic increase the damage done to Archery? Or does it just affect hand to hand Melee?
2. What is the base chance to critical hit without any realm abilities modifying etc. Some thought it was 5% and others thought 10%? A: Our Code Warrior told me that the strength relic does indeed affect archery as well as straight melee. As for your second question, he said, "The base chance to critical hit is 10% for melee damage and for magical direct damage spells. Damage over time spells have a base 0% chance to critical (meaning they will never do critical hits) but that chance can go up if the player purchases the Wild Power realm ability."
Q: Wasn’t sure how to submit for the grab bag, but here is my question. 1.81e mentions the recall stones with the following rewards for time:
3 months: personal bind recall
6 months: personal house recall
12 months: guild house recall
Will the 6 month personal house stones work for any toon on the account or just the house owner like the current teleporting system works? A: It will work just like the existing system.
Having it work for any toon on the account is a frequently requested feature, but one that has proven problematic to develop for many reasons. Rest assured that I have passed on your feedback requesting it work as an option for all of the characters on an account. If it becomes possible (and as always "possible" is just shorthand for "possible with our team and resources"), it could happen.
Also, astute readers noticed that this feature was in the 1.81E Test notes, but not in the 1.81 Live notes. That's because it was a separate process connected to account billing, and not actually related to the patch. We had plans to launch the patch and the reward on the same day, but ultimately thought better of messing with all the databases on the same day. ("We can be taught.") There are also some things we couldn't start until the servers were back up.
We will have the system live next Monday, barring the unforeseen.
But as a side note - the system is based on how many months, total, you have been an active subscriber. That means there may be some bobbles if your account is free for some reason, such as being a volunteer, a reporter, or a contest winner. We flagged you guys by hand, and by we, I mean the Lord of the Underworld aka Andrew. If you do not have access to the loyalty rewards because your account is free, please send a technical support form so that we can flag your account properly.
Q: On the Vault, I saw a post claiming that Mythic has added a feature allowing us to make artifact macros that only take one click to use. Really? Was there a patch note? A: You've heard of stealth nerfs? Well, this is a stealth improvement. Neither happens very often, and in any case the patch note for either was simply overlooked as opposed to intentionally snuck in.
But in this case it's just a feature that isn't complete. The plan is to put in a button in the interface, of course, and since it wasn't entirely ready for you to use it's not the most logical thing to type. But now that the cat's out of the bag, you're welcome to use it if you don't mind doing a bit of typing. Kudos to the German player who found it first. Sir, have you considered a career debugging software?
Here's the trick:
Type exactly the following for the 5th level ability. Don't add any more or fewer spaces.
/macro name /use 5 XX
For the 10th level:
/macro name /use2 5 XX
That's it. The five doesn't mean anything, but it won't work without the five. The name is whatever you want to name the macro. The XX is the number of the slot where you keep the artifact. Here's how we have numbered the slots:
0 = right hand weapon
1 = left hand weapon
2 = two-handed weapon
3 = ranged weapon
10 = helm
11 = gloves
12 = boots
13 = jewel
14 = torso
15 = cloak
16 = legs
17 = arms
18 = necklace
21 = belt
22 = left bracer
23 = right bracer
24 = left ring
25 = right ring
40-47 = first inventory bag, top to bottom
(The other bags may work, count out accordingly.)
So, to use the Winged Helm's level five ability with this macro, you would type:
/macro WH /use 5 10
PLEASE NOTE: If you have trouble with this, please don't appeal it as a bug. As I said, this is not a complete feature and not entirely ready for players to use it. But it's so darn handy that we didn't want some players to be using it while others were in the dark.
***
Someone reminded me today that I didn’t mention the names of the artists who won our calendar contest. Congratulations are due to Bill "Kavoc" Bricker, Luca the Bucket, Lsyw, Rin-45C, Karen Morey, Martin "Marteen" Kaufman, Thay Falcon, Kaphen DePriest, Jim Popov, and Michelle "Treefox" Taber. Great work, everyone! The 2006 Calendar is brilliant.
As always, our improvements and tweaks have borked the custom UIs. Please go through yours and see what adjustments you may have to make.
Nick E. and Matt P. won the Camelot account and the Warhammer beta at the
Child's Play Auction . Oh, did I mention Child's Play? Yes, yes I did. And I'm doing it again, too, because it is my all time favorite holiday charity. By gamers, for gamers. Can't beat it.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/childsplaycharity/index.php
Have a great weekend, everybody. See you out in the keepsin the keeps.
Dark Age of Camelot 
