Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable

Simucon 2017: Dev Roundtable

https://youtu.be/upNKtBWuJYc

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Rangers:

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Rangers: - No specific DEV at this time.

620: - They can evaluate whether it should work above brig.

Player Request - Option for 635 to be player friendly. - It would be possible with a target limit, based upon skills.

630: - Suggest ideas for new ambients/actions (Need messaging) - Or submit to GM Keios

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Wizards:

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Anything new with Wizards? - No major updates coming - Minor updates coming soon

525: - Something they want to update to make useful. - General theme will stay the same. - GM may "tackle" it soon.

920 Updates: - Chance to "anchor" a specific famililar to always get that type of familiar. - Something to consider.

8x,9x,10x Potions: - Will not be available through alchemy - Maybe under version 2.0

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Clerics:

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Combining 309/315: - Wouldn't happen without a reason to do it, and a spell to fill the slot.

320: - Need a good idea for the slot.

330: - Won't become an innate skill unless there is a good spell to fill the slot.

New Cleric bolt spell: - They do have an idea, Estild would like to see a 200's bolt spell, low priority.

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Paladins

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1650: - Not ready to talk about it. - Mostly been coded. - Next couple months.

Zealot + Hurling: - Possible to make it work. - But Paladins are not seen as hurlers.

Zealot: - May gain an option to no longer affect the whole group.

1618: - Doesn't add damage padding to UAC. - Probably a bug.

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Sorcerers:

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709: - When cast and it tags everything in REIM - It's a bug.

Minor Summoning: - will not be updated to attack. - Meant to be a utility spell.

Alchemy Recipe: - Much more expensive to create a chalk (740) - Will look at reviewing the recipe

750: - No news, no design. Submit ideas.

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Empaths:

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Cry for Help: - Looking at replacing cry for help. - Some stuff in the works, focused towards healing, creating more incentive to heal.

Troll's Blood: - Cast option that wouldn't affect all so no scars

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MISC:

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116: - Bowels, Varunar -- Cannot be located within those areas. - Post areas that don't work so they can evaluate areas that are prevented, but shouldn't be. - They will not allow 204 to be overrode via lore.

Weighting/Padding changes: - Don't expect blessable claidhmores. - Might be possible with "Auction" quality - Don't expect bless or eblade to work on these items

Minor Mental Spells: - 1212: No DEV - Lots of work to override all scripts - 1235: No DEV

Updating Weapon Bases/Armor Bases to allow greater variety because of improvements: - Not against it, but yet another thing to work on.

Create your own scrolls: - Already have 420

How do you decide when to open the test server? - When they need to test something big. - They don't want to leave it open so we break their formulas.

UAC & Berserk: - Not a quick and easy update. - They will consider it

Hurling Updates: - No work on it - On a backlist

Shield Specializations: - Can be reviewed, especially the ones that aren't used much.

Fusion: - Mario Question - There will be no more extraction using the old system, all future extraction will be 2.0

Temporary Hunting Grounds: - Will not be permanent

Post-Cap Hunting Areas: - Post-Cap Dev goals prior to hunting areas.

Post-Cap Dev Goals: - You would get "character points" to spend towards abilities.

Disarm: - GM responsible for it is hoping to get back into it soon. - Can still be disarmed, but will not be permanent loss

Artisan Skill Roundtime: - They can consider reducing it

What does balance mean at a high level to you? - Should be strengths/weaknesses

Transportation System: - Estild plans to make it a top priority after Simucon. - All teleportation spells will be updated, expect additional training to unlock.

Mining/Smelting? - GM-Coase's project - not high priority

Zul Logoth: - Any further DEV? - Worlds team question (Worlds team said no)

Unable to determine TD on gear outside of combat: - Can look at updating loresinging to provide the information - Maybe sorcerer, but would prefer loresinging

Loresinging doesn't show temporary abilities correctly. - Loresinging should be able to tell all the properties of an item

GOS Warcamp Clerics: - They cast interdiction - Can look at duration reduction

Rift Hunting: (liches) - Can look at making lichbane talismans not be stripped.

Post-cap growth would be awesome. What's funny is unless they block grandfathering, I bet a good number of current characters will largely max out whatever new skills they put into the game.

I would imagine any new system would require people to earn the points. Like Necro juice or Mana points for enchanting, something that is earned (probably slowly) over time with new EXP absorbed.

Think it is supposed to be 1650 under Paladins

Is it too much double dipping though? We're all gaining power at cap due to XP and skills growth. Character points is just another point to allocate/whatnot. I'm absolutely not opposed to it, but within the capped community, I couldn't imagine trying to implement a hunting ground assuming characters have 15m XP and X character points allocated, while not being overly difficulty, or a joke by 20m XP... balance is a difficult concept to strike in this game. So... if we don't have some super higher hunting grounds outside of invasions, is this just more inflation to make Sanctum, OTF, etc, just easier hunting?

To answer your direct question, yes, of course, it makes that easier. They did bring this up and flat out said "expect to see tougher critters to compensate", how that will play out is yet to be seen. What they should really figure out how to code is something like the Nephilim challenges/rifts in Diablo 3. Something that you either pre-select the difficulty of or scales with your performance as you go through it. I can imagine that this might be impossible (mostly the dynamic scaling part), but pre-creating some cap +5, cap +10, cap +20 instances with monsters to fit should be a normal cycle of design, code, tweak to get reasonable. Thus the constant back and forth of balance begins as more features and weapons and such are added and the game becomes easier. Gemstone has something that, while not everyone will agree, sets it apart from more static games like Diablo in that even once you become the lawnmower of monsters you can still interact with lots of people in a unique fashion that might change from time to time. That whole Role Playing part of the mud that people tend to put aside.

The entire Dev roundtable was kinda painful to watch. Mestys and Keios didn't say a word and looked uncomfortable the whole time. Estild basically responded to everything with either a "no", or a "maybe that could be looked at", with the exception of the transportation system and inducing empaths to heal more. He also somewhat contradicted what Wyrom said in his SoE address with regards to weighting and padding (or at least that's how it sounded to me at the time). I had been hoping for a lot more from this RoundTable, but that may have just been my preconceptions.

That being said, I did appreciate that they were willing to have an on-record conversation about it at all. Next year I may have to go in person, get a few drinks in these people, then ask them some of the same questions...

I would have preferred for them to have a presentation, followed by a Q&A session.

Estild's new favorite phrase is: "It's possible, but a low priority."

There was a lot of "We ran out of ideas" being projected. They requested for people to submit ideas and said "it's something we'll discuss" a lot. I feel the development side is lagging behind GM item creation in terms of creativity and activity. I also don't understand how game wide mechanics can be the domain of a sole GM. Item scripts? Sure no problem, ALCHEMY, FORGING, TRAVELING, being handled by a single GM? REALLY terrible choice as far as keeping things moving at a realistic speed and supporting it moving forward. How many systems are just "Lol we can do anything with that because the code is junk"?

"It's something we'll discuss" is also... It's a terrible idea, and we further discussed how terrible the idea is. You'll never get a straight answer out of this stuff.

It comes down to the caliber and completeness of ideas. I've done it as well... but the best solutions really come from identification of the most fundamental problems, and selling your ideas on how they resolve the underlying issues. Many of the ideas I've seen posted on the officials go so far as "I want this because it's cool" or, assume that in their write-up, the problems are inherent rather than explicitly stated. The player base in general has a lot of learning to do when it comes to proposing adequate ideas for GMs to have true discussions about.

@whirlin said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

"It's something we'll discuss" is also... It's a terrible idea, and we further discussed how terrible the idea is. You'll never get a straight answer out of this stuff.

It comes down to the caliber and completeness of ideas. I've done it as well... but the best solutions really come from identification of the most fundamental problems, and selling your ideas on how they resolve the underlying issues. Many of the ideas I've seen posted on the officials go so far as "I want this because it's cool" or, assume that in their write-up, the problems are inherent rather than explicitly stated. The player base in general has a lot of learning to do when it comes to proposing adequate ideas for GMs to have true discussions about.

If that's true, then it sounds like GMs have a communication problem as well. Saying 1 thing when you mean another does no one any favors.

It's certainly not easy being in charge of balance, there will always be people who argue one way or another, but during the round table there was more than once that they flat out said "We don't have any ideas, submit something" if that is what is holding back development, that's a problem. Some of the answers are "that's not the direction we want to go in". So players are left in the dark as to when or if anything will happen and they aren't told the direction that they should be thinking. But somehow they should put forth the effort to basically put the entire idea down on paper? If no other information is given, "because its cool" is the best reason to submit an idea.

@ordim said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

It's certainly not easy being in charge of balance, there will always be people who argue one way or another, but during the round table there was more than once that they flat out said "We don't have any ideas, submit something" if that is what is holding back development, that's a problem. Some of the answers are "that's not the direction we want to go in". So players are left in the dark as to when or if anything will happen and they aren't told the direction that they should be thinking. But somehow they should put forth the effort to basically put the entire idea down on paper? If no other information is given, "because its cool" is the best reason to submit an idea.

Agreed.

Even though I want new cleric spells really badly in the three spots that were brought up, I've never taken much time to think about ideas or propose them because I didn't know they'd want any. To be honest, I'm still not totally sure they do... a few months ago they directly asked for 1650 ideas on the officials, so if they want ideas for anything else, I'd like them to be that clear about it again.

Still... just feeling like there's a slim chance they'd like ideas is enough for me to devote some time to that and see what I can imagine. It's a step!

Another part of the issue is that not every class has a gaping hole to fill, and they don't want to fill a spell slot just to put something in the slot. One of the actually legit problems Wizards have is that the spell list is a little bit uninspiring... "here's the Earth bolt, here's the Fire bolt, etc" When it could just be unified, but then there'd be holes.

So ultimately, it's about suggesting stuff that is neat, novel, and necessary, all without blowing out the balance.

@0zymandius said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

Next year I may have to go in person, get a few drinks in these people, then ask them some of the same questions…

That is by far the preferred approach for all parties involved. :)

@ordim said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

There was a lot of “We ran out of ideas” being projected. They requested for people to submit ideas and said “it’s something we’ll discuss” a lot. I feel the development side is lagging behind GM item creation in terms of creativity and activity. I also don’t understand how game wide mechanics can be the domain of a sole GM. Item scripts? Sure no problem, ALCHEMY, FORGING, TRAVELING, being handled by a single GM? REALLY terrible choice as far as keeping things moving at a realistic speed and supporting it moving forward. How many systems are just “Lol we can do anything with that because the code is junk”?

@ArchSenex noted exactly what the issue is here in his last post in this thread. We have no interest in filling empty spell slots just so we can say that slot is now filled. We'd rather wait until we have a good and worthy idea. The reason a lot of answers are "something we'll discuss" during Q&A is because there is a Development team, not a single person. I was the ranking Dev GM at SimuCon, so I get to field the questions, but unless it's a minor idea/request, I'm not going to be making snapshot decisions on the fly. I instead take the feedback and discuss it with the rest of the team after SimuCon.

@leafiara said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

Even though I want new cleric spells really badly in the three spots that were brought up, I’ve never taken much time to think about ideas or propose them because I didn’t know they’d want any. To be honest, I’m still not totally sure they do… a few months ago they directly asked for 1650 ideas on the officials, so if they want ideas for anything else, I’d like them to be that clear about it again. Still… just feeling like there’s a slim chance they’d like ideas is enough for me to devote some time to that and see what I can imagine. It’s a step!

We're always open to ideas for new spell ideas, updates to existing spells, and pretty much every aspect of GemStone.

GameMaster Estild

Welcome @Estild, your presence is greatly appreciated.

@Estild Make animate dead have a self "raise" function with lore. So you can walk your ass back to town with enough lore. I'm a strong independent sorcerer who doesn't need anyone!

Reading that doesn't make it clear to me, so what are the big development focuses?

One thing I'd been hoping to get a sense of from the Roundtable was much as @idlewanderlust stated above... what are the current foci of the Dev group? I understand taking questions, but I would have liked a short presentation beforehand.

Something akin to "Hi all, thanks for coming out. To give a bit of an upfront presentation, I'm GM Estild, I'm the head of Dev, and I'm currently working on Travel System 2.0 {with a little bit of info about that}, GM Mestys is currently exploring the possibility of re-running Droughtman's Maze {with some words about the difficulties that would present}, and GM Keios is working on getting UAC to interact appropriately with Berserk {with some explanation about how that's a huge deal}. Other members of the team who are NOT here with us {with snide joke about them slacking off} include GM Bob, who is working on X, GM Jim, who is working on Y, and GM Dick, who... to be honest I'm not sure what he's working on, but feel free to email him at GS4-Dick@play.net and ask him! With that out of the way, let's open it up to questions!"

Again, I appreciate the willingness to even HAVE the roundtable, and have it streamed. It's always interesting to peek behind the curtain. But the way this was presented left me feeling a bit like there wasn't a lot of Dev going on, in general... and that it was largely due to lack of ideas. I feel relatively certain that's not the case (given how comparatively robust the game is lately), but would have liked a bit more insight.

It kinda felt like we were trying to get more info from an NPC and just asking the wrong questions.

First of all, thank you for coming by and replying, I think this whole process goes a long way in helping resolve some of Gemstones communication issues. Second, that is a perfectly fair point and position to have, it should just be communicated from the get go. As Ozymandius offers, a general opening of "Hey, heres some general areas we are working on right now because we feel the game lacks/needs/wants X based on Y" at least gives people an idea of what they should focus their feedback scope on. I've only been around for a little over a year but it seemed like a good amount of questions were ones that come up frequently enough. Complex (or otherwise already nixed) systems like mining/smelting, savants, come up over and over. I think you helped people understand a lot better the direction with one simple sentence "I'd rather dedicate time to savants over guild skills". That gives us more accurate expectations so that there should be less disappointment or animosity when someones favored area is not focused on etc.

@sabotage said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

It kinda felt like we were trying to get more info from an NPC and just asking the wrong questions.

hahaha.

@sabotage said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

It kinda felt like we were trying to get more info from an NPC and just asking the wrong questions.

This is awesome. I laughed, then had to explain the joke to my boss who happened to be walking by.

@0zymandius said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

One thing I’d been hoping to get a sense of from the Roundtable was much as @idlewanderlust stated above… what are the current foci of the Dev group? I understand taking questions, but I would have liked a short presentation beforehand. Again, I appreciate the willingness to even HAVE the roundtable, and have it streamed. It’s always interesting to peek behind the curtain. But the way this was presented left me feeling a bit like there wasn’t a lot of Dev going on, in general… and that it was largely due to lack of ideas. I feel relatively certain that’s not the case (given how comparatively robust the game is lately), but would have liked a bit more insight.

That's understandable and was one of the driving forces for me to first attend SimuCon back in 2005, as I too wanted to know what was happening in the game and what was planned for the future. However, since then, we've shifted away from providing too many details about projects that are still in development. There are absolutely many things that are being worked on right now, that we did not mention at SimuCon. However, we continually get burned by the fact we've announced things 10 years ago that still haven't been implemented, even though we've specifically stated we have no immediate plans to work on such projects (e.g. Savants). That internal policy isn't my decision, but I am bound by it nonetheless.

It should also be noted that the roundtables were much more formal this year than in the last 10 years. We use to just gather around a table and engage in discussion, instead of it just being a Q&A. I'm not against the latest format, as it gives more people the chance to ask questions and to interact, but with the old format, it was much more informal and allowed us to provide more details (specifically, our reasoning for different things) and to ask players their thoughts on things instead of just answering questions.

GameMaster Estild

I think an informal discussion is more what I was looking for. As I said... I'll just have to grab a case of something or other and corner you next year. Every time you say "well, we'll see", we both take a drink.

That said, I appreciate the clarification (and overall communication) here. Thank you.

Also mentioned in http://forums.play.net/forums/GemStone%20IV/Socializing/Player%20Websites/view/53 were the Discord and Slack applications.

Maybe in the future an informal discussion could take place online.

If an informal discussion is held on Discord, I'd hope a transcript would be placed online afterwards. I was thankfully able to listen in on the Dev roundtable despite Twitch's video player buttons being unlabelled (yay trial and error and sighted husband.) Was very cool to listen in, at least, and read the chat as it was going on.

Discord, however, is inaccessible and it is laughable how their dev team pretty much brushes aside making accessibility upgrades.

I should hope the GS dev team doesn't migrate over to their "vote up" version of development. (This seems a trend in a lot of dev teams lately that I've noticed - have people suggest ideas and the ones that get voted up the most get worked on.)

@estild said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

It should also be noted that the roundtables were much more formal this year than in the last 10 years. We use to just gather around a table and engage in discussion, instead of it just being a Q&A. I'm not against the latest format, as it gives more people the chance to ask questions and to interact, but with the old format, it was much more informal and allowed us to provide more details (specifically, our reasoning for different things) and to ask players their thoughts on things instead of just answering questions.

GameMaster Estild

I think the fact that simucon was mysteriously twice as large as ever before means things may need to shift in that area too.

@Estild @Wyrom I know you're not yet ready to divulge what 1650 is going to be, but is it possble to get some sense of what issue it's solving for? Or if it's attack, defense, or utility? I know there's always a massive risk of players reading what they want to read and then working ourselves into a tizzy whenever any info is shared, but I'm wildly curious!

@vishra said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

@Estild @Wyrom I know you're not yet ready to divulge what 1650 is going to be, but is it possble to get some sense of what issue it's solving for? Or if it's attack, defense, or utility? I know there's always a massive risk of players reading what they want to read and then working ourselves into a tizzy whenever any info is shared, but I'm wildly curious!

It's a project being worked on GameMaster Cyraex. I'll see about getting him to post on it in the near future.

GameMaster Estild

I would have liked to have seen some kind of survey done with the players there as to what they feel the most important thing is that needs fixed, and that compiled into a list of the top most important things the players want done.

Consequently it would have been interesting for the gm's to also have done this so the players can understand a bit better what they feel is of primary importance to get done.

And I would love a list of things the GM's feel they need help with from the player base.

I feel a lot of negativity and frustration for players comes from a lack of direction or understanding. Many people given no direction feel lost, like they're in a tunnel and there's no light at the end. This is not just a game, it's a community. I feel if you give us projects we can help you on, it would provide some focus in a positive direction. Less people will go down that dark path thinking nothing is every gonna change, etc...

I personally love how the game has evolved thus far, there are projects I would love to see finished, especially the artisan system as well as the guild system, both of which are probably so low on the list it may never happen, so if we can help you get that list knocked out and get down to those things I, and I'm sure others are totally ready to help.

My main concern with development and being tight lipped about it now is not that things will be announced that never come out, like Savants or Heroes Journey, but my fear that our current situation is that the vast majority of development time is going to creating new microtransaction systems these days. This thread, along with the EG one, has not helped alleviate any of those fears.

@flimbo said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

My main concern with development and being tight lipped about it now is not that things will be announced that never come out, like Savants or Heroes Journey, but that our current situation is that the vast majority of development time is going to creating new microtransaction systems these days. This thread, along with the EG one, has not helped alleviate any of those fears.

Heroes Journey was a successful engine development that was subsequently sold for rights to use by I think Star Wars online or something. Needs changed and end deliverable changed, but the engine development was still executed.

I also don't think you're giving enough credit to other development efforts that have been established, through script creation, Reim's 1/day entry, Wizard ELR review (good or bad), new armor maneuvers, new shield maneuvers, etc... there has been a tremendous amount that you're subjectively ignoring from your perspective of what has been delivered to characters. It feels like you're dwelling on hindrance when you're only at 4%, and you feel like it's occurring every time.

@estild Thank you Estild!

@flimbo said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

My main concern with development and being tight lipped about it now is not that things will be announced that never come out, like Savants or Heroes Journey, but my fear that our current situation is that the vast majority of development time is going to creating new microtransaction systems these days. This thread, along with the EG one, has not helped alleviate any of those fears.

Development does work on some microtransactions, mostly for individual items in the SimuCoin Store (guild night passes, attunement resets, etc - all of which are rather minor to implement from our side), but it is a significant minority compared to the work that goes into things like Duskruin, Ebon Gate, and other events. That work is done by the Events team. Ebon Gate moving to a different monetary system has absolutely no impact on development for new spells, combat maneuvers, or professions in general.

@whirlin said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

@flimbo said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

My main concern with development and being tight lipped about it now is not that things will be announced that never come out, like Savants or Heroes Journey, but that our current situation is that the vast majority of development time is going to creating new microtransaction systems these days. This thread, along with the EG one, has not helped alleviate any of those fears.

Heroes Journey was a successful engine development that was subsequently sold for rights to use by I think Star Wars online or something. Needs changed and end deliverable changed, but the engine development was still executed.

I also don't think you're giving enough credit to other development efforts that have been established, through script creation, Reim's 1/day entry, Wizard ELR review (good or bad), new armor maneuvers, new shield maneuvers, etc... there has been a tremendous amount that you're subjectively ignoring from your perspective of what has been delivered to characters. It feels like you're dwelling on hindrance when you're only at 4%, and you feel like it's occurring every time.

The Hero Engine was a last ditch attempt to salvage something from dumping money into a hole for a decade, and Bioshock did use it to create SW:TOR, yes. I can almost guarantee you from a development standpoint that zero dollars were in the black for Simutronics on that one. I also purchased a copy for $100 out of curiosity. It was not a bad engine. Don't want to say that at all, but Heroes Journey was vaporware, and nobody can deny that .

I'm not ignoring anything, but what I've gathered from this thread is that most things that players have asked about are not being actively worked on, and that the dev team is tight lipped about what actually is being worked on.

My fear, and it is a legitimate one, is that what is being worked on is largely more microtransaction systems, and I will retain that fear until the development team comes out and says that that is not the case.

@flimbo By all accounts- the Hero Engine was a successful revenue stream.

Especially given how much of the HJ development was done by volunteers.

If development has been focusing on the Certificate system (which we are starting to see the fruits of that labor) than I am ok with the current state PROVIDED that it ramps up certificate solutions and focuses on other projects with the free time saved from certificates. However, I'm not sure that's how it will work because of the way GM teams are setup. Development may be working on the backend with the individual GMs who made their scripts, or maybe its each GM doing their own certs? Frankly, if more GMs RP'd and did stuff like Goblyn/Kaikala that hit more audiences I think the game would be a lot better. As far s mechanical changes or new scripts, I want to see more player generated item creation scripts/skills/abilities/artisan or whatever. Give us some more tools to play in the sandbox in regards to items.

My lack of education just makes me very angry when i try to wrap my head around complex situations. ORDIM ANGRY ORDIM SMASH

@vishra said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

@flimbo By all accounts- the Hero Engine was a successful revenue stream.

Especially given how much of the HJ development was done by volunteers.

@vishra Yeah that part's the only bit that made me put the word "almost" in there. I don't know how much of its development was actually volunteer work, but it was developed at least twice from scratch over a period of a decade (They scrapped it once at least in 98 or 99 and started over). There's no way it was profit if you consider everything and it was primarily paid work.

Investment Capital Firms don't sink 500,000 Dollars into small companies that aren't considered profitable.

@archsenex said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

Investment Capital Firms don't sink 500,000 Dollars into small companies that aren't considered profitable.

Depends on the circumstances but usually true, yeah. One of my clients came through bankruptcy and secured 800k based on a misrepresentation of the value of goods in his warehouse auction in exchange for a stake in the company though, so who knows.

@ordim said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

If development has been focusing on the Certificate system (which we are starting to see the fruits of that labor) than I am ok with the current state PROVIDED that it ramps up certificate solutions and focuses on other projects with the free time saved from certificates. However, I'm not sure that's how it will work because of the way GM teams are setup. Development may be working on the backend with the individual GMs who made their scripts, or maybe its each GM doing their own certs? Frankly, if more GMs RP'd and did stuff like Goblyn/Kaikala that hit more audiences I think the game would be a lot better. As far s mechanical changes or new scripts, I want to see more player generated item creation scripts/skills/abilities/artisan or whatever. Give us some more tools to play in the sandbox in regards to items.

Totally agree with all of this. One of the reasons I love the gem cutter pattern customization is that not only does it help with chrisms and sorting gems is that it also allows us to create our own items like warrior sheaths, shoes, and I believe lockpicks if you ever manage to finish lockmastery. I would love to be able to make more things myself instead of standing in line waiting desperately to get picked by a spinner that never lands on me. Also if we could create more of our own things, then the GM's could do more roleplaying, development, what have you.

@Estild

FWIW, I really liked the format of the roundtable this year in general and your fielding of the questions in specific. Of course, this is from the perspective of a stream viewer and not an attending player. I am not sure I like it more than the older version, but it was a good watch. I would of course have loved additional details (and more overall things covered/coming out), but I got way more out of the DEV roundtable than I did the worlds one.

I am probably also being biased by my two biggest dev hopes both making it on the list of things covered (Paladins and post cap).

I do hope you can round up GM Cyraex to talk here, if only so I can accost him about making 1608 work.

@alastir said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

709: When cast and it tags everything in REIM - It’s a bug.

I double checked on this and it's not a bug. Targets that are already knocked down are still subject to roundtime, thus the sorcerer is still contributing by disabling the target.

we'll get a sorc nerf in there somewhere, somehow!

@ordim

I know you in-game and on other forums, you're a solid contributing player and an asset to the community.

However, while everyone knows what you meant by the above statement, I think we should try to do it with less snark and be more considerate when addressing GMs.

I know I sometimes do this as well and some GMs are easier targets due to their history, but I'll try to take my own advice going forward as well.

Let's keep it positive!

I thought it was funny

@allereli

Oh I did too, and I know Ordim meant it like that. But not everyone may take it that way when the only way to understand the joke is to know the past history of the person it was directed at, which may not have been entirely positive.

Anyhow, it's such a welcome and refreshing sight for a GM to respond outside of play.net that I may be overreacting too, so forgive me on that regard.

@God I joked about using garbage as currency on the officials last night. I sure hope this is a place people can joke, especially when it doesn't sling any direct insults.

@allereli said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable:

@God I joked about using garbage as currency on the officials last night. I sure hope this is a place people can joke, especially when it doesn't sling any direct insults.

Wizards... are wizards the joke?

Even direct insults can make sense, as long as they're not meant to be directly inflammatory, without substance, and not performed to the point of harassment. The intent wasn't something hyper-moderated, just something more than what we had. If anything reaches a point where admins need to sit down and talk about you, your behavior was likely shit. As a Twilight Officer yourself, I know that you know exactly what I'm talking about.

@allereli

Yeah, you're right.

I'm just trying to keep us as far away from the atmosphere of that other forum. It'll be fine.

@whirlin said in Simucon 2017: DEV Roundtable: As a Twilight Officer yourself, I know that you know exactly what I'm talking about.

former officer/on extended hiatus for clarification. But yes.

Hi Estild and others, wanted to thank y'all again for your continued efforts in the development of Gemstone IV. Under the impression a more comprehensive list of the tag status for aoe spells was requested, a few of us put this information together after a few hours of testing:

All spells not included on the table have no tagging effect whatsoever. Full tags will award full experience on a kill. Spells listed that do not award a full tag are considered to award minor tags, and will provide credit on secondary objectives and reduced experience from a kill. Spells not including a max number of targets will hit anything ungrouped.

"Multiple tags" is meant to describe a scenario where multiple characters cast the same spell simultaneously.

|Spell (targets) |Full tag |Multiple tags |Lore requirement |Living |Undead |Notes | |---|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|:---:|---| |111* |X |X |Summoning |X |X | | |118 (7) | | |Summoning |X|X|area web | |135 |X|X| |X|X| | |316 (14) |X|?? |Religion |X|X| | |335 (4/9) |X|X|SMC |X|X| | |410 ||| |X|X|awards credit for knockdown OR first 410 | |412 (6) ||?? |Earth |X|| | |435 |X || |X|X|immune if already 410'd | |512 (14) ||X|Water |X|X| | |518 (4/9) |X|X|EMC |X|X| | |525 |X|X| |X|X|sure | |550-special |X | | Fire/Water | X| X| x/day, immune if already 410'd | |635 |X | X | | X | X | | |703 (8) | | ?? | *EMC/SMC | X | | | |709 | | X | | X | X | | |710 | X | X | | X | X | | |713|X|X|Demonology|X|X| | |717 | X | | | X | | | |720 | X | X | | X | X | sucks | |907 | X | X | Water | X | | | |908* | X | X | Fire | X | X | | |909 | | | |X | X | awards credit for knockdown only| |912 | | ?? | | X | X |blows | |950-special | | | | | | | |1001 (14)? | | ?? | | ?? | ?? | | |1015? | | ?? | | ?? | ?? | | |1030 | X | X | | X | X | | |1117-special (7) | | | MMC | X | X |does not technically tag | |1120 (16) | | |MMC | X | * | 50-100 telepathy to affect undead | |1219? | | | | | | | |1630 (7) | X | X |Summoning | X | X | | |1710** | X | X | Earth | X | X | 30 water lore to access | |1714? | | | | | | | |1715 | X | X | | X | X | cloud |

*(# targets) assumes 101 relevant lore

**Ball spells included, but operate under different mechanics than aoe

Just wanted to note for the record that there doesn't appear to have been any discussion for the square classes.

Personally I'm pretty happy with the quantity and quality of improvements they've been making to square classes, but what will the future bring? There wasn't much indication of it.

The CMAN system including shields and armor have been great for us, adding a nice level of depth and added fun. Now what?

They never talk about squares. Two or three years ago I brought up warriors in the SimuCon chat, and Estild was like, "But you got shield skills."

No love, I tell ya!

Hoping Estild or Cyraex(sp?) could elaborate further on the Paladin capstone spell, 1650.