(Ab)usable features.

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Booger
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(Ab)usable features.

Post by Booger » 20 Mar 2011 22:50

When finding something that seems inappropriate, I normally report it. If not changed/fixed, I assume it's either supposed to work this way, or not important enough to bother taking care of.
Some of these things are probably known by others. Some are known by only a few.
If they are available in the game I feel it unfair to keep it known only to some.

Examples of things I've found earlier, that I can recall, are Gnimpsh lacking any fighting skill (thus great xp for lowbies), goblins at starting point having axes set to type "sword", thus also being great xp for lowbies (the goblins had skill in axe but sucked at swordplay). Possibility to sell items donated in donation boxes. And the Dwarfheim king having a crown that gave 13 pc if sold in the Green Oaks shop.
All these have been fixed.

Current features that can still be used is:
* Possibility to reuse herbs.
* Possibility to lower your carry-weight even into negative, allowing you to carry more loot
* Possibility to be introduced to (and remember) any player, even ones you have never met
* Another nice source of xp for lowbies (I guess many know of this one - since I became a monk I have stopped abusing those goats myself).

These things have all been reported. But since they don't get fixed, I consider them features. And to be fair, I plan to tell about them here, so everyone can benefit from them.
And I invite any other mortal to share his/her features with us as well. And any immortal to read and learn about things that might be of interest to change or fix.
Any I-win things, endless-gold/xp bugs etc should, naturally, be kept hidden, noted to immortals and made sure to get fixed. What I'm talking about here are things that don't follow normal logic, so probably ought to be fixed, but nobody seems to bother about them
And they help make life a bit more comfortable.

Also, maybe I'm not the only one enjoying to learn about things like this. It can be very fun to learn about innocent things turning nasty when a player finds a new way to use them.
A few fun examples:
* Long ago, in Genesis, someone made a stone that could be thrown. You could throw it on another person or creature. It wold hit that person and then fall to the floor. Just a fun thing, didn't initiate a fight. But it did make a slight damage (less than a tenth of a percent of a normal beings health). It was played with by several, just for fun. But later on, the black dragon of Terel (at that time the biggest creature by far, and never before killed) died. Soon afterwards that stone was removed, never to be seen again. I'll leave it to the reader to make the connection.
* Also long ago, someone created the first trash can of Genesis. It was a nice, shiny, brand new thing that you could put things in and they would be destroyed. Very useful! Just "put <item> in trash can" and it would be disintegrated. Problem was that it could destroy anything... items on the ground, unremovable items (so you could destroy your guild item, thereby leaving your guild without punishment or skill loss) and even living beings. An immortal was called, to be shown that this trash can might be a bit too powerful. Upon arrival, a "put immortal in trash can" got him to disintegrated (just lost link and had to reconnect). He got the hint and removed some of the can's powers.
* In another world, the immortals decided that newbies, when quitting, shouldn't be automatically saved. To save... memory? Disk space? I don't know...
So If you were a newbie and typed "save", you would be saved, but if you quit, your wouldn't, and when reentering, you would have what you had when you last saved.
That means if you had one copper piece, saved, dropped the copper piece on the ground and quit, you would then, when reentering, still have be carrying your copper piece. But it would also be on the ground.
When pointed out to the immortals, they acknowledged that yes, this might be a bug. But to quit and reenter a thousand times just to earn a thousand copper pieces isn't worth the trouble, so no need to fix it. The flaw in their reasoning... again, I'll leave this to the reader. Once the flaw was pointed out, the bug was fixed within the hour.

Anyway, I plan to wait a few days, and if no wizard objects by reply, mail or deleting Booger, I intend to bring up the still usable features here. And would appreciate to hear about other features (fixed or still available) here.
Wizards, I suggest to see this as an opportunity to learn. Both about things that might need fixing, and about ideas for traps to avoid when coding. And maybe for a good laugh.
Booger/Cindy/Enigma

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Rhaegar
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Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Rhaegar » 20 Mar 2011 23:15

You mean stuff like some guilds being able to cast their spells with components in a closed container?
I fear no evil for I am fear incarnate.

Celephias
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Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Celephias » 21 Mar 2011 02:27

This is a fascinating thread idea, Booger. I think it will make for an interesting conversation!

Rhaegar - I think as long as the components get used up, that they are in a closed container isn't a gameplay issue (though could be a 'reality' issue). Unless there's something else here I don't get of course.....

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Cherek
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Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Cherek » 21 Mar 2011 03:30

I sense a letter from Gorboth appearing in Booger's mailbox soon...?:)

In defence of the wizards there are alot of things to fix and only a few active wizards... maybe its not that easy to fix everything and they have to make some priorites? Just because something doesnt get fixed doesnt mean its supposed to be that way? And then we have the possibility of them not even knowing how to fix it...

The code of Genesis is a mix of code from hundreds, maybe thousands of different people during what is it? 20 years? Its pretty... messy. And not all who code are great at doing it either... (like me when I was a wiz), so there will most likely be a bunch of small and big errors and problems all over the place.

Like when Alorrana just mentioned on the forum that you cant do "wear armour" with the minotaur helmet. Well I coded it some 3-4 years ago... and I hear about it now. No mortal reported it when I was a wizard, and neither I or those who approved it did... so that little bug has been around since I made it, and even if I was a wizard now, I dont think I would know how to fix it. Which would mean I need to ask another wizard to look at my code, maybe he or she dont know either... ask someone else, who happens to be busy or idle, wait a few days until he or she has time... etc etc. multiply that by hundreds of times for all small issues and it suddenly turns into alot of work. nIts not always as simply as removing a semicolon somewhere and then its fine. Oh and only a few wizards have access to all code as well so its only a handful of people who even has the ability do these types of "live" fixes at all. Atleast that's how it was when I was a wizard.

And of course if I have 5 hours of coding every week its probably more likely I spend those working on this new cool X I wanna do instead of searching through someone elses buggy code to fix so minotaurs can do "wear armour" with their helmet...

Will listing all bugs and problems with the game in public make people them fix it faster? I am sceptical if it will do anything good. But maybe some bugs will be more noticed, especially abusable ones... Anyway, if I was a wizard still and someone decided to make a huge list of all the flaws and bugs of areas I had designed I would most likely feel discouraged if anything.

Have you considering wizzing and fixing these things yourself Booger? Then you could ask people to send in things (just like you do now), but actually also have the power to fix it.

Laurel

Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Laurel » 21 Mar 2011 08:12

well - the most funny one was when ingots were possible to be used on any corpse ... even if the corpse was still alive
clean laurel executed by Irk resulted in forced quit (similar to the trash can)

Zar
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Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Zar » 21 Mar 2011 10:53

Cherek wrote:I sense a letter from Gorboth appearing in Booger's mailbox soon...?:)

Like when Alorrana just mentioned on the forum that you cant do "wear armour" with the minotaur helmet. Well I coded it some 3-4 years ago... and I hear about it now. No mortal reported it when I was a wizard, and neither I or those who approved it did... so that little bug has been around since I made it, and even if I was a wizard now, I dont think I would know how to fix it. Which would mean I need to ask another wizard to look at my code, maybe he or she dont know either... ask someone else, who happens to be busy or idle, wait a few days until he or she has time... etc etc. multiply that by hundreds of times for all small issues and it suddenly turns into alot of work. nIts not always as simply as removing a semicolon somewhere and then its fine. Oh and only a few wizards have access to all code as well so its only a handful of people who even has the ability do these types of "live" fixes at all. Atleast that's how it was when I was a wizard.
Isn't it joust inherit object from armour?
Well, I was wiz 8 years ago, and my memory maybe faded

Laurel

Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Laurel » 21 Mar 2011 11:13

anyone still playing Gen who has not wizzed or had access to (some/any form of) wiz-info before? :roll:

Greneth

Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Greneth » 21 Mar 2011 12:25

Laurel wrote:anyone still playing Gen who has not wizzed or had access to (some/any form of) wiz-info before? :roll:
Very few of us..

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Rhaegar
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Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by Rhaegar » 21 Mar 2011 14:35

Celephias wrote: Rhaegar - I think as long as the components get used up, that they are in a closed container isn't a gameplay issue (though could be a 'reality' issue). Unless there's something else here I don't get of course.....
The thing is, they don't get used up this way (but I won't go into any particular detail here, I believe I've mailed the wizards about it in-game already).
I fear no evil for I am fear incarnate.

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gorboth
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Re: (Ab)usable features.

Post by gorboth » 21 Mar 2011 19:32

I have no problem with this thread. In fact - it is probably a good way to get things fixed! :-)

G.

p.s. I also appreciate Booger's sensibilities about not posting here things that would really mess things up if everyone knew about them. Such things as that are, indeed, probably best sent by mail. I apologize to Booger if such things have already been received and overlooked!
Mmmmmm ... pie ...

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