End of the week with Major Malphunktion 9.23.11

[Marupal]

Still more waiting for CC to return? Breaks the heart but at least there is an estimated finish line.

The BTA to BTC switch hurts too, but thanks for the advance warning on it. Doesn't feel like a slap in the face, just a nerf.

Thanks also for taking the time to put this bit together weekly. +1

[protokon]

• Some improvements in the AI system to make your hirelings and pets more responsive to player command. Please note that the hireling or pet will not stop in midcast to listen to your order, but will perform the requested action once it is legal for him to do so.

This caught my eye particularly. I thought it would be worth noting here:

I've noticed the behavior with my arti dog to be a bit odd in a few ways: He is specced for intim, and will randomly attempt to intim enemies on his own. I love this, however - immediately following an intim attempt, he then returns to me as if everything was dead and resumes to follow me as if no enemies are around. Granted, I think he starts to attack stuff again after a few seconds, but I havent noticed due to me spamming the "ATTACK!" button on his hotbar as soon as I see him try to intim stuff.

another note, I am assuming the dog's intim has a cooldown timer to due to the fact he doesnt continuously intim if I spam the intim button. It would be *GREAT* if we could see the cooldown timer, just for convenience.

I am impressed with the AI of the dog's, much better than hirelings but still have a few bugs to kink out. More responsive sounds like a nice improvement i look forward to.

[Bladedge]

Honestly the whole changing the binding on stuff is crazy.

If it was intended to be one way originally then the devs should have said so when it launched so that we all expected this next time around with guidance on if they would be retro-actively changed.

Agreed a notice on the first CC especially when Devs knew about would of been welcomed.

Wouldn't been to hard for a dev, any dev or CS or even a QM to post

"Current BTA Crystal Cove items are Not WAI will be fix in future update."

[deathtouch]

Thank god that Melee attack will now work again and there is a small fix for lag! Please keep working on the lag issue... but this post makes me happy!

[LookingForABentoBox]

So, before Crystal Cove goes live, if you have items that you want to upgrade (which will make them Bound to Character), move your items to the characters that you want to own them! Note that this only affects items that will be upgraded when Crystal Cove returns, your current loot should not see its bind state change unless you try to upgrade it.

Why do we have to move the items before CC comes back? Aren't you saying that we should move the items before we upgrade them, even after CC comes back?

[Meat-Head]

Sooooo appreciated.

[bnastyy]

thank you major for letting us, as a community, what is going on....i almost lost hope in you guys :/

[Valindria]

I thought it was odd the hats were BTC but the other items were not. I'd rather have BTA but oh well.

Please tell me the collectables are BTA though. I hope that is the case. If it's just BTC when you craft or upgrade (from last event) that would be best.

[smatt]

Honestly the whole changing the binding on stuff is crazy.

If it was intended to be one way originally then the devs should have said so when it launched so that we all expected this next time around with guidance on if they would be retro-actively changed. I am well aware this is not your department and am a little dismayed that development did not man up and take the hit for what will clearly be an unpopular decision.

Also it is 100% unaceptable that these types of things continue to be tucked into updates without properly being stated on the release notes again this is not a critique of QA as this is most certainly not your department.

Oh and my take on the BtA thing is that events only go on for part of the year. People can not run them with their new toons to get the gear or their toons that they had to TR because the devs again decided to gimp their particular build. That made BtA the logical type of binding to place on these items. It does not make much sense to have BtC stuff from events that are both trivial in nature (lets not kid ourselves here) and time limited.

At least Maj has the eggs to say it.... I have a funny feeling none of the other Devs would..... How could such a change NOT be in teh Realease notes? I mean you knwo this was a conscious decision, and one that they HAD to know would spark controversy, and therefore, it would be a very hard one to slip through the cracks.

Yet another U-11 timeframe... Bang your head on the wall Turbine blunder... Bad month...

[Yetzederixx]

I think it's hilarious that so many people see the switch from BtA to BtC as a nerfing. Every other epic item in the game is BtC. It would take six generations of having a father/brother to not see this change coming.

Good work on communication. We shouldn't of learned of many of the changes from some guy at a convention, and I think a good chunk of the recent flaming/trolling could have been prevented if Turbine had bothered to do something like this.

"Hey guys! There's a new class coming in, but it'll be a favor reward and unfortunately we don't have enough quests built/tested at this time for you to earn it." (I still say VIP's should of got a discount on it, but that's another gripe.) See? Took me 10 seconds to write that.

Keep up the good work.

[smatt]

Why do we have to move the items before CC comes back? Aren't you saying that we should move the items before we upgrade them, even after CC comes back?

Seems he's saying move them EARLY to avoid the chance that people upgrade them on the wrong toon.

[Tarragon12]

Another crazy week.
Major Malphunktion

It seems, you are handling your job admirably and with love hence Moore law says, you will be promoted soon. Alas.

[Battery]

Players can now zone into raid enabled adventure areas with their hireling(s). Please note hirelings continue to be barred from raid dungeons. .

Will hireling follow you into Garamol's room since it's not a seperate instance like HoX and VoD?

[Devastation]

There appear to be three types of handwraps (lootgen, Cannith crafted and named). Can you tell us which of these categories will be broken in the 11.1 hotfix/patch?

My guess is all will be...

And yea jumping on the "OP Hand wraps NOT" bandwagon... "See they <Bleep> you in the drive thru"

[Backley]

My takeaway:
1. BTA cove items become BTC when upgraded after the hotfix in 7-10 days. Upgrading in the cove will make the item BTC on the character that upgrades the item.
2. BTA cove items not upgraded will remain BTA for the foreseeable future.

My questions:
3. BTA cove items with Epic slots remained BTA when a crystal was slotted in the past. Will they remain BTA if a crystal is slotted right now?
4. Will old BTA Epic items remain BTA if you slot a crystal after the hotfix?
5. Will old BTA Epic items remain BTA if you clear the slot right now?
6. Will old BTA Epic items remain BTA if you clear the slot after the hotfix?

Basically, should we all go slot our BTA epic cove items before the hotfix, or are we too late aready?

[red_cardinal]

• Crystal Cove is back from repair. Oddly it was the same exact bug that caused some crashing issues a while back, due to mushrooms in Red Fens. So, if you examined the door (actually the darkness behind the door) it would crash the instance. See, it was the mushrooms fault…sort of. Why a mushroom and a door work the same is one of those mysteries of life, and maybe only David Attenborough knows the connection.

public void useDoor() throws ShroomPointerException {}

[rimble]

I think it's hilarious that so many people see the switch from BtA to BtC as a nerfing. Every other epic item in the game is BtC.

Did he say it just applied to the Epic versions? If so I missed that...

[Zenako]

Major

You need to expound on the implimentation of the BtA going to BtC for CC.

Items already in existance that are BtA.

Is it true that if you do nothing more to them, they remain BtA, so for example level 8 or 12 items can still be passed around, but IF you actually go to UPGRADE them at the CC event, then those items become BtC to the character doing the upgrading. (or could it be bound on Equip like some of the named drops in recent quest packs?)

That if you create a NEW item in the CC event, it will be BtC to the creator.

A HUGE question also about the BtA items like Dubloons and Gems. I REALLLY Hope those remain BtA so that we do not have to figure out how to split up hundreds of gems and thousands of coins left over from before ahead of time.

If you mean to tell us that when the CC zone gets upgraded that all items will suddenly become BtC to whomever currently has them, that REALLY NEEDS to be made 100000% clear ahead of time.

This will in effect remove one of the very nice features of CC, the ability to craft up a series of moderately nice items that you could share amoung a stable of characters without having to make a seperate set for each. (In Mabar I have many characters who now have dusty unused lower level cloaks wasting away in the bank, since those were all BtC items. Frankly that was annoying, but with far fewer items to consider, almost tolerable.

[Cordovan]

Seems he's saying move them EARLY to avoid the chance that peopel upgrade them on them ont he wrong toon.

Yes. If you have an item that you want to upgrade, make sure you upgrade that item using the character you want to have using that item, when Crystal Cove returns.

[Aelithia]

Well, guess I won't be playing the Cove when it comes back. The lure of the items, to me at least, was the ability to move decent items to newer characters while I geared them up with better gear. With the removal of that aspect, I don't feel any desire to make more than perhaps a few Superior False Life hats.

+1 for keeping up the weekly update though.