Announcement:

The Explorers Guild in association with the Octarchal Society for Progress is proud to announce the first in monthly series of fairs and celebrations with various themes.

This first fair will be dedicated to all things crafting related.  Crafters from around the land are encouraged to gather and discuss and demonstrate their creations in weapons, shields, and all things crafted.

Overview:
When:   July 25, 2009 - 2PM ET or 6PM GMT
Where:  Lake of Tears Outpost - Bronze Door Road2
Who:     Anyone interested in crafting or crated items
Needed: Crafters willing to discuss their experiences with the crafting business.  Also merchants interested in selling their wares.
Contact: Contact Mordaan or any member of the Explorer's Guild if you are interested in making a presentation


Further details:

There will be discussions and demonstrations on types of items created, techniques, and guidelines.

New to crafting or interested in getting started?  Why not learn from the best and get some tips and advice from some of Yliakum's best crafters.

After the presentations, there will be an opportunity to buy and sell top quality items, especially weapons.  There is a vendor area by the Outpost ideal for setting up shop.  Remember, crafted items only, not looted items.

Food and drinks will be provided.


Further information:

This is the first in a series of fairs to be held at the Lake of Tears Outpost each month.  The following is a tentative schedule of further fairs.  Dates and times to be determined.

 - August: Mage / Magic Fair
 - September: Cooking Fair / Bake Sale

Ideas for future events include:
-Poetry fair (calling all poets!)
-Botany fair (discuss everything about plants and herbs)
-Weapons fair/auction (display and discuss your best crafted and looted weapons)

Other ideas and suggestions are welcome.

New and don't know your way around yet?
Get lost frequently traveling between cities?
Or just interested in a little site-seeing?

The Explorers Guild in association with the Octarchal Society for Progress is holding a series of guided tours.

For now, tours will be held on the following dates:
Saturday, July 11,  6PM GMT - Sites of interest in Hydlaa
Saturday, July 18 - Tour to Ojaveda
Saturday, August 1 - Eagle Bronze Doors, Part 1 (to the Lake of Tears, including Gugrontid)

We will be adding further dates and depending on demand, we may add more days.  Times for 7/18 and 8/1 TBA.

All tours to be given are as follows:
 - Sites of interest in Hydlaa (including East Hydlaa)
 - Tour to Ojaveda
 - Eagle Bronze Doors, Part 1 (from Hydlaa to Lake of Tears Outpost, including Gugrontid)
 - Eagle Bronze Doors, Part 2 (from Lake of Tears Outpost to the Eagle Bronze Doors)
 - Tour of the Laanx Dungeon
 - Tour of the Hydlaa sewers

Custom tours can also be arranged any time.  Just contact an Explorer to make arrangements.

Comments, ideas and suggestions: discuss here.

[Overview

Date: Saturday, May 23, 2009

Time: 4PM ET  (8PM GMT)

Place to meet: Hydlaa Plaza

Destination: Lake of Tears, Bronze Door Road2]


Details

As you may have heard, the Explorers Guild with the help of the Octarchal Society for Progress is establishing an outpost near the Lake of Tears.  Saturday will be the build and we need people to help us get the materials from Hydlaa to the Outpost.  Even if you don't move anything yourself, you can witness the groundbreaking and setup of the initial camp.  We will meet at [4PM ET (or 8PM GMT … I hope I converted that right)] and once organized, the caravan will depart for the outpost.  There will be plenty of excitement and activity for all!   Pssst…we're working on a few surprises to make it a memorable event.  

Come join the fun!

[OOC]
Here's what we are thinking: several people will be designated to carry supplies from Hydlaa to the lake.  How much will depend on how many items there are (still being worked out) and how many people there are.  Everyone participating will form a group.  Once there those carrying items will drop your payload and members of Explorers will place them according to our proposed layout.  Then later, we'll tidy up and add those final touches to make the final product.  We'll continue to make enhancements/changes during the week and following week you can join us once again for the official Grand Opening!
[/OOC]


Further details about the Outpost

The Lake of Tears Outpost will be a welcoming camp which will provide a respite for weary travelers between Hydlaa and the Eagle Bronze Doors.  It won't just be purely aesthetic either.  Cooking equipment will be included enabling you to practice your cooking skills.  An anvil may be included as well for some weapons and armor crafting.  It will be particularly convenient for those working with copper since there is a mine very close by (not to mention the nearby carrot patch for the cooks).  The outpost will be open to all.

This outpost will also be the central location for numerous events.  This includes a series of fairs to be held once per month with the following themes:
-Crafting fair (weapons and armor)
-Cooking fair/bake sale (display your favorite culinary creations)
-Mage fair (discuss everything magic)
-Poetry fair (calling all poets!)
-Botany fair (discuss everything about plants and herbs)
-Weapons fair/auction (display and discuss your best crafted and looted weapons)

In addition to monthly events, there will also be wilderness/survival training with such topics as:
- how to recognize herbs, which ones are dangerous and which ones are not?
- how to avoid bandits raids
- how to avoid being attacked by creatures
- how to make a map while traveling
- which are important landmarks one can use to navigate

The Outpost will also serve as grounds for hosting tournaments and organizing group hunts.  Find out all the details at the Grand Opening.


You can witness it from the start on Saturday as the Lake of Tears Outpost gets built.

[related links to read more about this project]
OSP event
OSP Q & A
Discussion of construction projects

This is a purely asthetic thing but I thought it deserved a mention and I didn't see anything with a search.

Currently the word "glyph" is left off the system message when an NPC gives you a glyph as part of a quest.
It will say "you have received a _____"

This can lead to some pretty interesting system messages like:

You have received a Death
You have received a Hand
You have received a Mind

and my personal favorite:
You have received a Life   

Perhaps it makes more sense to say ... a ____ glyph ?  Makes things a little more clear. 

The addition of more books in the library made me come up with an idea.  How about quests that start in library books?  Not that you can actually be awarded the quest by reading a book, but rather some information in a book that will lead you to a quest.

For example, a passage in a book may read:
"Legend has it that a rare object of great value can be found in <some location>.  There is a kran merchant often on the road to the bronze doors who knows of such an object.  If you come across him, you may want to ask him about <x>."  Then you get the quest when you ask the NPC about x rather than being able to get it the traditional way of "give me a quest".

For all I know this could already be ingame or in the works...I haven't been to the library lately.      But I thought I'd mention that idea here.

Now that we are going beyond 100 quests ingame, its probably time to add some sorting abilities in the quest list.  Perhaps being able to sort by quest name, order of completion, and maybe even by the NPC starting the quest.

I know inventory has been worked on recently.  Perhaps this was already taken into consideration?  Perhaps its too late to request as this time?  Certainly its more along the lines of "bells and whistles" and not a priority.  But the whole quest/events screen is in need of some work.  Things like making it resizable or changing the font so the quest names will actually fit.     If this is worked on, maybe its a good time to add some sorting capabilities as well.

Not sure if this has been discussed before but I did a search and didn't see anything...

All too often an NPC asks for x amount of tria for an item and I look in my inventory only to see all I have is circles.  It would be nice if we could make it so that either NPC's give us change when we give larger denominations or even better, if we could drop, for example, a circle on the octas slot and make 5 octas in place of the circle.  In other words we could drop any larger coin in one of the other slots and if an exact multipe, create the equivalent number of the smaller coins.

I also noticed from the cvs history that some work on stacking has been done lately.  Any chance we can soon pick up x amount from a stack rather than be forced to take the whole thing or nothing?  I recently encountered someone who dropped some ore because their magic wore off and they dropped the whole pile.  They couldn't pick it up and asked how they could just pick up what they could carry and leave the rest.  I just had to say it wasn't possible.  Seems that shouldn't really be that way.  Any plans in the works to fix that?

Didn't want to get off topic so I decided to make a new one.  From the 'update is coming' post I got a good idea from one of the posts there:  to ask..  (Since the game is down and to pass time and all)
Where were you last?
That is, where was your character the last time you were in game (main character or all) and what were you doing?

For instance, I'll start...

Best I can remember Mordaan was just to the right of the Broken Door Tavern in Ojaveda, having completed all the quests that start there.  I finally started quests and have completed 10 of them so far.