Who's Been On

[aries]

In the last week the following people have been on

Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Saga
Avian
Shinigami
Noodle
Lincoln
Blackshadow
Ein
Tyjet
Darksouls
Stormywaters
SageRed
Poopthingy (lol - Proboards censored it)
Oftenrotten
DannySG
TitaniumSquirl
Ivarinn
Mepoo
Rara
Frey
Dawnof Doom

At the risk of sounding like an AA/NA meeting
Keep coming back! It works!

(For those of you working on BS, there's now a guy on the second floor of the Cairnwood Tavern and Inn who sells broken weapons and armor and also a new mine near the fletchery shop. To get to Cairnwood, go to the east side of Rhine and head north along the Cairnwood Road. Or, you can go to Gorhuk and travel north along the coastline - it's a pretty good distance. Enter the Rhineland cave and then go north and east to reach Cairnwood. You have to have 350HP to enter.)

[aries]

So people have been asking who's been on, so here's this week's list so far

Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Saga
Shinigami
Noodle
Titanium
DarkSouls
DannySG
Troqus
LeoLeonidas
Voltic
Rara
Frey
Leopard
Reyne
StormyWaters
John
Dias
Diredog
Ein


21 (23 last week)

[aries]

And for the week beginning October 27, 2013

Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avi
Shini
Saga
Ein
Troqus
SageRed
Titanium
Avian
Diredog
Stormywaters
Noodle
John
Dewbydo
Cedricabby
DarkSouls
Apoc
Frey
Dias
Noodle
Cruise
Rowdyy

(24 so far)

[aries]

Week beginning November 3, 2013

Because we have people from four continents and six time zones, it's tough to get everybody on at the same time. Right now, we basically have a morning shift, a late afternoon/early evening shift and a very late night shift, with empty gaps between.

But I think we're going in the right direction by focusing on slow growth and player contentment rather than trying to get hundreds of people back at once.

This week be prepared for a little (by which I mean "massive amounts of") turbulence. Monday we're going to rip out ALL the NPCs, rework them and put them into stores. Please be patient. There are 1,821 individual NPCs distributed over 10,972 maps (that's not all the maps either). It's going to take a while. But this time we want to do it "once and for all" and not in the "half-measure" way we've tried to do it in the past. If you need anything, or need to sell off things and can't find an NPC to do it, talk to Kaneda or Asherah.

BUT FIRST, let's have some good events this afternoon. Where are our South of the Border guys? We can't have guild wars without them! (On LoL, I know.)

MANY, many thanks to the people who have provided support. These are some (but not all) of the people who have done terrific things for us in the last few days.

Apoc - who worked with me nonstop for about nine hours to create a working server out of a glitchy mess that passed for a Linux computer.

Baldon - who supplied us with software, was instrumental in troubleshooting some write error problems and mapped the most awesome little capture the flag course (only it's not a flag, it's something else), which I can't wait to unveil for you guys.

John - who very patiently mentored me through a .dir mess.

Troq and DS - recent financial donors who also have provided a lot of invaluable encouragement. Of course, we can't forget our gratitude to the financial donors of the past, either, but these are the recent ones.

Noodle - who, as I have said online, can sniff out mapping errors three screens away (in the dark with the monitor off). If you want a detail man, Noodle is your guy.

Ein - who lent us the actual physical server we're using at the moment and has given lots of support in other ways.

Our guest list this week...


Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avian
Ein
Saga
Diredog
Cruise
John
Shibberoth
Apocalypse
Rowdyy
Frey
Stormywaters
Troqus
Darksouls
Silver
Titanium
Noodle
Revious
Dias
Leonix

(22 so far)

[aries]

Week in Review

So it's taking longer than expected to get all the NPCs reworked. A lot longer.

John is working very steadily on the browser-based SOA game. The prototype is working, but, again, it's a long process and will take months to complete. Most people probably can't appreciate how amazing it is to go from a blank text document to a character walking around on a screen.

Stormywaters gave us a very nice financial gift last week.


Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avian
Shinigami
Cruise
John
Diredog
Stormywaters
Titanium
Frey
Troqus
Dias
Apocalypse
Rowdyy
Noodle
OftenRotten
Darksouls
Revious
Thallium
Reece
Kio
JiggsCasey
Azrius
Canavi

(25 so far)

[aries]

These are the logons since Sunday, November 17, 2013.

John is still cranking away at the browser-based game and making excellent progress. The new forum is up and humming with some interesting notes on current astronomy events (like meteors and comets) thanks to Diredog. In order to GET to to the new forum address, you need to log on the game (we're trying to keep it free of the usual herd of "outside" spammers like drug companies and such so a little secrecy is in order). Hoping to get the new client out by Thanksgiving and have a few new monsters in there. The coliseum events are working again - I'll post the list of available events on the site.

(Additionally I have to thank Revious for taking the time to go over some scripts with me and show me things that needed to be changed.)

EDIT: November 23, 2013. My office comp crashed on the 21st. For more on the crash and what it means to you, check out the post on the private forum. Meanwhile, since the only place I had Aries' password saved was on that comp, I'll have to be me being me instead of me being Aries. Or I could ask him for his pass again.


ALSO, 12:30 PM on the 21st we had eleven people on simultaneously.
N*******y broadcasts: 11 people logged in. That's the most i've seen in 6 years
D*****g broadcasts: The large number of people logged on makes me happy.



Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avian
Shinigami
Rowdyy
Apoc
John
Cruise
Diredog
Troqus
Silver
Previous
Dias
OldNoob
Frey
BlackKnight
NoGravity
DarkSouls
Heleos
LuminousIce
StormyWaters
Noodle
MootheCow
Ein
Shibberoth

(26 so far)

[Asherah]

It's another Sunday morning! We're looking forward to a good week. In all honesty, I can't imagine a nicer group of people I'd rather spend my time with online.

So do you know about the concept of deus ex machina? Actually, I'm not going to write about this here, because there are a number of slurp bots that repost forum content on their own sites which is totally obnoxious. So, since this is a private thing between the people who are genuinely involved in the community, the whole post will be on the private forum. (The address is spammed in broadcast on the game periodically.)

We had one donation last week, from Troqus, and it was a good one - more on that on the other forum.

The sight of Linc and LK is a hopeful sign. You will recall that right after the last event, B. made a really nice Capture the (Something) event for our next Guild Wars, and then - THE guild for Guild Wars never showed up again. Sundays have been slow - so you guys (any of you guys) message me and let me know when the best time for you to do events is. Give me three good days and times and I'll try to get something scheduled that works for most people.

Things will probably be a little slower this week. A lot of people have exams and/or are traveling to visit relatives for the holiday. Best wishes for Thanksgiving from the staff. If for some reason you don't have relatives to visit for the holidays, the BEST LITTLE GAME ON THE INTERNET will be online 24 hours for you.


Who's been on so far this week?
Baldon
Asherah
Kaneda
Saga
Avian
Apocalypse
Diredog
Ein
Tro
Rowdyy
Blackknight
NoGravity
Dias
Lincoln
Stormywaters
LK
John
Shibberoth
Frey
Cruise
LuminousIce

(21)

[Asherah]

So we got through another week. I've been working on the site a lot - I got a page up today about skills that took several days to compile secrets-of-asherah.com/guides/skills/skills.html. Several people were traveling for the holidays (hope everybody had a good Thanksgiving). And several have had viruses (sneezing/coughing, not computer). There's eight people on now, which isn't too shabby. We're starting to think seriously about our Kickstarter campaign - ideas are appreciated. Also about social media - there's a page on the other forum for suggestions and parameters of what OUR community thinks is appropriate for.

Many thanks to Dias and DarkSouls for their generous gifts this week.

Who's Been On:

Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avi
Ein
OldNoob
Tro
Previous
Dias
Rowdyy
DarkSouls
Diredog
Apoc
NoGravity
Frey
BlackKnight
stormywaters
MooTheCow
Guidz
Canavi
Titanium

(21)

[Asherah]

Who's Been On, Week Nine

Sunday, December 15, we're going to launch a new quest in Zinn. Don't worry if you have a char that has already gotten to Arthos - you can make a new one. Besides if you read my post on the other forum, you'll see why having a noob char will be useful! Special thanks to NoG who has been working with me on the concept and implementation.

Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avian
Ein
Apocalypse
NoGravity
Rowdyy
Troqus
Diredog
Moothecow
Darksouls
Cruise
Canavi
Frey
BlackKnight
Previous
Xucor/Morrek
Titanium
Dias
Shiberoth
LGrico


(22)

[Asherah]

December 15, 2013
Ten days to Christmas. Two weeks left in the year! It's gone by pretty fast.

Today, for better or worse, we're opening the Zinn Quest. It MIGHT be too difficult if completely new people (or people who had only been playing for a day or two) were doing it, but you guys are already pretty familiar how to do things.

Several new people have logged on (curiously NONE of them when there's administrative staff on), and left fairly fast. I'm not sure why, but we should probably figure that out. There is a QUICK START GUIDE on the downloads page, but I don't think people read it.

We're only five hours into the new week, but I'll list who's been on anyway. Also, if you didn't know it already, if a player has several nicknames, I'm only listing one.

Baldon
Kaneda
Asherah
Avian
Ein
Saga
Revious
Shizuo
Apocalypse
Noodle
Troqus
Kurburtris
Rowdyy
Terardus
Titanium
DannySG
DarkSouls
Diredog
Xucor
Bob
Noodle

(21)

[bellaanimorum]

I can only imagine those brief visitors were just curious to see how things were going, or possibly checking the game out in general.
Anyone who has known about SoA knows it is an outdated game, the main redeeming quality being the retro-style gameplay coupled with an extensive (at least it feels that way >_>) skill-based character advancement (which is one of my personal reasons for being a fan).

Oh, and 'howdy' to y'all.

[Asherah]

Bella! Very nice to see you.

I would like to amend your statement from "Anyone who has known about SoA knows it is an outdated game..." to "Anyone who has known about SoA knows it HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN outdated game". When we started in 2003, this style of gaming was already at least ten years out of date.

I'm pretty sure the brief log-ons are people who are completely new and coming in from the voting sites we're registered on. We still get a couple of people a month from there. People already familiar with the system would at least move from their first position (something I didn't mention above). And it is possible that one look is sufficient and it's not what they're hoping for. Even in our heyday, the largest percentage of people never got off the first screen - not because we were a horrible game, but because it simply didn't appeal to them. Even with the most popular store in the world, a lot more people walk by and look in the windows than actually go in to shop. On the other hand, I'm concerned that despite signs and messages, etc. directing them to various guides, they're missing the basic instructions (otherwise they would move). Actually, that gives me an idea! Thanks!

BUT, if people ARE logging on to see how things are going, we should give them LOTS of people to chat with!