FoF Nr. 064

PLEASE NOTE: The Five on Friday archives are not updated with each patch. Please take older documents with a grain of salt, as they may be inaccurate.

June 15, 2007

"KR is too dark! and/or KR is too light!" (While we've only seen the first complaint so far, after the latest patch we do expect to see instances of the second.)

While working on addressing the darkness complaints this week, we came to realize that the brightness of the game just varied too widely on different monitor setups - it might look FABULOUS on one screen, but be way too dark on another. So the current change should raise the average brightness, and next week we're going to be doing some work to try to stabilize it, so it looks right on a vider variety of monitors without having to play with settings.

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"I hate the new item art! Are you going to change it?" CatHat is standing by for your specific item art feedback! He has requested that you send it in, keeping in mind the following:

Helpful statements: (Actual examples of stuff CatHat used - and fixed, by the way)

Apples on Trees - need to be more red Decorative Suits of Armor - need to look more like the originals we paid money for. Make them the same size as my avatar. Fishing Nets - Hang down too much, too long. Skull with Candle - flame needs to be less choppy and skull is not at all like the old one. Japanese Sword stands - are too big Apple and Peach fruit - make them smaller, to scale.

Not helpful statements:

Decorative Suits of Armor - make it not ugly Fishing Nets - makes my soul cry Skull with Candle - ewwww Japanese Sword stands - Gi-Normous

Please submit feedback under the catgory "KR Beta" - that will help me determine that you're definitely talking about new item art, not old item art. Thanks!

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"Do multiple successful hits with Hit Lower Attack or Hit Lower Defense stack? (Can I effectively reduce their defense / attack chance to 0?) No, the effect does not stack (it will reset the duration, though.)

If two people with Hit Lower Defense / Attack strike simultaneously, is the effect stacked? No, the effect does not stack.

Do other attackers get the same benefit from hit lower defense?" Yes, the effect is global, not specific to that particular attacker.

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"Is my account age not updating or am I just crazy?" This is what I ask myself every time I try to check my account age... I have no head for numbers. *sigh*

But yes, we are getting a fair number of reports that account ages aren't updating properly, and we are investigating the problem. We'll keep you posted!

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Candle of Love Progress! All non-Japanese servers have successfully lit the flame on at least one facet EXCEPT for the following:

Oceania

Come on, Oceanians! You're almost there!

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UO's Looking for A Few Good Britannians! Looking to get into the industry? Love UO and want to personally help make it the best game it can be? Have some writing and scripting skills? Well this could be your lucky day! We have openings on the UO team for designers! Experience is preferred, but this could be your chance to get a foot in the industry door without starting in the CS or QA pit. Get your resume together and email it to EDalberg AT ea DOT com, with the subject line "UO Designer Resume."

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If you haven't seen today's KR patch notes plus the TC publish notes, check them out - we've got some good fixes, optimizations, and quite a few changes that testers have asked for in this round of updates. Have a good weekend, y'all!

-- Jeremy