Only if the defenses are currently stored that way, which several people said they're not. If they're not, then the act of gathering them from the many places they are and translating them into something you can store, and then translating them back, and doing it in a way that doesn't lag the MUD when ten people leave the arena at once, and then maintaining that with every change that is ever done afterwards, and then working out the ways it will be abused and preventing them, adds up to something that's too big to be worth it. Anyway, it doesn't matter if you believe it or not. That's still why it's not being done, even if it's really all a big conspiracy against you.

Why make it so complicated?

There are many defenses that do not fade when you die in the arena. Therefore, I think it would be quite easily to make all defenses not fade when you die in the arena.

That's the part I don't get. It's been said all along how difficult it is to reattach defenses, but if you don't unlink them in the first place... don't you avoid that whole issue?

What do you mean, "if that's how it's being done"? What do you think they're doing, manufacturing plastic capsules that are shaped differently for each defense and dropping them into a machine that sorts them into piles based on character name, then melting them back down when the def drops? When it boils down to it, EVERYTHING in the game is just a flag in a namespace, because that's how computers function. It simply can not be impossibly difficult to create a pointer to those addresses and store a copy.

Frankly, I'm tired of suggesting ideas and having them shot down because they're inconvenient, rather than because they're not good ideas. Especially when they're shot down by people who are, as far as I know, not coders for the game (because I've yet to have any admin tell me "sorry, but the coding for that would be too complex")... and often enough not coders at all. Go tell your boss that you don't want to implement the new security project because it's hard, and see where that lands you.

Thanks for pointing this out. There are a number of defenses that persist through the arena, like lichdom, and rebounding.

So the fact that it's already not consistent is proof that it would be easy to make it consistent. Okay.

The efficacy with arguing with the coders about how the code they work in, and that you've never seen, works, is not particularly improved by also refusing to listen to them. Little wonder they don't come and answer you each time. That's why I rarely take this bait myself, and regret it every time I do.

Yes, I've never seen this particular code... but I have spent the last ten years of my life working with back-end programming, on hundreds of projects in dozens of languages, so it's not as if I don't have knowledge of how things generally work. Plus, many of the projects that I've done have involved working with gaining and altering memory allocations from other programs, so I know for a fact that if you can alter someone elses data in the raw, you can do it with your own code.

Except that every time it has been mentioned by them, it is in reference to re-attaching defenses. Resetting them to their initial state after an Arena match, restoring them if you go LD and log back on a short time after. There is, apparently, some sort of flag that tells defenses not to die during certain deaths-- so while it might not be easy, it definitely appears possible.

I think you make a lot of fair points. On the contrary however, I'd like to make a few motions in our defense.

Firstly, events are not easy to run. In fact, most administrators seem to avoid them when they can, at least, the 'work' aspect of them. This is not intended to be a commentary on my fellow admins, as we all know, perhaps far more than a lot of you can realize, the actual volume of work that goes into these. I cannot begin to express or fathom how to express how much time and effort I have spent in the past planning events.

Secondly, I think you have things a bit off - sometimes, we can be planning an event for months (yes, the planning can take months, sometimes more than that) and we've a new skillset coming out or a new area or a new god, and we say, 'Hey, you know what, we can slip this in here, and it fits! That'd be kind of cool..' Sometimes we'll add small additions to areas as part of an event, for whatever purposes. It's not unfathomable for us to begin planning an event and, suddenly, we're planning an area to go with the event. This is all a side effect of the mutual creativity a lot of us share, and our willingness to work together to lessen the burden and share some of the work (I can't code a lick in Rapture, like our dear Charune or Estarra, but have no problem scripting out a quest or an area to go with an event). It's also a side effect of the creative process in general. We try to make things flow cohesively, instead of just releasing this or releasing that.

Thirdly, sitting down and saying, 'Hm, I wonder what we can do to terrorize the game without any really lasting effect' isn't as easy as it sounds. I welcome ALL of you to sit down, draft up an idea for an event, that leaves it open for some variation based on player actions, and post it to the Plots board. I'm not joking, I'm not being sarcastic, caustic, or any such thing - I'm being serious. You're all welcome to do this, at any time. Same with area proposals! I also want you to think while you're doing this how much scripting someone is going to need to do to take it off. Remember, and this is going back to point one, that every action involving a replica is probably going to easily take 10-20 lines of script, carrying on for a variety of checks and situational instances to prevent bugs... And then we need to test all of it! Without you guys SEEING us do it! It's not easy guys!

Fourthly, I want you to sit and look around, contemplate the gods you're familiary with ICly, and try and guess how active they are. Now try and guess how much time they might have at this particular time in their lives (realize we're at the end of a semester in the U.S., a lot of us are still in college or recently out of it with budding careers and lives - we're volunteers! Remember that! We give up what time we have because we want to - emphasis on want to! We LOVE you guys -and- this game), and then just try and guess at how we have to split our time between our orders, or organizations, or building projects, some up here are coders, some people handle issues religiously or designs constantly, some people are just too busy right now to focus much on Lusternia. And remember how big of a staff we are.

Now, let me say this - if any of the above came off harsh or rude or demanding in this, 'RAWR, don't push at us, we're volunteers!' type of attitude, I apologize profusely. I seriously mean that we all love you guys, from Doman to Celina to that random newbie to Nejii (despite the shedding). And, while I can't speak for everyone, if I won the lottery and was sitting on thirty some million dollars, I'd happily retire for a few years and sit at home all day long and script events and build areas for Lusternia and roleplay with everyone and flee from Estarra wielding her evil, evil pumps on a nightly basis. I would, I really, really would. Lusternia is just so amazing, and I wish I could do -more- than I already do to make it a better place.

That said, I welcome, in a friendly, challenging way, for you guys to give us ideas for cool event plots! Put them up on the Plots board! WE DO SEE THEM! If we take them they might change (I can't tell you how many times I've written and rewritten proposals for areas and events! Or how many times an event has had new stuff added in halfway through it!), but we're always looking for fresh new ideas.

I'm really sorry you guys feel this way, though. :sniffle: And as an edit, I hope we can turn this sentiment around in the future!

Why not permanantly scar the world? Lets cause some world shattering.

I sometimes wonder what an event that involved the Basin actually losing would look like, but people would be massively cheesed off if they didn't get something out of the event too so you have to make concessions to that.

I see it now. Like some Soulless is unleashed in part and we have to fight it off and we lose and something is destroyed or damaged, but it leaves temporarily, but then we get our new shiny thing. And then it comes back and we beat it back in an epic battle lasting three OOC months.

Why not blow up the world and erect a tower formed from the ruins wherein I am worshipped like a god?

(Balizar is my octo-jester)

Because Kefka did it first, and you cannot copy Kefka.

That's what happened to the World of Balance?! I need to finish that game..

Rawr.

There's my two cents.

HI TUEK. COME BACK NOW!

EDIT: I don't even know you, but I can feel the Awesomeness radiating from you. So come back !