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We will be holding two Q&A sessions this week to answer your relevant questions!
The first one will be tonight at 21:00 CET (GMT+1), the second one will be on Friday at 21:00 CET (GMT+1). Both will be held on IRC in #dev-meeting (you won't be able to join at this time).
If you have a question for tonight, please send an email with the title "Q&A Tuesday" (and nothing else in the topic) to togan@swcombine.com before 19:00 CET! All questions received afterwards will go into the pool for the session on Friday.
Due to the suspected flood of questions, we cannot guarantee that yours will be answered in the session, however we will try to answer it in a non-live way (e.g. through the Question Centre). For all those who can't attend, I will post a log of the session at a later time.
Last but not least, please do not send questions like "when will we get combat" or "why is travel so slow," as the answers to those questions are already well known.
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The evening news with Penguin art master Jevon:
And on the second day there was much talk, and Veynom was pleased. Combat was a very long and heated discussion between Khan, Blacknight, Clarr and Jesfa. Included in the discussion were a number of wonderful drawing by the talented artwork of our next honorary art team member Clarr. (Scans to follow.) The team then followed by testing combat and were met with instant failure.
In other news, Togan is blazing along on the new ammunition system, with the occasional assistance by Veynom. Me and the monkeys have been making some new rules images, as well as fixing and breaking many of the images throughout the Combine. As a final warning, I am still poking into the custom image folders - datacards were reviewed today, and those I did not personally fix were deleted or offered a warning. I suggest you send responses promptly or risk images becoming history.
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After confirming that the entities don't exist, I've removed the 3 "Unique" vehicles from the rules page, as well as the Assassin Droid, since neither have been used, and neither are feasible at this point in time. Whether they're R&D able, can be determined later.
As well, we've renamed the very vague Drop Ship Transport, to the DX-9 Dropship, a more suitable canon name.
EDIT: Also, please look and drool over Gitane's new wrecker model. Very awesome.
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Day one of the Dev Meeting!
Clarr saw his first snow shower - was curiously unimpressed. Sin managed a whole two glasses of German beer before becomming giddy and passing out. The German rail network failed Togan and he arrived a whole 20 minutes late. And I managed to have my firing scheduled as an item of discussion on Thursday (huzzah!) :)
More seriously, Veynom presented his overview of the year - what we accomplished and what we hadn't, how it compared to previous years and the usual overview of stats for bugs, members and whatnot. Before his arrival we spent our time catching up with our pending tasks, fixing bugs and taking advantage of all being in the same room to discuss some topics informally that would have taken weeks otherwise. After dinner we've spent our time going through our list of topics to discuss and allotting them a time in our agenda for the next 6 days.
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As mentioned in an earlier post by me and Sin back in November, Faction HQs are to be permaprotected and not to be made over (It shouldn't be possible, but I digress). We have found nearly 70 HQ facilities in private hands, and have since turned these facilities into the new Zoo facilities. We have hopefully again fixed any bug where HQs are transferable, but we ask that you don't take them out if you find it possible.
Any bugs regarding it, add to bug base.
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Since I don't believe it has been officially said, sending assets to Darkness when not told to, is not to be done, and we will begin fining people for each asset sent after this message. If you don't want an asset, find a buyer, or sell to market, or don't buy/make them, Darkness is an OOC necessity, please find an IC solution to your inventory problem.
Thank you.
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"A weapon they are. Obey orders without question for good or ill. For now they code for us. Who is to say what the future holds?
-- Sim Master Veynom answering questions about Codetroopers.
We have received confirmation that the bulk of our troops successfully took ground in Berlin. The meeting will start tomorrow as everything is proceeding as we have foreseen.
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| While writing these lines, our Aussie team (Sin Jade aka Zhao, Khan, BlackKnight, Clarr Solo) is packed up and sitting inside the plane, crossing half the world to get locked into a dark room for a full week of coding and misery. You will have understood that the SWC 2010 Dev Meeting is about to start. The official kick-off is planned for Saturday the 6 (evening, CET time) with the annual presentation concerning the State of the Combine. Stay tuned as regular news will be posted. |
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StarWarsCombine! The Facebook of Star Wars fans! Well, not quite, but you know you want to meet some of these folks.
There are a few conventions out there, like ComicCon and Dragon Con to name a few, but they are kinda huge. All those Trekkies and Tweener Tiwlight fans (I <3 Edward!) walking around aimlessly. The 50 year old Klingon that smells like the real thing. The cardboard, spray painted Master Chief, and the uber 501st Elite staring each other down in the Convention halls. Where are all the SWCers? They are they, like ninjas in the shadows.
So lets get them ninja's out of the closets! er.... yeah, I meant, go check out the SWC Convention Forum.
As of now, I see a big meetup in NYC, another in the SeaTac area, and Jedi Con in Germany. Its a great way to meet fellow combiners, and others in the scifi/fantasy genres. Heck, someone makes a WashDC area one, I'll show you how to kill a kitten!
If you would like to tell or show us what you can do for the SWC at a major convention, please email myself or pr@swcombine.com. We would love all the attention to the website, as it helps us grow more and more. Plus, we then get more kittens that way!
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Seriously, Factions, comon man! Get you stuff together quickly. Im giving a week to fix and pay fine or they are doubled. Then 5 days after that, still nothing, then its tripled. After that I start making up numbers, and you don't want that, Im two halves nuts, and three eighths crazy. I'll make up things!
Here's the link to the fines page and descriptions for all you factions in trouble. I'm sending out the CPs to the people that reported them. Reward goes to the first person on the list to report, not to everyone that reported. Veynom would be poor that way.
Any questions or comments please feel free to DM or email me avid@swcombine.com
I'd like to thank Helena Gladio for her help in this. This was a bit of an experiment taking in a player and letting them see what the Asims do. She did an excellent job helping me out, and I look forward to working with her again.
Edit: Fines Payment can go to Darkness, and send me DM that it is fixed.
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LAN Parties. Afterschool hangouts. WIFI Hotspots and Wireless Routers. So many ways that Multi accounts happen, and so many ways that we can help not getting in trouble.
You need to send an email to Multi-accounts@swcombine.com if your about to sign on at another SWC players house, apartment, windowless van that says "Free Candy"... anywhere that more than one SWC may sign on from. Don't worry about spamming the email with every occurrance or just one general email saying your a travelling flip-flop salesman, as long as we have documentation of the matter that your using an IP that happens to be with another player.
Better safe than sorry.
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Ok kids! Lets play a game! It's called updating your personal info! Can you say "info"? Good!
What I would really like for everyone to do is go to here and make sure that your email is up to date, and that your passwords are strong. I don't want anyone to have any problems with hacking or whatever. And don't only check here, but make sure your email account's password is not the same as here, or the Bug base or whatever. The more diverse and strong your password is, the better defense your making for your accounts across the interwebz.
Update any Instant Message servers you use too. We may need to get a hold of you, and this is the best thing to have updated.
Recently, I have tried to help players, but the emails I sent to were unknown to the mail servers. That means that the mailing address is no longer in service. This hurts you more than me, as I can still go on with my day, but your now stuck. Help a brother out, yo.
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Gonna start up the multi-hunter 2010 GT version soon, just giving out fair warning. And speaking of fair warning....
Faction Checks! Thats right! Shaking in your boots! Im going through that wonderful automated list in the next couple of days, so players, here's your chance to make some CPs. You know you have wanted to stick it to your own boss for making you prospect that 20x20, or the enemy has cooler ships than your faction, so go out there, find the errors, and post on the link. Easy as that! We punish the factions and you get the payout! We're Crrrrazy!
Oh, and just because I'm a great guy, I'm also going through all the faction sites personally. As I asked previously to all faction leaders, asking about previous characters is not allowed of your recruits, and I will be penalizing those websites.
EDIT: I'd like to apologize to the website owners and faction about the example from before. I did not recall that I had an extensive conversation with their webmaster at the time of incident. Coincidentally, we both remembered the convo, but our HDDs were erased with the convo. I retract what I had up, and apologize whole-heartedly if they felt singled out or attacked in any nature.
Remember, only you can prevent faction dissolution.
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Any of you on the ground may have noticed that you're now at 0,0 of the terrain you were currently on. This was due to a mistake I made today during fixing a bug, and I am deeply sorry for any inconvenience.
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I've corrected the error that was preventing travel from running.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.
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With the Dev Meeting in Berlin rapidly approaching we'd like to get together a list of mini-features that people would like to see us work on while we're there. I've started a list in the suggestions forum where you can see the ideas we've put together, suggest your own and vote on all the ideas presented.
Thread: Mini-Features for the Dev Meeting
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Features
- Added a Debt filter to the Facility Inventory. (Bug 4146)
Bug Fixes & Tweaks
- Improved the Edit Blueprints admin tool so it will validate maps before saving them. This should help prevent issues like we had this week where broken room maps on the Ranch were blocking construction actions.
- Fixed a bug where entities being destroyed weren't deleting the actions they were involved in.
- Fixed a bug preventing the tractoring of entities. (Bug 4153)
- Fixed a bug where the Position - Actions panel was showing a 404 page at first load. (Bug 4229)
- Fixed a bug preventing the handing over of prisoners. (Bug 4061)
- Fixed a bug where having Control Room priv for Space Stations wasn't allowing you to access the cockpit of faction owned space stations. (Bug 4286)
- Fixed a bug where npc controlled ships weren't aborting hyperspace when you did. Only affected cases where you were hypering from inside a system. (Bug 4290)
- Fixed a bug preventing custom datacard images from being applied to newly produced entities. (Bug 4110)
- Fixed a bug where hostile atmospheres that had more than two options for protective items weren't picking up the fact that characters equipped with them were protected. (Bug 4159)
- Fixed a bug where code was appearing in inventory assign events called from outside of inventory. (Bug 4156)
- Fixed a bug where the displayed max speed could exceed the actual max speed. (Bug 4227)
- Production no longer checks for pilot activity on completion.
- Fixed an issue allowing people to stash things inside cargo containers.
- Fixed bug causing Jedi masters to take on the the FP of their apprentice (Bug 4621)
- FP regeneration now works with the new Force system as defined in the rules (ie, Meditation is now implemented)
- Fixed admin Clone City tool
Maintenance & QA
- Wrote unit tests for all types of travel in a ship with NPC following it so we'll be able to spot if changes break any aspect of travel before we sync (orbit > atmosphere > ground > cross terrain > cross terrain to city > atmosphere > atmosphere travel > orbit > sublight travel > hyperspace travel > aborting hyperspace)
- Wrote a unit test for the terrain transforming effect of mining and a simple unit test for tractor beams.
- The Error Handler now (crudely) differentiates between errors and query count warnings.
Artwork
-Whip (ID: 202) Made by Kavac
Descriptions
Trading 1
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From the timestamp of Y 11 D 54, 17:09:11, anything that was bought off market needs to hold in the buyers hands for now. I am investigating a bug and would rather you all get paid for what I might have to take back. Please, hold on to the items, ships, etc. until further notice. Please, take down any postings on CPM or other markets/forums about sales of said items.
I will be checking this out to see if this is a bug or whatever, and will keep you all appraised forthwith.
UPDATE: Koensayr faction was dissolved due to a bug. I need you whom have bought off the market from that timestamp to start sending the property to me, Avid Soyak. I will also need a DM with the events of your purchase from the market and the credits owed to you. You will all get a full refund. If you decide not to send back to me, I will be forced to do all the work of taking it and looking up the events myself, I will be most unhappy. Most. Just kidding.
Thank you all in advance.
Please, no spam DMs at this time, as this is going to make me go more gray than I already am.
A kitten will be sacrificied to appease the SWC gods too (Thats for Dac)
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For the 3rd year in a row, the SWC Team will meet together in Berlin and spend a full week to work on the Combine. The meeting will start on February 6th and close on February 13. This meeting is a good occasion for the team to get a clear view on the current situation, the accomplished progresses, the open issues, any new issues, and so on. The Dev Meeting is also the moment of the year when we define of the annual targets and features to be developped. So this is clearly an important process for us.
This year, the following SWC Team Members will attend: Sin Jade (Lead Programmer), BlackKnight (Programmer), Khan (Programmer), Clarr Solo (Programmer), Jennifer Dreighton (PR), Todor Ginchev (Programmer), Togan Jano (Programmer), Jesfa (Assistant), Jevon (Art), Gitane (Art), Veynom (Sim Master).
Stay tuned for more news regarding this.
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