Patch Message, May 26 2004. (large download)

[Draggar]

Rogues should be able to more easily exit water while sneaking, although I think it would be hard to sneak with wet trousers.

You mean no more training the whole zone just because I want to get out of the water in Runnyeye?

and our trousers are actualy scuba-pants, very unobstructive and don't make noise, like courderoys (sp?) do. Plus they show off my nice legs.

[Itek]

Ripley. Alien. Quote. (would get me banned)

You are sitting, the Eye is moving. The Eye disapates. You begin moving.... WHY again?

Cast Eye.
ctrl-s (you had to BEFORE didn't you??)
move the eye
eye vanishes
you are sitting...

Did I miss something where you auto-stand on hitting a MOVEMENT key and not just a CAST SPELL key? (That would be a disaster, but since I didn't see any MENTION of such a change....)

Kiz-

I'm still fuzzy on why you frequently while 2-boxing need to see the "you have to be standing to cast a spell" message. Could you explain how this occurs?

I'd think the EXACT OPPOSITE would be important. That it would be of UTMOST concern to you to be SURE you were standing when you wanted to cast a spell. (You mean that on your 2-box your "cast spell" hotkeys DON'T start with "/stand" and end with "/sit" ?? That seems very unusual.)

Generally, unless I'm in wolf form for only a short period, telling the difference between sitting and standing is pretty easy, just from point of view. (Wolf form screws me up because it's backwards, my point of view is higher while sitting in wolf form.)

IF someone really HAD TO KNOW at a glance Sit/Stand I'd figure that there would be a way to make one of the lesser used "windows" (I use MP3 player, others use "friends") do the job. I'd probably tear my hair out wade'ing thru the XML (not my favorite language) but, in theory...

1) Friends window rewrite. (who uses this window? for it's stated purpose?)

2) Take the information from the "main window" button.

3) Make it display your current (negative toggle of the sit/stand command button state) position.

4) Make it as obnoxiously visible as required.

As I have said I couldn't do it myself in a quick turn around. But I'm certain that someone could if they wanted it bad enough. (Presuming someone hasn't already done so, and given the remarkable number of UI mods I wouldn't bet someone hasn't.)

Seriously ... WHAT possible reason could anyone have for NOT wanting to stand when they attempt to cast a spell?

Kiz: Hmm. Better see if my 2-box is sitting, cast-1 ....
*You can't cast spells while sitting*
Kiz: Good, he's sitting...



Am I the ONLY one that's ever gotten the STUFFING beat out of them because they kept trying to STAND and end up SITTING instead?

Really... I'd like to know the SPECIFIC SITUATION where you DELIBERATELY enter a command to cast a spell and DO NOT in fact want to cast that spell if you are sitting...

(I mean... what happens when you are on a mount and are ALWAYS standing?)

Unless you mean "occasionally I hit the wrong hotkey on my 2-box and would not only NOT want to stand and stop medding but certainly wouldn't need to begin casting "complete heal" at that moment either" ...

To which I can only reply

1) What happens on mounts?

2) That's a "user error" that can't be anticipated by the developers.

3) Aren't we making something "fool-proof" and then complaining that we've made...

4) Haven't several of the people complaining about this complained about the amount of hand-holding rampant in recent changes to the game?

(I'll admit that "auto-stand" is quite handhold-ish... but if we now need to handhold the victims of handholding...)

[kiztent]

Kiz-

I'm still fuzzy on why you frequently while 2-boxing need to see the "you have to be standing to cast a spell" message. Could you explain how this occurs?

I'd think the EXACT OPPOSITE would be important. That it would be of UTMOST concern to you to be SURE you were standing when you wanted to cast a spell. (You mean that on your 2-box your "cast spell" hotkeys DON'T start with "/stand" and end with "/sit" ?? That seems very unusual.)

Yes, I don't have /sit off at the beginning of every hotkey.

On the offbox, the pulling sequence looks like this:
9-8-7-2-8-9

(which is sit/stand - assist - pet attack - slow - assist - sit)

Since I automatically hit that sequence on every pull (and I've been using the shaman bot for... over a year, probably 19 months), I'd have to remap my hotkeys and hope I didn't put something dangerous on hotkey 9 (like the raid where I put a slow resist message and was spamming raid with resist messages when I went to sit). Since my shaman often has to stand to avoid sit aggro, I need a sit/stand hotkey, since trying to hit ctl-s on the off PC can get a little hairy (especially since chances are my main box is going to have to be chasing the mob that's running after the shaman if I get sit aggro) and if I have to have the hotkey, I'm going to hit it by habit until I stop. Of course, since I'm going to stand to cast slow anyway (auto-stand), it's a minor annoyance, which is why I'm not going to really complain.

Since it's such an ingrained habit to hit stand/sit before and after casting, auto-stand isn't going to be a huge deal. I can't remember that last time I looked at my off box and noticed I was standing when I expected to be sitting (or vice versa). I'm just worried than an extra sit/stand happening automatically will throw off my rhythm until I get used to it. But as long as I sit after every cast, it won't be a big deal.

I almost never exp in outdoor zones, but when I do, I still hit sit/stand, it just doesn't do anything. I don't expect the devs to anticipate my particular play style, but a programmer ought to understand that flexibility to customize the system as you prefer is better than lack of flexibility.

[Lilosh]

I moved it here, Lilo. Nothing in it directly affects tradeskills. Yes I know autobank is handy for tradeskillers as well as everyone else, but it doesn't actually affect tradeskills. Thus, this goes in OOC. There should be a Moved: link in General showing that this was originally there.

You confuzzle me, Dandi Bear. *hug*

A quick search shows that for the past eighteen months, every patch message has been in the general forum, without exception.

*grin* New policy? Oh well, your call.


-Lilosh

[Verdandi]

First: As noted in Visitor's Corner, questions and concerns about moderator decisions should be asked in Private Messages.

That said, I imagine that now that it's been asked publicly people will want a public answer, so: the General Tradeskills forum is where discussion of general tradeskills issues go. The OOC forum is, as its description states, for "Chat unrelated to tradeskills...". Many patches do touch on tradeskills directly, and belong in General. Many others there have the discussion in them turns to tradeskills before we catch them and we decide to let them stay. Some we just plain miss. Others are originally posted here in OOC to start with. That usually means someone else also posts it in General and it gets locked with a redirect back to here. And some do get moved from there to here, like this one. There were some here already, just not as many as probably wind up in General.

[Niellya]

Did I miss something where you auto-stand on hitting a MOVEMENT key and not just a CAST SPELL key? (That would be a disaster, but since I didn't see any MENTION of such a change....)

You must have because that's exactly what they did a few patches ago.

They also included an Option key to disable the Auto-stand feature; however, the disabling of auto-stand does not extend to auto-stand invoked by spell gems. I tried it.

Just because you don't see a reason for something doesn't mean that others don't see a reason for it.

I'd like to know the SPECIFIC SITUATION where you DELIBERATELY enter a command to cast a spell and DO NOT in fact want to cast that spell if you are sitting...

I gave one. If you don't like the reason, that's not my issue.

[Lilosh]

First: As noted in Visitor's Corner, questions and concerns about moderator decisions should be asked in Private Messages.
.

Eep, sorry.

I wasn't awake very long, and didn't realize it'd be taken as questioning your decision.

O_o.


Wake---> Coffee ----> Post. New plan.


-Lilosh

[Saruton]

That autostand when casting is horrible for every FD class. You FD you hit your Offpull hotbutton and accidentaly click your instant cast item and voila you are standing again and can here the mobs say, i knew he wasnt dead yet, while they clobber you.

[Itek]

Niellya - READ YOUR PRIVATE MESSAGES.

Again to the "Oh the FD crowd" response ... How in the bloody blazes do you expect the developers to ANTICIPATE that you will HIT THE WRONG KEY??!?!?

Itek's Monk: (I have one) Ooh crud.....
**I_Monk feigns death**
Itek's Monk: Whew... saved... hmm... what's my loc...
**Itek fumbles and hits the "pop/drop" hotkey instead of "/loc" hotkey**
Itek's Monk: Oh crud....
**Itek has been pummeled**

Yeah... I've got an idea... a confirmation box to stand after a successful FD. (SARCASM!!)

Patient: Doc, it hurts when I move my arm like this now.
Doc: So don't move your arm like that.

Kiz-

Thanks for a serious answer. I don't 2-box unless it's life and death while TheWife is afk. So I rarely have gotten into "habits" like this.

I, personally, was still forcing myself to "stand" before about half of my casts by the end of yesterday. Habits of 5 years are hard to handwave into the past. (heck, just for the potential of saving myself a tick of mana regen this change seems pretty sweet)

I thought of suggesting some workarounds... but I'm sure they have occured to you already.

[kiztent]

Again to the "Oh the FD crowd" response ... How in the bloody blazes do you expect the developers to ANTICIPATE that you will HIT THE WRONG KEY??!?!?

There's this little thing called channeling, you may be aware of. It's not uncommon to have to hit FD quite a few times to get a channel through (since you're probably using it because there's multiple mobs beating on you) and since there's no message for a successful FD, it's habit to keep slamming the key until you notice that the mobs are wandering off or you die. Which was fine until they made you stand when you cast FD after a successful one.

[Nhin Impious]

How in the bloody blazes do you expect the developers to ANTICIPATE that you will HIT THE WRONG KEY??!?!?

I dunno, after installing EQ on the new second computer, I was moseying my new bazaar mule up to PoK and discovered that, in anticipation of me accidentally hitting A when I didn't mean Attack, they had MOVED Autoattack to map to the Q key. Mind you, and I knock on wood when I say this, I haven't accidentally attacked something since Qali Impious was level 12, back when banded was some good armor. On the other hand, it took me a good six hits (and, er, Loading Please Wait... level 1, you know) to figure out WHY A for attack wasn't working! I thought it was a hardware problem, not some change in the game to protect me from myself.

That said... how do the rest of you folks who use hotkeys manage to train your fingers for more than one character? I swear, I spend three minutes every time I camp to someone else repeating one of the following:

Clerics cannot kick. (V = hotkey 9 = run/walk on cleric)
Rangers cannot gate. (ALT 8 = snare on ranger)
Clerics cannot forage. (hotkey 2 = Pacify on cleric)
Rangers cannot bash. (F = hotkey 6 = archery on ranger)
Clerics cannot track. (G = hotkey 4 = Donal's HP buff on cleric)

I've just about managed to move my hotkeys into a position where the automatic response for one character won't get the other one killed, but I dread the day I add one more ability or clicky item.

I should probably start a betting pool on Recipe for Disaster...

Nhinx's CH = spell gem 3
Stormeraven's Ice Comet = spell gem 3

Wuh oh. *grin*

Nhinx Aphsion, fumble-fingered Paladin of Innoruuk, also
Stormeraven, port-wench and Mice Comet aficionado

[Itek]

ahh....

monk FD != necro/SK FD ...

I see how that could be annoying...

Habit... "You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means"

I'd suggest workarounds for that too... (spell filter, chat window.. something something... text colors...) but it seems unrequired.

"You can't cast spells while sitting"

"You can't cast spells while feigning death"

Boy, that wouldn't solve the problem for the FEW people that have it, instantly.

Previously,

line 45972: if (stand == false)
line 45973: {
line 45974: print("You are sitting and can't cast spells);
line 45975: return;
line 45976: }
line 45977: else
line 45978: -continue spell casting checks-

ed
45972 s/"stand"/"feign_death"
45972 s/"false"/"true"
45974 s/"sitting"/"feigning death"

(that would take a few seconds, and a few more to UNcomment the code block)

See THAT is a valid reason to request a change. The original poster said "well what if I hit my clicky while I'm FD" which is a user error. Not so much a reason.

But seriously I don't care if they do add a toggle for this, I just think it's a complete waste of programmer time, which could be better spent fixing more agregious errors. (like mobs getting stuck on the tops of the mesa's in Storms, or the occasional 4-5 second zone lag in Sseru)

[Dunthor Warsmith]

But seriously I don't care if they do add a toggle for this, I just think it's a complete waste of programmer time, which could be better spent fixing more agregious errors. (like mobs getting stuck on the tops of the mesa's in Storms, or the occasional 4-5 second zone lag in Sseru)

But wouldn't the auto-stand-casting feature count under that in the first place? Since any attempt to cast a spell while sitting/ducking would be a user error anyhow, and they shouldn't waste programmer time on it

Personally, I hope they add a toggle - I'll definitely have it off. I don't cast while sitting very often, but when I do there's often a reason that I'm sitting, especially now with the time-cumulative hp regen changes, and the "old" system gives me a second chance "are you really sure you want to quit sitting, since you implied you did but didn't directly say it?" whereas the new system does not. I didn't say I wanted to stand, so don't stand me up

I generally don't like it when programs try to be too helpful and make numerous assumptions off of a semi-related action - those assumptions tend to be wrong, and just create more work and hassle for the user/me. Personally, this feels more like a downgrade than an upgrade.

[Minta Rose]

I think I have stumbled upon the reason we auto-stand to cast a spell now. It was hidden within the trunk of a tree in LFaydark--and coincedentally, so was I. Previously, when I got stuck in geometry (Ak'Anon engineering is top-notch, Ak'Anon architecture is not), I could sit down to mem spells all I wanted, but never cast. This time, I plunked my butt on the ground, memmed shadowstep, got stuck, clicked the spell gem, _stood up_, cast, and was on my merry way.

[Phabos]

I should probably start a betting pool on Recipe for Disaster...

Nhinx's CH = spell gem 3
Stormeraven's Ice Comet = spell gem 3

Wuh oh. *grin*

Yep, that would explain it...


LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...



Phabos Aphsion
Slightly Deceased Paladin of Brell
Tarew Marr