Papa Smurf
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Posted - 2003.11.11 09:43:00 -
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Ciber Wulf:
Last Friday (7th of Nov) there was supposed to be a week's code freeze, meaning the patch would be coming out 14th of Nov or later. The code freeze had to be delayed due to some major changes to the standing system that were decided on the 6th. Yup, we can be boneheads ;). Anyhow, the code freeze is now expected to be the 14th of Nov, making the patch likely to be shipping in the vicinity of the 21st of Nov. For those of you who need a more concrete answer than that, I'd suggest waiting for an official announcement.
Goldar: I can recalculate the standings based on missions. This would of course be fine according to you, but it would shaft everybody who has ever killed NPCs, bribed or donated. It would not take into account standing decay. It would not take into account that some missions are dead simple to complete, and some players only complete those missions. Additionaly, the proceedure required to do so would require a 24 hour+ downtime while our database jumped through hoops scanning through some of the most enormous tables it has.
Standings are virtually unused in EVE today, so what you're losing is a currency that had almost no value other than looking cool in your character sheet. This is changing, and that means devaluating the old standing coin so that the new standing coin can have some meaning.
Dividing everybody's standings in half is a fairly even-handed way of doing this. Sure, it hurts, but it'll have to be done.
Copernicus: The research agents are a service for standard agents. There may be changes in the future, but as it stands, you will require to work on your standings to get research agents, and there is no other good way to gain positive standings than via missions. So yes, you'll have to suffer the missions. There may be more ways in the future, some of which you may like, some of which you may dislike, but this is the method that's coming in now. Using research agents will however take your skills into account so being a researcher is rewarded. Effectively, you are the one doing the research. The agent is simply managing your research crew. There may be changes in the future, but seeing that skills are really a free ride, there will probably never be a skills-only solution.
Xhalen: It is possible to give a fully functioning ship as a reward in the new system. With modules, a custom name, a full cargo hold, etc. Anything the server can do can be done in a mission or an agent service now, which is a monumental step from where we were.
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