Dacy

Maybe it's weird, but it's a good weird! The Witch's House, that Homecoming Halloween Tradition of Treats, is making a surprise appearance in February! The influx of new players means there are a lot of people who could use an influence boost, and those same people probably haven't seen what we can do with bases these days, and might be looking to make connections with RPers. I figured that I had enough left over from last year's donations for the Halloween giveaway that I could have the House open for a weekend, and let them see the amazing costumes that have been created by @Easter Bunny and @Ellyz, and meet the wonderful and amazingly creative RP community here. It's a fun, interactive base, modeled after a Haunted House that you visit during Halloween. Expect surprises of all kinds! Get to the treat room and get treats worth 10-20 million inf each. For roleplayers,

@Cyclone Jack, welcome to building! I very much admire the work you put into your base, and I fully support your inclination to hide and disguise things while offering clues as to what you can find where. I like to do that as well. I'd also love to show you how to manipulate NPCs, other than lifting up from the floor, or placing a building scaffolding where you wish to place them (surface tile), or attaching them by surface attachment: I encourage you to join the base building channel in game, and come to Discord. HC has a Discord, and there's a base building Discord with lots of friendly people, inspiration, and help. https://discord.gg/YmnmgjUuam Thank you for building another wonderful and useful base, and welcome to the City! -Dacy

Did you enter this into the new Directory? 🙂 We'd love all bases to be in the directory! http://tinyurl.com/mr4dvhyn -Dacy

Welcome to the City! Yes, you can have a base, and you can learn to make it into what you want it to look like! Our editor has a bit of a learning curve, but not bad, and it's very flexible. Have a look at my YouTube channel for tours to see some great examples, and here is a video to get you a great start! There are other, shorter videos if you prefer, just have a look, I recommend the "Starter Set". Join the Base Building discord, too! https://discord.gg/Wkp9XCz2BJ Lots of helpful info and people! -Dacy

Yes, we were set to 2 x 6 so the number of doppelgängers wasn’t the issue; we expected that. Did not expect the power swaps. -Dacy

I just wanted to end on a positive note and let them know that I appreciated their help. A tiny balance to my frustration. I should have sat on the post and just not sent it. It was way too long and I regret it. I definitely won’t do it again. -Dacy

UltraAlt, you are prolific in your postings, but there seems to be some confusion or misunderstanding of things I thought we'd already covered. I'm apparently guilty of that, or at least forgetfulness: yes, you caught me, apparently you mentioned wiki to me before and I completely forgot about it. I also have zero recollection or visible record of "PMs" between you, me, and Easter Bunny. I will have to ask him, as his memory is better than mine. Perhaps we'll make one for the directory. I don't have anything for my YouTube channel, our Discord, or a few other things, so I doubt I'll make one for this, either. I'm not on the forums nearly as much as the forums themselves are. Between the Directory topic, the wiki, and the information available on Discord, I should think players who want the information can get it easily. Adding things to my sig has just never been a priority for me as something I need to learn how to do. The point of a wiki (I thought and previous to all of these interactions, assumed) was to provide information. Information which is updated. Information that is hopefully accurate. The few listings that were not part of the Google docs that was the origin of the wiki information were added into our document, if the information was accurate. We were only able to test base codes, but if they worked and matched the name of the base listed, that information is then listed and is confirmed. Further information needs to be input by the owner or someone who knows the base well. So in effect, the listings will remain, just not in the exact format they are in currently. Like any wiki page, it's subject to updates and revisions, and if it's irrelevant in a wholesale kind of way, it gets made into a historical reference. None of that is ever meant to diminish those that have worked on it. But when you correct a page, do you leave up the old page because "it existed"? Imagine a wiki where old pages and the new versions exist side by side because "leaving them there doesn't harm anyone". It does. It creates confusion. It's highly unusable to have to wade through several iterations of information. It makes for a cluttered interface, and leaving up the pages as they are now only perpetuates inaccurate information. People who want to see the changes of a page can visit the history tab. Fact is, the wiki page came AFTER the google docs were posted, were started with the information from the Google doc, so there was in fact an "organized method of sharing the information". The history of the pages does not bear out the idea that you proffered that the download of the document info only provided a thin listing of bases, whose ranks were then swelled by individuals listing bases after you alerted them to the presence of the wiki. Neither does the number of bases that Easter Bunny found that were listed here and nowhere else, support that. The whole reason we started the directory listing on a Google doc is because that's how the majority of the players have shown us that they will list on. They understand it, and we have done a tremendous amount of work and testing to try and make it much more usable and intuitive and informative than the original doc was. If you'll but read more carefully, how we are protecting the information in the document has been explained. And I wish there WAS a listing of bases and passcodes that was official. There is not. Our list has been compiled from various sources, and the codes checked to confirm if they are valid. The rest is up to the players, but we will guard the information they give us, it won't be corrupted on our document as information has been in the past. Unfortunately, there is only so much we can do to get the information, and we do not wish to usurp the player's right to designate their base as they choose. But this is why we are trying to get the word out to have people update their information, so it can reflect what each base owner wishes it to reflect, about their base. This is not only important to be true to what the builder/owner wants, but to give information to those seeking bases to visit. Some people have very specific things they're looking for. Believe me, we get many questions. So no, we have no magical (or technological) way to keep the bases updated. What we saw was a base directory that was languishing. Players weren't using it for various reasons, but a big reason is that there is less and less reason to list a base as the number of people using the directory and listing bases drops off, and there is less and less reason to use a directory when fewer bases are being listed, and the ones that are there may not be accurately listed. We noted that some players don't use the forums, and some don't use Discord, so any directory we came up with had to be able to be accessed from either place. The success of this directory is yet to be known; will it, too, die off as players ignore it? It's a self-reinforcing circle, but so is the circle of success: many people enter their bases in the directory, and so they know that the directory lists many bases, and the word spreads and people learn to go to the directory to look up a base, and builders know that if they want their bases to be seen, they need to be sure to list them in the directory. Of course, we hope that people will use the directory. We've worked hard on it. But that's not up to us to control; we can only make the best directory we can, and hope that it's appealing. We will do our best to keep it up to date, but routinely going through the hundreds of bases and checking the codes would be a lot of work. We do, and more than one "purpose" would be "Multipurpose", also a purpose. Further specifications come with later categorical tags. I'm sure you'd have seen this if you'd been able to open the documents and actually see what it is we're doing. And of course bases can be many things, that is why we agonized over the various tags and tested them with users to see how well they worked. The idea was to give people more descriptive categorizations for their bases. It's been incredibly difficult, as the creative mass of this player base is off the charts, so trying to come up with things that will successfully categorize and describe the vast majority of bases has been both a major undertaking and a major headache. And one reason we wanted to change the categorizations was because we felt that "subcategories of RP locations" was insufficient. I think I didn't make my meaning clear to you. Of course you must create a sg to make a base. However, many bases are created by alts, not to create an actual sg, but in order to create the base. The fact that they had to create a sg to make the base is just part of the process, one they'd skip if they could, because all they want to do is build the base. That's why I said what I said: many sgs are created, not to be a sg, but to create a base. There is but one person in the "group", it's not a supergroup by any definition but the most technical. The process is still the technical process: you have to create a "Supergroup" in order to create a base. But as you said, supergroups existed before bases. They are groups of people banded together for whatever purpose. They may have a base, or they may not. I draw a distinction. To me, a "sg" that is created just to create a base is not an actual sg. It is technically, of course, but one alt in the registry does not a "supergroup" make, imo. This is what I meant. This is the distinction I make: there are many bases that exist apart from supergroups, supergroups being defined here as an actual group of players. I hope that is more clear. Yes, this. Some people name their sgs the name they wish to appear for the base, and some people name their sgs for the coalition of people it represents, and call the base something else, often reflected in the code. The game does not leave room for naming a group of people something different than their base, so, the players do what they can to create that difference. We are trying to update the wiki. Wikis get updated. Or should be. Inaccurate information seems inevitable, it does not mean that it can not and should not be improved when it can be. We are not "against the current wiki use", we are trying to make it reflect the current listings with a different format. There are some base owners that want to have control over who comes in and when, so they prefer to be asked for a tour. Reasonings: 1) surprise visitors can interrupt RP, especially bad if the base is RPly a secret location. 2). the base owner has been subject of harassment by someone or perhaps a group of people, and giving out the code indiscriminately will result in more harassment. 3) the base is only open for certain events during certain times or seasons, or entrance is restricted and the code is regularly changed to keep it that way. Some bases have owners that left the game, but did not delete their account, and as a result, the bases they built are still there. We list bases such as these where the code is no longer valid, hoping that someone may know the current code and let us know. We would note that somewhere on the Wiki. However, first, we must get as complete of a response to completing the information for the bases in the directory as we can, in order to know what bases might be abandoned and yet still present. We'd prefer the owner of the base be the one to update the information, rather than someone not in that position. Getting owners to update is an ongoing process that is likely to take some time. Bases listed without a code are still bases that are worth seeing, worth knowing about, and they are even bases that the owners and builders want to have visited, but for various reasons do not want the code to be publicly accessible all of the time. You earlier stated that you wanted the old lists to remain up and available, that you saw no reason to not present them along with the new lists. If you want old and outdated and potentially incorrect information listed "because it existed" and people worked hard on it, etc, why would you not want to list bases people worked very hard on, if for no other reason than complete accuracy in record keeping on what bases are still around? Because, we have over 31,000 bases + just on Everlasting alone that have been made, but clearly, most of those no longer exist. I think it's good, from if nothing else, a historical pov, to know what bases are still technically here. And, if we've simply lost the code, listing such a base may enable someone to tell us what that code is, so the base is not lost forever. So, those are the reasons. And I'm done responding, it's late, I stayed up hours past when I wanted to go to bed...ugh. Anything else will have to go unanswered, I'm tired and feel like I'm having to battle every little thing here. An aside, I greatly appreciate the understanding, tutelage, and cooperation and help from AboveTheChemist and BlackSpectre. Thank you again!! We don't quite know all of what we're doing here yet, but we're so much closer than we were. ❤️ -Dacy

I was duoing Posi I with a friend. They were playing a Radiation/Psi blade tank, I was playing a Fire/Kin corruptor. We were set to +2x6 teammates. When we got to the Dopplegangers at the end of the final mission, there were six of them, and I was very surprised to see one of my "doubles" using Accelerated Metabolism! You can see in this photo that some of the characters glow with the AM glow, and you can also see that some of the characters are being hit with a kinetic power even as I snapped the shot. Some of my partner's "doubles" had ranged Psi powers. So essentially, we saw a mashup of power types and ATs. The tank's character (again, rad/psi blade) appeared as a ranged psi powerset. (Presumably a corruptor with psi ranged powers, although I cannot guarantee that it was a corruptor and not a sentinel; I saw no fx to indicate the secondary set on that character, but everything is black but the AM glow and the kin buffs, so, not sure.) In the heat of battle with 2 of us vs 6 of them (and the combo of rad and kin is especially potent), we did not have time to fully sort through the power combinations that were present. At least one of the Dopplegangers seemed to represent our power sets as they are on our characters. At least one doppleganger that looked like the tank, instead had the tank secondary as their primary, only in ranged form, and at least one (I actually think 2) of the dopplegangers that looked like my fire/kin corruptor, actually had the secondary power set that was the support version of the tank primary. -Dacy

Definitely. We hope to have a section, separate from the table, for people who'd like to do that. But it still should be checked, and I believe we plan to. -Dacy

We're well aware of the problem; that is why Easter Bunny was adamant over maintaining control over the input. Everything is compared to the master sheet, which only we can access, and any unauthorized changes are reverted to whatever we had originally intended. This is why, AboveTheChemist, I am not sure you need to look for differences between the wiki and the document? The document would be accurate, whereas the wiki could have been altered; I am not speaking with confidence here, not knowing all that is involved, but it seems to me that it might be better to just wholesale input the document as it is each time it's updated; the net result should be that just the new things show up, as it's inputting things that were, for the most part, already there. Unless that's more of a pain? Again, I know nothing except for the things I stated: the sheet info is well controlled, the wiki is not. So therefore, I would think that updates should just be wholesale to sweep up any malicious edits that have occurred. I hope my logic there is clear, even if what I suggest is not feasible. Also, we're looking for the least labor intensive option, of course. -Dacy

Yes, they could use a lot of love. Slowly working on it (my "to do" list atm is rather extensive!). Would it be presumptuous to ask for a link on the main page? I mean, just looking over the topics, there's quite a lot listed there; it seems to me that "bases", both information about building and the lists of the bases, are of at least of equal importance to things such as "battle terminals" and "titles', etc. For many people, bases ARE the game for them. For others, it is a huge enhancement they do not wish to play without. See, right now they are just under "supergroup", but I will tell you that there are a good number of bases that are created, not as part of a supergroup, but as a part of the game and the community. For many players, bases are truly a thing only connected to supergroups by the fact that you have to create a sg in order to make a base. Many bases are named something other than the name of the sg that ownns them. So I believe that that separation needs to be recognized. But yes, the base pages need to be updated asap, perhaps organized in such a way as to easily link to in a way that makes sense as a whole topic. Which means I need to do some research on editing. -Dacy

AboveTheChemist, we appreciate SO MUCH your willingness to put in the time and effort on these scripts!! I just wanted to say that, and also, I note the other bases were formatted into different tables based on the type of base it was. That format would be fine, if that's not a lot of work (although I'd probably recommend that they be sorted according to "purpose", which is similar in many cases); if that's a headache at all, then just one table is fine, and we'll call attention to the sorting feature at the top of each column. 🙂 But assuming a similar format would make the least obvious changes for people to deal with. As I said, either way is fine, whatever works. We certainly are not going to be demanding of your time and talents when you've so generously volunteered them. ❤️ Say, I was noticing that it's a bit of a several page hunt or having to search to actually find the base list, do you think the link could be either on the "Supergroup" page, or have its own link on the table of contents? I was a bit surprised that it wasn't there already. And I have *no* idea how to program that; Thunderforce had to go edit a link I put in already, because I'd got it wrong. 😞 I thought I followed what they had done, but clearly I had not. (thank you for that, thunderforce!). Besides, I always feel like nav boxes aren't things I should casually change. Thank you again! -Dacy

I propose to do a bit of scripting (not really necessary for Reunion's half-dozen bases) to compare it with the wiki list and see which bases are missing, then (if any) to check if they are defunct. If there are any non-defunct bases not in the spreadsheet (and I propose to create one for that test case) I think they might, if the spreadsheet upload process otherwise works, be at the bottom of the table on the wiki so they don't constantly get stomped by spreadsheet uploads. AtChemist, nice transfer, really surprising that all the descriptors fit! Now, either you got to it before we'd cleaned up the duplicate entry for Olympus, or, it picked up some info somehow. The info has been correctly displayed now, could you perhaps reload that table from the current document and see if it's picking up extra info somehow, or if it corrects the duplicate? That would also show us how well it deals with different data. I should think it wouldn't be a bother, as it should just overwrite it with the correct, current version. Otherwise....looks great! We think the mistake was on our end as in, the table wasn't cleared of the extra information yet when you ran the script. And obviously, we're hoping to get more base owners to update. It's a process! thunderforce, there should be no bases on the wiki that are not on our docs. Easter Bunny already collected and added all the bases we could find. We don't yet have all the updating done, as we are hoping the owners will do that, but the codes and bases and owners, if listed anywhere, should be listed in our document. And all of the codes have been checked. As to information getting "stomped"; there really should be minimal changes for each update, but of course that depends on how many bases were made, and how many are entered. Reunion being the smallest shard, of course means that it is the least likely to see significant changes. Existing data will only change if the base's status changes, and we get updated as to that change. Thanks! -Dacy

Thanks, and that is what I figured. Do I report that in game, or..I thought there was a place on the forums? I actually thought this was it. -Dacy

I was duoing Posi I with a friend. They were playing a Radiation/Psi blade tank, I was playing a Fire/Kin corruptor.. When we got to the Dopplegangers at the end of the final mission, there were six of them, and I was very surprised to see one of my "doubles" using Accelarated Metabolism! You can see in this photo that some of the characters glow with the AM glow, and you can also see that some of the characters are being hit with a kinetic power even as I snapped the shot. Some of my partner's "doubles" had ranged Psi powers. So essentially, we saw a mashup of power types and ATs. The tank's character (again, rad/psi blade) appeared as a ranged psi powerset. (Presumably a corruptor with psi ranged powers, although I cannot guarantee that it was a corruptor and not a sentinel; I saw no fx to indicate the secondary set on that character, but everything is black but the AM glow and the kin buffs, so, not sure.) In the heat of battle with 2 of us vs 6 of them (and the combo of rad and kin is especially potent), we did not have time to fully sort through the power combinations that were present. At least one of the Dopplegangers seemed to represent our power sets as they are on our characters. At least one doppleganger that looked like the tank, instead had the tank secondary as their primary, only in ranged form, and at least one (I actually think 2) of the dopplegangers that looked like my fire/kin corruptor, actually had the secondary power set that was the support version of the tank primary. Is this mix and match powerset mashup the way this is supposed to work? -Dacy

Perhaps we have not been transparent about how we are doing this. We are getting people to update their entries. They enter the information as they want it to appear, we preserve that and keep it from being tampered with. We have checked all of the base codes we have access to, from all listings published anywhere, to see if they work, or if the base is still there, etc. So any bases that are not updated by the owner or builder is at least accurate to the best of our knowledge, and listed as it has been previously published. No, it does not fix the issue going forward, we still need to rely on players updating, but this is an effort TO GET PLAYERS TO UPDATE and to correct existing inaccuracies. This is not us unilaterally deciding how to list a base and whether or not a code should be public. This is us attempting to increase base visibility and accessibility for those that want to find bases for whatever reason. We want to de-clutter while providing accurate and reliable information. Also, the wiki will have an external link or two to the spreadsheet, but the information will be transferred to the wiki, not simply linked. -Dacy

Yeah, didn't follow that link at that time, forgot about it, was more focused on my frustration with being told that "bases are irrelevant". Are you aware that you can log out of your google account and access the sheet anonymously? All I see when others are in it are "anonymous (some silly animal avatar)". And they aren't even logged out. Okay, let's back up a moment. We have discussed updating the wiki with the updated, accurate, checked, and calibrated information. Yes, this will be a different format, because we are adding information. We will link the doc, yes, and we will encourage people to submit entries to the doc, but, and this part we haven't said yet, we think offering a table for submission of new information in the wiki will give those such as yourself who want nothing to do with Google, a place to make entries. So currently what we'd like to do is reformat the information, clean up the inaccuracies (which we have done on our end), and let people know that this information is sourced from a protected document, and we'd appreciate it if they would submit changes to us, and if that is not something they wish to do, they may enter their information into the "new submissions" chart on the wiki. There is absolutely no point in maintaining two base listings. Especially not when one is demonstrably inaccurate, your own bases notwithstanding. Yes, there are indeed other bases as well that have accurate information. There are also bases that have inaccurate information. We've checked all of our information. Surely you would also wish to have the wiki be accurate in what information it offers. -Dacy

We have since had quite a bit of discussion with the wiki moderators. People from HC (that's anyone, not the City Council necessarily) DO contribute to the wiki, and they'd like it if more did so. However, anyone can be an editor, there is no "limiting" the editing permissions. The original info was taken from a Google sheet, which was open to player editing. Some malicious edits happened, and I'm sure there were also mistakes, as it was easy to mess up a page and not know how to fix it. Not so with wiki, it allows you to preview changes and you must choose to enact them; nothing happens unless you choose to make it happen. So, the wiki itself may or may not have been corrupted by players, or the information may have been corrupted before it got there, we don't know. There is no real way for the moderators/editors to know if an edit is an honest and helpful edit, or someone changing something they should not. What we do know is, at this point, it's very obvious that there is a good deal of error. What EB has done is meticulously comb through ALL of the available bases. He took the Google doc, he took the wiki information, he took the small directories that I had on my discord, he took the listings on the forums that were never entered into the directory, he tried to find as many sources of base listings as possible. He's gone through EVERY code to see if it's valid. Found some that were invalid, found some bases that had vanished. What we want to do is change the wiki to reflect the new format and more accurate information. Much of what is on the wiki regarding base listings is inaccurate. We'd like to do new listings, from the new directory, which we manage and maintain and update. People enter the information for their bases, but we are the ones entering it into the directory, so that the information can't be corrupted by anyone maliciously or accidentally. We cannot provide the same protection to the wiki, but, we will monitor it and correct it if we determine someone has changed something that should not have been changed. We will also link to the document in the wiki, and people are encouraged to make update requests and new entries on the google doc, which will be linked to numerous places. We need people to update their bases to reflect what the base is, the most accurately. I invite you to go and LOOK at the document in question. We think it's quite nice, and hope others like it as much as we do. -Dacy

Right! So...how to mark them historical and unlink, please? Is there an established way to do that? So...returning for an edit...on second thoughts...in the interest of memory, storage, neatness, and relevance...why would we make certain inapplicable pages historical when there's an entire wiki that shows the game as it was? I mean, perhaps such a page is insignificant in memory and storage costs by itself, but, surely, such pages add up over time to become a drag on resources? As they are redundant, I am not sure I see the point? I am not trying to be combative, I understand you have a certain way you prefer to have things done, but is this even a consideration? -Dacy

Thank you! So, I've found so many pages and so many interrelated pages that simply completely do not apply and there is nothing to salvage from them, and I use that word intentionally, as it relates to the salvage aspect of bases. There is all kinds of info on what items needed salvage, what kinds, how much, and what the prestige costs were, among other long dead things. How to get rid of the entire page and weed the network of superfluous items? I assume I follow the links, delete the pages linked until I'm back at the root, and then follow another link branch. -Dacy

Cool look for the base, tho, well done! -Dacy

Looks to me very much as though you are a pure hero? You can't see destinations to villain side when you're pure hero. But they're there, they're attached, and if a villain or rogue or even a vigilante came it, I bet they could see and use the portals. I'd be happy to come confirm! -Dacy

I was editing some tables last night, and noticed that they also typically have a space modifier at the top; the ones I worked on had been set to 80% of width; I resized them to 40% (because I eliminated information that was no longer applicable). I would also like to apologize for my outburst last night; that is the most heated response I have ever sent, and usually I take a bit of time to think it through. But I also had to see if there was a path forward, because it truly felt like there was no way forward at that point. That is not to excuse myself, though; I am sorry for expressing my frustration the way I did. Above the Chemist, I really appreciate all your input and help! Thank you! I have a question. As noted, I've been trying to update some of the base information, which is terribly outdated. I'm looking at entire sections that no longer apply, and they need to be modified not only in the applicable sections, but in the table of contents. Here is what I mean: Item origin: that entire section no longer applies. Base Rooms: the only difference in base rooms is between the entry and the others, in terms of function, and then there are various sizes. So none of the categories listed after base rooms apply. Could we move these items to "Legacy Concepts" and redo the table of contents? Do I need to have a discussion for approval before doing something that major? (Or "attempting" as I'm not yet confident in my ability). -Dacy

Also, how do I replace a picture file with an accurate one? (separate question) Never mind, I figured that out. -Dacy

Very well; I understand you can get updates on wiki changes sent to a discord, that would be helpful. What about how information is entered to a table? Can multiple columns get information at once, are there commands to separate the information that goes into each column, or do you have to manually enter each cell's information? What's the format to create a table? Or, where can I locate such information? -Dacy