Guild of Writers

hello,
first of all congratulations for the great age. kirk and i are enjoying it very much.
now, everything worked fine until we came to the second maze (withe the green ladders). although we have printed out the clues found in the village and glued them together it does not seem to make any sense to us. has anyone had the same experience as us ? could anyone offer any advice ? it would be highly appreciated.
thanks in advance
zesty and kirk of xeniphers

Shorah Zesty,

I can confirm that the map is useless and bears no relation to the actual maze. We had to "wing it" to find our way through.

Also, there seems to be a nasty bug in the maze for female avvies which I've encountered several times. In climbing down ladders, you can get stuck and then spontaneously Relto out. The best workaround is to back up to the ladders and fall down (thanks for the tip, Ehren!).

To top things off, the maze exit isn't obvious. Without spoiling things outright, keep a sharp eye out for subtle differences and then check them out carefully! Best of luck!!

Ainia wrote:I can confirm that the map is useless and bears no relation to the actual maze.

That’s a bit of an oversimplification, I would say. In most respects it actually is an accurate map of the maze, it just needs certain additions and corrections gained from exploration and observation*. I would hardly call it useless, mapping as much of the maze as needed to find the exit and reliably repeat my way through it both ways would have taken me much more time if I didn’t have this to work from.

Ainia wrote:Without spoiling things outright, keep a sharp eye out for subtle differences and then check them out carefully!

And keep the clues you find elsewhere in the age in mind!

* These are the additions required on the map, in my experience: Show Spoiler

• Of the circles, some are ladders and some are impenetrable columns. The map doesn’t tell which is which, you need to observe that on your own. But all ladders and columns are represented on the map.
• Of the short perpendicular lines that end corridors on the map, not all exist as walls in reality – some of what appears to be short separated corridors on the map are actually joined into a long contiguous corridor in reality. But all actual corridor ends are represented on the map.

Ainia wrote:Also, there seems to be a nasty bug in the maze for female avvies which I've encountered several times. In climbing down ladders, you can get stuck and then spontaneously Relto out.

I can only confirm this statement. Naturally, I'll always avoid climbing down a ladder if it's possible by the age's design. In the case of the 2nd maze, I was always avoiding the said action but in 2 occasions when I got caught by the ladder animation. I decided in both occasions to climb down the ladder with the unfortunate result Ainia is describing.

So each time you get caught by the animation, the best is to climb back up and turn around and fall by backing up.

I've only played offline, in UAM, where I haven't had this problem - and goodness knows I climbed those ladders a lot! Is it a feature of online play only? Or have I just been lucky so far?

@ Acorn: I cannot tell you. Maybe another gal will be able to answer. I haven't try Shorah Pahts offline yet.

I would suggest to the ages' writers (in general) to test their age with both sex avatars as there are "often" bugs. For example, in Eder Tomahn, females drown in the floor when they activate one of two levers of the shaft, where males don't. Being made by a man and most likely tested by a guy, the bug didn't show up on the radar until I found it while exploring the age. I was with a companion male avatar (driven by a woman...well long story here...)

Acorn wrote:I've only played offline, in UAM, where I haven't had this problem - and goodness knows I climbed those ladders a lot! Is it a feature of online play only? Or have I just been lucky so far?

Nope, I didn't get stuck or had to Relto out either (offline), and yes, I most probably climbed them all up and down and a lot too haha ... Only thing I've experienced is that some ladders I didn't have to climb down, I just fell down, which was quite a relief in the midst of those 'odysseys' lol ...

A new version of Shorah Pahts has been uploaded to the Shard. Please let me know if it works, then I will also put it on UAM

Shorah diafero,

Do you happen to know what has been updated in this version? I'm heading over to the shard right now and would like to know what to test...

I tested it tonight and unfortunately I'll be very severe because I'm really disappointed by the "updated version"

If the updated version becomes the official version of Deep Island, I will simply avoid the age. I won't visit it anymore!

On UAM, you can be sure I'll keep the original version!

On the improvement side:

Show Spoiler

On the still an issue side:

Show Spoiler

On the obvious delibarate act to stop the fun:

Show Spoiler




As you can see the only "improvement" that has been made here is to add an invisible wall to refrain us to jump over the fence to explore freely the age. You could always argue that we can freely use the /jump command but like I said in numerous discussions before in other words: "I don't /jump, I jump!". The /jump command is unnatural, you loose all the feeling of exploration.

So am I happy with the changes? NO

I will therefore stop to make publicity on the age. On my offline install, I'll keep the old version. I'll delete the age from my project. I had shot a video there and I was going to add it to my project, this video won't make it finally.