User talk:Kevan/Archive

Regarding Namespaces

Is it at all possible to Change the current project namespace from "The_Urban_Dead_Wiki" to something a little shorter, like "UDWiki"? It occurs to me that there is a great deal of stuff that we should be putting in that namespace, that I've been loathe to do because of the really long namespace. I don't think I have the ability to do this myself, unfortunately, but it's a pretty simple change (adjust the variable $wgSitename in LocalSettings.php, and the Project namespace should change with it, or adjust variable $wgMetaNamespace in LocalSettings.php to change the namespace without changing the project name). -- Odd Starter ^{talk | Mod | W!} 04:01, 28 February 2006 (GMT)

What do you mean - article subdirectories like The Urban Dead Wiki/Moderation/Vandal Banning? A bit reluctant to make the change because it'd presumably change the <title> tags on all pages, but maybe I'm just underappreciating the need for subdirectories. --Kevan 10:57, 13 March 2006 (GMT)

Sorry for the lack of reply. Adjusting $wgMetaNamespace will only change the project Namespace, it won't change the actual title of the wiki, if you're only concerned like that. Stuff like Vandal banning would probably be under UDwiki:Moderation/Vandal Banning, as opposed to what would instead be The Urban Dead wiki:Moderation/Vandal Banning.

This, of course, assumes that we want to use the project namespace for it's intended purpose (and that's meta-discussions and a place for administration). If it's too much of a bother, the current system is really working fine. I just thought it'd look prettier. -- Odd Starter ^{talk • Mod • W!} 01:07, 11 April 2006 (BST)

Hit Limit

Hey Kevan. I want to let you know that this is a great game you have here, but I'm just wondering, as are the folks at the Hit Limit how many IP hits manufacturing a syringe uses.

Thanks, Darth Sensitive 23:27, 3 March 2006 (GMT)

It's twenty, the same as the AP required, unless there's a bug somewhere. --Kevan 10:57, 13 March 2006 (GMT)

Just wanted to thank you for actually answering my question. Just wondering, is that something that changed at some point? I ask because when manufacturing was first introduced it seemed like it didn't count for as many hits.

Thanks again,

Darth Sensitive 07:38, 19 March 2006 (GMT)

Yeah, it was an aspect I'd overlooked for a few days. It can be a bit harsh when unexpected, though, I'm thinking of changing things so that performing any action that would take you below zero AP or above your maximum IP hits would be unclickable. --Kevan 22:03, 30 March 2006 (BST)

Hmm,I dunno. It would kind of annoy those who stand up or manufature a syringe before leaving the computer for whatever reason for a few days. -- Andrew McM ^W! 22:14, 30 March 2006 (BST)

Might I suggest asking the user to confirm that they wish to make the choice? Like with jumping from a window. That way it isn't a rude shock to those who aren't expecting it, but can still work from those who want to milk the most out of their time.

Darth Sensitive 22:26, 30 March 2006 (BST)

Characters on same IP - question

I hope you don't mind me asking here, but I had a question about characters operating on the same IP address. You see, my brother had been playing Urban Dead for a while and finally encouraged me to play. We're both really enjoying the game, but we know that we can't play together because the game would penalize us for working as a team. I was wondering if there was anyway that both my brother and I could play together without penalty (maybe donate for both characters?). Thanks for your time --Bioweapon 02:12, 8 Feb 2006 (GMT)

I think even if you donate the anti-zerging penalties will still apply if you work too closely. You should probably use two computers. --Zaruthustra-Mod 21:32, 12 Feb 2006 (GMT)

The problem is that we are already on two different computers, just on the same network. I was wondering if there was some way we could use the same network to play together (and I'm positive it's counting us as alts; when one of our computers reaches the hit limit, the other does too). --Bioweapon 02:58, 13 Feb 2006 (GMT)

Sorry, I'm afraid there's not. If I give free reign to players who share the same IP address, I'd also be giving free reign to anyone who wanted to create a mob of multiple characters. (And yes, donating doesn't make any difference, giving free reign to people with more money would have an even worse taste.) --Kevan 21:38, 3 April 2006 (BST)

Since Alt abuse is so under-patrolled, that's exactly what you do. -- Amazing 18:43, 10 April 2006 (BST)

Amazing Promoted to Moderator

User:Amazing, an individual noted for enciting extreme amounts of drama and ill-will among the user base, was promoted by User:Odd Starter directly to moderatorship. Amazing had previously put himself up for promotion and was so loudly shouted down that he withdrew his candidacy within hours. The reasons given for the promotion were insufficient. They amount to, simply, "I'm tired of dealing with his bullshit so let's see how well he moderates." This is extremely poor reasoning on the Odd Starter's part, and highly irresponsible: if someone has a history of firing bullets around willy-nilly, you simply do not give him a machine gun to see if he can aim better. Further, this sets a horrible precedent. Now, any individual who makes several vandal reports and accusations a day, has a history of contempt for the moderators (including openly disregarding moderator and arbitrator decisions) can expect to be "rewarded" with moderatorship. I think this sends a very poor message to the wiki users as a whole: poor behavior leads to promotion. On another note, the promotion bypassed the standard sysop promotion mechanism. In theory, sysops are to be vetted by the public; this is a dictatorial decision and goes against the spirit of community (especially when the community as a whole has stated that Amazing is not moderator material). Since you are the highest authority here - the only one higher than Odd Starter - I do not know where else to bring this up. It is obvious that complaining to Odd Starter will not bring about any sort of resolution (I mean, why complain to the perpetrator?) so I must take this directly to you.--Jorm 06:38, 7 April 2006 (BST)

I should note that I have not yet taken any actions as a Moderator, so preconcieved judgement of this promotion is without merit. Also, the rules on the Promotion page are unclear as to what "goes through this page" means. -- Amazing _{Mod SGP UDPD McZed's™} 06:48, 7 April 2006 (BST)

Unless you feel like wading waist deep through forum bullshit, just leave this to us. It'll get taken care of. Odd isn't going to hold the wiki hostage or anything. --Zaruthustra-Mod 07:01, 7 April 2006 (BST)

The case has been referred to misconduct however. Since you are the only person greater in "ranking" than him it would be helpful if you at least looked it over and gave us your opinion on the matter, even if you decide not to get involved in a meaningful manner. My thanks in advance. --Grim s 09:37, 7 April 2006 (BST)

All done before you could even wake up, bang on. --Zaruthustra-Mod 06:47, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Thanks, I'll see how the Misconduct thing goes, I'd like to think that peer management was the best way for the wiki to look after itself. Such an opposed player being promoted as a joke or a lesson or a drunken bet is a concern, though (particularly when Amazing has made sweary email threats to me in the past, saying that he intends to undermine the game). Hopefully I won't have to rethink the moderation system for the wiki. --Kevan 08:20, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Oh great. Saying that I very much disagreed with his actions and that I was getting my own browser-based game going where players wouldn't be treated like crap is "undermining the game". Now I see the fish rots from the head. -- Amazing 18:41, 10 April 2006 (BST)

No, you specifically claimed that the only reason you were still playing Urban Dead every day was just to bide your time and suddenly suck out its player-base into your own UD-style game. This attitude seems a fair enough reason for not wanting you to have admin-level abilities on the official game wiki. --Kevan 02:08, 11 April 2006 (BST)

lol - I don't think anyone here is following me anywhere. I don't understand how an "Open Alpha" new game could be a threat to UD, but whatever man. -- Amazing 01:13, 12 April 2006 (BST)

No, quite, I didn't understand it either. That was pretty much verbatim, though, minus the swearing - you weren't just casually chatting about your dragon game, you were making bitter, furious threats, and heaping abuse on me and my game. So I'd rather you weren't a moderator on the official game wiki, thanks. --Kevan 04:19, 12 April 2006 (BST)

I'm sorry that you see voicing concerns about the game's mechanics and playablity as abuse. Also, I said nothing of my "Dragon Game" since it wasn't even a thought back then. I said I might make a UD-style zombie game, to which you replied that the Zombie craze was "over". I guess that explains some things, though. Also, I never made any threats at all. I'd appreciate it if you'd refrain from saying things like that. If I had e-mailed you a bunch of bitter, furious threats, I think you'd do more than tell me no one cares about Zombies anymore and sit back doing nothing about these 'threats' until this very day. Anyway, I really have nothing more to say to you except.. you know.. feel free to back up that "Threats" thing, because that's an actual criminal allegation. -- Amazing 04:31, 12 April 2006 (BST)

Concerns are fine and welcome, sweary capslock personal attacks are abuse. (And I imagine I just said that society was at the "tail end" of the 2005 zombie renaissance, rather than writing it off that strongly.) But the threats I'm talking about are just the player-base-stealing ones, I don't mean to imply anything more than that. --Kevan 05:56, 12 April 2006 (BST)

Though I'm flattered you think that someone with an upstart Alpha game can steal your someodd-thousand players, I think even those who dislike me so thoroughly on this Wiki will agree I'm not a sweary capslock type of guy. Sweary? Maybe, but Capslock is vulgar beyond profanity. Sorry you took offense at anything I may have said - but really "bullshit" is one of the few words that fits some of the choices you've made at the expense of the enjoyment of your devoted players. Oh well, whatevaz. I suppose time will tell. -- Amazing 20:08, 15 April 2006 (BST)

Oh, I never thought your alpha game was a threat, I just think that the sort of person who makes hollow, upset threats against a game probably isn't ideal for a position of minor power on that game's wiki. And don't worry, I didn't take offence, only weary amusement. But I'm pretty sure that 'PRICK' (with thirty Rs) was in capital letters. --Kevan 01:37, 16 April 2006 (BST)

Kevan, if it were to be possible, could you deliver a final verdict on this matter on the Misconduct page, and end this once and for all? --TheTeeHeeMonster 21:52, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Let it rest TeeHee, the final verdict can't be any clearer than the things displayed before us now. I was never too fond of giving Amazing Mod rights in the first place, but there are limits to delivering blows beneath the belt.. no offense to you whatsoever.--Vykos 21:58, 8 April 2006 (BST)

(Considering Info displayed by TheTeeHeeMonster in my [User Talk Page I take back some of my comments towards TeeHee above, resulting in:) Yes, a sign of closure from the hands of the Mod/Admin team would indeed be appreciated.--Vykos 22:12, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Right. Amazing believes that his moderatorship is going to be re-instated because of Librariran Brent's position.--Jorm 03:29, 9 April 2006 (BST)

Amazing's modship isn't getting reinstated any time soon. Odd is no longer a bureaucrat so only Kevan could do it. Which is another way of saying it isn't going to happen. --Zaruthustra-Mod 03:35, 9 April 2006 (BST)

However this does leave us in a peculiar situation. We need more moderators really, but now we have no way to promote them. Me and Odd were the only ones who are here regularly. --Zaruthustra-Mod 03:40, 9 April 2006 (BST)

I've got the Promotions page on my watchlist, I'll administer any reasonable promotions that go through, for now. I will look at giving Bureaucrat status to some of the current, trusted moderators, though. --Kevan 03:59, 9 April 2006 (BST)

And I realize you won't honor your former Bureaucrat's vow to reinstate my Modship before you de-Bureaucrat'd him. (Since that would be the honorable thing to do, y'see) Same old same old. -- Amazing 18:41, 10 April 2006 (BST)

*snrk* --Lucero Capell 20:53, 10 April 2006 (BST)

You seem very unhappy here. In fact your last 100 edits were almost exclusively discussing how you've been wronged at this wiki. Perhaps your energies would be spent better elsewhere. --Zaruthustra-Mod 23:41, 10 April 2006 (BST)

What can I say? I reply to trolls like you. -- Amazing 01:13, 12 April 2006 (BST)

Proposal

As per the conversation on the talk page of the petition to ban the user Amazing, said user has agreed to cease and desist all trolling, baiting and flaming actions provided that the exact same standards be applied to but not limited those he has taken arbitration cases against concerning his person. I have agreed to examine and report all such incidents that would apply to the above and submit them to two unbiased mods for their approval on the pain of banishment if any involved party find me flagrantly abusing such a position towards a bias of any concerned party. The abuse would be determined by aformentioned mods or a predominance of the evidence. I ask for the approval and the enforcement of the agreement should all concerned parties agree to the terms. --Prosperina 05:55 23 April 2006 (BST)

Good luck with this, but I don't see that it needs (or gains anything from) me enforcing it; the two unbiased moderators would seem enough. --Kevan 08:24, 23 April 2006 (BST)

Thank you.--Prosperina 08:25 23 April 2006 (BST)

IPs

If theres any way we could view IPs so we could ban ranges that would be just super. Some guys been vandalizing the wiki for about 2 months now. Nothing more than a minor pain in the ass distributed over about 100 people, but it would be nice in general to be able to shut this kind of thing down. --Zaruthustra-Mod 06:47, 8 April 2006 (BST)

That or you could use more Moderators who are on the Wiki more often. -- Amazing 07:25, 8 April 2006 (BST)

We have enough people to revert his vandalism, the point is that we want to prevent his coming back. --Zaruthustra-Mod 21:04, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Regarding the vandalism going on, moving pages is becoming a very popular and tough to revert form of it. Is there any way to disable regular wiki users from moving pages? It would make things a lot easier for us to clean up the messes. --Grim s 14:45, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Yeah, it's a pain because you have to both revert the moved page back to normal on the page it has been moved to, and then move it back.--The General 21:08, 8 April 2006 (BST)

Or requiring email address validation would effectively slow this type of vandalism down to the point of being worthless. --Zaruthustra-Mod 03:17, 9 April 2006 (BST)

Hm, it looks like there's a MediaWiki option to allow IP-range bans rather than single-IP, although it's not clear whether this automatically allows moderators to see IP addresses. I've not got access to the server that hosts the Wiki at the moment, but I'll have a kick around when I do. --Kevan 03:55, 12 April 2006 (BST)

You don't host this on your own server? MaulMachine 12:57, 12 April 2006 (BST)

I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't - Urban Dead would require a pretty damn heavy-duty server, and that's even forgetting the wiki! -- Odd Starter ^{talk • Mod • W!} 12:59, 12 April 2006 (BST)

Perhaps another reason why there is no official forum...MaulMachine 13:00, 12 April 2006 (BST)

The wiki's hosted on a separate server to the game, and I don't have call to access its config much. Having kicked around this morning, it seems the range-IP ban doesn't automatically allow moderators to see IP addresses; in fact I can't see any way for moderators to see IP addresses, in any of the MediaWiki documentation. And pulling IPs directly out of the database seems quite awkward, that they're tied to page changes rather than users, specifically. I'll continue to kick. --Kevan 02:43, 14 April 2006 (BST)

Not to try and put another thing on your plate (which is what I'm doing, but oh well), but when next you get the chance, would you consider upgrading MediaWiki to the newest version? There are several features which those of us who like to play around with templates have been missing (such as defaults for variables), though there are several other major changes and security fixes as well. --Lucero Capell 04:27, 14 April 2006 (BST)

Ah, okay, it's now on the plate. --Kevan 02:18, 16 April 2006 (BST)

Game Changes

Yes, I know you prefer not to talk about game changes, but I think the last two were what the game needed to be balanced... Thanks. Also, and this is the important one, what changes do you regret the most? Do you feel that you have ever made a mistake? For example, supply crates. 343 20:52, 13 April 2006 (BST)

Ha. Yes, I prefer not to talk about game changes. --Kevan 00:47, 14 April 2006 (BST)

Feeding Groan Bug

This bug is seeing extremely widespread use and as a consequence it is becoming very obnoxious and inconvenient. (For example, usually in the Caiger Mall area I have four pages of groans to scroll through every time I log on.) I figured I'd call your attention to it again, since hopefully it is simple to fix. To clarify, when a zombie is at 0 AP, they can impute ?groan into the navbar and spam unlimited Feeding Groan messages for 0 AP cost. I see about 10 or 15 feeding groans at the same time on every break-in, and I find it hard to believe that there are that 10 different zombies at every random warehouse 3S1E. --Tycho44 06:30, 17 April 2006 (BST)

Thanks, yes, this was a simple fix, it should be fine now. --Kevan 06:29, 18 April 2006 (BST)

Mods

New moderators are ready to be processed. Which is good since I'm on a finals week(s) wiki vacation and its just the general hopping from one foot to the other. --Zaruthustra-Mod 18:32, 18 April 2006 (BST)

Sorry to bother, I know you deserved a little peace and quiet after that update but Brizth's bid for moderator is ready for Processing.--Vista ^W! 13:16, 1 May 2006 (BST)

Conndraka and myself are ready for processing--Vista ^W! 00:36, 7 May 2006 (BST)

Attempt to find resolution and common ground

Because of the near perfect split on the discussion of Language an Offensive Users I created a page where maybe we can find an acceptable solution. If not, well at least I tried. Page can be found UDWiki:Moderation/Locational Language/Interaction I took on the mantle of responsible party so that even the MODs can state thier ideas and opinions. Conndraka 19:06, 22 April 2006 (BST)

Listing new users?

I noticed that wikipedia lists new users on their logs, with the help of wiki extension cunningly called Newuserlog. Can be found here. I was wondering if it could be installed. It would really help Project Welcome to help new users. At the moment recognising new users usually involves them doing something noticeably wrong.

Oh and the installation instuctions can be found here.

Thank you in advance, Brizth ^{W! M T} 17:14, 25 April 2006 (BST)

Great idea. It's hard to help new users without actually being sure of who they are. -- Andrew McM ^W! 19:19, 28 April 2006 (BST)

---

Stats page Zombie/Human percentages

From the 21st of April:

Standing Survivors : 19425 (50%)
Standing Zombies : 19425 (51%)

The built in rounding bias is showing :D --Grim s-^Mod 05:57, 28 April 2006 (BST)

Incorrect tally.

In case you haven't been back already, I responded to your comment under UDWiki:Moderation/Promotions#Mia Kristos. Your tallying of the votes was incorrect, unless "For" doesn't count, but "Hell no" does. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 09:53, 9 May 2006 (BST)

Adbots

There is plenty of adbots roaming into the wiki nowadays. Most of them use just numbers as their user names. While this makes it easier to spot and remove them from the wiki, i think that we could get rid of them by simply banning all numbers only user names. Is there any way to do this ? --hagnat ^mod 00:28, 21 May 2006 (BST)

Ah, that's a thought. I'll look into it. --Kevan 04:54, 26 May 2006 (BST)

Hang on! What about 343? He's a person... --A Bothan Spy^{CDF - WTF - U!} 05:16, 26 May 2006 (BST)

Quoting Grim: -- <&The_Grimch> Actually, all adbot names are the same length, so just ban all numbers only that length -- I think that could work... hum... --hagnat ^mod 02:53, 30 May 2006 (BST)

Something to consider... by banning this, it will force those behind the adbots to do something different, something harder to notice (like choosing more random, alpha-numeric, names). Better the devil you know? Boxy 15:20, 1 June 2006 (BST)

Hey! You talked about me. Anywho, I know how bad those damned adbots can be, and I think stopping hem is important. Just like zerging, it is one of the worlds evils. 343 ^U! 15:27, 19 June 2006 (BST)

Promotions *cough*

Just in case it slipped your mind, I'd like to direct your attention here. --A Bothan Spy^{CDF - WTF - U!} 05:02, 26 May 2006 (BST)

It had actually fallen out of my watchlist, somehow. Thanks, and thanks for the work on the wiki. --Kevan 12:45, 28 May 2006 (BST)

Bureaucrats

Now that the wiki has a sufficient number of moderators, you might want to look into making another Bureaucrat, to take the promotions of your hands.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 14:43, 1 June 2006 (BST)

Yeah, would be good to have a heavier wiki user weighing the moderation candidacies. Feel free to start a nomination-and-vote system for promoting a couple to bureaucrats. --Kevan 14:46, 1 June 2006 (BST)

Ok the page will be here. I'll start it today and finish it tommorow. Shall a model it on the current promotions system?--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 15:02, 1 June 2006 (BST)

Done, you may wish to look over it before I add the link to the front page.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 16:05, 1 June 2006 (BST)

Seems fine, although reusing the exact moderator-promotion tone is probably wrong - we only need one reasonably-active bureaucrat at any given time, for the wiki to function, it's not something we need a big queue for (and it'd be more useful for me if the discussion ended with one agreed-best candidate being put forward for promotion, instead of half a dozen equally inoffensive ones). --Kevan 16:16, 1 June 2006 (BST)

Ok, I'll change it so that each moderator can nominate themselves and the one most universally agreed upon is promoted.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 16:37, 1 June 2006 (BST)

PH

Hey all, sorry to go to the top about this but there's been a large amount of frustration and concern about a group called the PH. They are resorting to zerging\cheating in the game and just don't seem to care about the rules regarding this. I'm hoping this can be looked into at some point and that some resolution can be reached soon. Whatever the decision, I appreciate your time looking into this. If you want to see some evidence, you can see what we have outlined at the PH_Extermination page. --Torvus 03:16, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Something I Find Disturbing

Something I read on Grm s' talk page. I do believe his analysis of the situation is a sentiment shared by most zombie players. It's just a matter of how much each individual player will take before jumping ship. The lifeblood of the game is the community, and the community can't exist if the player base is dying out. With Desensitised being shut down, I don't see things getting any better anytime soon. Please, the next zombie buff should be soon and interesting, or UD may die. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 03:56, 2 June 2006 (BST)

I fully agree with what Grim s and Xoid are saying, even the hardcore zombies stopped playing. I mean, UD is a game based on two oppositions, if one goes, the game will die. Soon, the survivors will just go outside and scream for zombies to come attack them. --Changchad ^{WTF•W!•SGP} 12:16, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Yeah, it disturbs me as well, but I'm not sure how seriously to react to the fact that some of the longer-term, higher-profile players are reducing their presence, or how much I can expect to do about it. I've played a lot of online games, and it does seem inevitable that most people are going to have had enough of any game after nine or ten months of it. It'd be arrogant to think that Urban Dead was any different, that I'd be able to keep every single high-level player constantly interested and active forever.

I'll be watching the numbers, I'm always watching the numbers, I'm doing some background tweaks to encourage new players, I'm listening to feedback and Suggestions, and the next significant change to the game will be something for the zombies. But I think general game fatigue and player-base plateauing is something that's to be expected and accepted, rather than regarded as a problem that can be overcome entirely and indefinitely if only we were to use the right tools (particularly in such a niche-genre game as this, where I imagine we sucked in the majority of Internet's hardcore zombie fans in the first six months). I'm always open to suggestions, though. --Kevan 12:50, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Its my opinion that your powered searches change effectively killed the game. The game was, for all essential purposes, balanced. Maybe a minor tweak to some things to stabilise the percentages, but not much else. The change all but completely negated the effect of the 10ap to revive by making syringes far more common, and then when you pile on firearms on top of that and you have a very serious problem. The fact that ransack was completly and utterly useless (Not to mention almost insulting if what i heard was true: That a human got 1xp for cleaning it up). You say you are watching the numbers, but from the change you made recently and going from history, looking at the changes you made in November and early december (Surgury, Cell phones), it appears as though you dont give a rats arse about them. To be blunt, what i have seen is a string of poor changes that have had the net effect of fucking up the game and breaking the spirit of the long time zombies. It is, in my opinion, only a matter of time (And not much of it) before the game finally flatlines. Oh well. --Grim s-^Mod 13:12, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Another thing i just noticed. If it was game fatigue causing the depletion of players, then it would be happening at a roughly equal rate on both sides of the game. The drop is entirely on the side of zombies, indicating that a lot of them are fed up with whats been happening (And the drop is more than a quarter of the number of zombies before powered search (Over 5000)). This isnt game fatigue as you meant it, but more of zombie players being completely sick and tired of being belted down by you for a grand total of ten months from eleven. We have given up on anything even appraching balance appearing in the game, and we have decided to move on. We gave you almost a year to do it, and when it seemed like you did it (10ap to revive) you reverted to form (Powered searches FTW!). Yes, i am very bitter. I enjoyed this game, but honestly, there is no point playing if it appears as though the zombie side exists only as a psychology experiment to see how much a person can handle being screwed over before he snaps. --Grim s-^Mod 02:08, 3 June 2006 (BST)

True enough about the veterans leaving; the problem is attracting new players to replace them. There are enough online games that competition for the potential player base is fierce, even considering that few people will restrict themselves to the one game. Getting enough exposure for the game would bring in some vital new blood, but I have no idea how to get that exposure, advertising a free game isn't exactly profitable, even with the ads you've got.

I've had friends who said, "Yeah, I'd play it, but look at the graphics." — easily the most irritating thing I've ever heard. I played ZZT and that's even more primitive than most games from the mid 70s! The UD Toolbar FireFox extension comes partway in dealing with my generation's unrealistic expectation in terms of 'prettiness', but a lack of an equivalent for IE means that a good half, at the very least, of prospective players are unable to benefit from it. All in all there are too many disparate issues for any one man to deal with on his own, yet I admire how you try to.

About the niche thing; I'm certainly one of the exceptions then, I'm no mega zombie fan. (Then again, I tend to like anything that has the undead in it.) Anyway, I'll stop monopolising your valuable time. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 13:25, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Instead of adding more skills, perhaps its time to review the current ones? (Refer : User:Siddhant/What's_Wrong) I've played UD for a pretty long time. I've not seen a single zombie movie, but the theme appeals to me; and I'd loathe to see UD die. Perhaps getting the zombie PoV ( Visit: #rrf ) might help? I know one thing for sure though; when the ratio hits 35%, there will be no strike. --wcil 13:34, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Not meaning to sound like a spoilsport or anything, but your latest addition to the game for zombies isnt all that useful, and is actually harmful to newer zombies, as they often play solo, and thus have to advance up the old scent tree early on to ensure they get the kill bonus. Typically they would go scent fear and use that while prowling around to leap on a poor bugger marked with an asterisk. Your new change, putting your new skill at the bottom of the scent tree kills this method of progression, and newbie zombies will take the skill later, without knowing what skills reside beneath that skill in the pile. It is my opinion that this skill, in its current location, does more harm than good (And it wasnt hard, since the skill is, essentially, useless. Oh well. At least this time you arent giving humans exp for the zombies actions). --Grim s-^Mod 09:53, 6 June 2006 (BST)

Scent Fear is nowhere near as useful as it was when it was introduced right at the start of the game, when barricades were unheard of and the streets were full of wandering survivors. Today, I'd say a lone feral would get more benefit from lurching between a series of small, emergent hordes, than hoping to pass a wounded survivor on the street. It'll still lead them to occasional fresh meat, and they'll certainly stay on their feet for longer.

Are you sure you're not meaning to sound like a spoilsport? I'm afraid it's always been hard to judge how seriously to take any of your game criticism, because you seem to use the same furious hyperbole for absolutely everything. (I used to skim Desensitised to see player reactions to game changes, so this isn't unfamiliar.) --Kevan 11:12, 6 June 2006 (BST)

No. Im just a caustic and nasty person :) There are actually still plenty of people on the street. I found one within a few ap of logging in to test the new skill to see how it was (And killed him too, but thats not very relevant). Scent Fear is also exceptionally useful inside buildings being raided, as the low level feral zombie can pick out wounded people from the crowd (I believe they show as wounded in the room contents description. Its been a while since any of my characters have been like that). The new Scent Death skill masks the presence of these exceptionally useful skills to new zombie players, and adds another 100 exp prerequisite for them. As such it is slightly harder to progress as a straight out zombie. One other thing i noticed when testing it was that it lead to both corpse piles and zombie piles, and in every case, this was to a breached and empty building, or a revive point. The Feeding Groan skill is infinitly more useful for the task, as there will likely be living humans there to eat. Following a horde with scent death you have no guarentee of finding food at your destination. As such, the skill isnt particularly useful for zombies (unless they are looking for a revive point, in which case its pretty neat), but it cuts off the highly useful scent tree from view. In my opinion, the skill would have been better placed under scent fear, scent trail, or next to scent fear. That way players who wanted to find other zombies would have that option for themselves, while those smaller zombies would have better knowledge of their victims (Through scent fear). Oh well. Hopefully thats less hyperbolish and more constructive. --Grim s-^Mod 12:07, 6 June 2006 (BST)

Peer Review

Just a question as well (which is kind of related) is it that you are finding it hard to get ideas? We at the peer reviewed page are finding it very long to look through and obviously you don't have the time to look through it all. So we are currently trying to find ways of making it easier to see what players want. Or are you happy with the current system as it is? Well just letting you know just in case you want any input into it. Just visit the talk page for peer reveiwed. - Jedaz 07:37, 2 June 2006 (BST)

I'm fairly happy with the system as it stands; I do actually read all of it, and it's good to be able to see a few different versions of a similar idea, to see if my own notes have missed any potential features or abuses. The only change I'd like to see would be to have clearer suggestion titles; either renaming them once they're archived ("First-aid kits don't work on zombies" is a more usefully skimmable title than "The Horror"), or just summarising the effects of the vaguer ones, on the main Peer Reviewed page. --Kevan 08:33, 2 June 2006 (BST)

Updates?

Umm, I know you have been updating your site lately, but i wish to ask - is there a way to set up a radio transmitter like a generator? If you find one? has the page on radios not been edited yet?—The preceding unsigned comment was added by Gurlgoinghost (talk • contribs) .

The page on radios seems to cover most of it now. --Kevan 08:02, 14 June 2006 (BST)

Private Discussion

Go to http://modofmod.proboards99.com/index.cgi for Mod Discussions Conndraka^{mod T W!} 19:17, 4 June 2006 (BST)

I think we would be better of using the private board on my forum for mod chat, rather than creating a new board using proboards.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:10, 4 June 2006 (BST)

What's so secret that it has to be discussed in private?--Jorm 23:44, 4 June 2006 (BST)

Quite. What's this actually about? Or do you just think a secret mod forum would be generally useful? --Kevan 03:05, 5 June 2006 (BST)

It would be generally useful.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 19:56, 8 June 2006 (BST)

So much for "the community has a voice in policy," then, eh?--Jorm 02:12, 9 June 2006 (BST)

Not sure what you mean, we can't pass policy without putting it up for vote on the wiki. Where we discuss it makes little difference.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 22:50, 14 June 2006 (BST)

Technical question

Hi Kevan,

I'm curious if you can tell me what programming language Urban Dead is written in, and what you're using to generate random numbers? Thanks. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 23:16, 4 June 2006 (BST)

Hello. Why do you want to know? --Kevan 04:06, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Sorry, that probably sounded a little cryptic. I have read a fair amount about generating random numbers, and I was going to suggest some better methods if you were using, for example, poor-quality built in random number generators. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 04:37, 5 June 2006 (BST)

I'm using mod_perl's built in one - I was originally seeding it with "srand(time())" until Groove Theory highlighted the horrible patterns; it's been using a straight "srand()" since, which I think uses a combination of time and process ID and chicken entrails, and has seemed okay. I'm not aware of any abusable patterns having cropped up. --Kevan 04:43, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Hmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Perl automatically call srand for you? I don't think you have to call it yourself. Anyway, Perl's built-in is OK, but you might get higher quality numbers if you used something like a Mersenne Twister (e.g., this module looks like it might do the trick). That wouldn't give you extra protection against something like Groove Theory, but it might avoid any biases that the built-in generator could be putting into the mix. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 05:05, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Technically, given enough tries the pattern with that could be discovered. The "problem" being is that it would take such a large number of tries to do it that it is not feasibile to do so within one lifetime. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 08:40, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Well no, that really depends on the algorithm used. I'm not sure what Perl uses, so I can't really say how high quality it is. What I do know is that the Mersenne Twister is very well respected for statistical use. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 08:42, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Ah, Bob, I was talking about the Mersenne Twister. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 08:46, 5 June 2006 (BST)

OK, cool. We're in agreement then. To be exact, the period of the Mersenne Twister is 2¹⁹⁹³⁷ − 1. But you probably already knew that. (Kevan, have we convinced you yet? ;-)) –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 08:50, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Of course, a game does not actually require the best in random number generation, merely randomness that actually acts like randomness... -- Odd Starter ^{talk • Mod • W!} 11:31, 5 June 2006 (BST)

It's actually supposed to be a very fast and efficient algorithm. Also, it does act like randomness, but still isn't actually random. (Though by hashing the result you can overcome that problem and achieve truly random numbers.) –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 11:33, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Perl's implementation of rand() is platform-dependent and gets thrown in when the interpreter is compiled, based on your OS. I don't know which algorithms are used for which systems, but chances are good that they're not quite as good as Mersenne Twister. That said, the problem is almost certainly not with the algorithm being used, but rather with the previous poor choice of seed value (i.e. a flat srand(time)) as well as the tendency of most people to find random numbers "not random enough" whenever a 90% chance misses six times in a row. Adding MT wouldn't be a bad idea, but it's wholly unnecessary. I have a hunch that the internal state of the random number generator persists across multiple requests (most other globals do). If this is true, it's slightly better to never call srand() at all, since Perl will automatically do it for you when it's necessary, and the internal PRNG state is pretty much guaranteed to be more random than anything you seed it with. --Fusilliban 07:05, 14 June 2006 (BST)

Extremely offensive

I don't want to spam your talk page, so sorry if I'm doing that, but I wanted to draw your attention to this. I brought this up on Vandal Banning, but was told that user pages are exempt from normal vandalism rules. I find this extremely offensive and disgusting, as I think most people would, and since you are the only person who can circumvent the rules of this wiki, I thought I'd bring it to your attention. This has actually made me reconsider if this wiki is something that I want to be a part of. Thanks. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 04:32, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Yeah, this is bad, even if it does obviously tell the reader more about Amazing than anyone else. Proposing a change to wiki policy would be a clearer and more useful way to deal with it, though - me stepping in and smiting him would just set a very unclear precedent. --Kevan 05:10, 5 June 2006 (BST)

IIRC, policy changes to disallow this sort of thing have been put forward and shot down repeatedly. I do agree with Kevan's restraint on this; but replace 'unclear' with 'dangerous' — people being afraid of what they can and cannot write because someone who is above the rules comes down and smites them… it just doesn't lead to a productive environment. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 05:14, 5 June 2006 (BST)

I know that this says more about Amazing than anything else, and I agree that "smiting from above" is dangerous, but does it always have to be referred to like a slippery-slope kind of situation? At the very least, doesn't this violate the rules of the webhost or something along those lines? Who in their right mind could possibly defend Amazing in this case? –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 05:18, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Kevan, would you be willing to start a policy change? I doubt that anyone other than you would be able to start one without it being shot down. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 05:20, 5 June 2006 (BST)

And it gets worse. I have a feeling this is being driven by the recent changes to Scinfaxi's page. This is just insane. I hate to keep harping on this, but give me a break. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 05:28, 5 June 2006 (BST)

You want to keep the game alive, remove the toxic elements from the community. People such as Scinfaxi and Amazing are nothing more than a poison choking this whole wiki and the community with drama. I know you dont much care for what i have to say, but the best thing would be to just eject them both. Policy discussions on this kind of thing will fail because they are far too broad and impossible to word in ways that will prevent them from being overprohibitive, or ineffectual. In essence, you are the only one who can actually put a stop to all this, either by excising the toxic elements, or by constantly monitoring to see that things dont get excessive. --Grim s-^Mod 05:56, 5 June 2006 (BST) The only other solution i can see is to grant that kind of executive power to moderators, so long as a vote is held among them, with a clear majority. Moderators have been appointed by the community, and thus can be said to speak for the community in that respect. Currently there is no mechanism that would allow us to do it. --Grim s-^Mod 06:05, 5 June 2006 (BST)

I would support such a measure, and I think that most others would as well. Something needs to be done to stop this. (It's not only the user pages. The drama war raging over at Moderation Misconduct is bad too, just not in this way.) The moderators on the wiki are sadly underpowered. They need the ability to remove users who are obviously dedicated to destroying the community (Kevan, didn't you mention at one time that Amazing had sent you emails threatening that he would try to undermine the game?) –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 06:09, 5 June 2006 (BST)

I think this would be better discussed on an actual policy page, where more people could see it and contribute. But I think it might just need a tweak to future arbitration rulings - is the existing exclusion of personal pages an actual line of policy, or just the opinion of previous arbiters? (Although actually, Wikigate arbitrations only mention "personal talk pages" as exempt, so far as I can see, so maybe this is just a straightforward breaking of arbitration rulings.) --Kevan 08:06, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Would you be willing to move this, then, and/or bring it up? I have a horrible feeling that if anyone other than you tries to make this more public, it'll be shot down or flamed into oblivion. Sad, but true. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 08:15, 5 June 2006 (BST)

But is the existing exclusion of personal pages an actual line of policy, or just the opinion of previous arbiters? If the only reason we're getting "ha ha, I can say anything on my user page" is because arbiters are choosing to exempt them from arbitration cases, then that's the only thing we need to address, and I don't think it'd be massively contested if it's part of the existing arbitration system (which requires the offended user to have attempted amicable resolution, and for the offender to have ignored it).

As I say, though, it does look as if relevant Wikigate arbitrations failed to exempt user pages, so maybe this is already covered by the existing system after all, and is simple vandalism all round. --Kevan 09:14, 5 June 2006 (BST)

My apologies for missing your original question. Xoid and I had to do quite a bit of digging before we came up with the relevant info. It doesn't look as though it's covered under any arbitration ruling or policy discussion that we could find. The only mention of user pages having no restrictions is in this policy document. Unfortunately, that page gives very little information. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 10:09, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Fair enough. I think arbitration would (and should) be allowed to overrule that if it felt it was required, though, which deals with the "ha ha, I can say anything, even after arbitration" problem. --Kevan 10:37, 5 June 2006 (BST)

What about that vandalism case? --A Bothan Spy ^{Mod WTF U!} 10:38, 5 June 2006 (BST)

My reading would be that no, it wasn't vandalism in the standard sense, but it was a breach of an arbitration ruling (for antagonising outside of a personal talk page). --Kevan 12:58, 5 June 2006 (BST)

The sad thing is that such a mechanism would be all but impossible to force into place for the users interested in maintaining the community. A policy discussion would accomplish nothing, as such a policy would be highly unlikely to pass voting. Interested parties are pretty good at getting people to vote against such policies, and the reverse is often difficult. --Grim s-^Mod 08:37, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Kevan, I think I found an easy way out of this. You are with http://123-reg.co.uk/ if I am not mistaken… –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 11:05, 5 June 2006 (BST)

To narrow it down for you: 5.1.2 on this page. --A Bothan Spy ^{Mod WTF U!} 11:07, 5 June 2006 (BST)

I was actually asking for confirmation that we didn't stuff up the whois before wasting his time. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 11:10, 5 June 2006 (BST)

They only sold me the domain name, the wiki server's actually on Poundhost. But yes, adopting their T&Cs as wiki policy isn't a bad idea (if tricky to enforce the vaguer stuff). --Kevan 12:50, 5 June 2006 (BST)

According to section 5.1.2, we'd actually be violating the TOS to let that tripe sit there. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 13:00, 5 June 2006 (BST)

I'd be willing to go through every page on the Wiki to enforce 5.1.2 - Deal? -- Amazing Amazing 18:50, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Consider this effecting policy change when your Mods aren't exactly active in the area of preventing abuse. As you can see - It's working. ;) -- Amazing 18:47, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Rueful's filth has often been excised because we could actually do it. (He placed his on community property.) Moderators are so hamstrung by the current policy that we actually can't do jack to remedy anything of the sort if it is not explicitly in a "community property" sort of area. And as I said on your talk page, Amazing, don't think for a second that people aren't going to shoot down that policy change. Americans seem to enjoy their "Freedom of Slander". Some can't even differentiate between your vaunted Freedom of Speech and slander. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 18:56, 5 June 2006 (BST)

The thing is that you guys are entirely capable of changing policy on your own. The key is to organize and get over this false democracy in cases where the good of the entire friggin' service is at risk. Guess what? Unchecked abuse puts it at risk, and I'm simply not interested in sitting back while you guys look away from the destructive and amoral behavior that is festering herein. Make the community better. Settle all of this bullshit in one fell swoop. When the Wiki's usage swells, people come back who have left, and new users pop in without seeing some idiot screeching "UR SUGGESTION'Z SHIT U COCKFUCK" straight off - the community will be better off despite the fact that they may have contested rules of conduct in a vote. -- Amazing 19:05, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Holy crap. Why is this even being discussed? Just ban him forever.--Jorm 19:17, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Hear hear. We don't need to tolerate this any more. MaulMachine ^U! 19:25, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Above you will find the reasons for all of this. Trolls. :) -- Amazing 20:35, 5 June 2006 (BST)

Wiki Hostage

some fucktard decided to take the wiki under hostage until Amazing is unbanned. Until then he will keep creating accounts and vandalizing pages. Is it possible to block account creations for a while ? --hagnat ^mod 03:15, 9 June 2006 (BST)

Requesting permanent IP/IPrange ban on Amazing and this guy. --LibrarianBrent 03:28, 9 June 2006 (BST)

Locking the wiki to new users would just mean that the terrorists had already won, I think, although I'll look into IP-range blocking for next time. It looks like the vandal's calmed down now that this has gone to Misconduct. --Kevan 04:23, 9 June 2006 (BST)

That won't last long. JimboBob with his ardent use of logic, has torn through what thin justification there was for a misconduct case. Looks like Amazing got what has been a long time coming. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 04:28, 9 June 2006 (BST)

Why was Amazing banned? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by The General (talk • contribs) .

Check the block log. It's not hard. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 06:49, 9 June 2006 (BST)

He's back. Obviously. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 06:37, 10 June 2006 (BST)

Phew! That was intense! Cyberbob  Talk  06:38, 10 June 2006 (BST)

What happened? I missed it. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 06:36, 12 June 2006 (BST)

Not much... just about 25 alts of the 3pagevandle attacking in quick succession. Cyberbob  Talk  06:50, 12 June 2006 (BST)

Activity

Despite the fact that we seem to be bitter and implacable foes over Scent Death's usefulness and position, i would like to say that it feels good that you appear to have finally decided to get a little involved in the community. It makes you far more of a person in the eyes of everyone here (As opposed to a statue of a person no one has ever met, but hold in awe), and bodes well for the future of the game if you decide to listen to their concerns and opinions, or even discuss existing issues with them. Other points of view can only help. --Grim s-^Mod 13:16, 9 June 2006 (BST)

I have to agree, keep posting, It has a lot of positive influence on the community. Even if it's just one day in a week on the suggestions page. It would seriously help the community regain a bit of stability it has been lacking for a while now.--Vista 11:30, 12 June 2006 (BST)

Yeah, just seeing you around and knowing that your still here is good for the community.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 20:30, 12 June 2006 (BST)

XP Loss

I've noticed that a seemingly disproportionate number of bugs deal with XP loss. I have the gut feeling that there is some underlying cause linking them. Would you like me to collect them, sort through the chaff and notify you when done? –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 04:05, 14 June 2006 (BST)

I can only see a couple of unconnected-seeming ones (one possible simultaneous database update issue, one person probably just forgetting how many XP they really had), so yes, would help to have them collated if your bug senses are tingling. Thanks. --Kevan 07:59, 14 June 2006 (BST)

I looked through the cases, and while my gut still tells me there is something to it, I can't recognise any sort of pattern. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 16:09, 24 June 2006 (BST)

The only EXP thing that I've noticed was with my Survivor losing the 1 EXP that he had gained after repairing a Ransacked building. Nothing serious though. -- Tirion529 21:09, 14 June 2006 (BST)

Medical Defence Union Copyright

Odds are, if a legal battle ensued you would win. There is quite literally no case. The problem here is the disparity between the parties. Any company big enough to waste its time on trivial matters such as these almost certainly has the resources to tie you up in court for at least some time.

I've seen it too many times before; big companies bully individual roleplayers or even roleplaying groups before over some perceived copyright infringement. If it were me, I'd tell them to get fucked and go for broke, but I'm like that. Frankly, I don't really see much point in bothering to fight it unless you are willing to be in it for the longhaul. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 16:09, 24 June 2006 (BST)

Quite, that there's no case, and I'd have done the traditional amused-but-disinterested-response thing if was running my own server. The fact that they were threatening my server host directly (and with a 24-hour deadline) didn't give me a lot of choice, though - I wouldn't blame them for pulling the plug to avoid the hassle, or at least to suffer the lesser hassle of me demanding a refund and relocation. Eh. --Kevan 10:33, 25 June 2006 (BST)

Mod bid thing

Hi, you were probably going to get to this soon anyway, so sorry if it seems like I'm nagging, but the two weeks are up on my promotion bid and I'm curious to see what the different interface looks like (if I get promoted, of course). Thanks. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 06:51, 11 July 2006 (BST)

Just to note that Vista already promoted BobHammero. --Brizth ^{mod T W!} 20:02, 11 July 2006 (BST)

Bureaucrat

For the next couple of months I will be away from the wiki, I've got just to much work in the immidiate future to put any meaningful time aside for the wiki (or even to play the game) An inactive moderator is nothing new of course but you might want to appoint a new resident bureaucrat. I just feel I can't put in the time to be a good one anymore. Thanks for creating a nice game and letting me play it, and good luck finding a replacement for me.--Vista 21:40, 27 July 2006 (BST)

Not trying to be pushy or anything, but the current round of discussion/voting/whatever on the 'crat promotion page has ended. While Vista has popped up for a brief time, it seems he is away again. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 10:06, 16 August 2006 (BST)

It's done.--Vista 01:06, 19 August 2006 (BST)

Other idea

Hi, I authored the anti-bot idea that you killed. :) I was wondering if you'd be willing to tell me what change you have planned that my suggestion inspired? If you'd rather not, I completely understand, but I'm kind of curious as to what you have in mind. My email address is bobhammero@hotmail.com if you feel like sharing (and don't worry, I wouldn't tell anyone else). –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 19:59, 29 July 2006 (BST)

Serious bug

Apologies for spamming this page but my character seems to have become corrupted during yesterday's server wibble. Very broken indeed right now. I've submitted a report on the bug report page. Even if it's not fixable and my skills etc are gone for good, thanks for a great game.--Apm567 13:55, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

No problem; looks like you were the only one hit by it. I've dropped you back in a random heavily-barricaded building and given you a pile of XP and a gift pack of items. Your data looks intact otherwise, but let me know if anything weird happens. --Kevan 18:17, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty much what I had before this oddness happened so thanks very much. I feel very special...--Apm567 14:24, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Extensions

Do you ever consider installing MediaWiki extensions? I've found a few that I think would make things easier on the wiki (listed here), but the ones that I think would be most useful are:

• PageProtection: would allow restrictions to be placed on pages, or parts of pages (this would be great to protect parts of pages that only moderators should have access to, or stop people that aren't in a group from reading the group's member list, for example).
• ParserFunctions: this would make it possible to create truly dynamic templates, and things of that nature.
• SpecialUserScore: strikes me as being great for both bragging rights, and evaluating users for moderator or bureaucrat promotions.
• Username Blacklist: seems like it would make it infinitely easier to deal with annoying vandals such as PQN who create many accounts.

  –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 05:04, 8 June 2006 (BST)

Bob's user page has a list of useful extensions. Here is the list, and the ones that we can install are non-striked. Commentary is provided.

• ConditionalMenus Extension — Seems like it can be used. Useful, and could be installed by practically anyone with sysop privileges.
• Dynamic Category Map — Requires: PHP 5 … This extension ain't a godsend, but it's close IMO. Navigating through nested categories with many, many articles is a bitch, even for those of us with cable. It's rare that it's necessary for anyone to go trawling through categories, but this still has the potential to save you on bandwidth.
• MenuTabs — Don't like it. (A template on every page? There are enough of them already, and for what?)
• PageProtection — MediaWiki 1.6.3 … This extension is a godsend.
• ParserFunctions — MediaWiki >= 1.6.x … A very useful extension. Can also be very destructive in the hands of the those who merely think they know what they're doing. – I don't particularly like the thought of having to re-cache 400 pages because someone made a boo-boo.
• Poll — Unmaintained version OR Non-mature version. … I'm weary of either, to be frank.
• SpecialUserScore — Requires: MediaWiki 1.6.3 9 … The extension may work with 1.5.x
• Username Blacklist — Requires: MediaWiki 1.5.8 … This extension is a godsend. Almost a necessity.

–Xoid ^S•T•FU! 06:11, 8 June 2006 (BST)

I liked the idea of MenuTabs, because it would make it simple to create things such as the navigation box that I have on my user page without having to mess around with tables. It doesn't have to be used on every page, after all. I thought that ParserFunctions might be hard to argue for given its abilities, but I still love the thought of being able to bring some programming abilities to things like templates. Didn't really carefully read the Poll page, but it seemed like a nice idea in theory (being able to embed a user poll). Point taken. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 06:27, 8 June 2006 (BST)

I believe that there is an extension to allow mods to check ips. Not sure were to find it, though.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 19:53, 8 June 2006 (BST)

That would be this (more info here). --Brizth ^{mod T W!} 16:18, 9 June 2006 (BST)

Not really an extension, but a time saver: MediaWiki:Common.css -- the capability to change the site without needing to stuff around with every skin to do it. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 08:45, 7 August 2006 (BST)

Updating the wiki software

There is a problem that many of us who have tried to create more complicated templates have run into: templates cannot be called from within other templates. This, unfortunately, severely limits the complexity and creativity of what we're able to accomplish in many instances. It looks as though an update to the wiki software would cure this problem, however, since more recent versions of the MediaWiki software have fixed that problem (and others too, I'm sure). Is there any chance at having the version of MediaWiki that we use updated so that we could take advantage of newer features? I understand that version 1.6.7 would fix the aforementioned problem, and add other nice perks as well. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 10:01, 29 June 2006 (BST)

Yes, it'd be good to upgrade. I'll be buying a new server at the end of the month, and the wiki will be being transferred to it - with the current size of the database, it'll be easier if the upgrade is done at the same time, so bear with me for a couple more weeks. --Kevan 14:41, 17 July 2006 (BST)

Great! Thanks for letting me know. :) –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 18:43, 17 July 2006 (BST)

Just an update: the 1.7.x branch is now the current stable branch. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 03:24, 23 July 2006 (BST)

Just to mention that I haven't forgotten this, I just haven't set up a new server yet, the hosting service are being slower than promised in getting their new heavier-server data centre up and running. --Kevan 09:52, 16 August 2006 (BST)

That's too bad. Hopefully they'll get their stuff together soon. Thanks for keeping us up to date. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 10:03, 16 August 2006 (BST)

The bug that just will not die...

Normally, I wouldn't waste your time with a bug report on your talk page, as you peruse the page constantly, but I felt this one deserved your immediate attention. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 18:33, 11 July 2006 (BST)

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, not again!--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 19:26, 11 July 2006 (BST)

I check the Known Bugs more often than the Bug Reports, I don't know if anyone feels they're responsible for moving confirmed bugs across. Odd to see super-zombies still being around; they're certainly very rare (there's only one in the entire city at the moment, and there haven't been any the last few times I've checked), but I'll try to work out where they're coming from. --Kevan 05:54, 12 July 2006 (BST)

IP checking

Any chance that we could get that IP checker extension installed when you update the wiki software? There are certain moderator tasks that we just can't accomplish without it. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 00:37, 23 July 2006 (BST)

I agree with the above (even though I'm not a mod.) People are using sockpuppets to sway the votes, and that screws everyone. --Paradox244 ^{W! TJ!} 02:07, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Policy has passed

Even though I know you're already planning on upgrading the software, I thought you should know that the policy change to request that you update the wiki software has passed with roughly 96% approval. You should know, however, that the version of the software mentioned in the policy is no longer the latest version. It would also be useful if the extensions mentioned in the policy were implemented. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 07:14, 23 July 2006 (BST)

Nice Game

Hi, sorry to spam your talk page but I was wondering whether you still play Urban Dead and because you are the creator do you get special bonuses and stuff with the RNG or do you play with the same liimtations as everyone else? -- Krazy Monkey ^W! 22:31, 2 August 2006 (BST)

I've got a mix of low-level mutant test characters and genuinely levelled-up ones. --Kevan 14:14, 20 August 2006 (BST)

Do you have any major updates planned for the game in the next few weeks? Just wondering. -- Krazy Monkey ^W! 14:36, 26 August 2006 (BST)

Just curious, what kind of alterations do you test in your characters? --Jon Pyre 08:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Not a Bug

But this was posted on the Bug Reports page:

Neo-Nazis on UD http://www.urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=562302 Please delete that account. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Blurb (talk • contribs) .

–Xoid ^S•T•FU! 09:40, 5 August 2006 (BST)

I've had one or two emails about this sort of thing; the game's mechanics make it fairly self-regulating, that anyone being offensive to other players will get turned into a mute, anonymous zombie before too long, and will probably have greater difficulty getting a revive. I don't really think it's useful to open the floodgate of deleting accounts if anyone claims to be offended by them - the most recent email asked for the deletion of an account because its user had said the single zero-context sentence of "[player name] is gay". --Kevan 14:14, 20 August 2006 (BST)

I don't know if you care, but I saw another neo-nazi profile yesterday, named NeoNazi. Anachronos666

Please verify

Kevan, I don't want to take up too much of your time, but I did feel obligated to bring up a recent instance where a user was permabanned from this wiki because you allegedly have "definitive proof in the form of IP address records from both in game and on wiki" that this user (God) is an alt for Amazing. I was wondering if you could verify that this was the case.
God's postings were entirely civil and logical, and this earned my respect. I believe that my support for what I considered to be a productive user was what triggered a moderator to tell me to "Suck shit". I'm sure you don't want to get tangled up in drama. I'd just like for you to please confirm that you have IP data and that it in fact does prove that God was Amazing. Thanks for your time. --Kiki Lottaboobs 12:31, 20 August 2006 (BST)

Yes, I had definitive IP data. --Kevan 13:56, 20 August 2006 (BST)

Common.css

When you upgrade the server, could you have a common stylesheet added to the skins, like Wikipedia has it? There are some useful additions from both Wikipedia and Uncyclopedia that I would really like to steal borrow. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 13:44, 23 August 2006 (BST)

Sure, I'll be looking at everything that's been suggested further up on my talk page, after this is on the new server and running the latest version of MediaWiki. --Kevan 14:06, 23 August 2006 (BST)

Thanks!

Thank you for upgrading the wiki. :)

Is there any chance that you could look into installing these extensions?

1. CheckUser
2. Username Blacklist
3. ParserFunctions
4. SpecialUserScore

(In order of importance.)

Thanks! –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•T•A•C•B!} 20:20, 25 August 2006 (BST)

svn.wikimedia.org seems to be down at the moment, but I'll look into installing these when I can, starting with the CheckUser one. --Kevan 04:50, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Thank you, thank you, thank you! It will definitely make things better. :) I really appreciate it. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 05:13, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I also thank you for upgrading the wiki. Nice new toys :D Anyway, in addition of the following list, it would be very nice to have the Newuserlog extension. Unfortunate that extension seems to be wikipedia's the most guarded secret, with no download or installing information. I did find out that it is available directly from SVN.

At least with the old wiki version there was a problem with vandal banning if the vandal managed to log out before he was banned. In such cases the automatic IP ban wouldn't work and vandal could in theory continue as long as he wanted. Seeing new users in recent changes would be nice addition. --Brizth ^{M T} 23:30, 25 August 2006 (BST)

Image uploads

Looks like the permissions are off for the image uploads directory, because Special:Upload fails. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•T•A•C•B!} 22:16, 25 August 2006 (BST)

Fixed. --Kevan 11:02, 26 August 2006 (BST)

Not quite. It's claiming that a perfectly fine PNG that I have is corrupt, or that the extension is incorrect. Might want to look again. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 20:48, 26 August 2006 (BST)

Fixed for PNGs. Looks as if PHP's internal MIME-type checker has some issues with them. --Kevan 04:13, 27 August 2006 (BST)

A Plea

I know that it's not my place to say this sort of thing, but I feel that I must. Urban Dead is dying. It is stagnating. This was the first MMORPG that I played, and I loved it. But it is just not the same anymore. Other games just have so much more to offer, Nexus War being the most prominent. It seems that UD's glory days are passed. People are hemorgaing from this game because it just seems stale. You don't seem to pay attention to it anymore. There are tons of great ideas in Peer Reviewed, but only a few have been implimented. There is so much potential, but you ignore us. You rarely participate in the wiki, the game almost never gets any truely signifigant updates, only the dedicated playerbase makes UD even remotly worth playing. And yet many of the greats have left for other, better games. And while it pains me, if I could donate to one game it would be Nexus War over UD any day. There just isn't much here. I don't want to see this game die. I want it to thrive. Please come back. Please help us make this game the best it can be. There is so much pottential, I don't want to see it wasted. Please... Please. --Paradox244 ^{W! TJ!} 02:17, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I agree with Paradox244, Although I have played for just a few months I have noticed that this game is dying. Please do some massive peer-reviewed implementations. My idea for choosing; add one new building, like the Prisons (Complete) Suggestion, that would give something new for players to check out and build groups around. Then I would recommend making a skill addition.--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 00:23, 28 August 2006 (BST)

New stuff! Keep it coming man! --Paradox244 ^{W! TJ!} 21:00, 28 August 2006 (BST)

Not to sound greedy, but I think you should add one more new suggestion. I recommend a New Building, because after all we need some nice new places to go (Like Prisons! Check my Prisons (Complete) Suggestion! Just feel proud of it, thats why I am mentioning it so much), and we have now enough new items and skills...Please respond with your point-of-view on this.--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 01:50, 29 August 2006 (BST)

Another Appeal

Thank you for taking time and expense to upgrade the wiki hardware and software. The new new abilities and features have already begun to to pay off in ease of use and as more users learn of the capabilities I am sure it will continue providing a richer experience to the community.

The community meanwhile is being beset with a high occurrence of vandalism. A feature that would aid in the fight against it is the wiki extension CheckUser. I am sure that the usefulness of the extension is self explanatory. It also comes with risks of its own to the community. I hope that this tool becomes available. I also hope that it comes through with limitation to its access being restricted to bureaucrats or perhaps even having its own set of stewards elected to maintain the privacy policy themselves. The information that it reveals is not easy for the the average user to interpret. The UDWiki is currently being driven sans Privacy Policy and CheckUser has some potential for misuse by revealing information that could be used inappropriately to target and or vandalize wiki users themselves.

Thanks again for the wiki updates, game upgrades and continued commitment to the community. Your patients and careful consideration is appreciated. --Max Grivas ^JG,T,P! 02:29, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I agreed! Merlin 07:04, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Now that the extension is installed, does that mean that only 'crats are allow to use it, only you, or all sysops? I'm not modifying anyone's rights until it's clearly laid out. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 09:56, 27 August 2006 (BST)

*watches this space intently* Cyberbob  Talk  09:57, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I think it's best if only the Bureaucrats have it, it shouldn't be something that we have to use very often, although this is open to discussion. But I'd ask that you didn't pass it on to other users, at least yet. --Kevan 10:06, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I won't as I said, not until you OK it. We may have equal powers but this is your playground, and you're in charge. I would however ask you to reconsider that decision. It shouldn't have to be used often, but as I just demonstrated (by banning 3page's IP address. Again.), a lot of time can be saved by having someone online with the ability to ensure that A) I'm not lying without having to fetch you and B) stop someone from causing havoc when neither you nor I are online. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 10:17, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I, specifically, would like to request access to the tool. Why? I am often online when other moderators are not, and having to wait for a Bureaucrat to visit the wiki and hear my pleas when action needs to be taken would become very annoying, I think. You might also be surprised at how often the need arises for users to be checked — policy votes from brand new users with no other edits, accounts being created right after another account is banned, etc. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 19:34, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Now, now, Bob. If one sysop gets it, you know that we all have to get it. Besides, my funky time zone means I'm online when (quite literally) no-one is a lot of the time. Cyberbob  Talk  03:00, 28 August 2006 (BST)

Yes, personally I think that we should all have it, but I thought it'd be simpler just to ask for myself. And I'm online mostly when you're actually asleep, so there. :P –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 03:37, 28 August 2006 (BST)

I assume that both the vote abuse and account recreation will tail off now that people know that their IP addresses can be compared. I don't mind all sysops having access, although it might be a good idea if we got a simple privacy policy in place first. --Kevan 03:38, 28 August 2006 (BST)

Never underestimate the power of stupid people, Kevan. :P But a privacy policy sounds reasonable to me. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 03:43, 28 August 2006 (BST)

The privacy policy would be good. Also, UDWiki:Copyrights is, uh, interesting. As is UDWiki:Image_use_policy. I think they all need some work. --Brizth ^{M T} 15:48, 28 August 2006 (BST)

Speaking as a none-moderator, I'd be happy if all the mods had access to this facility. The Mad Axeman 19:26, 28 August 2006 (BST)

A Minor Request

Could you please set $wgAllowExternalImages = true; in LocalSettings.php? –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 06:44, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Is this just for a quick, sweeping fix of existing pages that have broken because they use external images, or do you think it'd be useful long term? It seems healthier to have all images logged and stored within the wiki system, to avoid problems with people changing images that others are using, or wiki users sucking the bandwidth of other sites. There's plenty of space here on the new server. --Kevan 09:00, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Was intended for a quick fix, but there are some tricks you can do with "external" images (using them as signatures, for example). It's not a biggie, and I recognise your concerns about the bandwidth theft and such. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 09:33, 27 August 2006 (BST)

I think there's only one or maybe two users using sig images. Somewhat larger number of groups are using external images, but if you do have the space, well, why not. It would remove one source of abuse. --Brizth ^{M T} 09:54, 27 August 2006 (BST)

Hello, im new to the wiki, this is my first post so i hope i do it right.... Anyway when playing urban dead i thought it would be a good idea to be able to see, for example a stickmen or something walk to the next square on the grid like this: from here-------character walking------to, for example: [41,36]. Its probably impossible, but its worth to ask i guess.... Chicken boi 18:41, 25 March 2007 (BST)

Oi

Are you sure you're "a transient formation of smaller particles"? I mean, from here, you look more like a series of tubes. --Ron Burgundy 02:53, 29 August 2006 (BST)

Oh God... That was hillarious! --Paradox244 ^{W! TJ!} 02:54, 29 August 2006 (BST)

Odd, I thought he was a big truck...--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 02:56, 29 August 2006 (BST)

I thought he was a good year tire. --CrimsonD 15:37, 26 September 2006 (BST)

Fan Mail

With all the requests, complaints, and so on you'd find on this page, I thought you deserved a little fan mail...then I realized that my handwriting sucks, so I decided to post it here. I think all players on this page should extend a big thank-you to kevan for making one of the best sites on the web, and let me be the first to congradulate him PadreRomero 00:42, 30 August 2006 (BST)

Thanks, but you're a bit late to be the first. --Kevan 14:32, 4 September 2006 (BST)

Hail Kevan! not just for UD, but for DVorak games too! yay, kevan! that is all. --Kaminobob 05:57, 27 October 2006 (BST)

Thanks for the changes today, whenever I login and see something different it makes my day. Seeing a screen full of fog made me giddy. Just felt like saying so in light of someone going on about survivor strikes on the suggestion page. --Burgan 21:33, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

I agree. With the people who think that this Halloween update favours zombies too much, you should get some thanks for it. Its a great update! Any way we can keep the knocking on the doors though? Thats fun :) *smiles sweetly* --Marie^{The Grove} 21:52, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

IP ban

It would be really darn handy if us normal mods could have CheckUser so we can do IP bans. Take a look at this latest string of vandalism, and no Bureaucrat in sight. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 06:27, 30 August 2006 (BST)

Sure. I'll just rattle out a simple privacy policy so that users know where they stand, first. --Kevan 13:45, 30 August 2006 (BST)

The end of serial vandalism (except by proxy) is in sight, my noble brethren! Cyberbob  Talk  13:47, 30 August 2006 (BST)

Does this mean it's a go? –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 14:03, 30 August 2006 (BST)

It's a go. Moderators should skim the privacy policy before using Checkuser, and maybe read MediaWiki's guidelines for Checkuser usage, basically just being "don't actually reveal specific IPs publicly". And be aware that all Checkuser usage is logged. Happy checkusering. --Kevan 14:08, 30 August 2006 (BST)

Thank you! :) I'll read over the privacy policy and experiment a little with it when I have time later. And thank you again. –Bob Hammero ^{Mod•B'crat•T•A} 17:04, 30 August 2006 (BST)

Strange things going on on UD

May I bring your attention to this group? They seem to have grown fairly quickly, to the point that in few days they gained hundreds of players, being now the biggest group on the game altough they're rather unknown (I suppose that you can check their amazing growt, but if it helps here's the google cache of the page). It's really suspicious, could you check if they're legit? Thanks. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:14, 4 September 2006 (BST)

PTT is a really big board, I don't see this as really needing a check. Sure, there are probably a few zergers in the group, any time there is an influx of newbies some of them won't read the rules, but I don't see it as overly suspicious. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 07:20, 4 September 2006 (BST)

Well, according to Brizth they had 176 members 4 days ago. Now they have 251. I'm not saying they're automatically guilty of anything, but this sure doesn't look normal. Don't missunderstand me: If it's nothing, I'm one of the people that will be glad to hear that. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:27, 4 September 2006 (BST)

Actually that is normal. If they posted about the group maybe a week ago and more people notice it as time goes by. It makes perfect sense that not all of them joined in first second. --Niilomaan ^GRR!•M! 07:38, 4 September 2006 (BST)

Seems quite normal. I believe PTT (the BBS) has more than one million members, so 250+ coming here isn't that surprising. Of course I might be way off with that member count, it's hard to find english material on it. Wikipedia's article on it was deleted, on the basis of "Non-notable". Which is funny considering that Wikipedia itself has about 30000 or something (semi)active contributors. --Brizth ^{M T} 10:16, 4 September 2006 (BST)

I'd noticed, and as Xoid says, there's nothing that unsurprising going on. I suppose it only takes a suggestion of "set your group to X" when someone posts an Urban Dead link on a popular site. --Kevan 14:31, 4 September 2006 (BST)

Cool, thanks for caring =) (not sarcasm). --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 23:18, 4 September 2006 (BST)

Mall Store Names

Hello Kevan, a while back I had a suggestion called Mall Store Names that would give mall stores unique names. During that I made a promise that if it ever gets into Peer-Reviewed I would make a page purely for the purpose of users coming up with their own mall store names. I am telling you this because that this would be quite simple to implement, at worst maybe a few hours of your time, while adding some "Specialness" to each mall. The page containing the Mall Store Name idea's is right here. Now I am saying not to implement this right away, just tell me when your ready to implement this, people are really enjoying coming up with names. Well that's all I got to say. Keep up the good work with this wonderful game!--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 02:52, 9 September 2006 (BST)

I think that you will, after seeing the suggested names, want to ignore that suggestion entirely. There are no less than five names for "adult book stores", and I can't find more than a handful of names which aren't suggestive. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 05:51, 9 September 2006 (BST)

In my defense, "Balls Balls and More Balls" is an amazing name for a sporting goods store, and you know it, Xoid.--Blue Command Vic 06:12, 9 September 2006 (BST)

Relax guys, I'll come up with some good ones at least. And some of them are all right. --Paradox244 ^{W! TJ!} 14:31, 9 September 2006 (BST)

I enjoyed the suggestion, and I'll definitely draw from the list if it gets implemented, if anyone wants to add any good ones (and there will need to be a lot, to fill all the malls). But no, I won't be including any overt jokes or suggestive references; I hated the fourth-wall-breaking of that in GTA, the weird and distancing implication that these phrases aren't actually double-entendres in the GTA universe, if companies are using them as trademarks.

The shop names for malls should be coherent (and short) enough that they could stand alone on a search button, while still being obvious what the shop type was. And unfunny names with aesthetically-pleasing syllables are better than jokes. --Kevan 16:19, 9 September 2006 (BST)

I got it. I'll tell Axe Hack. (Thanks!)--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 16:20, 9 September 2006 (BST)

Kevan, I am proud to say I am ready to present the Mall Store Name Idea's, check under "finale"--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 01:07, 15 September 2006 (BST)

That little thing called our SUGGESTIONS PAGE isn't there for show, you know. Cyberbob  Talk  09:46, 15 September 2006 (BST)

Yeah, Cyberbob's right, it's there to be a pain in the bum ;) - Jedaz - 00:07/20/04/2024 09:58, 15 September 2006 (BST)

DNA Scanner Getting Stuck

I was scanning a group of zombies to see if any were free of brain rot, found one, went away to get some syringes but when I came back the scanner would only repeatedly scan a brain rotter at the end of the queue, despite the fact there were several revivable zombies there. I'm not sure if this is intentional or not but I thought I'd let you know. --Jon Pyre 05:21, 10 September 2006 (BST)

If all zombies in the stack have been scanned, then further scans on the same crowd will keep giving you the same zombie. It's maybe not ideal, but it's how the stack mechanics have worked since day one. --Kevan 09:25, 10 September 2006 (BST)

Maybe it's time for an upgrade? I think this would be a nice solution to that issue. Well I'll leave it in your hands of course. - Jedaz - 00:07/20/04/2024 10:01, 15 September 2006 (BST)

A Rather Interesting Occurance

Another bid on M/BP. Less than a day after the last one ended. There's no chance for a rule to be enforced here to prevent this sort of abuse of the system as the process has already begun. There's no limit to the number of times this can be done, and the rules of that page explicitly state that the moderator with the most vouches get's a 'cratship. I can't overrule that. I don't really think that you want every single moderator to have access to the user rights management section; it defeats the whole purpose of having M/BP and not just giving everyone 'cratship in the first place.

The only way that something is going to be done to fix this is if you finally use your "I can do what I want" powers (as laid out by the moderator guidelines) to stop it now, before it gets out of hand. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 13:47, 10 September 2006 (BST)

Exactly. The only real reason I'm in it is to stop Nubis from winning by default. Cyberbob  Talk  13:51, 10 September 2006 (BST)

Quite, I don't think we need any more Bureaucrats at the moment; one or two active at any given time is plenty. Were the existing guidelines really just casually drawn up by The General? I did say when he was writing it up that I felt it was a mistake to reuse the exact tone of the moderator page, but I'm not sure how much notice he took. It's certainly a mistake if bureaucrat status is being viewed as the inevitable next rung in the admin ladder. Close the promotions while we clear this up, consider my superpowers exercised. --Kevan 14:27, 10 September 2006 (BST)

It was your comment that made me change it to having the moderator with the most vouches being promoted. However, my intention was not to force bureaucrats to promote people. It was drawn up on the principle that it would only been used once and then not used again until the next time it's needed.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 21:20, 15 September 2006 (BST)

One or two? Is there any room to squeeeeze in one more? Cyberbob  Talk  14:36, 10 September 2006 (BST)

I'm not certain about the one or two aspect. We can either try to keep this tightly controlled, or alternatively go for a looser structure. While I'm a fan of option A, that's mainly because I've been burnt before when I gave users too many rights. People by their nature seem to like acting like idiots. The moderators? A different kettle of fish. All of them have shown that they can do their job, all have been given an indication of trust by the community. We could simply have system pretty much the same as M/PM and just have stricter standards. Regardless, there should be a time limit between bids on all promotions. I'm also thinking that if you haven't already, it'd be a good idea to make yourself immune to be de-'crated, etc, etc. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 15:43, 10 September 2006 (BST)

Look, if you only want a single Bureaucrat that's fine. Then get someone to edit the page so that it's obvious that this is the case, and then protect it so it can only be used at the time necessary. I can't read minds, so I don't know what the intent of a page is if it's not on the page itself. – Nubis ^NWO 15:50, 10 September 2006 (BST)

Mods can edit protected pages, so protecting it won't do jack. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 16:39, 10 September 2006 (BST)

Well excuse me. I just assumed that there was another level of protections for bureaucrats, but you know, not being one, I didn't know for sure. Regardless, the protection part isn't exactly the main point I'm trying to make. – Nubis ^NWO 21:21, 10 September 2006 (BST)

There's not way to protect it from moderators, the editing protected pages permission is a single permission.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 21:21, 15 September 2006 (BST)

Request for Action

God I hate this. But having had my own group nailed for what was determined to be Alt-abuse, I sure as hell don't want another group to get away with it doing it on purpose. I abhore the method the following information was gathered but a "well meaning" individual joined the Predators to gather information off of their private board. I have told the person I don't want to hear any more privy information but the following was related to me on my board.

hola guys. I think the preds are going to come knocking at Flowar tonight at around 7 est. they've got a bunch of lv. 1 firemen at the Urben Alley FD which they use as "doorknockers" (limit the use of that term, since it's from inside their message board terms).

this is like 4-6 guys all using alts to do their thing. they get around the IP limit by disconnecting their dialup to reset the counter.

they're hitting Piegsa after this, then going on 'vacation' to reaganbank for a week... they've also made a deal with the PK Alliance and Malton Death Dealers to come bother you in the 'Hills.... probably heading straight for Cotty.

I can give you a list, or I can just give you the login and password to their site so you can collect the info yourself- just don't leave messages. I've imbedded a zombie alt of mine in their group. I figure it's fair since they're doing the same (albeit poorly). I wouldn't mind an uber-secure board to post the info on either, bc doing all this in PM's, though secure, is a little tedious. A board would be better- you guys know whom has been around long enough within the DHPD to not be a spy.

I've already had some suspiscions that the "Group" was actually one or two people, but the use of "Doorknockers" goes one step further into the obscene. Conndraka^{mod T CFT} 02:24, 14 September 2006 (BST)

Please read the FAQ. --Kevan 03:17, 14 September 2006 (BST)

First He-They are not taking advantage of a Bug, and there is no specific place on the Wiki to report confirmed Zerging to you, I have made my case on the CFT discussions page but I'm not sure how much you follow that. I do know that I've been spending the last little bit un doing the damage Ken has done to the DHPD pages, but Guilt in wiki vandalism doesn touch you "in game". Conndraka^{mod T CFT} 03:22, 14 September 2006 (BST)

Animals?

Hey Kevan, would you ever consider putting animals into UD as playable characters? -- Krazy Monkey ^W! 19:20, 14 September 2006 (BST)

How did you make this

Hey I was wondering what language you made this game in. User:Lakeside/Sig

Note that Lakeside is persistent vandal and has been permabanned. --Brizth ^{M T} 21:38, 22 September 2006 (BST)

Wiki ads

One user brought fourth the following on Talk:Main Page. Probably doesn't affect the advertisement earnings, and you probably can't do much to it, but I thought you might want to know anyway. --Brizth ^{M T} 21:38, 22 September 2006 (BST)

Restoring

Hi, in the middle of a vandal attack, a mod deleted UDWiki:Moderation/Vandal Banning for mistake. The online mods are trying to restore it, but with little success. I was wondering if you could restore it, please?--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 03:02, 24 September 2006 (BST)

Broke the Wiki

Uh - can you fix my major mistake? During a revert/deletion spree due to vandalism, I accidentally took down. UDWiki:Moderation/Vandal Banning, and I can't manage to undelete it. Can you possible fix it? --Darth Sensitive ^W! 03:07, 24 September 2006 (BST)

Each attempt at undeletion seems to completly choke the wiki due to size of all the archived edits for the page. Probably would be a good idea to purge a part of those before restoring, if possible. Else, we're screwed. --Daranz ^{. talk . mod .} 03:25, 24 September 2006 (BST)

I managed to restore the full page history after some creative use of perl and POST requests. But purging some page's deletion histories could be in order. For example, suggestions page has some 880 old deleted edits. And this list is freaking long. --Brizth ^{M T} 15:04, 25 September 2006 (BST)

There are quite a lot of group pages there, pages that I recognise the names of, but there is certainly more than enough crap that should be utterly obliterated as they are nuked from orbit. Twice. It'll take some manual weeding out to trim it down to acceptable revisions for "backup" purposes. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 14:36, 27 September 2006 (BST)

Just thought you'd like to know…

…that someone is auctioning off their characters. –Xoid ^S•T•FU! 14:10, 27 September 2006 (BST)

Extensions

I know we've already asked you this but could I make a plee to have the ParserFunctions extension. Having just had a play around with it on the scrollwars wiki and it's really useful. Thanks.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 15:00, 23 October 2006 (BST)

On a side note about the Parser Functions you will probably also want to update the Wiki software to the latest version so you can use the extension to it's fullest. - Jedaz - 00:07/20/04/2024 13:12, 28 October 2006 (BST)

Profile Edits

There's no real reason why people should need to edit someone else's profile. All messages are posted on their discussion page. As far as I can tell this just provides an opportunity for vandals. It's easily corrected sure, but I wonder if there's a simple way to lock every profile to only be edited by that user. --Jon Pyre 05:39, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

First I think this would be hard to implement and second whats to stop adbots and vandals from vandalizing their own pages by placing ads, malicious scripts, or worse (can someone say evil text?) Manattack 05:42, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Except to add {{VandalBan}}, {{Protect}}, or any other informative template. Oh, and fixing broken links, removing offensive images, and correcting a page so that it will conform to a policy change, and of course, arbitration violations... and spelling. Gotta fix the spelling.--Gage 05:44, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I might have missed the conversation that led up to this, but as Gage says, I think we'd lose more than we'd gain, if only moderators were allowed to deal with policy and arbitration issues. There is the possibility of unnoticed vandalism on the profile of a long-idle user, but that doesn't seem any different to subtle vandalism of any long-untouched wiki page. --Kevan 11:30, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Problem

We have a person who wants Scripts undeleted here. Would you look at the page and see what you think? I can't pretend to know what these scripts can be used for, but it looks like they could be used for automation which last time I checked was cheating. Thoughts?--Gage 15:19, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the page existing, and don't really see any benefit from forcing people to host these sorts of guides elsewhere. Feel free to raise a new speedy-delete policy if you think the public wants it, though. --Kevan 15:34, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Forts

I look forward to checking out the new forts! And no, I wasn't working on a grand third try, I just was unsatisfied with my revision and decided to shelve it until I could think of something better. But now I guess I don't have to! --Jon Pyre 23:09, 20 November 2006 (UTC)

Rape Ban?

Just like to give a heads up of what's going down here: http://wiki.urbandead.com/index.php/Ban_In-Game_Rape

I in no way support this, and personally, wouldn't give in to such a demand, but I would suggest just a small disclaimer at most, if anything. --Absolution 11:15, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Nov 23 Update

Just want to thank you for you proactive measure with the Contact List upgrade; I believe this will be a effective measure to guard against incidents such as the in-game text raping. Again, myself (and others) thank you. --Winnan 17:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Seconded - a great way of dealing with the problem whilst minimising change in the way anyone chooses to play this game. (next up I'll start bugging you about how to protect generators from griefers :) ) Moyes 11:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

Quick Question...

You don't mind if I help my friend NoirTheKiller build up his character do you? I just want to be sure I'm not breaking any rules. And yes I already got permission from him via AIM. --Axe Hack 00:27, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

It depends what you mean by "build up". If you're taking over someone else's character, then that's not breaking any rules - you're just increasing the chance of triggering the automated anti-collusion countermeasures, if the character ever crosses paths with either your or his alts. --Kevan 19:07, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I mean help him build his character to a certain level, making it a little easier for my friend. After that...he's on his own. --Axe Hack 19:20, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

As I say, it depends what you mean by "build up". But if he's giving you his account and you're handing it back later, and the character never colludes with any of your other characters or any of his, that's fine. --Kevan 19:47, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

OK. Uh....I been meaning to ask you this for some time already....any reward for convincing friends to play UD? Besides having a friend in the game who you know? --Axe Hack 19:54, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Besides having a friend and an ally, and helping to keep the game alive - no, there's no direct reward. --Kevan 20:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Kevan != Amazing, Axe Hack. Cyberbob  Talk  20:30, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Quick request

Not to make to big a deal of it but could you look at profile id=715825, and if you feel it is approipriate do something about it Seems that one of the wiki banned individuals has taken a particularly unflatering and imature stance with my real name. Thanks. Last thing I need right now is this kind of "Fanboy". Conndraka^{mod TDHPD CFT} 17:28, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Well, In the meantime i'll make him as comfortable uncomfortable as possible *gets out shotgun*.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 14:36, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Server Shenanigans

Hi Kevan, there was some confusion as the server did not reset IP hits today at the regular time, midnight (4:00 PM PST) and it's unclear whether they've been reset at all. Also a few people saw their events in reverse chronological order when they first logged in. Do you know what's going on? Also if you intend to permanently move the server reset time could you please let us know? ;) thanks, Rheingold 04:24, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

So a lot of people have been having this problem? I thought it was only me..... --Slice 'N' Dicin' Axe Hack 14:43, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Nope I got nailed as well as did most of (if not all) of the players off of Harding University's posse list. And because of it a large number of us (read 17)got slaughtered. Conndraka^{mod TDHPD CFT} 17:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It affected all IP addresses; there was a glitch with the server and it didn't roll things over properly at midnight. The IP limits were all reset manually later in the day, as soon as I was online. --Kevan 00:01, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Quick Question About PKing

There's been some debate on the suggestions page about suggestions to weaken/counter/defend against/respond to survivor on survivor attacks and generator sabotage. We all realize that you want to permit PKing, since it's in the game. Half of us on the page think it should be weakened (not removed) since it bypasses barricades and makes killing too easy, the other half thinks its a fun kind of practical joke that they'd be sad to see nerfed. My question to you is whether you're open to suggestions to change PKing in any way, shape, or form, or if you're completely satisfied with the current system and we're just wasting our time brainstorming along these lines. --Jon Pyre 08:07, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

He's already said in the past that he isn't interested in modifications to PKing. Cyberbob  Talk  08:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I've heard people say that but I haven't been able to find a transcript, and I'm confused to whether he said he doesn't want to get rid of PKing (which I don't want either) but left the possibiliy of alterations ambigious, or if he doesn't want to change it at all and is so certain it should remain static that it's not worth our time to propose ideas along these lines.--Jon Pyre 08:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

The answer lies here. Pillsy ^FT 09:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Win. Cyberbob  Talk  09:17, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

It's not a very clear quote, but all it says is that I'm not going to "prohibit" PKing, which I'm not - psycho survivors are a vibrant part of any post-apocalypse, and an out-and-out ban on attacking each other would be boring. Tinkering is fine, though, and if you've got any ideas to make PKing a more interesting experience for either participant, Jon, I'd enjoy hearing them. --Kevan 23:59, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

Well it has already been weakened, by only giving half AP for any PK/ZK attacks. If PKing becomes a major problem (it unbalances the game) then I'm sure something will be done, but as it is, it I see it as balancing out the survivor advantage. It's not a big issue for the game, even if it is for individuals who attract this type of attention, IMO -- boxy ^{T L PA DA} 09:23, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Pillsy, I've read that before. But that's not specific enough and I have no reason to completely trust its accuracy. And Boxy, xp soon becomes very unimportant in this game. But I'm not asking about whether it's fair or unfair, but whether its a topic worth discussing in Suggestions. If not, well at least we can replace that section of Frequently Suggested with an actual quote instead of an unsourced message written by who knows. --Jon Pyre 12:51, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

If you remove my PKing, then why shouldn't I put up a bunch of suggestions to nerf your zombie hunting? Because it'd be utterly braindead to prevent people from playing the game how they'd like to? Hm? Also, to note, you'd be making it hard for someone to get revenge for someone being a jerk (e.g., revive point killing them over and over - don't you dare say that revive rates are fast enough to cope with that, if they're fast enough to allow someone to get revived...)
You're a survivor. Try surviving, instead of whining. Cyberbob  Talk  13:15, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Could we please not bring the debate into Kevan's talk page? If he wants to hear what we think about PKing it would be a simple matter for him to find out, considering all the debates we've been having around the wiki. I think Jon just wants to know if Kevan is open to suggestions that weaken or otherwise discourage PKing so that we'll know whether or not these debates and suggestions are a waste of time. It's a fair question, considering all we know for sure is that Kevan isn't going to prohibit PKing. However, he has never said anything about being for or against the idea of making PKing more difficult or otherwise discouraged. Even the link provided by Pillsy (that so many on both sides of the argument cite as evidence) does not say anything about whether or not Kevan is willing to weaken or otherwise modify PKing; only that he will not prohibit PKing. A specific statement regarding this is probably something a lot of us would like to see. --Reaper with no name ^TJ! 17:33, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

I'd just like to point out that Kevan has implemented a number of updates over the past 3-4 months that either flat-out contradict the Suggestion Dos And Don'ts, or the unspoken but taken-for-granted "conventional wisdom" about what Kevan will and will not implement -

• New forts (zomg don't change the map)
• New knives (zomg existing weapon balance is fine)
• Binoculars (zomg no long distance vision)
• Feeding drag (zomg no moving other players)

etc.

We should vote on suggestions based on whether we think they will help the game, not based on the SDND, and Kevan will implement them based on his personal judgement not based on a dogma he actually didn't write most of.

That doesn't mean the voters shouldn't shoot down skills that mess with AP, or teleportation or other obviously broken ideas. But they shouldn't vote down a PK-altering suggestion just because "zomg Kevan said no messing with PKing." They should vote it down because they think PKing is fine as it is (which is my reason for voting against). Rheingold 22:05, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

You guys ≠ Kevan - let the man talk, and don't bring this debate to his talk page.--Gage 22:25, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks Gage. Yeah, I don't want him to say "who's right". Just something along the lines of "wasn't planning to change it but I'll read those ideas like anything else", "I was planning to, haven't thought of a good way to do it", "there are other things I'd rather work on but maybe if a simple quick fix came up", "no, and I never will so you should devote your attention elsewhere", etc. EDIT: Basically, I'm just trying to save myself and several others their valuable time. There are books to read and it's beautiful outdoors. Say the word Kevan and we'll never think of writing a suggestion even mentioning PKing ever again. I personally would like a change but if that's absolutely not going to happen I'd like to know and I'll shut up about it. --Jon Pyre 04:11, 5 December 2006 (UTC)

My answer's already buried further up in this thread. --Kevan 12:05, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks! --Jon Pyre 17:48, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

High Level Characters

Hey Kevin. Now I understand that more and more characters are becoming 'maxed out', with all skills purchased and thousands of xp in the bank. This bulge will continue to grow, no matter how many skills you add here and there. Indeed, my two characters are both in this situation. I have a proposal - it may not belong here, so I will probably (time permitting and the amount of coffee I have left) place it in the suggestions area. But anyway, here it is - beyond a certain point in the skill trees, new skills should not cost 100xp, but rather 1000xp. This will mean that even high level characters with 4000xp could only purchase 4 skills. These new skills need not be powerful, simply cost more beyond a certain point (say lvl40 or 41). This would entice older characters to continue playing to gain new skills, and create a new breed of zombie and survivor (read:bragging rights). What do you think Kevin? This wouldn't need for much altering of the game or its mechanics, simply higher costs of future skills (whatever they may be)--_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 11:50, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Not to be an ass but that's what the Suggestions page is for. Pillsy ^FT 11:59, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

I'm putting it in there in the next few days - I'll be away all day tomorrow and its late right now here in Australia...--_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:12, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Please use the Suggestions page like everyone else. If you haven't had the time to finish writing an idea and can't store it locally, you could keep a copy on your own talk page. --Kevan 12:51, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Lexicon: namespace

It has been requested that a new namespace "Lexicon:" be added. I think that this would be a good way to move a lot of the fancruft out of the main namespace, so I'm certainly not opposed to it. Would you be willing to add it? –Xoid ^M•T•FU! 07:03, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Excellent idea. It's done. --Kevan 20:01, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Christmas Presents

Kevan, instead of supply drops for christmas will you please try to implement 2 suggestions, or at least promise to. 1 suggestion for survivors, and 1 suggestion for zombies, because we have been good little survivors and zombies.--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 01:43, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Hey this is an apocalypse, we out to make do with what we got - Kevan has already given us Christmas trees!--_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 02:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

Annoying Sigs

hello there bub, could you take a look at this and simply say something before this wiki turns into some kind of Uncyclopedia... this kind of issue was already dealt in policy discussion, and all attempts failed at it... and, on top of that, its two mods giving the bad example... --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 00:55, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Bub? You called Kevan... bub? Cyberbob  Talk  12:18, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Bub is his charecter name I believe....--General Lee A. Dickhole _{Malton Rangers} 12:39, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Brnhr, we were at the fall of Caiger. And yes, I agree that this is horrible, but this wiki's steered by policy votes and general consensus, rather than me telling people what I want things to look like. A policy change to add a couple of overlooked annoyances to existing sig policy seems uncontroversial enough. --Kevan 12:47, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

i was only thinking about using your 'Owner Privilege' rights to end this stuff... if we had to go through a policy to rule this, it would take a lot of time... time that would allow these kind of stuff to go around unpunished. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 13:50, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

We went through it once, and people rejected it.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 15:46, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

This? It only seems to have failed because of the vagueness of "inappropriate or offensive images" - I don't think you'd have any trouble reproposing it minus that, but with additions against blinking and maximum sig lengths.

This doesn't seem a huge enough issue to merit the setting of precedent for stepping in and fast-tracking policy changes I happen to agree with. Cyberbob's backed down, and I'd hope The General had made his point, if he was making a point. --Kevan 16:16, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, i'll do an update an resuggest it when I get time. You are right, I was making a point, and I think my point has been made. Image removed, sorry for the inconvenience.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 16:27, 9 January 2007 (UTC)

Popularity Lost

Is UD in it's Golden Age? According to the stats page, it seems many groups are slowly losing members and many zombie players are deserting Malton. --Slice 'N' Dicin' Axe Hack 14:34, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

Is it time for ' On Strike '07 ' ? Rolo Tomasi 02:47, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Spam

# Jamie Mardox said "http://tinyurl.com/ycyw8u" (5 minutes ago)

account created today, no xp, only free running, and he showed in Calvert Mall and said that and run away... a running spam... is that what they call 'fast food' ? :\ --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 02:12, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I have to say that it's pretty normal for users to spraypaint tinyurl's as a way to publicise their group pages in this wiki, UD forums outside of this wiki, and a quantity of other things as personal pages. Lots of in-game profiles have links to personal pages, including some of Kevan characters as far as I can recall. This just doesn't seem too far from that to be a real problem... --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 02:22, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

Harrasing

I'm sorry to be bothering you, because I have ever present that you only take action in last instances, but this one is pretty much a last instance for me. A considerable part of the most active userbase has taken sides against me, including some of the current mods, and we have been discussing over a lot of issues, but the main peraphs is the existence or not of necessity from moderators to actually be moderate and stop the constant bullying of certain users like me that some mods take part of, as you can see here and here. The last events on this little trolling war that I'm having was the creation by Saromu of a page wich content is exclusively aimed at attacking me, The Hidden Tower, naming me their leader and my talk page as the contact page (I even got some annoying messages already). My vandal case was rejected by a member of the group so I'm left without many options: I can't edit the group's page wich I supposedly lead because I'll surely be reported as vandal, and I can't report a deletion because most active mods are already part of the group and even if someone deletes it they'll revert it. The creator of the page is fooling around on the Arbitration case that I started, and it can't be started if he doesn't pick an arbitrator, thing that he seems determined to avoid.

Now, this is still not near enough for me to call your attention unto what's otherwise a personal issue, but about a couple of hours ago I started to receive hate mail, most of them calling me "Fairy Queen". I DID NOT PUBLICISE MY E-MAIL ADRESS ON ANYTHING RELATED TO UD. In fact, the only persons that know my mail adress in UD should be the two present bureaucrats (because of my failed promotion bid I chatted with them a bit), of wich one is inactive. The hatemail itself seems to come from a single person anyways, that uses many accounts from free services like hotmail and yahoo and registers himself with mostly numbers as username, and the possibility that they got the adress from the bureaucrats doesn't seem serious. Maybe I got uncareful somewhere else and someone took the time to investigate me. But this just isn't right. I will not threathen with lawsuits or some other BS because it's just the game of a guy that has too much time to waste on the internet and I'm something like his favorite TV show, but I'll thank you if some action is taken. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 07:31, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree that this seems to fall under vandalism rules for being both bad faith and impersonation; if you feel a mod isn't enforcing policy correctly, though, you should discuss it with them or (as a last resort) take it to misconduct. Presumably you can also choose to disband and delete "your" group. --Kevan 11:04, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

I'd say it's probably vandalism, but I'm afraid to rule on it because I don't want a misconduct case. I might rule on it now, though, as you believe it's vandalism.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 16:02, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

"In fact, the only persons that know my mail adress in UD should be the two present bureaucrats (because of my failed promotion bid I chatted with them a bit), of wich one is inactive." — thank you so very much for the accusation. I have not, nor will I ever, hand out your email address. For the record? Your email is incredibly, incredibly easy to guess. You've contacted people outside the wiki before and thus your email could be anywhere. I doubt you believe me or are willing to admit that you have likely been less-than-careful with your email address, but honestly, I am beyond giving a shit about what you think.

As to the content of the page, certain liberties are allowed within the interests of free speech. A page you created, full of libel and misinformation, has so far been allowed to remain because of that… I find it highly amusing, and more than a touch hypocritical, that you can't take some fun at your expense when you are doing far worse elsewhere. –Xoid ^M•T•FU! 03:12, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Dude, Matt, get over it, and quit while you are ahead. Honestly, all this fighting back is making you look 5x as bad as Saromu. Be the man, and just ignore him. --Absolution 10:08, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

For the record the emails were not from me. I only use one called Saromu and another one for school, which I'd never give out and never use except for school. Secondly, the page was created because you seem to have this idea that everyone wants to hear you're opinion. Despite what you think a lot of people don't. So for being an overall Wiki Nazi the page was created to show you what you're like. And thank you for dropping the case, it takes a lot of guts to do that. Hopefully nothing like this will happen again. Thank you, and good bye. --Sir Sonny Corleone ^{RRF CRF DORIS Hunt!} 21:35, 19 January 2007 (UTC)

Google Ads

So, I was putting together ads for the NW wiki this evening, and I ran afoul of their rules about "content pages only" - which means they can't show up on any "Special" or "Talk" pages and the like.

Anyways, I noticed your ads were showing up on every page, which they might get ticked about.

I used this guide to get it working in compliance, but it requires a bit of common sense, because I think its built off an old version.

Hope this is useful. --Jorm 09:49, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the heads up. I'm not sure how much that year-old article still applies - the current AdSense policies talk more about "sites" than "pages", but I suppose the Special pages are no great loss. Not sure if I'd entirely recommend Project Wonderful as a replacement yet, but I'd certainly recommend using it to advertise; there's a lot of shockingly cheap space out there. --Kevan 11:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

I used the article only for figuring out how to integrate it with Monobook easily; the mediawiki extension says basically the same thing but I found it to be a bit obtuse codewise (which is why I didn't use it).
I've applied to Project Wonderful for an invite (saw the links off of Overcompensating), but haven't heard back from them.--Jorm 11:29, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

X:00

The X:00 page has been heavily updated to reflect that X:00 is rolling into a new "active test phase". If you have a zombie you can use in Riddleybank, please join in. There will be some metagaming involved (obviously, otherwise you would not get this message) but it will be for the purpose of testing in-game methods of attack coordination. All required communication can be done through the wiki. If interested, please also visit and use the X:00 User Registration page. --Swiers ^X:00 18:59, 2 February 2007 (UTC)

Zerging

Does one get the Zerg flag if someone who at some point shared an IP with them is in the same square, or if someone who currently shares an IP with them is in the same square? I am at a hotel, and we both wanted to play some UD. I just want to make sure we won't get in trouble if we turn up in the same square after we leave. --Ev933n / Talk _PPGC 13:25, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

I asked Kevan a similar question a few months ago. The answer is...you will (and might) get in trouble. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 23:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is some interesting... well... ZERG FAQ...

Criterion 13 - Speedy Deletion of Copyrighted Images

Care to look it over? I'd say it's ready to go. --Akule ^{Akule News.} 18:20, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Ransack? You?

Did you Ransack Stickling with Bub Kevan? I checked the profile, and it was you!--Gage 00:08, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Mrh? Kevan ransacks Stickling?

Yeah, that was me. Just happened to log in when the last few survivors were being mopped up, and Bub got to the ransack before anyone else. Barhah. --Kevan 00:11, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

You aren't saying it right man. ALLCAPS ALWAYS. Like this... BARHAH!!!! Great show Kevan!--Gage 00:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Now that's a pleasing message. Go Kevan! Robert McFarlane 00:17, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

That made my day. BARHAH! --Mayor Fitting 00:18, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Hahah! Nice work Zambah! Graaaagh! Xyu 00:18, 23 February 2007 (GMT)

[And now a message from our brain-impaired survivors] Oh well, at least the mall held out for as long as it did.--Lachryma^☭ 00:23, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

The Militant Order of Barhah approves of Kevan's pronunciation. --Jorm 00:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't the pronunciation I was calling into question, it was the VIGOR!--Gage 00:40, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

He's the oldest zed in Malton history, cut him some slack, back in his day, he had enough barhah it wasn't just ALL CAPS, it was ALL CAPS IN BOLD. Serious though, this is awesome. :D Great to see Bub there Kevan. Maybe we'll see you swing by from time to time at other tour sites.--Bassander 01:02, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Its always a pleasure to see bub fighting with us... i hope you dont mind the friendly bite/claw. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 01:45, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Very nice to see. And the time it happened at also psyched me: practically 0:00, which is now a 20+ strong group! We could use a zed like you- again. --S.Wiers ^X:00 02:49, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

ZOMG. I'm in that picture! (I'm Itakura) Heh. You're so lucky to get a ransack of that Mall, Kevan. I missed out on the NW corner by mere seconds (and I hit the IP limit, too) --Heiki 11:35, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Christmas Tree Dead Pool

With the above contest up and running, I have a "serious" interest in the stats page. Is there some way I could be alerted if the Christmas Trees stat EVER drops below to zero, even just temporarily? Please? --S.Wiers ^X:00_{x-mas tree dead pool} 00:00, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

You want to know if there is a negative amount of christmas trees in Malton? Are you kidding me? I've never actually had a negative amount of anything... besides money I guess.--Gage

Very funny. Original post edited. No, I need to know if the number of Christmas Trees drops TO zero. It is possible it could drop to zero and then go back up to greater than zero, without anybody noticing, and that's what I'd like to avoid. S.Wiers ^X:00_{x-mas tree dead pool} 15:20, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Sounds like fun. The stats are only measured hourly, so it won't show up if someone replaces the final tree quickly enough, but here you go. --Kevan 18:18, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

Wow, thanks! That is perfect. And if somebody replaces it quickly enough that the stats don't ever show zero tree's, more power to them, I say! S.Wiers ^X:00_{x-mas tree dead pool} 23:56, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

You got mentioned in this video..

I saw this mentioned on another forum. If you check out this video, you will see that the zombie that gets hit by the car is wearing an Urban Dead shirt, and they say thanks to Kevan Davis in the credits. Just thought you'd like to know.--Gage 05:52, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, yes, I'd seen it - they'd asked permission to use the logo, when they were making it. --Kevan 12:48, 2 April 2007 (BST)

A/BP

There is a discussion which requires your attention, it's about assigning a new Bureaucrat since Xoid has stated that he does not intend to be active any more. We wish to hear your thoughts on the matter, thanks for your time. - Jedaz^{?T MC ?D GIS S!} 02:20, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

The James Earl Jones Awards

	The Best of the Best
	Kevan has won The Best of the Best Award.

Alt Abuse?

think you might want to check these guys out... just found 5 of them all created the same day, all in the same place. seems very odd to me! http://urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=804383 http://urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=804381 http://urbandead.com/profile.cgi?id=804381 --Honestmistake 00:33, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Please read the FAQ. --Kevan 11:26, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Would it be possible...

For you to update the wiki to the latest Mediawiki version? 1.9.3 is the current version, and it includes some cool features in it that I'd like to see here. Jorm runs it on the NW wiki, and I'm sure it includes fixes to many of the bugs we've experienced of late.--Gage 03:56, 30 March 2007 (BST)

Done. Although a few things have broken during the transition - images and custom namespaces. I search and find a fire extinguisher, hopefully it'll all be back to normal shortly, but let me know if anything else has broken. --Kevan 17:11, 30 March 2007 (BST)

And okay, there are weird ugly [edit] links at the tops of sections, and no pushbutton shortcuts on edit windows. Anything else? --Kevan 17:13, 30 March 2007 (BST)

Thanks for updating! I really appreciate it.

Oh god, kill the fugly edit links. KIIILLLL IT! Other than that, I don't see much else. I'll tell you here if I find anything.--Gage 17:23, 30 March 2007 (BST)

Namespaces should all be fine, now - MediaWiki's just doing its gradual propagation thing, so you might see some redlinks for a while. Am currently copying masses of images around, will look at the edit links and shortcut buttons after that. --Kevan 17:27, 30 March 2007 (BST)

And everything seems fine now apart from the edit toolbar not appearing. Seems to be a skin thing (it's there in Monobook), but I'm still digging to work out why it's not appearing in the default skin. --Kevan 18:05, 30 March 2007 (BST)

I can't tell you how nice Username Blacklist would be.--Gage 08:56, 30 March 2007 (BST)

Hi, how many searches did it take to find the fire extinguisher? ;) Anyway, it looks like the whole Administration section got messed up. The text is still there, but it won't remain on the page when saved. --^T 17:26, 30 March 2007 (BST)

Hey, it's fixed! Good job! --^T 17:34, 30 March 2007 (BST)

If I dug up a list of extensions that I think would be helpful, would you consider installing them? I like the looks of Keep Your Hands To Yourself and Nuke.--Gage 18:59, 30 March 2007 (BST)

"Keep Your Hands To Yourself" would definitely be helpful here but would require me give up my user page 2.0... But hé we all must make sacrifices.--Vista 20:05, 30 March 2007 (BST)

You could easily direct guys to edit a template that your userpage includes, so they will be able to edit said template with their comments without much trouble.

Also, I don't know if it's happening to everyone but after the upgrade my "[edit]" tag has been moved to the left of every section, and with the same size that everything else on the section's header. It looks gruesome. I didn't change the default skin and I'm using Firefox. Could you please fix it? --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 03:52, 31 March 2007 (BST)

There were some CSS changes between MediaWiki versions; you've got the old one cached. Shift-reload, and all should be well. --Kevan 10:07, 31 March 2007 (BST)

While we're at it Rename User might be helpful.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 01:37, 31 March 2007 (BST)

I just wanted to check when users will be able to upload images to the server again. As while the image links appear to have been fixed I do still get a "not writable by the webserver" message when visiting the Upload wikipage. I was hoping to get back to work on location wikipages in the NE Corner, but there's no rush. --Mobius187 March 30 2007, 7:23 PM (EST)

That's because the images directory isn't chmodded to be writable. I expect Kevan will probably fix that soon.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 01:38, 31 March 2007 (BST)

Got it. --Kevan 10:07, 31 March 2007 (BST)

The buttons at the top of the Edit screen are (Still) gone.--Labine50 ^MH|^ME|^TNT'07 05:16, 2 April 2007 (BST)

It appears that whenever a checkuser is performed, the event is not entered into the log. How are the edit screen buttons coming along, btw? --^T 06:53, 2 April 2007 (BST)

I've noticed that CheckUser thing as well. I also can't access the log. --Hubrid Nox ^{Sys WTF U! B!} 07:32, 2 April 2007 (BST)

Nice, it works now. No offense, but you might want to make another talk archive, this page is getting pretty long. --^T 01:18, 3 April 2007 (BST)

You may want to put that internal limiter on templates back into the wikis parser (or wherever you placed it before). Otherwise, well it'ld be a vandals field day, and a slight pain in the neck for sysops. Calling a template 4000+ times is not good for the server IMO - Jedaz^{?T MC ?D GIS S! 10:19, 2 April 2007 (GMT)} 11:19, 2 April 2007 (BST)

It looks like the whole MAX_INCLUDE_REPEAT thing has disappeared, in v1.9.3. Not sure if they've just moved it into a better configuration setting, or optimised the inclusion system to stop this sort of thing being a problem for the server; I'll dig around. --Kevan 11:41, 2 April 2007 (BST)

Okay, have found it, they've actually got it in a proper config setting these days. I've put in a page size limit of 200k, which should be more than enough for normal use. Thanks for the heads up. --Kevan 12:07, 2 April 2007 (BST)

No worries, however I've found that with archiving suggestions and it's talk page that that a few of the archives go over 200kb. A few examples can be found on the short pages list towards the end. I would personaly recomend 300KB to cover most situations, of course we don't need to as the suggestions archives could always be split up. Your thoughts? - Jedaz^{?T MC ?D GIS S! 11:34, 2 April 2007 (GMT)}

I suppose there's not much difference. 300k it is. --Kevan 12:44, 2 April 2007 (BST)

Why didn't you use the Special:Longpages?--Vista 13:20, 2 April 2007 (BST)

Because short pages was the first one I noticed on the special pages that could fulfil my requirements. They both work equaly well anyway IMO, plus I like to be different. =P - Jedaz^{?T MC ?D GIS S! 12:42, 2 April 2007 (GMT)}

When will we get the edit bar back again? It's not showing up when I edit the wiki, and I've been using several computers. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:05, 3 April 2007 (BST)

yay, back.. and also thanks for sorting out the error with the watchlist that sometimes showed up. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 01:26, 5 April 2007 (BST)

We're having some trouble with the Keep Your Hands To Yourself extension that got added. The suburb danger reports and the building and mall information centers go under User:DangerReport and since those are user pages, non-sysops can't edit them. Can you, like, un-check those pages from a list, or is the problem bigger than that? --^T 04:56, 6 April 2007 (BST)

Why the hell were those placed in the user namespace anyway?--Gage 05:07, 6 April 2007 (BST)

I don't know. You might want to ask Kenny Matthews and Hagnat, their names frequent the pages' histories. That brings up another question: can I use the word "frequent" in that manner? --^T 05:18, 6 April 2007 (BST)

Of course you can. In fact, User:DangerReport is Hagnat's sock puppet.--Thari ^{TжFedCom is BFI!} 05:22, 6 April 2007 (BST)

There's no list, it's all or nothing. I've removed the extension; let me know if and when it should be re-enabled. --Kevan 10:23, 6 April 2007 (BST)

I know this isn't directly related to the upgrade but could you look at [[7th Fallschirmj%E4ger Div]] and [[Fant%F4me Tequila De Serpents]]. They are both deleted pages but they keep showing up on Special:Uncategorizedpages along with [[1]] and /b/. I've done some poking around and they seem to be related to this. Thanks Vantar 21:22, 15 April 2007 (BST)

With Apologies

I've avoided cluttering your talk page since about three weeks after the wiki went up, but my character seems to be experiencing a bizarre bug that only affects him - I reported it as Unable to Barricade on the Bug Reports page, but it seems he can't barricade or use a first-aid kit in that location only (and it's his hangout). Any assistance you could lend would be most appreciated. --otherlleft ^W! 18:27, 15 April 2007 (BST)

Thanks for your input. I admit I don't know a whole lot about the abuse checks (and really shouldn't), but I added more details because I'm not convinced I was flagged. --otherlleft ^W! 21:49, 16 April 2007 (BST)

Zerges

My zombie alt ran into this and this inside the Axtence NT Building in Osmondville. The names looked a little similar and I got suspicious, so I'm just reporting it to you. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 13:23, 18 April 2007 (BST)

Please read the FAQ. --Kevan 13:25, 18 April 2007 (BST)

I didn't see that...OK then...I'll just put 'em on my "To PK" list. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 02:08, 19 April 2007 (BST)

Just wondering...

Is it possible to be over-encumbered? I want to make sure it's possible before I file this as a bug. --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 12:43, 20 April 2007 (BST)

Please read the FAQ. A detailed and peer-reviewable bug report is more useful than a brief and ambiguous question on my talk page. --Kevan 13:18, 20 April 2007 (BST)

Stats

I've been maintaining the Survivor-Zombie Imbalance page on an unofficial and irregular basis, and I've taken quite an interest in tracking the game's stats. Therefore, I've taken a bit of an interest in starting my own Stats Tracker project (similar to this one, but w/o the fancy trend analysis). However, due to my own laziness, forgetfulness, and / or absence, I've found it very difficult to monitor them very closely for any prolonged period of time.

Anyway, seeing that you were kind enough to create a Christmas tree log for the Christmas Tree Dead Pool, I'd like to request a log that provides a similar function for the stats page in general. In particular, I would like to request a log that records the stats in the "City of Malton" section (total active, survivors, zombies, dead / revivifying bodies, etc.) on a daily basis at midnight GMT, and additionally records the Class Breakdown statistics on midnight GMT of every Saturday. The page will serve merely as a "collection point" for raw data; I'll take care of most of the spreadsheeting, graphing, etc. myself on a "Statistics Tracker" page on the Wiki.

I can, of course, understand if you have neither the time or the interest for such an undertaking, but I thought it might be prudent to contact you about such a matter. Thanks for your consideration. --Specialist290^♠ 20:59, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

It would not be unduely difficult for a small group dedicated to this task to simpely save the HTML file of the stats page every day at some point between 00:00 and 00:59 GMT. I'd be willing to join such a group. We could form a Yahoo group and save all the files there, as well as using the groups email listserv for communications. Google also has a shared files system, I think, as may many other sites now. Hell, we could just cut an paste the text onto a wiki page- lets do that, eh? I'll create a wiki group called "UD Statistics" and we can hash out how to do this stuff there, OK? --Seb Wiers^ctdp_Imagine 00:03, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Here you go - a CSV file of the basic stats, updated hourly. --Kevan 16:24, 22 April 2007 (BST)

Thanks Kevan. @Swiers: Sounds like an idea. The more people we have working on this thing, the better, I say. Unfortunately I don't have a Yahoo account, but still, you have a good idea. --Specialist290 ♠♥♣♦ 20:55, 22 April 2007 (BST)

I've been saving the stats page hourly(with a few misses when my computer wasn't online) since march 18th. I was going to post it soon, but I guess now seems like the time Hourly and daily. notice for the daily that the proper time for daily counts changed from :00 to :23 at some point. I'll update this file every couple of days. I'm also creating group counts and level counts if anyone wants them. --Tekgo 22:40, 22 April 2007 (BST)

I think the change can be explained by the fact that 23:00 BST = 0:00 GMT, and UD goes by British time (which runs on GMT except during summer). --Specialist290 ♠♥♣♦ 03:51, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Thanks for the explanation, makes sense. Anyway, I've added files for all the level data, and renamed the files for the basic info. All the links are on my user page if anyone wants them, I'll add a file for group numbers too, once I decide how to format it. If you folks need anything else, or go ahead and form a group just leave a note on my talk page, I really don't feel comfortable filling up kevan's page. --Tekgo 08:03, 23 April 2007 (BST)

Recent Changes

Kevan, I would like to bring to your attention some info I have been collecting for a while now. By the looks of the Recent Changes, you have been continually nerfing survivors while at the same time either giving zombies a boost or giving survivors some useless little plaything to catch our attentions (Ex. Encumberance? Whats tha- Oh look! We can now get pretty museum stuff!) Why, Kevan, Why? When will you give survivors a real boost? I looked at all the changes over the past 7 months and guess what I saw? I saw 2 survivor boosts, 8 neutral changes, and 4 zombie boosts/survivor nerfs. Why? In fact, all the survivor boosts are purely flavor items/changes! While the zombie ones and survivor nerfs are damaging to us, such as Encumberance. In conclusion, can you please tell me, when will the survivor boosts start coming? Or the zombie nerfs? You have been giving zombies skills like Ransack and Feeding Drag while we must play with our Binoculars and Paintings. So, I hope you respond to this, and if anyone else responds to this, please do so in a "Civilized" manner, I want this to be a discussion, not a flame war.--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 21:35, 20 April 2007 (BST)

Good luck getting civilized responses. Cluttering up his talk page with complaints about how he's running the game is bound to irk people that are rarely civilized in the first place. Good luck, though. --otherlleft ^W! 02:56, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Well, I just want to submit that I just found these changes, and I really like them. Besides from the fact that it allows password changes, which I had asked for, I like the website option, find the flare/groan/radio options to help unclog my return to the game each day, and think that the new benefit to survivors on searching is a pretty big deal. It will greatly make searching easier, especially for vital items like syringes, FAKs, and ammo. --Luigi Galleani ^{M(A)C | M(A)F} 03:13, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Oh, FFS, keep whining, will ya? ::)--Gage 03:23, 21 April 2007 (BST)

This last update was good. No more newspapers, GPS units, or DNA extractors for me! And the cool thing about the change is that it didn't buff or nerf either side, it just makes the game more fun because now I don't have to waste my time dropping stuff. That being said, my favorite update was none other than the binoculars. Those things rock. Maybe not as much as chainsaws would, but hey, I'll take what I can get. --Uncle Bill 04:43, 21 April 2007 (BST)

Ya... I guess I should at least stand by and see what Kevan gives out next. But I still am wishing it to the Prisons suggestion!--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 13:52, 21 April 2007 (BST)

If you want a discussion about one side being "continually nerfed" while the other gets all the good stuff, I'd recommend picking a random forum and starting a thread about it. Remember that the news page doesn't list every single game change, though, if that's all that you're basing this on. --Kevan 16:00, 22 April 2007 (BST)

A look on the stats page shows 22 people On Strike....yet again... --•▬ ▬••▬ • •••• •▬ ▬•▬• ▬•▬ ^{#nerftemplatedsigs} 15:32, 22 April 2007 (BST)

Only zombies are allowed to whine in this game! Get with the program! --Daranz^{.t.mod janitor.W(M)^∞.} 15:36, 22 April 2007 (BST)

i'm a newb. who's taken some interest in this game. and learned, at least through reading wikis, etc., a lot of the history and controversies, etc. i have a few thoughts on it all... let's face it, the zombies have the upper hand right now. they are organised and lethal, and when one of the larger hordes comes knocking, there really isn't anything to do but prolong the inevitable. time and time again we see it. zombies are powerful, and though they're harder to play in some ways, they're also easier to play in many other ways. the life of a zed is pretty simple: smash 'n' eat. no need for ammo or syringes or barricades... because of this, zambah organisation is logistically a lot easier, IMO. a little organisation goes a long way; a lot of organisation makes them pretty dominant...

then there's zerging... it really IS easy to zerg with a zed, and sadly i think it's a lot more common than anyone wants to admit. i believe the zombie leaders when they say they oppose it, but i think it happens anyway... this is just a hunch... but...

not to take anything away from the zambah'z acheivements... congrats, you've done awesome!

that being said, i don't think survivors have it all that bad, really. and i play mostly suvivor characters, so far... i think they deserve a few small tweaks, but nothing major. i think 75% of the problem with the survivor side is their fractiousness and factionalism. the human side as a whole needs to get a lot smarter and a lot more organised, though in different ways than zambahz organise. the organisation needs to be decentralised and local, but communicating and cooperating when needed on a large scale. it needs to take into account TRP clusters (but not on the over-reaching scale of the SSZ). and start playing smart. and if you want to win, play to win!! i do not i agree with everything they say, but HS, they have some very good points... like using combat revives. to hell with them being "cheap" or "unfair," it's part of the game mechanics... zeds and PKers exploit the game mechanics, so should survivors. that's the game. start PLAYING it...

to conclude... kevan, i think you're doing an excellent job, and being as fair as possible to all sides. keep it up. thanks for all the effort you've put into this! --WanYao 09:26, 30 July 2007 (BST)

Talking about 'playing to win', that reminds me of this article. And Combat Revives? They might be AP cheap to use, but they should only be done when you need to clear an NT (and you know that if will be done by you, or people you are working with). That, or you can 'grief' revive newbie zeds who don't have free running in safer suburbs (it's hard for them to find a tall building to jump out of, so will probably have to hang around waiting to be eaten by a zombie). 'arm. 12:21, 30 July 2007 (BST)

Suggestions Changes

Hi, I don't know if you've noticed, but it looks like the wiki is going to change the way it deals with suggestions, moving them to individual pages. It has been suggested to me that it would be a good idea to ask you for a Suggestion namespace, to keep them all together, and to make searching easier -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 01:54, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Looks like a useful overhaul. I've added the namespace. --Kevan 12:14, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Thanks. I hope the changes are easy enough for you to navigate. They'll probably take a bit of settling in, while we iron out unforeseen issues -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 13:26, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Other minor stuff

Just wondering if it would be possible to have the wiki place the {{welcomenewbie}} template on newbies talk pages as they register their account, so that the info is there before they make their first edits (which are usually the ones they stuff up)? -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 01:54, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Off-handedly and with some minor documentation skimming, I'm not sure if it's possible. If you can point me at something that says otherwise, though, I'll take a look. --Kevan 12:19, 25 April 2007 (BST)

The only thing I've heard of is welcome bots, but they seem to take a post or two before "welcoming" by using the list of newbie posts. Thought there might be a way for you to get the wiki software to do it, but I'm no expert on wiki workings. Will keep an eye out for anything though. It is just a minor thing, so no worries -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 13:31, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Also, it seems that the {{CURRENTTIME}} setting is taken on GMT, while the ~~~~~ one is set to BST (eg. CURRENTTIME=00:54 & ~~~~~=01:54, 25 April 2007 (BST)). Could these be synchronised? No great panic, of course :) -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 01:54, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Weird. I'd have thought they'd have taken their timestamp from the same place, but I'll see what I can do. --Kevan 12:19, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Even weirder is that {{CURRENTDAY}} seems to be set at BST, while {{CURRENTTIME}} is GMT, so for the hour after midnight a time using these magic words is 23hrs out (or something... maths, bleah), reading as 23.01 in the future. I just noticed it click over on current days suggestions (at least I think that's what happened, can't really check until the same time tomorrow) -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 01:16, 23 June 2007 (BST)

I'm not exactly sure if that makes sense... damn those timezones. Anyway, it read 23.57 23 June at 0.57 23 June by the timestamps (or something similar) -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 01:21, 23 June 2007 (BST)

Ridleybank

Kevan, I was going to lower the Ridleybank danger level down to moderate because most of the buildings are VS and there are only 70 zeds. BUT I can't, it says its protected. Kevan, I remember when it was lowered to moderate, and rightfully so. But only 1 to 2 days after it lowered, SOMEONE automatically changed it to Red and slapped the (Protected) sign. They didn't even write a reason why it went to Red! Can you please help?--Canuhearmenow ^Hunt! 02:07, 25 April 2007 (BST)

I'm not Kevan, but I'd suggest you take it to Arbitration. Proper channels and all that... --Specialist290 ♠♥♣♦ 02:46, 25 April 2007 (BST)

hi, i am not kevan, but i am the one who protected the page. Why dont you go and talk to those involved in the situation, or go through the proper channels, BEFORE asking Kevan's help ? --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 02:54, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Ow, and BTW, if SOMEONE changed it to red two days after it was lowered... then it was not AUTOMATICALLY... and that SOMEONE cant slap protection signs here, but another SOMEONE can in order to prevent an edit war while asking for the subject to be discussed in the talk page. Next time, read the edit history right. Thank you. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 03:00, 25 April 2007 (BST)

Comannounce

I removed the "wreckage" notice from {{comannounce}}, because I think that all or most of the bugs got worked out. Just letting you know. --^T 01:02, 26 April 2007 (BST)

Phantom pages

Small bug on the wiki that has been driving me crazy for a bit: Special:Uncategorizedpages is listing pages that don't exist as Uncategorized. [[7th Fallschirmj%E4ger Div]], [[Fant%F4me Tequila De Serpents]], [[2]] and /b/ are all deleted pages but they keep showing up on Special:Uncategorizedpages. I've done some poking around and they seem to be related to this. Is there anyway you can get these pages off the Uncategorizedpages list? Thanks - Vantar 11:45, 30 April 2007 (BST)

A Beginners Guide to Urban Dead

I just made this beginners guide. I was hoping to inform the mods and such, because I was hoping to get the word out about it.... --Poodle of doom 18:26, 7 May 2007 (BST)

Article

I picked up a copy of the Honolulu Star Bulletin and noticed UD got a nice blurb in an article on MMOGs. Congratulations on achieving the legitimacy only print media can offer, and expect Hawaiian shirt clad ghouls to be sighted soon. --Zaruthustra^Mod 22:25, 8 May 2007 (BST)

Here's a link. --Darth Sensitive ^W! 23:12, 8 May 2007 (BST)

Welcoming advice

I saw that you have been asked if newbies could automatically be greeted with some kind of instructing message before they start editing. A long time ago, I proposed MediaWiki:Welcomecreation as a candidate where said greeting could be placed for every newbie to see, but as it is a quite important page the wiki doesn't let me edit it, and maybe not even Sysops can. Maybe with the page in mind you can figure out something to adress Boxy's request? --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 06:57, 14 May 2007 (BST)

You little beauty, that's what I was looking for. Found system messages a few days ago, and was looking through it for just that page (just didn't get to it, and got distracted elsewhere and didn't get back to it). Now we've just got to decide if we want a welcome message for newbies. In looking around for ways to do this, I came upon a few discussions where people arn't all that impressed with having automated messages sent to newbies (not personal enough). Anyway, it should be discussed... where's the best place for that, I don't think it's worth a policy discussion itself, at this stage at least -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 09:01, 14 May 2007 (BST)

If you ask me, that's a "only show once" page, so the message should be really brief. An extremely shortened version of the eye catching {{Welcomenewbie}} template, resuming how to sign properly and maybe other really basic stuff should be enough, with a link to the more complete template and the Help. If you want the whole {{Welcomenewbie}} template to be shown, a bot including it on every newbie's talk page should work better, as it's too long to be shown only once with any grade of effectivity. --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 09:35, 14 May 2007 (BST)

I've moved the discussion to the project welcome talk page -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 12:05, 14 May 2007 (BST)

I/Witness- opinion & legalities

Before I invest much time (and potentially some cash, in terms of web hosting) into this project, I have a few questions for you:

1. Do you have a problem with the concept in terms of how it might affect game play?
2. Do you see any technical problems this might cause for the UD server? (I can't see how, unless maybe I made tons of calls to character profiles; at this point I have no such plans.)
3. Do you have any problem with the fact that the site would store and re-post text that (I assume) you wrote? (By "problem", I mean in the legal, copyright sense.)
4. Do you have any other restrictions or policies regarding the use of the Urban Dead name? For example, the domain name "urbandead.info" is not taken, and would be a nice one to host this project, as that is what it is all about- info from and about Urban Dead.

--Seb_Wiers VeM 00:50, 22 May 2007 (BST)

No, no problems with any of that. Sounds like a useful project. --Kevan 11:41, 22 May 2007 (BST)

A pointless request

Hi Kevan, :) I was wondering if you could add Kilts to the list of clothing available ingame? I know it seems quite trivial with Skirts already being present but just purely because I'm Scottish and I think Kilts are ace. Please? -- Cheeseman ^W!ASBTalk 20:51, 3 June 2007 (BST)

If anybody wants to set up a dedicated suggestions page for new clothing types, I'd be happy to consider the most popular requests. --Kevan 13:27, 4 June 2007 (BST)

Sounds good. :P I'll get on that right away. -- Cheeseman ^W!ASBTalk 22:45, 4 June 2007 (BST)

Here it is. :) Does that look ok? I've added a link on the main Suggestions Page as well. -- Cheeseman ^W!ASBTalk 23:13, 4 June 2007 (BST)

External links

Hey, I noted that you added a new feature to the wiki that asks confirmation (in the form of typing something that is either on screen or in some audio clip) every time a user adds external links into his edits. It's a cool feature, but is there a way to make it appear only when you add more than a certain number of external links on an edit? It's making really dificult to revert and report vandal edits, and I don't know how many things more that I don't do but others do. Thanks! --Matthew Fahrenheit ^YRC☺T☺+1 00:43, 8 June 2007 (BST)

It was primarily to stop spambots from getting in (it's also part of the signup process now); I hadn't realised that adding URLs was that common. There's no config setting to fine-tune it, but I can just stop it from challenging added URLs, and might as well, given that the wiki's locked to registered users anyway. --Kevan 00:55, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Interesting, just wondering how did you add the CAPTCHA?--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 10:40, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Recaptcha has plugins for a lot of blog and wiki platforms, including MediaWiki. (And it's a great system; it's the other side of an OCR project, so when users are entering captchas, they're also helping a computer to read blurry words it couldn't interpret by itself.) --Kevan 11:08, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Thanks a lot. That's actually going to be really helpful, as it solves the problem of how to implement capture into one of my projects.--The General ^{T Sys U! P! F!} 16:27, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Help, help, we are being repressed! (by adbots) Captchas! we need captchas! Did you disabled them ? --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 21:44, 10 June 2007 (BST)

I disabled the captcha for adding URLs to a page, but there's still one when a user first signs up to the wiki. Either these were sleeper accounts, or they have a friendly human that logs in for them (in which case asking for another captcha before they insert the URLs isn't going to help, if they're all single-use accounts). I'll have a dig around for ways to block obviously-ridiculous URL insertions, though. --Kevan 00:28, 11 June 2007 (BST)

It looks as if at least some of them are old accounts; it's possible that the others are sleeper accounts which either failed to post any spam, or decided against it, when they first registered. Maybe the page-blanking spam will stop once we've banned all the existing bots. --Kevan 09:45, 12 June 2007 (BST)

I just went through all the A's in the user list, there were about 20 spam accounts (6 letter names, with the first and 4th letter capitalised), only one of which had been used for vandalism. So yeah, looks like sleepers -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 03:51, 14 June 2007 (BST)

A New Malton

How can we, the community, help you out with new / renamed locations? Do you need names, places without much history? More canonical background information on Malton (ie demographics, main industries, GDP, etc.) to help formulate the look and feel of locations? One way I thought of one way making the malls a little different without renaming would be to adjust the avaialble clothes. More expensive = upmarket, rich neigbourhood. Whatever. Just typing whatever comes into my head at the moment. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 07:15, 8 June 2007 (BST)

A general discussion would be useful, to see what problems and issues people would actually have if we started renaming and changing existing buildings, and what could be done to prevent that. But making the suburbs more distinct through building descriptions and available clothing would be a good step to take, without risking anything - I know some suburb pages have already demographic details, and if people want to work together to assemble a coherent social map of the whole city, I'd definitely use the resulting data.

I have actually been toying with some sort of in-game, high-level 'demolition' and 'building repair' mechanisms, that would let players remove an empty building from the map (perhaps with a week-long "fuse" that anyone visiting the building could veto) and later replace it with a different building; thematically they'd be damaging one building enough to make it unusable, and heavily patching up a previously-derelict building in the same block. It'd need some careful checks and balances to prevent abuse, though. --Kevan 11:25, 8 June 2007 (BST)

How would that work? Would the building be replaced with a similar building or a completely different building. And what about multiblock complexes like Malls, Museums, or Forts?--karek 11:31, 8 June 2007 (BST)

I was thinking a completely different building, probably with a ban on demolishing or uncovering any large buildings. --Kevan 11:34, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Wouldn't that result in players terraforming suburbs to get more resource buildings?--karek 11:37, 8 June 2007 (BST)

This is why I mentioned "careful checks and balances to prevent abuse", and limits on certain resource buildings would probably be part of that. --Kevan 11:43, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Sounds like an awesome idea, Kevan. A way of changing the map in-game. Hmmm, this might breathe some life into the outer suburbs in the corners of the map. Still, I'd favour firstly going for a clothes and prefix change to make the suburbs more distinct. Then, move on from there. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 11:54, 8 June 2007 (BST)

It would be possible to creat old urban centers, partial moats, ruins, etc. -- Vista  +1  14:02, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Oh man, Vista that sounds awesome. I totally forgot about medieval architecture and town layout! Nice one... --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 14:14, 8 June 2007 (BST)

Sounds like it'd put a lot of new breath into the game. maybe with it we could fineally add more exibits to the zoo!--'BP^Tmz 09:13, 9 June 2007 (BST)

And Prisons! And a univesity! And a river! And a big, City Park! And a (insert extremely popular building suggestion here). --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:09, 9 June 2007 (BST)

Interesting. It would really mess with static maps, so I guess I'd better work harder on getting I/witness running.  ;) This might be a nice way to introduce buildings that can't be free-runned into or out of (they are isolated in the center of a lot, or have similarly unusual architecture) as well. Which could be cool, as long as people could see which nearby buildings were and were not free-run accessable. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 15:16, 9 June 2007 (BST)

Password Changes?

I was just wondering what was up with the password changing options under settings, and if they were coming back online soon?--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 00:16, 12 June 2007 (BST)

There were some erratic and complicated script-level problems with it, which I wasn't able to completely resolve - I've pushed it onto a back burner in favour of actual, game-affecting updates, but will get back to it at some point. --Kevan 09:23, 12 June 2007 (BST)

Melee Weapons page

Could you please provide the info for the Headbutt section? Thanks. --User:Axe27/Sig 20:44, 17 June 2007 (BST)

Congrats, question

Firstly, congrats on your mention in that Yahoo article. I hope the traffic doesn't break the server, or your bank book.

Secondly, I'm still working on iwitness (this seem the fastest spot to get a response on thse isseus) and I testing showed me that the regex I use to grab character names from the HTML is missing a few. I figured all names would take the form "\w+" but then I realized they can have spaces and maybe some other things, so changed it to "[a-zA-Z0-9._%+- ]+". Are there any characters in there a name can't have, or any more I should include which they CAN have? ... 19:29, 18 June 2007 (BST)

For a given line, (<a href="profile.cgi?id=12345" class="f3">DudeName</a>), you want:

 my ($profileID, $contactClass, $name) ~= m/\<a href=\"profile.cgi\?(.*?)\" class\=\"(.*?)\">(.*?)\<\/a\>/;

which will fill the unique elements for you.--Jorm 21:17, 18 June 2007 (BST)

I do appreciate the attempt at efficient code- grabbing the ID# (and contact class) is a nice touch if I go about parsing out who appears in each scene.
However, I'm writing in php, and its my first time coding in anything other then old-school basic or HTML/javascript. I'm taking baby steps right now.
All I wanted was the name of the character who is actively being played, for a given HTML file from urbandead.com/map.cgi. The method I was using to gret that character's name was just to grab the first bit of text that is between "" and "" on the page. Dumb, but it works, assuming I know what text can and can't be there. It already works for all my characters, but for all I know there may be somebody named "£_*^StÄrsky&Hutch^*_¥" or some such. Though my guess is UD only allows alphanumerics and normal blank spaces. 23:45, 18 June 2007 (BST)

I would avoid seeking for < b >(.*?)< /b > and instead use something more like >< b >(.*?)</ b ></a> - You do know that (.*?) should just get everything you're looking for in between the , right? The only caveat would be if someone named their dood with "" in the name.--Jorm 00:19, 19 June 2007 (BST)

(Edit: spaces added to foil wikimarkup.)--Jorm 00:20, 19 June 2007 (BST)

For the sake of 8000+ newbies

I urge Kevan to rush Suggestion:20070619 Zombie Skills categories : Body and Brain to implementation, so that these poor sods (almost all of them created as survivors) can actually do something when they die. 12:55, 19 June 2007 (BST)

Sheesh, don't spam the mans page, promoting your suggestions -- boxy ^{T L ZS Nuts2U DA} 14:08, 19 June 2007 (BST)

I'm not spamming; I'm drawing useful attention to it because there is a time sensitive issue at stake. If it takes two weeks to get processed for voting, and then even longer to be implemented, it would be far to late to really have the benefit I expect it could have if implemented before this population boom dies off. 14:22, 19 June 2007 (BST)

I think we all managed just fine, especially those of us who were around during the previous headshot.--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 17:47, 19 June 2007 (BST)

I agree - why should your suggestion, as good as it might be for the newbs, have special treatment and be implemented ahead of everyone else's? Wait in the queue Swiers, now serving #238. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 00:33, 20 June 2007 (BST)

Kevan doesn't have a queue based on peer reviewed. As far as I know he implements what he likes when he likes. I remember saying him that he mainly uses the suggestion system to check for potentional abuses. peer reviewed/undecided/rejected is simply for our own wikiw*nkery fun. It's one of the reasons why I argued we shouldn't use it for the clothes pages. it rased the suggestion that there is a queue. Instead it's probably just Kevan doing what he thinks best. But he really should speak forhimself more in these matters that way we can use systems better suited to the development of the game.-- Vista  +1  10:50, 23 June 2007 (BST)

Party hats

could you allow zombies to choose to wear party hats ? I know several of us would love to wear them :D --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 02:34, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Okay - there's now a button for zombies, when they're standing inside a club. --Kevan 14:57, 4 July 2007 (BST)

thank you. My rotter is now proudly wearing a party hat. Happy bday UrbanDead :D --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 15:22, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Sweet. Hope that lasts long enough for me to get one for ZMAZH. A brown rag and a party hat... that's all you need, babay! _. ^. _{. swiers} 17:25, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Clothes

Apparently you only implemented brown and black leather coats. Is there a reason why you do not have red ones, just the same as there are only black leather pants? --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 02:56, 4 July 2007 (BST)

One other query about clothing is something you have mentioned about flak jackets :...Flak jackets still work as before, and will be folded into the new system later... Does this mean that they will become wearable items of clothing if you have them in your inventory? --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:17, 14 July 2007 (BST)

MediaWiki:Sidebar

well, you are the boss, but i think that you could atleast have kept Current Events there. I believe that with some tweaking on its guidelines and some crawling in the wiki history to complete the page with all past events, it might be a really useful place for people to annouce events ocurring in-game and wiki-game. Have you heard of Biertag ? If this event was announced in this page it would probably be a lot funnier than it already will be. --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 17:57, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Ah, okay, afraid I didn't check its talk page; it just seemed a bit sparse and unmoderated, with nothing but two incoherent Fort Creedy posts in the last six months. Feel free to tidy it up and add it back. --Kevan 18:06, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Thanks man

thanks for fixing that mess I made :). I owe you one The man 10:44, 18 August 2007 (BST)

New game Updates

Hey Kevan, What's with all these new updates to the game that essentially give Zack a much greater upper hand? Becuase of the Ruin ability, The Great Northwest'll probably turn into another Ridleybank. I though survivors were supposed to have the upper hand, and Zack was supposed to have to band together to stand any chance of supremacy. Please, bring something in to counter Ruin, something to really dissuade the Zed Heads from attacking.--The-Not-So-Late Stuartbman The Third ^{MBE OBE} 23:12, 24 August 2007 (BST)

HAHAHAHAHAHA! Survivors are supposed to band together to try and SURVIVE. Zombies are supposed to be unstoppable killing machines. We're supposed to be like this. You're supposed to be like this. Read World War Z, the survivors were never winning the war, they just SURVIVED and held out long enough for most of the zombies to decompose. --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF CoL DORIS CRF pr0n} 23:28, 24 August 2007 (BST)

The Northwest was getting smashed before any updates came along, and would be in equally bad shape without them. The "fault" is not with Ruin; if survivors can't reclaim ruined buildings, they would likely fail at reclaiming ransacked ones. The difference is, ruined buildings are more visable and have a "tactile" impact, as they force survivors to adapt their movement habits. Its mainly a psycological update, not a game-balance one.  Swiers 00:44, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Who's Zack? -- Pavluk 01:12, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Star of Saved by the Bell. He was always in control of the situation, and in fact runs the show in Malton.--Insomniac By Choice 05:17, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Director of 300.--Jorm 05:19, 25 August 2007 (BST)

And the Dawn of the Dead remake, come to think of it... ᚱᛁᚹᛖᚾᚨᚾᛏ 08:55, 25 August 2007 (BST)

he's a lego maniac--THE Godfather of Яesensitized, Anime Sucks ^{Yalk | W! U! WMM| CC CPFOAS LOE ZHU | Яezzens} 09:17, 25 August 2007 (BST)

The problem with Malton today is that quite a few zombies are born out of forums, and specifically co-ordinate to eat brainz, whereas survivors have great difficulty working together to save their own necks. Maybe something could be done, like teamwork?--The-Not-So-Late Stuartbman The Third ^{MBE OBE} 14:16, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Wrong. Well, actually... you're right in that way a broken clock tells the right time twice a day. The problem with Malton today is that most survivors are not playing the game. Or not playing it well. Zombies have organised. Zombies are coordinated. Why the hell aren't survivors? I'm sick and tired of hearing survivor players whinging, whinging and then sitting on their arses... And this is coming from a survivor-centric player: 2 of my alts are dedicated survivors, and my zed is feral... The game is VERY well balanced, overall Kevan is going a great job of keeping it fair AND interesting. In fact, if anything, survivors have the advantage -- certainly in terms of communication and organisational potential. Not even mentioning the AP differential... If survivors have difficulty working together, it's their own damn fault. Seriously. And it's frustrating as a survivor-oriented player to see this... Anywaaaaaay... I've flamed... I'm okay now... ;P But seriously -- stop whining and start playing better. --WanYao 16:38, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Well how about this: Me and a few buddies were holed up in a non-descript building, in Yagoton, just after LUE struck. One by one buildings fell, and the survivors moved to this one building (there were about 15 of us). Now, we had pretty good co-ordination, we were all working together, maintaining barricades, and establishing who would be on when. All of a sudden, with out warning, LUE breaks in and eats us all in our sleep. Where's the fairness in that?--The-Not-So-Late Stuartbman The Third ^{MBE OBE} 23:07, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Dude, that has been the nature of the game since day 1. (Actually, day 1 was even worse, as there were no barricades, no doors, and no revives- those all came along a bit or even much later.) Go read up on The Many and then look at all the updates that have happened since that group dissolved, and ask yourself- what really has changed?  Swiers 23:39, 25 August 2007 (BST)

Survivors have the luxury of playing on their own, of ignoring or fighting with other survivor groups, and not changing gameplay to meet new challenges. Instead, you wait for game updates when things turn against you. The survivors that are well-coordinated and innovated in gameplay strategies are very successful, even against large hordes. Look no further than the Dribbling Beavers and Santlerville as a whole.--Insomniac By Choice 23:52, 25 August 2007 (BST)

If you want to improve the survivor side, just start taking skills and passtimes away from them. I shudder to think of the AP wasted by survivors on radio spam, collecting useless artifacts, yapping away in malls, spray painting propaganda on walls, and finding just the right clothes to wear... and yet they forever want more, more, MORE crap to waste their AP on! All the while zombies have nothing much else to do but bash in cades and eat bra!nz. Survivors don't need no more buffs, they need their toys taken away from them The preceding signed comment was added by boxy (talk • contribs) at 00:53 26 August 2007 (BST)

That's a very interesting point there Boxy! Indeed it seems that since all of these things were brought into the game, the survivors are getting their arses kicked. That, and zeds have coordination down to a point. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 01:02, 26 August 2007 (BST)

Seriously though, if LUE and Extinction disappeared, percentages would start to roll back toward survivors pretty quickly. Zombie success is almost always the result of a few groups being very successful while survivor success is much more general. After Mall Tour 07 wound down, survivors arguably never had it better. But LUE started its own mini-Mall Tour and Extinction a bit more quietly took the NW. When the groups at Caiger smashed it and the surrounding area, a lot of people died and maybe still are dead. If Kevan banned everyone with LUE or Extinction in their group profiles, you'd probably see a 60/40 split in survivors' favor within a couple of weeks no matter what else the MOB or RRF was doing at the time. And that's no disrespect to any other zombie groups in Malton, there just aren't enough of them around anymore.--Insomniac By Choice 01:17, 26 August 2007 (BST)

That is very true. Back in late May the split was 63 / 37 toward survivors and Malton featured a grand total of two red suburbs. Santlerville was able to summon one thousand survivors to repel the RRF...why? Perhaps because all those survivors had nothing better to do at the time; their own suburbs were in little danger, after all. The MOB and the RRF, formidable as they are, only comprise about 0.8% of Malton's total population, and there's a limit to the damage they can do. Since LUE debuted things have trended steadily toward a more even split, and NW to central Malton are blood red. This is how it ought to be. In fact, Malton should be even more dangerous...survival in a zombie apocalypse should have a desperate, barely-one-step-ahead feel to it. Anyway, this is an interesting discussion, but I'm wondering if it should be moved off Kevan's talk page.--Jiangyingzi 02:20, 26 August 2007 (BST)

Each of the two forts currently has over 500 high level survivors in it. That's about 10% of Malton's survivor combat power packed in two fairly useless locations in the deep SE and E of the city... and people wonder why the NW has gone entirely red??? Maybe EVERYBODY should move to the forts (and hold only nearby NT's), and give up the rest of the city...  Swiers 02:29, 26 August 2007 (BST)

The problem is that human players insist on attempting to hold territory, rather than falling back on theier immense stealth and movement advantages and underataking a guerilla war on zombies. I actually wrote a guide on how to both survive and fight back (Its in the guides section, you can look fro it there). Fact of the matter is that if humans adopted such a policy, it would be a month, maybe two, before the zombie/survivor ratio swung back all the way to about 35/65 in favour of survivors (before you factor in revivifying bodies and the revive rate to make a decent estimate of the mrh cow population). At presnt, the game is balanced sot that Human Skills + Human stupidity == Zombie Skills + Zombie advanced metagame. This isnt really kevans fault though. If he tipped it too much more the other way at present, the zombies would probably kill almost everyone. Also, id argue that the successes of the zombies, especially in the NW of the city, are due to Extinction sanctioning the use of alts to hold NT building ransack while they rampage with their other zombies, claiming it is excusable because kevan hasnt coded the game to expressly prevent it (Without realising, or more probably, caring that such coding isnt possible). The real reason why humans are on the back foot isnt because the game is unbalanced against them, but because they are playing stupid, and trying to face massive hordes of zombies head on. --The Grimch ^Sysop-U! 11:34, 26 August 2007 (BST)

Also, id argue that the successes of the zombies, especially in the NW of the city, are due to Extinction sanctioning the use of alts to hold NT building ransack.

Perhaps you should read about Extinction before you go making false statements. We do not use alts to hold ransacked NTs. Get your facts straight. We use TACTICS to hold them not alts. If you would like to further about this..perhaps Extinctions talk page...or mine...but not here on Kevans page.

On another note..i agree that survivors simple need to stop wasting there ap and start coordinating together...if its even possible. --Brainz 13:12, 26 August 2007 (BST)

You allow more than one character per player. That's multi-abuse scummery. Until the number of allowed characters in your group per player is exactly "1", you will be the laughing stock of zombiekind, untrusted, and none of your accomplishments will be recognized as being the result of anything except cheating scummery.--Jorm 01:18, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Get Your facts straight Jorm. RRF can have 5 different groups all working together in your little barah community...what is the difference if i only have 1 instead of 5. <<the exact same thing. So don't think you can pull all this alt-abuse bullsh*t on me. We follow Kevans rules...like it or not. Perhaps we should ask Kevan if its against the game to have more then 1 alt in the same group without going within 10 block ratius of eachother. When Kevan says its cheating...then we will seperate them into different groups...even though it would be the same thing as before.--Brainz 11:02, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Um, for starters, while i am slightly out of the loop, given the amount of DEM bashing going on in the RRF irc channel, i think its safe to say that while the RRF may have many subgroups, they are only allowed one character in the whole group. So, if they have a character in the DoHS, they cant have any more characters in any other parts of the RRF. Also, as to your claim that they arent within ten blocks of each other. You are using multiple alts under the same flag to hold a large amount of territory for the benefit of one group. That is abuse, and arguably zerging. It is most definately against the spirit of the game. --The Grimch ^Sysop-U! 11:23, 27 August 2007 (BST)

I'll step in here and mention that it is generally considered a no-no to have more than one character in a group, no matter if it is a sub-section or not. I'd go as far to say that it is zerging. However, the mechanics do make it possible, as long as you are careful to not trip any zerg flags. Therefore I don't think it should be outright banned, just as PKing is frowned upon but allowed. I personally think that it is very bad in spirit of the game, and should not be done (I've encountered zergs trying to hold ransacked NTs). --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 11:12, 27 August 2007 (BST)

That is abuse, and arguably zerging. It is most definately against the spirit of the game. So RRF don't have alts?? in CRF..in GC..?? its in the same community is it not?? working together...aren't they?? ...Tell me this..if i were to seperate Extinction into 4 seperate groups. There all at least 10 blocks away from eachother. How is it any different then having those 4 groups under 1 name?? <<its exactly the same. --Brainz 11:58, 27 August 2007 (BST)

I wouldn't bother trying to explain or use logic with these guys. We've tried and failed for a while; the lights just don't come on, and they keep coming up with new justifications for their cheating scummery. So just leave it; they cheat. We can't talk them out of it. Move on.--Jorm 12:03, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Currently RRF are operating in Molebank, and are helping to devastate the NTs there. The NTs in Molebank are part of the ones Extinction wants ruined, as we see them as a stepping stone to making Caiger Mall active again. This means that RRF are assisting the CRF. Unless you are going to tell me that anyone with an alt in both groups is not using one of those alts, those players are clearly 'meta-collaborating' their characters on EXACTLY the same level that multis in Extinction do.--Brainz 12:08, 27 August 2007 (BST)

"Blah, blah, blah, we totally suck and can't accomplish crap without zerging, here's how it's okay for us to cheat, blah, blah, blah." Done.--Jorm 12:11, 27 August 2007 (BST)

"Blah, blah, blah, i can't accept that im exactly the same as these "zerging" cheaters, blah, blah, blah." Done. --Brainz 12:13, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Way to degenerate a decent arguement guys. I thought this might make a precedent if it continued with some actual evidence instead of hearsay. I stand by the general consensus that more than one character in an organisation is a no-no. Whether it is zerging is up to the rest of the community. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:23, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Check deeper explained discussion here.--Brainz 12:26, 27 August 2007 (BST)

That's all well and good, but doesn't do jack. He sounds like he came to the group a short time ago. Doesn't sound like anyone improtant to me. He does have some valid points, but he would have helped himself immensly by showing some actual evidence. He does not help himself by admitting that they use human alts to spy. Ha, not a new one though! --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 12:30, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Read everything m8..not just the first post. lmao --Brainz 12:47, 27 August 2007 (BST)

...Aaaaand in the thread people are not saying anything different than what us three are chatting about here. lmao. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 20:16, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Probably time to move this to another page unless you'd like to specifically ask Kevan if it's against the "completely separate existences" clause to have characters working as part of the same organization. Otherwise we're just bitching on his page about the same shit we've bitched about everywhere else.--Insomniac By Choice 20:21, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Dux Ducis - Evidence is provided in the Extinction signup thread, linked to in my post. Proof of 100+ individual Extinction members is there. So far everyone has ignored this, and they will continue to. Whether or not I am "important" is irrelevant to the debate, I am non-confrontational and factual, something which this community could do with more of instead of useless comments such as "cheating scummery". Also, I'd like to suggest to any sysops that this debate be removed from Kevan's talk page, this is supposed to be a place for valuable feedback about game design, not petty drama.--Generator killer 22:57, 27 August 2007 (BST)

Ok...wow...Just want to create my own indent pyramid for this. The CRF is in no way working with the RRF. The CRF is in no way working with itself for the matter. The CRF is a feral group, FERAL. It's where you put your zombie alt to just chill and smash cades. We do not coordinate with anyone at all. When LUE trashed the mall all we did was follow their groans. We didn't attack when they did our anything. We are totally seperate from the RRF. RRF - Mobile Horde. CRF - Ferals. --Sonny Corleone ^{RRF DORIS CRF pr0n} 16:53, 28 August 2007 (BST)

inbalance of the game...

Last year the zombies were in the process of brining human kind to its knee's, the cna do the same thing now because now its even harder for humans to fight back... The game is now stupidly tilted into zombie favour, you've actuly well passed making the game fair for either side, now its TO easy for zombies to kill humans, and humans are having to carry more stuff ect, start up the huma nside again, you have to actuly make the game worth being human now.--Darkmagic 23:37, 29 August 2007 (BST)

There's always an inbalance in the game in favour of somebody. It's get dull if it wasn't. Anyway it's only 51%-49% in favour of zombies. Is this realy the place to put your greivances? Maybe if it was 90%-10% then you would have a point.--Seventythree 23:41, 29 August 2007 (BST)

Look at the fing northwest for christs sake, They have to much, we should atleast have some time of equalness, i mean now we have to carry toolboxes, how will that help us in the war to retake the north?--Darkmagic 00:00, 30 August 2007 (BST)

Quit whining Darkmagic, you obviously haven't been playing UD for an extended period of time. The Big Bash, a zombie excursion through Malton, was probably more devastating than what is happening in the NW. Zombies don't hold ground for long (with the exception of Ridleybank), so they will get bored and move on. It won't stay red forever. Heck, it's only been red for the last month or so. Do some reading before making ignorant statements about the balance of the game. Zeds have had it tough for a while now, I think we are just getting balanced. If it were totally balanced, shouldn't the zeds have half the city? --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 00:14, 30 August 2007 (BST)

I quite enjoy playing as a survivor at the moment. Much more entertaining when you genuinely don't know whether you're going to wake up dead or not. (question, how can you wake up dead? Outside UD, of course) Anyway, I don't know how long you've been playing but the game advantages to tend to move backwards and forwards between zombies and survivors. That's how it goes. Wait a while, and survivors will regain the advantage once more. Anyway, I get the feeling that I'm clogging up someone's page a bit at the moment, so i'm going to go now. Good luck with the game!--Seventythree 00:07, 30 August 2007 (BST)

Gather up a group of survivors and go rebuild them. In most places there are only scattered zeds around left standing after the main horde left elsewhere. No one says you have to fight the main horde and leave the buildings to rot. Divide their efforts by going around and rebuilding. --Tumu 00:10, 30 August 2007 (BST)

looks at the fact that my account, cody6 joined in july of last year* long enough. And look at the situation yagoton is in then, we could rebuild if the zeds there wern't determined to keep us out, who says the zeds are gonan be like the flaw of the bash?--Darkmagic 00:15, 30 August 2007 (BST)

........ I don't understand your last sentence.--Seventythree 00:22, 30 August 2007 (BST)

There is no imbalance, hell things probably wouldn't be anywhere near where they are today if LUE didn't exist and join the zombie side.--Karek^maps?! 05:15, 30 August 2007 (BST)

I removed my comment due to too many typos and negative remarks The man 15:00, 30 August 2007 (BST)

Grow the hell up Darkmagic. When the numbers are 77-23 against you, THEN you can call it stupidly imbalanced. Until then, take my advice and change your tactics. If a mall is about to come under attack, you do not say "Stand and fight". You say "Scatter". Read the lovely little guide on how to play smart that i very kindly wrote a week or so ago. You can find it under Guides. Also, to get a more accurate representation of which side is which, subtract the amount of revivifying bodies from the number of zombies. This removes the days mrh cow population when the numbers are relatively stable, as they are now. --The Grimch ^Sysop-U! 15:39, 30 August 2007 (BST)