User talk:Swiers/Aug1Archive

Clubs and Feth

Tell us of this Club Vagg.--Lachryma^☭ 18:58, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Just visit the location page for Club Vagg. BTW, you are the ONLY individual on the guest list; all other VIP status is applied by group. If there is a group you are a member of that you think deserves this status, let the management (OK, that's me) know. _Δ^Δ_{Δ  Swiers}  19:01, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Yeah, I looked at the page, of course. So it's a RP spot, yes? Is anyone actually there? Cuz Eastonwood is a pretty nasty place, as I recall...--Lachryma^☭ 19:07, 31 July 2007 (BST)

It's barricaded, FWIW, and has a past history as an RP safehouse. I just scouted it as a zombie. No idea how much will actually happen there, I just did the page and VIP list for fun. I mostly put you on it because you use a lot of pink and inspired the page design. A lot of the groups I VIPed probably would NOT get along if they all showed up at the same time. _Δ^Δ_{Δ  Swiers}  19:13, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Why thank you, mister. And yeah, I could see some running gun battles there...well, if I ever ditch Ghetto Cow, I'll be sure to stop by! Hanging out with the Gore Corps, if they showed up, would be a lot of fun...--Lachryma^☭ 19:20, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Being as I play one of the Gore Corps, I'd say there's a good chance they will show up at some point. Problem is, they can't exactly advertise their location, yah know? _Δ^Δ_{Δ  Swiers}  19:26, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Y'all did when you went to the Quartly! But yeah, I get your point....--Lachryma^☭ 19:51, 31 July 2007 (BST)

Thank you

I just wanted to thank you and Armareum - who are really the co-authors of the Motion being put to vote now about Non-author REs. Regardless of how the vote turns out, I really respect both of you for your help and critically constructive comments. Thank you so much, and if you need any help on something - feel free to let me know. I put some comments regarding your proposal for Comment Votes, which I think is a great idea. I'm just letting it sit and stir a bit more in case I have anything constructive and critical to say. Cheers! --Ryiis 05:54, 31 July 2007 (BST)

please remove it

this messes the look horribly. i know you're happy with your IW-tool but please stop sticking it here and there! --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 20:47, 28 July 2007 (BST)

A single link below all the other information messes the look horribly? Well, if that is your opinion, it does so for you.
Anyhow, I wrote an alternate template that inserts it, and just needed a good place to test it. Maybe not the best choice, but the test worked, so I can easily remove it / revert to the version before my edit. I've put information about the new template in the places that seemed appropriate, and will let others decide if it is worth using. The intention is to try an provide a link to some objective, provable historical information about the location. _. ^. _{. swiers} 20:53, 28 July 2007 (BST)

here is how it looked. --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 20:57, 28 July 2007 (BST)

Wow, that is prety bad, and certainly not my intention. This is how it looks on my machine, using the latest Firefox update. I don't know why we get shuch different results; all I added is a simple external link at the end of the table in the template. The only reason I put it in the template is that doing so lets me use the co-ords from the location block value to determine the link location- otherwise, each link location would have to be edited by hand. Maybe you could take a look at {{LocationblockIW}} and sort out what the issue is on your machine? _. ^. _{. swiers} 21:12, 28 July 2007 (BST)

The answer is probably different wiki skins. It looks like he is using Monobook and Monobook has a lot of problems if things aren't coded exactly as it wants them.--Karek^maps?! 21:19, 28 July 2007 (BST)

Nope, i've checked - it's "UrbanDead (default)" --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 23:49, 28 July 2007 (BST)

Yup, not a skin issue. I see it perfectly fine using that same skin. That's weird.--Karek^maps?! 09:28, 29 July 2007 (BST)

new version shown at Template_talk:LocationblockIW

Duke, how does the version I put up on the Template_talk:LocationblockIW page look for you? I put the link in its own table, which I suspect should keep it from overlapping other tables. __Swiers___ 16:34, 29 July 2007 (BST)

It's now in it's own table/cell, but it's still at the top... --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 08:05, 30 July 2007 (BST)

How does it look now Duke? I hope you don't mind me changing it on you Swiers. - If Jedaz = 08:46, 30 July 2007 (BST) then pi = 3

now it's looking as intended --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 09:53, 30 July 2007 (BST)

Just curious so this can be avoided in the future. What exactly was causing the problem?--Karek^maps?! 09:54, 30 July 2007 (BST)

Xoob

Are you kidding me? His name was spraypainted on st emelia's wall as DNR along with Dark Balter and Gore Corper, so I eliminated him when I saw him.

No, I'm not kiding you, I'm quite serious. Guess who spraypainted that tag there? Xoob did, because its his job (when dead) to stand at the revive point and make sure the church stays un-barricaded. If he gets revived, he can not do that job. It says this in his profile, both live and dead. Simple, eh? If you get tripped up by a case like that, imagine how an intentionally deceptive PKer can mess with your head.
In any case, DNR is not the same as "its OK to PK", and PKers (and others) put up tags that say all sorts of deceptive things- you might see some that say DNR RAJA soon.
Xoob is not in the RG, so what you did goes directly against DEM policy. The DEM membershp roster indicates you are in the academy, and the academy is where you are supposed to demonstrate your willingness and ability to follow policy. By policy (and even basic RG rules) what you did was straight forward PKing, as Xoob was alive at the time, even if it was not really his wish to be so. DEM doesn't take PKers as members. Hell, with a bounty, they won't even revive you. Be more careful. _. ^. _{. swiers} 07:19, 28 July 2007 (BST)

I apologize. I made a mistake, and I shouldn't have killed Xoob. It won't happen again. --Raja Ram 08:58, 29 July 2007 (BST)

"Target moved away before you could attack them"

I talked to karek about this and he sent me to you. I was wondering why the message says "target moved away" even when a person has actually died. It's very unhelpful during an attack because you often don't know if the person actually escaped or if he was killed. Is there a practical reason for that as karek suggested (that it decreases server load) or would it be an easy problem to solve?--Insomniac By Choice 23:41, 24 July 2007 (BST)

And you are asking me because...? Kevan is the one who wrote the game code; I'm just a self appointed scribe attempting to record his work. I don't even know the guy, much less why he programs things the way he does.
But, if I had to make a guess, I'd say it has to do with the fact that the game is essentially stateless. When you make an attack on something (this also happens with dead radios, iirc) the code likely just checks if you selected a valid target (ie, one that is present in your location and can actually be damaged, which corpses can not be) and gives you that message if there is no valid target; it doesn't check WHY the target is invalid, nor is there truely any way for it to know, because it doesn't keep records of past actions. I've tested this theory by using a simple hack to attack something that never was a valid target in the first place- like, say giving a character ID for which there is no such character. The result is exactly the same.
Solving it would be pretty simple for the specific case that bugs you; if the target is a character and seems invalid, the server could check if the character was in fact a dead body at the location where you were attacking (matching both the block location and inside / outside status). If they were, it could just report "the target has been killed" raher than "the target has moved away". You'd still get the "moved away" message if the target was killed and then dumped outside before you attack went through, but it would eliminate other instances.
That would probably be fodder for a good (if rather technical) suggestion; go ahead and write one up, or I'll do it if you feal its to complex.
_. ^. _{. swiers} 00:25, 25 July 2007 (BST)

I asked you because karek recommended it, and he was indeed right that you knew how to explain it better. And yes, it's totally too complex for me to try to turn into an official suggestion. Thanks for answering the question for me.--Insomniac By Choice 00:48, 25 July 2007 (BST)

Suggestion:Class Differentiation

As Honestmistake pointed out on the page, you've accidentally voted twice - a Kill and a Spam vote. Whoops! 'arm. 20:16, 22 July 2007 (BST)

Fixed. Thanks for the heads-up! _. ^. _{. swiers} 00:40, 25 July 2007 (BST)

Look! a level 3!! heading

We've got about 6 to 8 reasonably active sysops right now which is quite comfortable for a wiki this size. But I think instead of making it a semi-exclusive club we should give people that have shown to be trustworthy users with good judgment the actual status of trustworthy user regardless of current numbers.

So I don't know if you're actually interested in being one, but I'd be willing to nominate you if you'd like.-- Vista  +1  22:32, 9 July 2007 (BST)

Thanks for the consideration, but I'm not sure what I would be willing to do as an "sysop" that I don't already do as an editor. You may have noticed that I am notably absent from certain areas of the wiki- that's by choice and knowledge of my competencies. Truth told, I'm facing burn-out on iwitness / urbandead.info already, so I probably should steer away from more commitments, even if they did play to my strengths. I hope you have contacted others as well- this seems a very good sort of outreach. _. ^. _{. swiers} 22:57, 9 July 2007 (BST)

I've got a view others on the radar screen, but not everybody qualifies yet. And you were most senior. :) -- Vista  +1  23:24, 9 July 2007 (BST)

OOC linkage

A friend just linked me this and this. Something up your router, maybe? The text is all in Japanese, which would be completely over my head anyway, but the pictures are nice :-)
--Penny Black 16:14, 9 July 2007 (BST)

How very steampunk. I'm not personally as nuts on that as some, but in these cases the craftsmanship alone is worth watching. (pun intended) _. ^. _{. swiers} 23:01, 9 July 2007 (BST)

Xoof: I hate you

Okay, I know you're a zombie and it's instinctual to feed on tasty bra!nz. It does piss me off, however, when Urban Dead suddenly has massive lag, and 30 seconds later I'm back to find this as the only indication that I've attracted anyone's attention:

   * A zombie bit into you for 4 damage. (29 seconds ago)
   * You were killed by a zombie. (29 seconds ago)

Freshly revived, I could have sworn I had 30HP just a few seconds ago... At least I'm in a cemetery? :'( Guess it's time to beg a revive again. Le sigh. —Revenant ^talk 14:40, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Xoof loves you

And I'm sure he found you very tastey. I did wonder what a level 12 survivor was doing standing around outside long enough to get eaten, but I don't look gift food in the mouth. If its any consolation, Xoof has never attacked a barricade in his death- all 1859 of his XPs come from folks he found outside like you, plus a small bit of healing he's done when revivied. If you revive him, he might even stay that way- I've got some tagging to do. Thing is, people always kill him for being a "zombie spy". Not unexpected- his living description is the same as the one he has as a zombie.
I do seem to have an unusually good connection- it seems I never get lag of more than 10 seconds unless the site is just plain down. I must be near a trans-Atlantic backbone or something. That report does look buggy though- I KNOW I did a nice long series of claw attacks as well as the bites. That bite kill was a "hail mary" shot- used my last AP. You ALMOST got away.
Yhanks for the iwrecord link! Its always a hoot seeing your actions from the other side of the screen. As you may have found, iwitness doesn't like certain UDtool settings- if you visit forums.urbandead.info, I'm sure somebody who uses UDtool can tell you which ones work OK, if you care. I don't use any extensions right now, because I need "virgin" code samples to base iwitness data extraction off of. _. ^. _{. swiers} 17:15, 4 July 2007 (BST)

Aww, how can I stay mad at a zombie who loves me? I was just frustrated, that's all. I hate cowering inside buildings, but it seems that every time I go the more direct route somewhere, I get lagged and eaten. Last time was near Blackmore, so I suppose I was asking for it... it does make me a bit more happy to know that you only barely killed me. This is the second time in two days that 1 AP has determined whether I lived or died.
Out of curiosity, did you just happen to randomly wander by, or did you pick up the trail somewhere? I normally enjoy playing real-time "chasings" with zombies – maybe next time it'll be more exciting. ;)
Yeah, the page timed out, so I refreshed and got that one you saw. As for the screenshot: as well as UDTool, I'm using UDToolbar, and I'm pretty sure it uses at least a custom stylesheet for the various graphics/rearrangements, and obviously there's not a copy of the custom files serverside. I don't think it makes the screenshot unusable, just harder to read. —Revenant ^talk 06:31, 5 July 2007 (BST)

It was a totally random encounter. Xoof doesn't have scent trail, and I don't plan to buy it; I WANT people to scan and attack him, and its fun making XP from random kills (takes less thinking). Likewise, I won't buy him brainrot or body building. He's a nasty killer, but also an easy kill, which is the point of Zombies Unlimited.
That sucks about the timed out page thing. I'd be pretty damn frustrated, too. If you ever want to pay Xoof a visit (or pay him back), he should be going back home to Train Boulevard [76,74] pretty soon, and will be there for your scanning and hunting pleasure.
UDtoolbar is the problem on record front, yah. It does use a custom stylesheet, but the records show up OK despite that. However, it also re-writes the HTML itself, and some of the features make bigger changes than others. Again, not really knowing myself, but if it matters to you, the folks at the udINFO forum could help. _. ^. _{. swiers} 13:04, 5 July 2007 (BST)

Oh my! UDToolbar/iwitness interaction breakthrough?

In light of your comment about UDTool and UDToolbar, I was playing round with the various options offered, seeing which ones I did or didn't need, when I made a very useful discovery: Firefox appears to cache the page before it is modified by UDToolbar. If I turn off UDToolbar's Graphical Inventory, Graphical Stats, and Pop-Up Menus, then go back or forwards to a recent page, it loads without the UDToolbar changes, but with all the game info intact. So, this means I can quite happily use I/Witness (BTW, what is the correct format/capitalisation for the name?) to take pristine shots of things I want to preserve without giving up my fancy schmancy graphics. :) (Well, almost pristine - UDTool doesn't mess things up too much.) Now all I need is a fast-toggle for those options... hrrm...

I'm using Firefox 2, so I don't know if this relies on the from-1.5 fast-back feature or if it works for pages loaded from the HD cache, but it's promising. (I would assume that if pages are unaltered in memory they'd be unaltered on disk, but you know what they say about assumptions.) Anyway, thought you'd want to know. Cheers. —Revenant ^talk 14:29, 8 July 2007 (BST)

That would probably bear repeating over in the ud.info forums. I'm also putting together a new front [age for Iwitness, which will include a link to a FAQ, I'll include that info. Thanks! _. ^. _{. swiers} 16:59, 8 July 2007 (BST)

Well, I've played with it a bit more, and it's still not quite perfect, though it's better than it was. One problem is that UDToolbar seems to need to float the map/stats to work properly, and in doing so, it moves its location in the page code. This doesn't appear to revert in the same manner as the graphical changes, which stuffs up things like I/Witness grabbing the player name (it gets location name instead). However, player stats become legible, although they are at the bottom of the page thanks to the to the stylesheet not being present.
I'll keep playing and see what more I can figure out. Cheers. —Revenant ^talk 06:50, 10 July 2007 (BST)

I obviously wasn't patient enough last night (it seems to take a while for changes to propagate to all pages in the browser history): here's a perfect shot of a scene first seen with all UDToolbar options on, followed by turning off certain options one by one, paging back/forth a bit until it looked clear, and taking a test shot. Options disabled: Pop-Up Menus, Stylesheet Override, Graphical Inventory, Graphical Stats, Name List Table, and Fixed Position Map. (And yes, I think I'll sign up on the forum and post there, also.) Cheers. —Revenant ^talk 09:25, 10 July 2007 (BST)

Look! It's a Level 2 Heading

Swiers, The sig is special and I appreciate the humor, (I'll be sure to nominate it next round in the sig race.) but you've had it for a while now, and it's been long enough for people to notice it.

It's a legal sig, (and I personally wouldn't do anything about it if it wasn't, as it's clearly not bad faith.) but I was wondering if could you could use some actual letters that would make you easily recognisable. You are asking a lot of users to spend quite a bit of extra time figuring out who said it. And as you normally make a lot of good points in your comments it is a shame that you shift attention from what you have said to who said it. As that's obviously not the intention of your comments you really should think about changing it to something more easily identifiable...-- Vista  +1  20:59, 29 June 2007 (BST)

This coming from a man who's sig is 3 lines of code...
How is this one? _. ^. _{. swiers} 21:38, 29 June 2007 (BST)

Ha, That works perfectly, very nice. and yes, my three lines of code are a bit much. But hé, it's pretty, isn't it? Luckily nobody complained about it to me before. I'd put them behind a template if I wasn't convinced that templates are a tool of the maoistic vietcong and a sign of moral lassitude. And long as you're not editing large swatches of text/comments my sig is mostly harmless... right? -- Vista  +1  21:57, 29 June 2007 (BST)

Yes, Vista, its a very nice looking sig, I just find it amusing that it takes so much code to produce something so small. Its not a hard sig to edit around as it wraps well- unlike some large sigs I have seen that don't have any break points in them.
Templates are not evil, though I agree they are over used. Gaining a little skill with templates helped my coding a lot, because they essentially are calls to the PHP include function. I don't use include functions in my PHP code yet, but I do use a LOT of string variables. _. ^. _{. swiers} 22:07, 29 June 2007 (BST)

Aw shucks, I just knew you cared... My problem with templated sigs is that signatures/names often end up as part of a conversation. Changing your template then would make the conversation lose it coherence. We've had quite a few of users who regularly changed their names, quite a few conversations about people make no sense any more as the name is no longer in use so the subject in question is almost unidentifiable. Regular templates can be extremely useful for relaying information. Gaining more competence in using them wouldn't hurt me, but I work for an engineering firm and I'd only use it here. And as there are more then enough competent people here...mheh.-- Vista  +1  22:34, 29 June 2007 (BST)

templated signatures rulez, especially in a case such as yours vista :P --People's Commissar Hagnat ^{[cloned] [mod]} 22:44, 29 June 2007 (BST)

I like morse code and templates just like the Anonymous Coward :). --JudeMaverick ^{Talk +1 Jobs} 03:13, 3 July 2007 (BST)

UD.info Stuffs

I know the site is under construction and all that, but the grammar is all jacked! I'd suggest, instead of "Lack of information causes fear. Fear of failure, fear of action, fear of death. Ignorance lead Malton into the apocalypse. Information will lead Malton through - whatever may be the end." that you change a few things to "Lack of information causes fear. Fear of failure, fear of action, and fear of death. Ignorance led Malton into the apocalypse. Information will lead Malton out-to whatever may be the end." That's just a suggestion, of course. Good luck with your big plans!--Lachryma^☭ 22:38, 27 June 2007 (BST)

Looks like some good editing. It's not so much that my grammar is bad, though- the "led / lead" confusion is a homophonic misspelling. Some of the other "errors" (like omitting the "to") are for rhetorical effect. I'll clean that up next time I update, if not sooner. Thanks! .^.. 22:45, 27 June 2007 (BST)
BTW, the more proper place for such communications would be http://www.forum.urbandead.info .^.. 22:47, 27 June 2007 (BST)

Whoops, sorry, just putting my own voice in there. The 'and' by fear is optional, as is the 'to'...but changing the 'lead Malton through' to 'lead Malton out' isn't as optional. 'Through' sounds stilted to me...but thank you for taking some criticism kindly!--Lachryma^☭ 22:50, 27 June 2007 (BST)

I pretty much have to accept any useful input I get; I'm not exactly a whiz at coding OR writing. (And so why I'm the one doing the project...?) .^.. 23:00, 27 June 2007 (BST)

Did you slap together what you have now on your own? Cuz that shows your pretty decent at coding stuffs...--Lachryma^☭ 04:07, 28 June 2007 (BST)

Yeah, excepting the phpBB, its all my hand coding. But my knowledge base sucks ass; I literally munge examples out of books into the code. The only way I get by is because my dad was a programmer way back when on the heavy iron, and so I know how to structure and test code, if not what any of the commands and syntax should be. .^.. 04:22, 28 June 2007 (BST)

Ha, I want to major in Computer Science, so I'll probably be doing the same thing as you, minus the helpful background of structure and stuff. ;)--Lachryma^☭ 04:42, 28 June 2007 (BST)

Edit done. How is this: Lack of information causes fear. Fear of failure, fear of action, fear of death. Ignorance led Malton into an apocalypse. Information will lead Malton beyond it- whatever may be the end. _. ^. _{. swiers} 19:23, 30 June 2007 (BST)

That last segment still sounds weird to me, but if you like it, then that's all that matters.--Lachryma^☭ 03:15, 3 July 2007 (BST)

A Shiny New Toy

Hey, congratulations on getting I/Witness up and running. It's very good, and really simple to use. --Toejam 02:49, 29 June 2007 (BST)

Penny / Monday

Yes, well... he's done me in twice, he seems to have a thing against us goths or something... I'm still in the Vinetown area, unfortunately, but I hope to be leaving tomorrow. If Ido find him before he finds me, I think I'll practice the Goth Poetry Retaliation Technique on him. Eh, I never trusted preachers anyway.
--Penny Black 22:10, 27 June 2007 (BST)

Reply

I've been laying low for a while, and moving bones into St. John's to make a charnel house. The I realized the reason the museum next to the cathedral is full of bones is because it likely IS (or at one time was) the charnel house for the cathedral. Clever of Kevan to add that touch, shame about all the non-human bones. .^.. 22:13, 27 June 2007 (BST)

UD.info logo

the logo images. Like at urbandead.info/forum. -- /// goebi^{TalkHelp/LFS/SR/NT/_MWP} /// 12:20, 27 June 2007 (BST)

Damaging Clothes

i've got something that can be used to describe phases of clothings decay in Clothes Codes. It would be good to update info there too if you'll make research on this. What's code for brown rag, by the way?. --Duke Garland_T^{LCD SSZ} 17:33, 22 June 2007 (BST)

I have no idea what ANY of the codes are- how do you determine them? I think the brown rag may actually be the default for when there is NO code, or some such, as it apprently is a "safety net" code that gets installed when there's no way to figure out what somebody is wearing- or so Kevan says. In other words, I never would have seen it if I hadn't fallen prey to a bug. But he may make it work as I said, he does want more special clothes for zombies. ... 17:47, 22 June 2007 (BST)

Merry Yahoomas!

Go out there and open some harmanz!--karek 14:55, 20 June 2007 (BST)

	Merry Yahoomas
	Karek wishes you a Merry Yahoomas. Now go open your harmans and be sure to spread the love, and hugs for everyone!

Sig

Dude, it's a cool joke, but at least use somethiing like an 's', ok? it's beginning to be a little hard to see. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 14:32, 17 June 2007 (BST)

Hard to see?

How so? There is a timestamp there for everybody to see. Though I suppose maybe it looks like somebody used ~~~~~ instead of ~~~~. Ok, how about the morse code for "s" instead? ... 16:16, 17 June 2007 (BST)

Oh, and then I could make each dot a seperate link. Ah, that is wicked! ... 16:18, 17 June 2007 (BST)

Your New Signature

Noticed the new sig and all, nice choice and weird. It's kinda confusing though cause all it is is a period, makes it hard to know who posted there and I keep thinking someone didn't sign their additions. --karek 21:35, 15 June 2007 (BST)

... 22:17, 15 June 2007 (BST)

I figured that would happen, and it does, but so far has caused no trouble that I know of. Chalk it up to my odd sense of humour; part practical joke / mental puzzle, part self deprecation. Of course, if you mouse-over the dot, you should still see my name. When done as I did here, the three dots form the first initial of my name (in morse code). I may switch to that form, its likely less confusing. ... 22:17, 15 June 2007 (BST)

Reply

Well it is funny, just thought I'd comment on the weirdness.--karek 23:21, 15 June 2007 (BST)

Seventythree

Could you maybe help me out here! you seem to know a lot about planning stuff, and I'd like it if you leant a hand. Essentaily, I just wanted bags to be available as clothes and appear in the clothing section. Mostly I just think It would add a bit of reality. So I stuck This on the suggested clothing page, however people shot it down, as they felt that as a bag could be considered or expected to have a use ingame it should be placed on main suggestions. So off I went, and suggested This. Now you (and others) tell me that bags should be just background and under clothes suggestions. Have you got any Idea about how this could be fixed? Please, I just wanted to have a godamn bag in the profile description!. Any help much apreciated!--Seventythree 23:57, 13 June 2007 (BST)

Reply

Sorry, I didn't mean to "shoot you down"- suggestion talk isn't voting, and I may have voted keep on that same thing. But since its in talk, I figured, hey, why not critique a bit. As for helping you, if you haven't noticed, I have a HUGE pile of rejected suggestions and very unpopular groups in my (figurative) resume. I'm not the one to turn to for advice on swaying crowds and manipulating the democratic process.
The simplest way to get a bag is to write it into your description. Some of my characters have bags like that. So I'm more or less with your original suggestion- bags (if implemented) would logically be clothing items. Purses, messenger bags, backpacks, doctors bags, gym bags, trash bags, etc should not affect game play, just character appearance. Maybe you could just suggest bags as clothing again, only this time change the name and description to "a useless (color / type) bag". Why it is useless is left up to the imagination, but at least it makes its function in game terms abundantly clear. 00:12, 14 June 2007 (BST)

Sorry, I guess I came off as a bit annoyed there, I wasn't annoyed at people criticising my suggestion, I too, have suggested many things that have gotten killed. Essentaily i was just looking for a couple of pointers! And yeah, fair do's suggestion talk is for that. I was out of line, sorry. I was being a bit over-dramatic! thanks for your help, by the way. I think I'll go with trying to come up with a use for the bags, but i'm not sure how i'm going to get it to work. --Seventythree 00:43, 14 June 2007 (BST)

Life Cultists Finding Use

According to some zombie reports, basically, zeds are able to be great killing machines, if it wasn't for barricades. Thanks to the barricades, zombies are prevented from storming into the building and harming people. Hence, some zombies and Death Cultists usually bypass barricades, via Parachuting. But I was thinking of something else.

Say, you got a pro-Harman who is infected with the Zombie Virus. Instead of healing himself, he and all the people in the safehouse would figure out that this Harman will be working for them. The Harman dies and becomes a Death Cultist. Now, death cultists are not as dangerous as Life Cultists, but they exist, but I thought of a using a Life Cultist as sentry duty.

A Life Cultist would log in as a zombie and defend said building from PKers and known Life Cultists. If they see a PKer on the list, they'll attack the PKers, using the increased damage capactiy they have. Unlike ZKing, which allows for zombies to easily get revived, PKers and Death Cultists need to search for revives, so a Life Cultist can kill them with a sense that their effort does lead to a reward. As long as the Trenchies and the Safehouse people can resist pulling the trigger finger to murder the Life Cultist off, then the Life Cultist could live a long time, as if the zombies swarm in a breakthrough, the Life Cultist will not be ZKed by them. There however lies the possiblity that the Life Cultist may be hit in friendly fire and find themselves dumped outside of a building.

I wonder how useful this tactic would be. It does sound a bit complex, but if it does take off, it could act as a effective counter against Death Cultists.--ShadowScope 21:43, 12 June 2007 (BST)

Reply

Yeah, its a pretty cool idea. The Batwing Brigade actually tried to do this at our last party; we planned to have a zombie who wanted to be in the group parachute in, die inside the barricades, and then act as our "bouncer" by biting and infecting anybody who caused problems. Infections are a very effective "action stopper". The main problem was, our friendly zombie got revived. People can;t resist reviving any friendly zombie it seems- even my ZU zombies get revived.
I figure it would work great if you could overcome two problems. First, everybody who enters the building needs to know that the zombie is a friend, but should NOT be revived. A good tag inside the building and a propper zombie character description would probably go a long way there, but people ignore barricade policy tags, so expect to need to get your zombie back inside on a regular basis- which likely means reviving it, letting it free-run in, then killing it or having it die of infection. Second, the zombie needs to be able to log on pretty often to see if there's anybody who needs attacking. PKs happen in under 2 minutes, so there's really no way to stop those. At best you'd log in often enough to make life uncomfortable for PKers who want to hang around, and dispose of zombies who break in.
However, I'm not sure all that is really worth the trouble, as zombie really aren't that good at fighting (although infection does drive off unwanted humans nicely) compared to any survivor who has a decent stock of loaded guns. They are very effective in terms of MBD, but that's only because they don't ever use any ammo. In terms of "damn, gotta clear this building RIGHT NOW", survivors with guns (or syringes if you allow for occasional combat revives) do a better job. As stylish as "zombie security guards" might be (especially if you don't like guns), they don't really provide any unique benefit beyond the fact that they don't mind being killed. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 23:12, 12 June 2007 (BST)

NT status

Hi. All NT status pages have nic templates... :) -- /// goebi^{TalkHelp/LFS/SR/NT/_MWP} /// 16:20, 3 June 2007 (BST)

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Ah, that's what that massive run of updates on my watchlist was then. Excellent. I think that completes the cross-referencing work - all the nic entries have NT status map links and data lines. Now I might just work at the status levels used on the map to make them more compatible / complementary to the nic ones. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 16:43, 3 June 2007 (BST)

United Zombies of Malton

Hi swiers, I really like the idea for this group, kind of the polar opposite of Extinction - Zombie Buddhist even. I've got a Zombie portal site up and running called the United Zombies of Malton you might find useful. There's no strings attached to its use at all as I'm just trying to open up communication between zombies in general ... and what better way to a peaceful Malton than zombies communicating with the world at large? It includes a shoutbox and irc chat as well as links to your wiki and forums if you have them. If you're interested pm me on the Extinction forum.

I've also got a proposal lodged with the Mayor's Office that maybe fits in with what you're doing. If so then feel free to second it. We could make it a UZM priority :)

Cheers,

--Zeug 21:28, 30 May 2007 (BST)

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Interesting idea. Zombies Unlimited might fit well within the area of "pacifist zombies"- althpugh playing a ZU zombie hardly requires a battle control interface, as they are intentionally easy (almost absurdly so) to play.
Speaking of which (the battle interface), I'm currently working on the interface for I/Witness. I really like the way the one you linked to emoulates UD so well. I'm not much good with style sheets- how did you copy the UD one so nicely, and how did you lay out the buttons one the battle control? The style you have in the bottom control bar looks very simple for what it achieves- is that really all it takes? Maybe once I get some of the protyping done, you could look at my stuff and help dress it up? I'd be happy to help you integrate any parts you like into the battle controls, as well, of course! --Seb_Wiers Imagine 23:24, 30 May 2007 (BST)

info kiosk

I've adapted the original Extinction battle control to more of a front end information kiosk idea for the UZM, it's more of a meta-group thing for inter-group Zombie communication so could be quite useful for ZU especially if you want to organize 4 large petting zoos. Can I add a kiosk for ZU? It will literally be like a recruiting tool for the general wiki browsing public and you can use the IRC chat to meet up with other zeds and convert them. I'd suggest doing some missionary work with the MOB.... :-) Pleeease??

As for the style thing I just copied some simple style elements from UD into a stylesheet linked in the header. I'd be happy to send it over and help you work it into the gui you've got. I think it was just a few classes I needed.And yeh, the I/Witness sounds cool, would be keen to see if it can be linked into the kiosk. --Zeug 17:31, 31 May 2007 (BST)

Just Wondering

I noticed you have a taccon like interface for the RRF, I was just wondering if they knew. 'Cause it looks like it hasn't been used at all. --karek 12:00, 10 June 2007 (BST)

Don't ask me

Your talking to the wrong person on this one- I'm not the one who made / maintains those interfaces. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 12:07, 10 June 2007 (BST)

RRF Papa said ok

I asked Murray J Suskind if it was okay to add them and he said yes. I haven't advertised it on their forums though cos Jorm banned me from them and refuses to talk to me :) --Zeug 19:39, 10 June 2007 (BST)

Risebot

Cool bookmark! I've got a ?rise button in the UZM browser, click it and it open a new window that you first have to refresh to get past the referrer problem, but then I hit your lil bot bookmark and it's away! Cheers ... can I add ZU to the United Zombies of Malton yet? --Zeug 15:53, 12 June 2007 (BST)

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Glad you like the bookmark. If you check the Bookmarklets page, you'll see I posted an improved version that lets you input the time and speed on a case-by-case basis- much neater than having multiple bookmarks with hard-coded settings.
I still don't see the point of ZU "uniting" with anybody. ZU really isn't a zombie group, despite being a group that zombies join. ZU stand for... standing. And maybe munching on humans who don't have the sense to leave when they get done with their fun. Its a group for zombies who have no intention of harming survivors, let alone uniting with anybody, and I'd like to keep it that way. If ZU was in som zombie union, it would just confuse things- it would be like Ducks Unlimited joining an anti-hunting group! --Seb_Wiers Imagine 16:47, 12 June 2007 (BST)

Hey

Just to let you know, I've suggested an upgrade to mobile phones that would allow some kind of inbox storage and the ability to send to multiple people at once. Is this the sort of thing that you could tie in with one of your progects, do you think?--Seventythree 12:27, 30 May 2007 (BST)

Sure Thing

But not any more so that a typical forum allows. However, I/Witness accounts will be tied to a specific character name, and the system could potentially know what character you are currently playing (if you take a screenshot), so the effect of using any personal message type system I set up there would be very similar to using a cell phone, especially if there was an alert displayed in a place that was visable during the use of I/witness.
Long story short, communication is the entire point of that project, so it will eventually have some features that work at least that well, yes. The main difference would be that (as with other meta-game tools) the communication would be equally effective with or without powered cell towers. I/Witness MIGHT allow some dependancy on in-game events, but it would be a lot of extra work to do so. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 12:53, 30 May 2007 (BST)

Stop, Thief!

As the Cap'n is inactive and Che13 is off in his own little world, I will take command of the Wiki Code Stealers! Muhuhahaha! Anyway, all the requirements for the ranks involve page code...which you have, like, none of. So, despite your impressive feat, you'll just be a lowly Wiki Robber unless you add invisible code to your page or something.--Lachryma^☭ 00:31, 30 May 2007 (BST)

Reply

Hey, now there's a thought. Wonder what I could do with invisible code? Hmmm
Unlikely to happen though; my philosophy runs to saying as much as possible with as little code as I can. And not in a "compact code fetish" style like some programs have, but in a "I'm lazy and I want it done fast and simple" sort of way. Guess you could say I prefer content over code. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 00:43, 30 May 2007 (BST)\

rEpLy?!

Um...yeah, I figured you'd say that. Well, you could put up an entire snazzy page, and use those hidden wiki things so that your user page would look the same...--Lachryma^☭ 01:16, 30 May 2007 (BST)

HI

hye I just saw you at the The Wiki Code Stealers page, and checked you imagine proyects, some of those are really nice and well thought if I can help you out somehow, just leave a coment on my talk page--♠ Che ♠-^{T GC X} 01:40, 8 June 2007 (BST)

PD Status Map

I've started a status map for police departments, using wiki code copied from the NT Status Map template. While my map is highly incomplete at this point, I would like to seek permission to continue using the code first before continuing too much further with it. Thank you for your time. --AmatsuDarkfyre 18:05, 29 May 2007 (BST)

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By all means do so. I poached the bulk of my code from the basic Suburb Map, and that map was developed by people upgrading maps that others created. Code theft isn't a crime on the wiki- some might argue its the whole POINT of a wiki!
Do be warned that there's a lot of brunt labor in making the user pages. Use templates as much as possible; anything you CAN put in a (single) template, DO, so that you won't have to cut and paste that part 200+ times. And don't expect widespread help updating it; the huge bulk of the NT status map updates come from myself and maybe 2-3 other users, for example. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 23:53, 29 May 2007 (BST)

reply to reply

If this isn't how you want replies to replies, please do as you wish to this. I'm pretty much copying the basic setup, so the code remains roughly the same overall...just replaying NT Status with PoliceScanner and creating endless user pages. I'm...15 out of 100 done now I think, just taking a break before starting up again. Once the basic map itself is complete, I may consider something similar to the nic to go with it. Anyways, thanks for the permission. --AmatsuDarkfyre 01:00, 30 May 2007 (BST)

Thanks for the tip

Thanks for the help, I wish I would a known that when I first started as a zombie. In other words, your advice was kinda wasted on me. Oh well thanks anyways, a dǝǝɥs oʇ ɯɐds: sʎɐʍ1ɐ! 00:05, 28 May 2007 (BST)

I/Witness

Heh, I saw I/Witness. It sounds like quite an interesting project, that being said if you want some additional help when it comes to coding I'll be willing to help. I've got a reasonable knowledge in PHP so I may be of use. However of course, if you want to keep the project to yourself then thats alright with me =P - Jedaz^{ΣT MC ΞD CT SR: 14:04, 24 May 2007 (GMT)}

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Thanks a lot. I'm still in the very early stages, but probably could in fact use some help once I get the extremely basic groundwork laid in. If I can't manage that much myself... well, hopefully I can, though I could always use somebody to check my work. --Seb_Wiers VeM 00:42, 25 May 2007 (BST)

PS- if you've got javascript skill, that could also be a huge help. --Seb_Wiers VeM 02:41, 26 May 2007 (BST)

Re: reply

(Heh, what a funky format of replying =P) Yeah I've got some skill with Javascript. Anyway how do you plan on making it so that it auto-loads when the UD page is loaded up? I can imagine with FireFox because of extensions, but with other browsers? Also, sorry for not replying earlier, I saw your first reply but not your second until today. - Jedaz^{ΣT MC ΞD CT SR: 05:40, 4 June 2007 (GMT)}

No Auto Load

I don't plan on having it auto load. The version I've been working on is a set of frames; one (small) frame has the I/Witness controls, and the other (much larger) provides info about / from the tool in general, and has a link to UD; that's where you'd need to play the game if you want I/Witness to work.
Unfortunately, this plan has hit a major roadblock; you can't use normal javascripts to access information about documents that come from other domains. Doing so is called "cross domain scripting", and its considered such a major security risk that most new browsers don't even offer the option to allow it.
I guess a firefox extension could accomplish this somehow, but I have no idea how to make one of those (except for greasemonkey scripts, which being javascript, probably has the same failings). Any ideas you have here could thus likely be very helpful. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 12:42, 4 June 2007 (BST)

Hmm....

Hmmm.... I can understand why browers wouldn't allow the posibility for XSS. I think your best bet is to make a FireFox extension/Greasemonkey Script. Extensions seem to be able to read and write to the active page, and I've seen a Greasemonkey Script which can post data to a website (seen here). Personaly I don't have any clue about any of that, but thats mainly because I don't have any need to learn. - Jedaz^{ΣT MC ΞD CT SR: 12:46, 4 June 2007 (GMT)}

Yep

Reading info from a document posted by some random website(s) and then acting on that info is exactly what extensions / greasemonkey scripts are made for. I've read up on them, and I think I can manage a greasemonkey script that will handle all the mechanics of grabbing and submitting the "screenshots"- its not any harder than coding a web page to do the same thing, and the end result will probably look better, be easier to use, and be harder to spoof as well. The other 95% of the I/Witness functionality can still all reside on my host, driven by PHP / MySQL. --Seb_Wiers Imagine 23:38, 4 June 2007 (BST)

the Batwing Brigade

Update: Since there have been no objections, we're going for the Kilingback Cinema. Do you intend to show up and do a DJ set, or should I steal some of your suggestions for songs that you left on the BWB talk page? I'm working on a playlist. Do you, by the way, have any favourite songs dealing with vampires? It would go with the theme of the cinema.
--Penny Black 08:52, 25 May 2007 (BST)

Have you seen the new thread on Brainstock? Also, we have a suggestion for our next club date.
Love, --Penny Black 10:36, 22 May 2007 (BST) (also, it's easier for me to see new replies in my talk page, so please reply there)

Syringe Disruption

A question. Is your suggestion still being worked on? Or is basically being left to be expired? I wonder of allowing for only certain skills to be disrupted, like combat skills, so that zombies become weaker...--ShadowScope 22:56, 21 May 2007 (BST)

reply

I'm not working on submitting anything like that at this point. I think, even if a reasonable idea, people just don't want syringes to be useful in an offensive capacity. --Seb_Wiers VeM 23:29, 21 May 2007 (BST)

Project Sleep

You might be interested. Check it out and tell me what you think. --_Ducis ^Dux_Sloth^Talk 09:18, 19 May 2007 (BST)

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Well, if I ever go inactive, its likely because I'm having net problems or am to bored and pissed off to give a damn. In either case, it seems unlikely I could / would post a template saying I was inactive. --Seb_Wiers VeM 20:30, 19 May 2007 (BST)

Hordes 2.0

While I would like to thank you for your help in making my suggestion what it is, I would like to point out this: "Also, this would REALLY help is at revive points; join the horde at the revive point and you are easier to scan (rotters can't block random scans) and harder to kill."

Thanks to you, the pro-surivior people are going to vote YES for this Zombie Buff, and Pro-Zombie people are going to vote NO for this Zombie Buff. It wasn't exactly my intention for this loophole to exist. No regrets or anything, I just want to inform this "strangeness"... :)--ShadowScope 03:27, 18 May 2007 (BST)

Sorry, didn't intend it that way. I happen to be both pro-survivor AND pro-zombie, and like it from both sides, which is why the revive point thing occurred to me. If you wanted to avoid that effect, you could make it so hordes can only form outside buildings, but they you'd just get revive points outside churches or other useless buildings.

To really sort that out, you;d have to make it so that zombies in hordes can't be targeted individually at all by their profiles, not even as a "revive this specimen" from a scan. Which makes sense if there was a roiling mass of zombie flesh; you couldn't (safely) pick out the one you recognized to attack or revive. That would be a purely pro-zombie version (and sure to get killed).

If its any consolation, that side effect of suggestion kinda screws RESCUE in favor of Sacred Ground, so I shot myself in the foot, too. I had thought about a different version of this idea. I was gonna call mine "mob psycology" and have it based off a checkbox on the settings page; chcecking it would mean you were always in a horde with any other zombies in the location who checked the box. Yours has a better mechanic. I'd never written mine up because a good grouping effect that will pas voting and still actually help zombies is very hard to come up with.

--Seb_Wiers VeM 03:33, 18 May 2007 (BST)

It's okay, having this suggestion pass is a good thing. I'll probraly need to come up with another suggestion in the near future that won't have such a big loophole.--ShadowScope 04:34, 18 May 2007 (BST)

Re: Proposed BARBRAZ-ZU partnership arrangement

Dear Sirs

Thank you for your recent response regarding the ZU pheromone technology.

BARBRAZ would wish to be able to supply free shirts to all patrons and staff on an ongoing basis. These articles would form the basis of a dress code for patrons on franchise premises and would also be used as promotional items for patrons to keep and wear across Malton. We would also like to issue staff with this clothing as part of the standard BARBRAZ uniform. We have already sourced an active compound but our own analysis does suggest that use of ZU's technology would provide an enhanced effect. We would propose mixing the ZU pheromone with our existing compound in order to produce a signature scent unique to BARBRAZ.

We anticipate that the DNA data gathered as part of our standard security procedures may be of particular interest to NecroTech and this can be made available to NecroTech in perpetuity in exchange for licensing of the ZU pheromone technology. Going forwards, we would suggest a partnership arrangement whereby the pheromone formula would be released to BARBRAZ under a perpetual license in exchange for access to this DNA data and whereby both organisations would accept a non-executive director at board level in order to coordinate activities between us and promote good relations. We share your view that our organisations complement each other and your proposals concerning establishing future franchise locations in proximity to ZU sites is of particular interest to us.

We look forward to hearing from you at your earliest convenience and anticipate a long and mutually beneficial partnership.

Kind regards

Fuster 21:56, 17 May 2007 (BST)

For and on behalf of BARBRAZ

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I appreciate the sentiment and hope to move forward with this venture; the details (such as a non-profit organization like outs partnering with what I assume is a for profit business) can be worked out by "our people", if it ever become necessary. I think for now, both ventures are small enough that we can just call any work a "pilot project" that "explores synergy with community efforts in the field".

To which end, I propose that all ZU tagged zombies be given one of the BARBRAZ scratch'n'sniff shirts I hope you will produce with the pheromones we can provide for that purpose. They get revived occasionally, and those we have observed seem to wish to be eaten at that point zombies anyhow. I hope you will consider a "limited edition" line of shirts; these "limited edition" shirts could be for ZU zombies and others who get eaten at BARBRAZ who are willing to "serve desert" by actually getting killed, not only munched on and then healed.

Seb_Wiers VeM 20:27, 19 May 2007 (BST)

For and on behalf of Zombies Unlimited

PS- see the ZU page for official information these efforts.

An Example

I'm not a real message, just showing how its done. --Mr. Example 22:10, 13 May 2007 (BST)