Guild Systems:
Ranger Bonus Rewrite (Ranger)
Nature's Pool (Ranger)
Beseech Evaluation (Ranger)
Trails Evaluation (Ranger) - In Progress
Trails - PTM Evaluation (Ranger)
Scouting Rewrite (Ranger)
Ranger Retreat (Ranger)

Spells:
Natural Reserve (Ranger)

I noticed that other guilds had Combat Maneuvers and Rangers did not. Where are Pounce and Volley? What is Ranger Retreat?

There are things on the list that are still there from previous years.

Still waiting on Plague of Scavengers and Enrage Undergrowth (among others), but they are not there. What is Natural Reserve?

>>Where are Pounce
It's been moved to a Kitty Kat Perk. I kid. I kid.

>pounce
You must first locate a ball of yarn.

Neat stuff... I really was hoping for enrage undergrowth though... :-(

I want my AoE TM so I can back-train boxes!

-pete

Beseech Evaluation?


What's to evaluate?! We have several. Very few if any have real uses. Some are completely obsolete.




Beseech the sun to dry: Good for drying herbs. RT for a single herb makes this a secondary, since pyramids can do this with multiple herbs, AND teach mech lore.


Beseech Elanthia to Imbue: It works for PTMs. You've already said this system is broken.

Beseech the wind to clean: Has it's uses, but typically we compost to raise the life mana.

Besech Elanthia to Cradle: I'll admit, this has saved my life a few times. But being I've had it...Oh, six years, and used it maybe...five times, is it really useful?

Beseech the Wind to preserve: Ok, I can preserve meat. Doesn't last THAT long, and honestly, with teh companion system so messed up, most (note, not all!) Rangers do not consistently use it.

Beseech Elanthia to Petrify: Not really worthwile, considering it's around 45 seconds from the time you activate it to the time it takes effect...and only lasts a few minutes. ESPECIALLY with the upcoming combat changes, where spirit health will take an active part in combat. Do I really want to sacrifice spirit health (a minimum of 25%, for this beseech) for better armor for a few minutes, while I spend 10-15 minutes recovering spirit health and being hindered in combat?

Beseech the Dark to sing: Is thsi really THAT useful? So few places are dark, and getting this beseech is well beyond a pain; it approaches being stupidly hard. (spoken, FAR too hard for what little benefit it gives you.)


Beseech Elanthia to Seal: With the new depart options, I haven't seen a grave in...oh, almost a year. This beseech is outdated, and honestly, was mediocre to begin with. Not it's obsolete and worthless.

Beseech the Water to Solidify: Kinda handy, but considering that it's mostly used in groups (i.e. the ranger can swim it, but his partner(s) can't.)...when you cross a river with a current, even though you're walking ON TOP of the water, your party can still be swept away by the current! While it has it's uses, it's buggy.

Beseech the Wind to Refresh: Honestly, has anyone ever actually USED this, for what it's intended for, and not just to say 'hey, what does this do?' Here, lemme sacrifice spirit health to regain stamina and/or vitality. But honestly, if my vitality is that low, I probably just died. So let me align a bunch of my spirit health to get physical health back and...oh damn, aligned too much, died from loss of spirit.

Genius. Really.


Beseech the wind to echo: I've seen it used a few times, but really, the range is fairly limited. If I wanted to talk to someone, I'd use a gweth or a crystal ring. Now, if I could be standing in Shard and reach someone in...Lang, that might be worth it. Especially since you need to be 65th to use it. C'mon? High level ability, you'd figure it would actually, you know...DO something.

Beseech ELanthia to Transfer: Ok, I see this one used all the time. Typically before someone with at-the-bar skills is trying to tan something. Now, if memory serves, tanning is based on actual ranks, not with CJs, predictions, and spells. I may very well be wrong. (and please, someone who has done the research, correct me if I am.)



So yes, I agree entirely with Xelten. It's disconcerting, almost panicking, to know that SO LITTLE is being done with rangers, when there are several systems in place that are broken, and have been broken since their release...in the case of companions, nearly oh..Eight? YEARS AGO.


Honestly, what's it take to FIX something, instead of spending countless man-hours 'evaluating' it? the players have already evaluated things. it's broken. Evaluation complete, commence fixing, or remove the broken ones and replace them with new, 'modern' ones that actually do something.


Sorry for the rant and rave here, but I get sick of seeing new development and new releases (which are often times not complete, or buggy, or flat broken) when there's multiple things already broken getting little to no love.


Just my $.02 on the matter. Forgive me for being a pessimist, but having played DR for a very long time, I would REALLY like to see some of our gripes actually get fixed, with an actual, honest-to-God answer instead of 'Soon' or 'in the works'. Companions have been 'soon' for...oh, 4 years. Spell re-writes for buggy/broken spells have been 'in the works' for years. The bonus system's been glitchy/buggy since I started in DR, and there's a few folks around been ehre longer'n me saying it's been broke since THEY started.


Eventually things will get fixed, instead of pushed to the wayside, right?




No Ranger Stands Alone.

MM2/SS, USN

<<Beseech Evaluation?

<<What's to evaluate?! We have several. Very few if any have real uses. Some are completely obsolete.

Evaluate seems to be a good term to use. I'm seeing it more as a complex process rather than to say 'beseech rewrite' or 'beseech scrapping' because neither may be the end outcome.

To me, evaluate means to analyze each individual one and identify what is/isn't working, what should stay as it is, what can use some tweaking, what needs to be totally rewritten, what can be added and what can be completely gotten rid of.

It also means the possibility of revisiting the system as a whole... does every 5 circles work? Should they be 'free' abilities or have slots to go along with them like spells? Should they all have quests or should some be automatically given like currently? Should nature's pool have some different functionality with them other than just taking the place of spirit health for powering them?

I can see a whole lot of work potentially done besides just going "keep this one, this one, scrap that one, keep that one, rewrite that one and change the duration on that one".

-Spirit

Or, despite promises, never will be.


No Ranger Stands Alone.

MM2/SS, USN

It's only funny because it is true.

I'd settle for a ranger guild update that isn't opening one of our abilities to everyone in the process :-/

I'm very concerned that we aren't getting a 3rd or 4th tier TM anytime soon because that drastically impacts our ability to keep TM up with our other combats.

Since we had TM forced on us, we really should have a way to train it effectively if we are willing to put in the effort to train a tert skill at secondary rates.

I guess I can only hope that Magic 3.0 will address the problem of needing higher and higher tier TM spells to keep learning at higher ranks.

Regardless, I really, really want an AoE TM.

-pete

It's only depressing because it's true.

Z is possibly the best programmer dr has seen but as the "survival" GM I feel his a little biased. Necros get rolled out and have "pets" that do what ranger companions should have done from day one. Thieves appear to get love at every turn... though probably not as much as they would like. Rangers have broken spells, broken beseeches, broken companions, broken bonus.

Seriously 1 month of focusing on rangers by the "crack team of gms" could probably fix the guild.

The fact of the matter is that aside from our guild advocate. The GM's put us right on par with traders when it comes to development.

Athanasius

P.S. To any GM who reads this. It's possible that I'm assuming to much of your intentions but if I am then prove it. don't just tell us "it's on the list" Most of our broken crap has been moved down the list 4-5 times since I started playing.


****************************************
The views of Athanasius do not necessarily reflect the views of all characters on this account.

>It's only depressing because it's true.

I think it's depressing because you're focused only on the negatives. It pushes GMs away in the long term.

>I think it's depressing because you're focused only on the negatives. It pushes GMs away in the long term.

This. Look at some of the positive aspects to the systems, don't focus on just the negatives.

Arrange - yes it got shared; but we can now actually lock skinning, plus we're the best with it.
"Hunt" - yes we share this with everyone, but we are absolutely the best with it (more rooms, plus a skill that acts as a huge bonus to its effectiveness).

Plus we still have our OP survival bonus so long as we stay out of town ;)

<<No Ranger Stands Alone.>>

If you keep jerking their chain you might be the first. Try to relax a bit.

---

A voice of a loved one weeps from the mist, "Help me...help me please...."

Mocking laughter echoes up from beyond the mist!

You hear a motherly voice cry from the mist, "...my child...please...rescue me...they have my soul!"

I agree, things are broken of that there is no doubt. Many of us that have been here for a very very very long time have gotten a bit jaded as we have been told they will be fixed before.

That said, Pete is right this group of GM's is nothing short of fantastic and we have seen what the quality of their work is. I will take a wait and see approach myself. Even broken we rangers can kick some serious ass.


Miv
I would rather have an intelligent enemy than a stupid friend.

>I'm very concerned that we aren't getting a 3rd or 4th tier TM anytime soon because that drastically impacts our ability to keep TM up with our other combats.

And this concern will go away with Magic 3.0, so there's no impetus at the moment to try to cram one in now. I know you mentioned the hope it would do this, I'm just stating that it will. If you love Eagle's Cry for the messaging (or Devitalize), you can use it as your omni-TM spell given magic 3.0 and it will scale all the way up to 'current 4th tier' with skill. I'd still like to do a bugs themed one but it's not as high priority.

>Z is possibly the best programmer dr has seen but as the "survival" GM I feel his a little biased.

As a note: I'm responsible for the entirety of Systems Development now, and am not the Survival lead anymore. In the hierarchy it's basically the boss of all the leads, so it's not like I couldn't do survival too.

I spent the entire last year working on Necromancers due to my personal opinion that they were an embarrassment to the company left hanging so long, and have not had a lot of time to do much with other guilds.

However, while I do thank you for the compliment at the front of that, deserved or not: I'm going to say I don't like indulging threads like these because they irritate me and make me want to go do other things and avoid the guild (or at least the forums of the guild) in question for a while. Even if you're 'right', it's sort of hard for me to want to care. A lot of guilds need development love, probably at least half of them. I intend to give it to Rangers (either myself or through other GMs that wish to do projects) but I'm not going to 'prove it'. There is no winning response to these sorts of things so the best you can hope for is that the GMs pretend they didn't happen.

-Z

>>Thank's Z. STRA's my thing messaging wise, but so long as Magic 3.0 is going to fix the need for tiers to keep learning I can be patient.

Making TM selection slightly more sane for Rangers, Paladins, and (oddly enough) Warrior Mages was one of the initial driving ideas a few months ago when we finally decided to commit to a magic system reboot.

-Armifer
"In our days truth is taken to result from the effacing of the living man behind the mathematical structures that think themselves out in him, rather than he be thinking them." - Emmanuel Levinas

I've been around DR for 7 years? 8 years? I dunno, I forgot the actual date when I stumbled across dragonrealms and found a world full of excitement, magic, and addiction to text. I remember back in those I couldn't care less about what was broken and what wasn't. Alot was, but it didn't really matter because I enjoyed playing the game. This was the day of slice slice slice slice slice. Seems there are alot of bitter folks out there worried over fixing this and that and "hey, I didn't get what that mage got!" I understand we do have some issues as a guild, but we're still the best freaking guild in DR. We're rangers, enough said. Have we been told white lies in the past? Probably. Have we got alot of love lately? Nope. Alot of you weren't around back in the day when rangers got nothing but love. Matter of fact the other forums looked alot like this one with alot of complaining.

I'm with most of you and I want all the things mention in this string fixed or looked at, but you catch more flies with honey. Got an issue with a system? Come up with two ways to improve it before you throw in your two cents about how such and such ain't doing nothing. These guys and ladies are not going to meet bashing with ,"Oh my god let's do something fast!" GM Zeyurn said it himself. He sees complaining and decides to avoid the guild/forum. Now any of you can correct me if I am wrong because I am hardly a code or system junky, but with the correction of the main systems.....some survivals, magics, Combats, Learning, Death, it opens more individual systems up for more complex "fixing." Am I wrong tech guys or....? I think with these newer system codes we can look forward to more things. For some reason I remember a long time ago each guild had someone working on that guilds specific systems, but then again older I get the less I remember. Maybe there's just not enough hands in the pot for that now days.

I rarely use beseeches myself and would like to see something more usefull. PTM help.Companions could be more usefull. Let's find a use for that animal lore! Magic......I miss my spells that did damage and could care less about TM honestly. Special maneuvers would be grand, pounce sounds like it rocks. Lore, let's make more stuff. Ranger shop in forf could use some help. Natures pool fix. I have a few other things I'd like to see which are small stuffs that really doesn't matter much. I personally would like to see ranger housing in the form of caves vs tree houses.




No ranger stands alone.


No ranger stands alone.

The fact that just came from you makes me hopeful Audacia. That says a lot because rangers having no hope for dev has been the running joke for a long time.

To be fair after my last very p-d off rant. None of the current dev team have lied to us about what they are "going" to do. It's a lot easier to be mad at "the company" than it is to remember that there is a real person at the other end of the message you are writing.

I'm not sorry for wanting there to be more ranger dev. But I am sorry I was very specifically a jerk to more than a few GM's who I'm sure have the best of intentions.

Now, keep working on magic combat and mech split so they can be over and you can work on the stuff that really matters :p

Athanasius
****************************************
The views of Athanasius do not necessarily reflect the views of all characters on this account.

>> Heyo!

>>The spell rewrite is not shelved, per se. I'm just >>not making it a huge priority at the moment since >>the Magic Team is hard at work on Magic 3.0. I'm >>going to hold off on spells as much as possible >>until I can at least be sure what I am doing isn't >>going to require another rewrite once that's done. >>I'd rather spend the time for now on stuff that >>isn't going to be impacted but is just as important >>to paladins, such as armor skills, combat in >>general, Lead, Soul Sense, Holy Weapons, and stuff >>like that. It's not like there's a lack of things >>that need development. As far as Auras go, they >>aren't necessarily shelved completely, but I'm going >>to hold off and see where we stand after some of the >>other stuff is done, both in terms of development >>and events.

>>- GM Dartenian

I found this in the paladin folder but I thought I'd share some thoughts I had after reading it with my fellow rangers.

In the past we've been told ranger dev would take place after (insert old goal here ie combat 2.0 dr2 etc.)for the most part, that promised dev didn't happen, probably because the dev team was burnt out after the major project, though that is just a guess. HOWEVER, we have one marked difference this time. It would appear that several of the GMs see these rewrites as the beginning rather than the end of the project. I'm not ready to strike up the band or anything but I've been looking for reasons to be positive and hopeful and posts like this do contribute a little hope.

I'm probably wrong about my perceptions stuff in the past and this poorly written grammatically atrocious blurb will most likely be torn apart by those who paid attention in English class. But, I was feeling positive and I thought I should be as eager to post now as I am when I'm hacked off at all things simu.

Athanasius ~ finally back on my own account.

>They normally becomes GMs because they are burnt out with the game, and think that GMing will help revitalize their passion for the game. Unfortunately, this is never really the case.

Wanna bet?


Pomae

Any questions and/or comments can be sent to me at Mod-Pomae@Play.net, or Board Supervisor Annwyl at dr-annwyl@play.net

Falker, I'm really starting to dislike the way you post. Are you really sure you want to play this game? You are boarderline insulting the GM's with that post and I dont think you even realized it.

Dear Red Names,
Falk does not speak for all of us. Some of us happen to think you're wonderful and things are definatly improving. We look forward to what else comes from your workshop for us. Thanks a ton.

~The Not Jaded Ranger Players

---

* SPLAT! * You destroy the annoying thing!

>>What I think is funny, is the same excuses have really been said about development on certain Ranger items for the last 10 years give or take. We are waiting on (xyz system) either the system doesnt show up or (we changed direction) mostly due to changes in GMs. I may not like the development of the guild or even the way individuals in the guild kiss up too much and definitely not a big fan of a GM who can't take criticism and then say they are going to avoid the guild or boards. In development of DR the squeky wheel doesn't get the oil ahh well, we all still pay. If you don't like it stop paying.

There's a huge difference between asking and bashing.