Snow Globe

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I swear, you guys need copy editing.... "so accustomed too"? (in the top 11) .

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Thank you for noticing the one error in the Scoop. If that is all you can find wrong with these two issues of the Scoop, then we must have did a great job.

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Blurgl.

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Can you please translate this to English?

<Shrug> I was expecting it. I needed to do something with my deactivated account. I just wish is was next weekend, because this is finals week.

Oh, for those who have the forums only showing 10 posts a thread, please use the (show all) link at the top of the thread when viewing the Scoop. Otherwise you cannot use the table of contents to access the last 5 pages.

Unfortunately due to the forum software and how the Scoop is published, that is the only workaround I can provide people.

I really wish I could at all optimistic about the future changes of the game, but sadly the actions never quite seem to mesh with the words.

The article mentions what we already know: Next issue will be "all about the Mission Architect". The Issue after that will likely be about the 5th.

Issue 13 initially was hinted at being about bases, and then we were told that base issues were going to be addressed "sometime in the future".

Given that bases are likely not to be a focus until Issue 16 (likely 2nd half of the year), I'm guessing that we might finally see something tangible next year.

Some of the bases I look after will not be negatively affected by the salvage change, others will be getting it in the teeth.

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Very disappointed that it seems that bases will be getting the "pointy end of the stick" for the foreseeable future.

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That's exactly what the scant amount of info in the article said.

...

Wait...

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Oh and look at the mess that the lack of information caused with Issue 13... They really hit the player satisfaction out of the ballpark with the Base and PVP changes...

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Very disappointed that it seems that bases will be getting the "pointy end of the stick" for the foreseeable future.

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I don't think thats the case.

There are many potential overlaps from both the I14 Architect and the PvP changes that dovetail nicely with the base system... I wouldn't be surprised to see quite a few enhancements to bases arise quite naturally from these.

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The only thing "dovetailing" with the Architect would likely be a new use for the mission computer.

As for PVP, a lot of the base building community have already posted to that (heavily censored version): "We don't ever intend to use our bases for PVP".

So try again. We've had a huge list of issues up since Issue 11. Some of the base issues date back to Issue 7 and beyond.

Very disappointed that it seems that bases will be getting the "pointy end of the stick" for the foreseeable future.

Volley 41

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This was supposed to be a Q&A thread. Y'know... where we direct our questions to Sunstorm.

What happened to our calm, cool and collected community?

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Well, for myself, I'm wondering when Sunstorm will be back to answer the questions posed in this thread.

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In my sg, we've had a few members drop the game unexpectedly, but they put donations from last year's events into the base salvage racks right away.


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And just how many drop so unexpectedly that they can't simply trade off all their event salvage to another Group Mate before they go?

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We've had 5 in the last year.


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Anyway, the Devs need to make a game economy decision here: Is event salvage meant to be a marketable commodity where there is hoarding or not? If they allow personal hording, then they should allow for base hoarding. And eventually put in a new type of storage. If they don't want hoarding, then there should be a cap on how much a player can hold (say, about 100 for canes and 4 each for costumes) so that players will fill the market. I find that allowing player hoarding but not allowing base hoarding is illogical.

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Except my point is not about hoarding at all. It does have to do with having a "rainy day fund" of parts to reconstruct accidentally deleted items.

And then there are the empowerment stations. We had each base strictly themed either arcane or tech. This allowed all donations of the other type to be converted to empowerment buffs.

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Besides, though a dev has never said so, I'm guessing that having rack after rack of salvage with 999 in each rack was a database issue, similar to the problems of having too many items in the Market DB (which all loads at once to a player's computer); and is also a problem for the costume editor for the same reason. I don't think the devs would be amenable to unlimited storage containers. Again, just a guess on my part.

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Without the ability to correct any accidental deletions the developers support splintering of bases and are causing more database strain than the base salvage ever could.

With the sickly amount of "storage" the new bins has we simply cannot store enough for me to allow anyone access to edit the main bases. So people that want to play with bases have to make splinter groups. All this does is strain the databases even more than having up to 18 salvage racks hold 2,500 items. This directly flies in the face of wanting more players to use the base system.

The developers (and you) still haven't provided an answer to these points:
<ul type="square">[*]Any group member that needed salvage for either empowerment buffs or base crafting can get it, even if no one else is on.[*]Any group member can deposit salvage, even if no one else is on.[*]It eliminates having to track down which character has what salvage.[*]No place to temporarily store crafted items while deleting/moving rooms.[/list]All these were the reason the items were introduced in the first place.

These new bins hold less than ONE character. During initial testing of the storage items with base salvage it was the same. This was pointed out to the developers, and was changed before the storage racks went to the live servers.

Bottom line: As the salvage racks are with Issue 13, they are practically useless for my needs as a base builder.

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But then, bigger bases mean you can have more salvage racks.

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Wrong: The limit is 18 storage items (the Invention Vaults, Salvage Racks, Inspiration Bins, and Enhancement Tables), no matter what size of base. This limitation has been in place since the storage items were released.

In my sg, we've had a few members drop the game unexpectedly, but they put donations from last year's events into the base salvage racks right away.

Your way would eliminate those gifts plain and simple.

Another reason for not storing those salvage on characters is that I can't be on all the time, yet the base storage is up as long as the game is running. Any group member that needs the salvage can get it, even if no one else is on. Furthermore it eliminates having to track down who has what salvage.

MadScientist knows, and so should you because I know you were around for it too, those are the EXACT SAME reasons why players asked for the salvage racks for the BASE salvage in the first place. The reasons given for making them were to facilitate trading of salvage while the people who needed it were off-line so that they could pick it up later.

Now if they had put in a mailing system, then I might go along with your argument. However it isn't the case. We are likely not to see such a system because the market people would be royally upset and would claim people were "hoarding".

ONE, just ONE of those IOs is 50 candy canes. The other two are 40 each.

Are you seriously telling me that a single salvage rack should hold less than the parts needed to craft a single enhancement?

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I want event salvage in a public place. I could keep it on my person if I really wanted, the point is I'm trying to share.

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But *how much* do you need to share?
I'm not saying remove it from the bins. I'm wondering if you only need to share a little, would the problem be where to keep the rest while sharing that little?
30 is still kinda low. but if 30 is enough for what needs to be shared, then 30 isn't the heart of the particular problem with holiday salvage.

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200 Candy Canes. Needed for 1 of each of the new Winter Event IOs and both the new auras...

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See right there...I missed that and didn't even know it was in the scoop.

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If you want to submit just an article or two while not being on the staff, that is also good. Write something up (between 400-800 words), and submit it. I can't promise all submissions will be put into the Scoop, but we will try our best. One word of warning: We have a two week deadline, so if you submit something, do not expect it to appear in the same week.

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Just this paragraph answers some of the questions. Also it mentions a 2 week deadline, but in this thread you mentioned you had 1 week (unless I misread). I see event reporters are mentioned but are puzzle and suduko needed still?



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2 week external, 1 week internal. We put that in place because we had someone surprising us 2 days before we handed over the Scoop to the Community Reps, and then complaining after that the article was supposed to be commemorating a specific date. Even though it was put out a few weeks later "the timing was ruined".

People like puzzles. I loved doing them, we've had requests to have them back. Just not as many as event and interview requests.

I'll also note that I get asked for submissions guidelines several times a week. I do respond and I also point people to the Joining the Scoop article.

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You've already seen all our responces to the salvage "nerf" as many would put it, so I'm not going to repeat myself except to toss out a couple ideas.
<ul type="square">[*]Would either creating a separate bin for event salvage or tieing them into the personal vault be an option instead[*]would it be easier instead to rewrite the code be so event salavges is counted in the bins the way it is on a character[/list]
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you're skipping a potential third idea...
<ul type="square">[*]If holiday salvage can be easily put into personal vaults (which already contain code for multiple tabs of many salvage types) that would leave more room for *sharing* salvage in the SG bins since there'd be less need to *stash* salvage there.[/list]
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But that isn't sharing event salvage, that is hording event salvage.

Also the highlighted portion already said what you did.

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Thanks for all your hard work contributers; I know I rather have "The Scoop" than not. Great Issue, now c'mon peeps they need you!

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Thank you! I think that posters like you are the reason we are still doing the Scoop.

Without trying to sound too much like the developers, I hope some of the new plans I have will come to fruition. Some things will be dependent on what we can or can't do on the new forums.

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Okay, here are some suggestions.

First, you guys need to document some kind of submission procedures and/or guidelines and publish them somewhere. This "send us stuff" policy is way too vague.

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Like say, making an article in the Scoop about joining? I had 5 responses that week all asking "How do I join the Scoop?", with nothing else.

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Second, you or someone else at the Scoop needs to be aware of stuff that's coming up.

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Ok, I live about 1,000 miles north of NCNC. Tell me how, short of the developers actually giving us the information, are we supposed to do that. You have a serious logic flaw.

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The Rikti invasion wasn't a secret, it has been announced for months.

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It was news in JUNE, not so much now.

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Also, the calendar is your friend.

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Thank you but we already include that for players every month now.

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Browse the Player Events forum once a week. And, of course, read the Announcements, News, and Community and Developer digests. You probably do already, but start doing so with your Editor's hat on, thinking, "Hey, that's something that might be interesting to have a story about," or, "You know, I'll bet we can dig into this a little deeper."

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Event reporting, even when you were a part of the Scoop was practically non-existent. No one seems to want to cover them.

I'm already well past the point where the time I spend dealing with the Scoop is more than twice the amount I actually play the game. I'm almost to the same point in the ratio of time spent on the scoop and time spent on the rest of the forums.

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that's not even taking into account stuff that will undoubtedly come up Monday through Thursday this week.

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Tony, I know you are intelligent, but you clearly seem to have a problem with reading comprehension.

[u]WE HAVE A ONE WEEK LEAD TIME[u]

The reason for this is to give the proofreader time to go over the submissions, and layout time to actually do the layout. Last year, we had 2 people who could proofread, 3-4 people who could step into doing layout. We are about half that now. Only 5 active people from a year ago are still active in the scoop today.

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Fourth, take some time to do some actual coverage. Drop PMs to Synapse and Sunstorm asking if you can ask them some questions about background, experience, and so on. (Or at least ask Ex Libris to relay the requests.)

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We are already doing this, and we've been told that the turn around will be several weeks between questions and getting answers. So it would be around a month before you'd see anything...

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Delegate stories out to other people. You don't have to take hours to do it, just a few minutes here and there.

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I'm already doing that.

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Fifth, you guys really need to lose the "we need a week's lead time to cover stuff" line. Most events are announced, happen, and are over with within a week. You're busy. I get that.

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Clearly you don't, so here goes:

I have about 24 hours a week related to actual class time in school, I have another 20-24 hours of homework each week. Then I have to find work that actually pays money (which the scoop doesn't). In the small amount of free time I have left in the week I have a few hours to play CoX and work with the Scoop.

Mantid is extremely busy with real life work. I'm amazed that, even with his schedule, he hasn't cut back on the amount of time he works on the scoop because he doesn't have the real life time.

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Besides, for several months, I did try to help out, offering my services and delivering articles, and felt quite unwelcome for my efforts.

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It didn't need to be, but you used the same tone in these posts that you used with the rest of the staff. I suggest that in the future that you be less dogmatic and condescending. It rubs people the wrong way, and is bound to get the exact opposite reaction than the one you are seeking.

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I guess I'm just frustrated still at how potential and expectations are so far beyond the current state of affairs, and I wish that someone would step up and deliver.

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I too wish for people to step up, as I only can do so much myself. I don't have the time or resources/staff to do half the things I want.

One last thing:
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You have someone in charge who thinks that news is merely "fine when we can get it" in a newsletter

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Lemur stepped down from "being in charge" a long time ago.

At this point I'm beginning to think he is much smarter than I am than to put up with this.

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But the full front-page article, complete with Editor-in-Chief weigh-in and sepia-tone photograph? Was that what he looked like in 1897 or something?

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Ex Libris took that photo sometime around July 2007, and it was from a site that you know well. Maybe someone needs to find a better picture for it... I did search for a better picture. I even made the lighthouse pictograph.

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News would have been that he left. A scoop would have been that you found out where he was going. Full front-page news would have been that you found evidence that the PvP conspiracy theorists were right.

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Both Mantid and Myself are extremely busy with RL work (him)/school(myself) both Thursdays and Fridays. We've had a one week lead time since Jan 2008. We did not get any advanced notice, and the Scoop for the 14th was already done and awaiting Ex's availability for posting.

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As it is, though, in my opinion, it comes off as extremely maudlin, borderline melodramatic.

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Well he did help get the Scoop off the idea board and he was very supportive of the Scoop. Of course people that have been with the scoop since day one would be sad.

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Plus, it's not exactly like there weren't plenty of other big news stories going on. Some off the top of my head probably worth covering were the Rikti invasion and its associated stories going on all week long without a single mention from the Scoop, mysterious Star Strider posts, and calls on various servers to destroy Rikti Drop Ships (!).

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One week lead time. Add to that no one submitted anything to me (or any other Scoop member that I know of) about the Rage against the Rikti event. Had they given us an article with more than a week's notice, I would have gladly put it in.

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I would have also thought that Swiftwing winning a custom PC and other cool loot from the Create a Character contest would have made the radar. NCsoft and ATI give away $4,980.78 in prizes to City of Heroes players and there's nothing but deafening silence from a publication that calls itself the "City Scoop?" Maybe even a mention of a new developer taking on the mantle of Synapse would have been nice, or Ex Libris trying to smooth things over in a highly charged PvP community, or an ATI community rep making her presence known to field questions on our forums, or a chance for players to score costume codes in an upcoming contest (more than just a logo, like some actual story to go with it).

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All days before the Scoop went out. I repeat: one week lead time.

The PERC event was PM'd to me on the 17th (nearly 11pm my time). I got it early Tuesday. Zero chance of writing a story at that point. So I did the best I could for them, I included their poster, with a link to their event thread. Had they given us an article with more than a week's notice, I would have gladly put it in.

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One he was pretty good at, but did we really need a full front-page Lighthouse commemorative issue for something that you admit openly "isn't news to most of you?" As it is, I really think you guys dropped the ball on covering big news in this issue in favor of self-indulgent fluff.

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It was the most unique article submitted for this issue of the Scoop.

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I know firsthand how much you guys hate criticism, but I hope you will take something constructive from this and try to do better in the future. For what it's worth, though, I agree with the others that "Slow Loader" was the funniest yet. Kudos to Lattice for hitting a nice stride in the past few issues.

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Your criticism is based on your knowledge of how the Scoop ran last year, not how it is currently running.

We are down 5 Editor in Chiefs since starting, and I've actually managed to last longer in the post than all the others. I am constantly asked how can people join the Scoop, but they either don't come prepared with any idea whatsoever or if they do they tend only to last a few months before they stop submitting. Add to that the attrition of staff leaving due to real life issues or just quitting the game entirely.

If there were more submissions, we'd have a larger base of articles to choose from. You want the City Traveler to make a comeback in the Scoop? Submit it. Just know that it will be at least 1 week after submission before it makes its way into the Scoop.

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Q. Salvage Storage Racks, Why only 30 pieces of invention salvage?

A. In short, the market. The market system is designed to have a steady supply of salvage coming in. If large salvage racks were added, it would create a temporary supply problem of unknown duration until the salvage racks filled up.

Since having salvage temporarily dry up would be a big problem for all players, this number was intentionally kept low. Once the impact on the markets as a whole can be measured, we will look at adjusting these numbers again.

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I finally thought of a question about this that I could put nicely.

If you KNEW that converting the system to invention salvage would cause a disruption in the markets, then why did you introduce TWO NEW (Dual Builds and Base Crafting) systems that would be using markets at the same time?

Can you seriously say that the developers considered that? Wouldn't it have been a better idea to introduce Dual Builds this issue and consult base builders as to the best way to fixed the developer's problem of simplifying crafting base items till Issue 14?

The base construction section has some of the most creative and (pun intended) constructive people on these forums.

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Is it just me, or does anyone else think that the Lighthouse article should have started out "In Memoriam..." The guy's not dead, folks, he just moved on.

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I would have thought the first sentence was very clear as to the meaning of the article:

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Last Friday the City of Heroes Community Relations Manager, Alex von Minden aka Lighthouse resigned.

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Lead stories are meant to get attention, but just reading the first line dispels the notion he died.

While the headline might (at the outside) be construed to mean that lighthouse was dead, the more likely explanation would be his office has been vacated or that he was somehow no longer with the Scoop (which truthfully he isn't dealing with the Scoop anymore).

Touche

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[ QUOTE ][*]Replace the salvage cost of empowerment buffs with a straight brainstorm cost?

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This is a bad idea, as things stand. Brainstorms are a limited resource. Past I13, base salvage no longer drops. Which means we can't make new brainstorms. Which means that at some point in the future there won't be any more to use.

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Why not make invention salvage also convert to brainstorms? From my point of view, enhancement buffs are now to cumbersome and expensive to use with Issue 13.

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I'll point out that I also covered this with my suggestion (see links in previous post).

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<ul type="square">[*]Replace the salvage cost of empowerment buffs with a straight brainstorm cost?[/list]
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Just wanted to point out that I had a similar idea (upthread, about page two). Hint, hint, devs. Great minds think alike. ^_^

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And I'll point out that I posted the same thing well before you, and further I provided more details.

I've also made a tangent thread int the base section relating to this as well.