LIMITED flag

[Pioneer]

Ok.. what's up with the wow LIMITED flag?

I swear, 99% of the equipment and their grandma on the mud has the LIMITED flag.

Heck, looking at all the gear that loads in bardic college, I can find exactly 5 items (excluding instruments) that don't have the LIMITED flag on it... library card, sony walkman, bardic ring, portable hole and wisp crystal. And wisp crystal doesn't really count since the load rate is 100% if 0 in play and 0% if 1 or more in play.

Which brings up my next point... if all the equipment that loads in the game already has a load check, what's the point of the LIMITED flag?

I heard throu the grapevines (and this is -purely- hearsay and speculation) that the flag is there to prevent lower IMMs from loading certain items. If that's the case and you don't trust those IMMs to not abuse their powers, why are they in that position in the first place? Or why not simply take the command away from people not QSTR+ and liberate equipment from that silly flag?

Anyways, off with the rant and back to mudding.. if only someone would reboot the stupid machine .

my 153cps.

[Arizhel]

The LIMITED flag has nothing to do with whether or not the item has a load limit. EVERY item in the game has a load limit, with the exception of things loaded by device and by the load_by_death proc.

The LIMITED flag is basically what determines what level of immortal can load what item. RNBL+ can load non-limited items, DEMI+ can load limited ones.

There are many many LIMITED flags in the game for a reason. When saccing "rare" items (i.e. LIMITED) was added to the immorting process, the flag was thereafter sprinkled throughout the realm. However, it was used a bit -too- liberally, imo, as just about every item in the game that has any stats whatsoever is limited.

Anyway, yeah.

[Griffon]

So is something going to be done to... remove some of these LIMITED flags from eq that doesn't belong? The main use of the flag that I see is for sac purposes, but LIMITED items are so abundent that it's kinda pointless...

Just an idea... maybe make another flag that works seperately from the LIMITED flag to prevent anything lower then DEMI's loading it... that way, A) makes it a wee bit harder to remort, and B) gives post-perf. chars a chance to rename some decent eq

Nic

[Ciara]

This is something that may be addressed when I do the EQ review. I have also toyed with the idea of additional flags but as of yet I have not decided on anything.

[pixie]

OK I am not sure i understand what the point of limited eq is anyhow. Isn't load rate supposed to limit the ammount in game? Why force people who want to play, but dont have the time o run around at 3am to have to buy eq? I currently have a choice, as ching told me, play lots, stay up all night, or spend lots of time regenning. Now, i dont mind limiting artifacts or having unique eq, but, why are there limited items? anyone?

artificial inflation of value comes to mind, aside from that any reason at all?

If I can kill quags, i think i deserve a boring, even if there are 50 in, if he meets load % anyhow...

dismiss at will

[Griffon]

As the post above said, the LIMITED flag is mostly to keep DEMI- from loading it....

O, and btw... it took me to today to realize that your avatar is a fairy, not a Pokémon as I first thought... *shudder*

Nic

[Tam]

pixie said:

OK I am not sure i understand what the point of limited eq is anyhow. Isn't load rate supposed to limit the ammount in game? Why force people who want to play, but dont have the time o run around at 3am to have to buy eq? I currently have a choice, as ching told me, play lots, stay up all night, or spend lots of time regenning. Now, i dont mind limiting artifacts or having unique eq, but, why are there limited items? anyone?

artificial inflation of value comes to mind, aside from that any reason at all?

If I can kill quags, i think i deserve a boring, even if there are 50 in, if he meets load % anyhow...

dismiss at will

Wow.. I'm not 100% positive where you're coming from but I'll take a stab. As it's been said, the main use of LIMITED is for the purpose determining what items immortals with the load command can load and for the purpose of having some supposedly rare items in your pile of sac stuff.

Whenever a builder typically sets a load rate, he/she typically sets it not to create an artificial value, but to limit the amount of output into the game. For example, the limit on the diadem is low and the limit of firebreathers is high. We don't care if there's 100 firebreathers in the game at any one time but 100 diadems would make 2 damage on head "standard" and force us to upgrade a pile of mobs to compensate. As it stands, the diadem is a nice item that not everyone has. Because of that, sometimes players can get and edge if they were motivated to stay up late, running that mob over and over again.

Now limits arent just "limited" and not limited as far as loads go. Builders put a numerical limit on the amount of a particular item they will allow before the item quits loading. For example, if I put a limit of 5 on my "magic widget", 4 "magic widgets" can be in the game for one to still load. If a 5th is in, no "magic widgets" will load. (ref: the builder docs for more info)

Now, there's another number builders can play with. This is the load rate. The load rate is the % change an item has to load. If you have a load rate of 30%, the mob has a 30% chance to load an item.

Why are there 2 numbers to play with? Well, building itself is an art. Sometimes you'll say, "Ok.. this is a key to get into a zone. So... I'll set the load limit to 99 and the load rate to 100% because I want it to be readily available." Other times you'll say, "Well.. this item will end up being a highly-used piece of gear. So instead of worrying about the % load. I'll focus on the amount in the game, letting the players essentially decide how often the item loads." In other words, you don't want the item to become overly abundant. The other angle is saying, "I really don't care how many of this item are in the game at one time. I care about how many are in the database." So... you can set the limit higher (maybe 99 can be in) and the load rate to 1%. So whereas one focuses on the amount in game, the other focuses on how many are essentially in the database. If the item is really powerful, you typically make both numbers fairly low so they don't get overabundant and cause you to rewrite all the mobs in the game.

In any case, the LIMITED flag does nothing in regard to the "load limit" or the "load rate".

I hope that makes sense. Feel free to add to this if it isn't:)

-Tam

[pixie]

ok i will restate my point, because i dont think it is answered.

Why should there be a limit on number in game? shouldnt a player at noon have the same chance to load said item as players at 2am?

I personally dont care about how much 'uber eq' is in game. If i set out the time to repop a piece of eq that has 99 in the gam, and has a load rate of 3%, why should it NOT load? when Jupiter is sitting up on his cloud looking down at the earth looking for someone to smite do you think he ever said to himself:

"Well looks like there are some people down there running around with my god toys, better not make another to smite the thieving bastards with!"

%load restrictions i can see, limited is just well, annoying, and yep thats it.

Like Pio said, every other piece in the game has a LIMITED flag, so for sac purposes (which my understanding is what it was put in for, more or less) it is even useless. So again whats the point?

Now i know in the 'old days' limited didnt load cept crashes, and ALWAYS loaded then, and normal eq loaded every pop. so there was a use, but again, in the 'old days' a 4 hour up time was a big deal, so had no load restriction effect, really.

[ProtoClown]

pixie said:

Why should there be a limit on number in game? shouldnt a player at noon have the same chance to load said item as players at 2am?

I personally dont care about how much 'uber eq' is in game.

We have load limits because we don't want every single character in the game to have a phaser, for instance. Load limits let us have some measure of control over the "average" set of equipment in the game so that we don't constantly have to do one of the following:

a) Modify already established equipment. (Yes, this occationally does happen, but its far, far more rare than you'd expect.) You can consistently count on a Broach of Supremacy having the same stats tomorrow as it had a year ago for this reason. This is a good thing.

b) Modify mobs so that they can continue to challenge players. (Yes, this is happening with more frequency now, but we have judged that in almost all cases our mobs don't provide much of a threat, which is why Ciara is conducting a review of all eq and modifying/approving the modification of various wholly underpowered mobs.)

Surely you don't rationally believe there should be as many copies of an lbolt floating around as a long sword, or as many swords of damocles as rocks. (I know load limitations are not popular, but sometimes the game should continue an unpopular practice for very good reasons. IMHO this is one of those times.)

And just to make sure it's stressed...a LIMITED flag has nothing at all to do with load percentages or load limits. It currently does only two things:

a) Affects what items one must have in order to become an immortal through sacrifice.

b) Affects what level immortal can spontaneously create the item with the load command.

It does one of these very badly, and will most likely be fixed when the equipment inventory is reviewed.

[pixie]

ProtoClown said:

Surely you don't rationally believe there should be as many copies of an lbolt floating around as a long sword, or as many swords of damocles as rocks. (I know load limitations are not popular, but sometimes the game should continue an unpopular practice for very good reasons. IMHO this is one of those times.)

No I do not think that, but i DO think that either load limit (badi idea) or %load should be used, not both.

People running eq groups standardly log eq they are trying to pop, so load limit is kinda useless for them anyhow. It mostly just affects soloers and people who play durring 'normal' hours, keeping them from almost (note i did use almost) never loading any eq, including not so uber eq, silk leggings etc. Not to say silks arent cool...

Also I do think that if a group forms to kill Jup 100 times at noon with 6 lbolts in , they deserve the same shot of lbolts loading as simular group running at 3am with 0 in.

[Ciara]

This will be one of those instances when your vision of the mud differs from ours. Load limits will continue to be used in conjunction with % loading through out the mud. It provides for some interesting dynamics within a zone. A builder can have an item load 6 times, and then choose with 6 of X in the game, to allow that to cause a %load of Really Super Cool Item #1.

They can also choose to have an item load 6 times and when 3 are in the game, % load Somewhat cool item B and then with one of Item B and 6 of the first item, have a % load of Really really really cool item #C.

There are lots of creative ways that load limits both hard # and % can be used. They haven't necessarily been used in the past, but this too will be underconsideration through out the mudwide mob/eq review.

[RNBL Charis]

Ciara said:

This will be one of those instances when your vision of the mud differs from ours. Load limits will continue to be used in conjunction with % loading through out the mud. It provides for some interesting dynamics within a zone. A builder can have an item load 6 times, and then choose with 6 of X in the game, to allow that to cause a %load of Really Super Cool Item #1.

They can also choose to have an item load 6 times and when 3 are in the game, % load Somewhat cool item B and then with one of Item B and 6 of the first item, have a % load of Really really really cool item #C.

I affectionately refer to this method as 'daisy-chain loading'...

DOOM is packed to the gills with this loading style. Personally, I'm quite a fan of it, but it's a hassle and a half to troubleshoot and/or diagnose without really focusing on WHAT you're trying to load WHERE and what it might be dependant upon.

I may as well jump on the bandwagon here on the 'limited' flag explanation... The key functionality, when I was still an admin, was that items without the flag can be created with the 'reimb' command, while items with the flag are require the 'load' command to be used (which also generates an entry in the syslog).

As previously stated, multiple times, the flag does NOT influence the load rate, as that type of stuff is hard-coded into the .zon files for the respective zones and items.

The presence of the LIMITED flag, so far as I've seen, also restricts the items that an IMM can view with the wonderfully-abused-and-now-heavily-restricted 'where' command.

I'm RNBL, I can load items with and without the LIMITED flag, it's simply a matter of which command I have to use (reimb vs load). Quest-flagged items, on the other hand, are only viewable in the database and loadable by demi+.

I was supposed to be pretending to work... these yellow-striped forums aren't helping to facilitate that illusion! ;-)

[Mediocrity]

Interestingly, the LIMITED flag also determines one other side thing. Which items that you can rename. It stops people from renaming McGriffs bat, porbs etc thus stopping people from using renamed philos while running the Count. Of course, it also stops people from renaming swordsman's gloves.

[zxcv]

But a renamed item still counts in the load limit process. Just because you have a renamed item does not stop the code from seeing it as the original item. kind-of-like enchanting changes an item but the code still counts it in the load limit process.

[Pioneer]

Actually zxcv,

you're under a false impression, renamed items are in fact new items created in the database with different VNUMs than the original ones, which is why the game doesn't consider them in the max # for load. Hence the reason the items that can be renamed are restricted to those that :

a) don't have the LIMITED flag
b) have the QUEST flag

Hopefully I cleared up the point.

Pio.

[Sereena]

Thats not entirely true Pio ... atleast i dont think it is .... it does get a new vnum and a new description ... but it is not restricted to !Limited !quest items

Name: 'the sapphire orb', Aliases: artifact sapphire orb
VNum: [ 9241], RNum: [ 1609], Type: LIGHT, SpecProc: None
L-Des: A deep blue sapphire orb gripped between dragon claws is suspended here.
Extra descs: sapphire orb
Can be worn on: TAKE HOLD
Set char bits : NOBITS
Extra flags : INVIS ANTI-GOOD [glow=red,2,300]LIMITED[/glow]
Weight: 50, Value: 15000, Cost/day: 3500, Timer: 0
Min Lev: 20, Max Lev: 0
In room: Nowhere, In object: None, Carried by: Nobody
Color: [0], Type: [0], Hours: [-1]
Equipment Status: None
Affections: +4 to HITROLL, +2 to DAMROLL

*************************************************

Name: 'a platinum orb', Aliases: orb platinum
VNum: [ 9236], RNum: [ 1604], Type: LIGHT, SpecProc: None
L-Des: A small spherical object made from platinum is floating here.
Extra descs: orb platinum
Can be worn on: TAKE HOLD
Set char bits : NOBITS
Extra flags : INVIS ANTI-GOOD [glow=red,2,300]LIMITED[/glow]
Weight: 5, Value: 15000, Cost/day: 3500, Timer: 0
Min Lev: 20, Max Lev: 0
In room: Nowhere, In object: None, Carried by: Nobody
Color: [0], Type: [0], Hours: [-1]
Equipment Status: None
Affections: +4 to HITROLL, +2 to DAMROLL


where as the sapphire Orb is just a renamed Porb ... and Both are limited *shrug*


Mike

[Sereena]

Also in light of that ... isnt your re-named Guitar a QUEST item now?

Name: 'a Stradivarius violin', Aliases: instrument guitar pioneer stradivarius violin
VNum: [ 5599], RNum: [ 1239], Type: INSTRUMENT, SpecProc: None
L-Des: A violin of superior craftmanship lies here forgotten.
Extra descs: instrument violin stradivarius
Can be worn on: TAKE WIELD
Set char bits : NOBITS
Extra flags : HUM QUEST MAG NOMAGE NOCLER NOTHF NOWAR NOPAL NOAPAL NONINJA NOJEDI NOSOHEI NORANGER
Weight: 1, Value: 50000, Cost/day: 0, Timer: 0
Min Lev: 25, Max Lev: 0
In room: Nowhere, In object: None, Carried by: Nobody
Values 0-3: [0] [0] [0] [0]
Equipment Status: None
Affections: None



*shrug*

[Pioneer]

Well...

first the Sapphire Orb, that was done before the rule was formalized and I'm not even sure it was renamed under the remort policy. From what I can remember of that long ago time, it simply appeared one day.

As far as my stradivarius is concerned, the QUEST flag was added (making it impossible to be located) without my knowledge and was only informed of it after the fact =). I didn't mind the flag since it didn't change anything for me. If you notice, there's another flag that was added to it also without my knowledge and was pointed out to me upon me receiving it, because quote : "it felt right" =P. One thing I did mind and couldn't get rid of was the 'guitar' alias, which had to stay to provide a link to the original item =/ so every time I run Marco, I have to be careful not to drop my strad instead of the newly loaded bardic guitar, or I sometime try to hold violin instead of my fuzzy.. 'that item can not be held'...

Pio.

[relantel]

This thread was a good read, with the explanation of what load-limits are as a concept. Not that I have any clue on how to know what specific limits are for specific eq, nor am I sure I want to know!

[Iolanthe, your fairy godmother]

Feb 26, 2004 16:05:38 GMT -5 Ciara said:

This is something that may be addressed when I do the EQ review. I have also toyed with the idea of additional flags but as of yet I have not decided on anything.

What is the status of your EQ review? Who else is involved in this project?