Cheers!
Kinak

• Are bait bluegills a possible result? Going over my data I only have 1 bait bluegill out of 229 trips so I may have logged a lake bluegill incorrectly. The bait being scarce makes sense though as if a lot of the other fish are around they'd probably be eating the bait bluegills.

• I'm also having a hard time correctly logging when I find any of the extra items. I know it is possible to get 2 extra items in one trip in the form of a lost hook and a piece of high test line, because of a few trips where I had 5 standard results along with the line and hook. The issue I am hitting with logging is discerning the origin of any high test line I find. For example with 3 dock pikes, a piece of high test, and a lost hook I know the lost hook is an extra item but can't pin down if the high test is an extra item or a regular result.

• Additionally would you be willing to give a hint as to how the extra items are handled? I know it can be a piece of line, a hook, a rod, or a hook+line. Are duplicate of the same item possible like 2 lines?

• Lastly are the extra items supposed to be influenced by the fishing modifiers? +4 deep fishing for 116 trips resulted in 100 extra items I could positively ID as extras and +3 surface for 113 trips resulted in 33 extra I could ID as such.

Just one unearthly question for you this time around:

• Aside from being fun little trinkets that can help smooth out our combat chains with the charmed chain do they have another function left to be found? They're pretty interesting as is but I'm still curious.

• I remember in our correspondence you told me I misunderstood the Art Museum puzzle as having the vertical and horizontal cycles aligning. Turns out it only has a horizontal cycle. BUT! In your deepest darkest imaginings, Kinak, do you imagine a puzzle that covers great swathes of Metroplexity where a beautiful yet terrifying symmetry of horizontal and vertical—dare I say even diagonal???—cycles converge to reveal the ULTIMATE TRUTH??? (and why restrict cycles to the Euclidean space? Gotta think outside the tesseract!)

• Major ups to Al suggestion the column lengths and hiding images ability. It's, like, 100x easier to play Metroplexity on the phone now. The thought of waiting each and ever time I equipped and unequipped something for the entire inventory to refresh on my phone… no. So this is much better! But I wonder… could it be even better? Thoughts on making an APP for Metroplexity?

• So you had goals when you first started out making Metroplexity. (playing between helpdesk calls. oh hey, phones are a much bigger part of work lag time now! hint hint) What're your goals for it now?

• Who's the best spader?

• UNEARTHLY ITEMS TIME: It's hard to use the designer vines because it can easily take 20+ energy to get one drop from the pants. It takes at least 2 of these items to make a consumable. And as an unearthly item based almost entirely on its consumables, this makes it a huge commitment to use! Is there a way to speed up the frequency of the item drops?

• MINING HELMET TIME: Why does the Serpent of the Earth act all confused when you strike your selection of techniques? Is that hinting towards something bigger?

• The Serpent of the Earth has what is figured to be a really rare drop. The tear of the earth. Yet Valmo was able to get a number of these things in short order. Is it actually rare or does it have a specific set of conditions in order to be yielded?

• The Writhing Fungus has a technique that drags you off your feet and at the end of the round drops you onto the ground for significant damage. Yet at one point I could've sword I was able to just completely avoid the end of round damage. It just didn't happen. I have combat logs of that. Yet I have failed time and time again to replicate it. Some bizarre bug or is there actually some way to just completely avoid fall damage?

• There are 2 techniques from the Scuffed Mining Helmet. Pale Summons and Mining Strike. That feels astonishingly small. Is there anything else to find?

END UNEARTHLY ITEMS

• Do you have any games from Steam? There was a Steam Summer Sale recently though people said the sales weren't as great as past summer sales. We know you don't play Metroplexity so what games do you play? Fez and La Mulana are pretty crazy I shudder to think if you got any puzzle ideas from those games.

• Do you much about Braid and it's 8 stars? Amazingly difficult to acquire items in the game that took a whole community continual and focused effort in order to collect them all which in no way in the game was even hinted to even exist so took forever to even discover. What do you think about this game design? Do you see yourself incorporating something like that into Metroplexity? (cycles cycles cycles)

• How many cycles does the cycle chain fit into? How many deep and dark secrets is it a part of befitting its namesake?

• It's pretty crazy thinking about the Rage effects. They are a largely ignored set of effects from the community yet have a myriad of interactions in-game. Recently Al just learned about Rage Effects and the paintings. What about rage effects got you so fascinated by them while the rest of us steer clear?

• Speaking of little insular things you keep adding interactions to: Blitz Poppers! Added way back at the start of gang warfare, we have found its fingerprints on the Midgard Player and Empty Heart. What keeps you going back to this item?

• When you take quite a few Blitz Poppers at once, your heart throbs painfully. This message seems suspicious to me. I have tried—quite extensively by my standards—and failed to see if this leads anywhere. Is there something else important hiding in Blitz Poppers?

• Why so many suspicious things in this game? Or is it just me?

• Okay. I'm done. Is it 2 hours yet?

Perhaps you can tell me which one of the following methods was closest to correct (while still being wrong, because I did not get the avatar… )

I did the following things:
-Used Call-of-the-moon following each of the Moon tides in a single combat (huge pain in the butt)
-Used Call-of-the-moon following each of the Moon tides in order from 0 (skin-of-the-wolf) to 4 (full-moon-tide) in sequential combats (not necessarily the very next combat each time, but not using that combination of skills (5/6) in any combat unless it fit the squence)
-doing both of the above DURING an actual Full moon (On friday the 13th no less, June 13th 2014)
-wearing a ton of "wolf-like" gear and winning combats
-Completing a full Moon Tide Cycle back to 0 in a single combat.
-Having one of each of the Moon Tide Cycle in the action list in a single round (yes…1, 2, 3, 4 moon tide phases and a 5th item, which happened to be Call of the Moon. Agony but I did it once or twice.)

So, yes… which of these is closest to correct, or are they all so far away from correct that I should wipe the whiteboard and start from scratch?

Secondly, a question which was asked a long time ago and answer given, but deserves a re-think…. Is there a way to complete the initial eclipse southside quests by Joining the Fangs? Is there plan to implement such if not?

Oh, and I hope you don't make the podcasts on the day I made this post. I'm going to need at least another day to really beef this up. Otherwise boy will my face be red!

• Question #1: Do you miss those days of 2 hour+ podcasts?

• There was a bug before when you killed the annoying museum volunteer with the yellowed lace garotte, the security would not get mad. Apparently that was a bug! That seems so random and specific I have a hard time imagining how a bug like that could happen. Could you explain the anatomy of a really weird bug like that?

• Based on the Vigilante Recording, we just barely missed the guy. I mean, he was strolling around Southside which we cleaned up. Darn shame. Any chance we'll get a meeting with the ghost of the Vigilant like how the ghost of the psychopath showed up as the Quad Psycho?

• On a similar vein to the above question, why do these etheric manifestations tend to, at the very least, have a sinister streak to them? Why no avatars of truth and justice bursting forth from the heads of Eclipse Heads?

• On a spadey note, a LOOONG while back you said we got one half of the puzzle to figuring out the toxic crystal, venomous angel, and toxic octopus eye trio of items. I… still haven't figured out what that one half that we figured out is! Was that supposed to be part of the puzzle? If not mind enlightening us? If it is… hint???

• I've toyed with the mysterious ash for a while, and as far as I've got is to get my guy to recognize the patterns as old drone neural nets when he takes the dust sober. Is there a way to progress the sober results further?

• On the etheric side of mysterious ash, all we've ever got the guy to say about it is that it reminds him of the Slags. Is there a way to… progress the etheric side of the mysterious ash results as well? How hard is it?

• Is there a point when the sober and etheric side of the results of mysterious ash intersect to produce AMAZING rewards BEYOND IMAGINATION??? (5th Metroplexity Anniversary Podcast Throwback)

• Why do the swarming insects of the Art Museum never show up when I am swarming with spiders and carrying the Spider Nest. Are they afraid… of arachnids???

• Speaking of the Art Museum… Suzy. She says no but we all know she really wants the E. What would happen if she takes Eclipse? What would she See? Or would nothing really special happen like with most people.

• More on Suzy. What's she there for? She seems suspicious. Is she a plant? Is she there to replace Jess when she inevitably… retires?

• On the same vein as above, there's another suspicious girl on the dance floor in the Happy Hour. I mean, she's even got a Novos result dedicated to her! But whenever I try to get in a Dance Off with her to get the DanceDance skill all she ever does is try to punch me in the face. Is there more to her than meets the eye?

• It's not just the DanceDance skill that seems suspiciously absent. A skill on Swords is also suspiciously missing. There are tons and tons of swords with tons of interactions all over Metroplexity. But it is the far more niche and reclusive Chains that get a skill. 2 if you count the Charmed Chain! What do you think of this discrepancy?

• We found In The Sights. Anything else big like that hiding from when you updated the guns and long-range combat?

• INTERMISSION: Con Season has been going on recently! Tons of Cons last month. Have you been to any Cons recently? What are your Con experiences like? Met any Metroplexians in Cons? What are they like?

Is there more to the insect collection that we can find now, or are the tantalizing hints about connections to drones foreshadowing for future content? If there is stuff to find now, how hidden is it?

Is there a way to make the Form of Chains show up in a reasonably predictable way? I am having a devil of a time trying to get Unlocked Chain and it's frustrating to spend a whole day's turns and not see it even once.

Through the magic of complaining about stuff publicly, I now have Unlocked Chain. Are there more charmed chain techniques/detached items we have yet to find?

• Who (or possibly what) would you say is your favorite character in the game so far?
• Can we have a hint about some secret we haven't discovered about that character?
• Is it currently possible to find a polysteel extruder or temperer anywhere?

• Status update on things coming up? Is mid-August still a reasonable guess for Novos?

• Eight of the 13 stories in the Scary Storybook have hidden extra messages (that we know of). Do all of them have a hidden stuff we can find? Were any added after the fact?

• The name "Leandra Silver" was mentioned by a blogger on Channel 2 Rachel news back in 2011 — and I don't think we've heard of her again. Relation to Silver Towers?

• Does the virtual pet bass minigame have a "reward" or is it something nifty to play with?

• When metal music plays at the Happy Hour, some new people join the dance floor "who look like they just came from the gym by way of an overpriced clothing store". Is there anyway to see/meet/fight these guys? It looks like we can only steal their trendy caps randomly from the crowd.

• This charmed chain came out recently so don't want to ask too much about it but a few questions:
  • Was the charmed chain the item that you had planned out a looong time ago?
  • Will SD1s show up more frequently in Oldtown? With the change to the first floor spider nest bug, they now seem really hard to find.
  • The Snapping Chains is an oddity… anything else to discover from the chain while sober?
  • Also, on the topic of Snapping Chain, you seem to get fewer copies of it the more stealth power you have. Is that supposed to work that way? It looks like this:

0 Stealth Power = 0 copies
1 Stealth Power = 4 copies
2 Stealth Power = 4 copies
3 Stealth Power = 3 copies
4 Stealth Power = 3 copies
5 Stealth Power = 2 copies
6 Stealth Power = 2 copies
8 Stealth Power = 1 copies
9 Stealth Power = 0 copies

• A while back, Vholes suggested interactions between the baseball bats and monstrous pinata. Is there something to look for there?

• Stun Resistance went in over 4 years ago but we haven't seen any more stun resistance items since. Is that something to consider and will we ever see above "Slightly improved" stun resistance?

• Any hints as to what the strange song technique from deep hunter does? (other than mysteriously taunt us?!)

Thanks Kinak!

So if you have questions, ask away! As always, try to keep the cross-talk to a minimum, so I don't get confused and miss anything.

If you want to listen to old podcasts, we've got those. Oh, do we have those.

If you want to read me rambling rather than listen to it, we have those too. It's like a one-stop shop for Kinak-related ramblings!

Cheers!
Kinak