kerrik

Once again Zonneschijn and Iya are cracking the whip, driving us toward a December release of the Massive Island Project.

All of the locations, folders, quests, and NPCs have been moved to the player otherwise known as MIP (pronounced MEEP as in 'meep meep' following by sounds of fast movement down the highways of the US western states where Wile E Coyote roams the roads looking for slow moving Roadrunners).

We are fleshing out NPC locations and dialogs, trying to finish up at least three quests for each of the nine cells of the island.  There will be many new and exciting things to discover for the wandering adventurers of NEaB.

My responsibility is developing the center where wild nomadic tribes of warrior women guard the center of the Roof of the World from the prying eyes and grasping hands of lesser men.  Of couse, that does not include the adventurer (you), who is strangely welcome whereever he/she (you) may wish to go.

Now I have to go and finish writing the Test of Strength and the Test of Wisdom, though I have very little of either.

Later, Kerrik.

Today NEaB witnessed an unusual phenomenon.  Monsters everywhere in the realm stood idle waiting for adventurers to walk through their territories.  The monsters voiced their displeasure, "How are we supposed to make a living and feed our families if adventurers stop coming through our areas so we can kill them and take their stuff?"

Where are the players?  Players everywhere are standing around trash piles looking for treasures.  This new mania has swept up even our most experienced players.  Dracme reports, "they are digging treasures for the lady."

Why the lady has ordered this search is still a mystery.  Has she lost her ring or maybe her tiara?  We don't know.  But someone said there is a trash pile in Goadlo and another one in the Pet Kennels along the southern beach of the South Part.  I am heading there now to see if I can find some 'treasures'.

One day last week, Duke Kerrik was again wandering the corridors of Castle Soupir, checking to make sure everything was in order.  On a whim, he turned into the offices of the postal imps to see how things were going in this the most bureaucratic of all of Soupir's basic administrative functions.

As he approached the counter to ask for his mail, Kerrik overheard an adventurer complaining to one of the postal imps, "But why can't I see the contents of this message?  You already told me the subject.  Why can't you tell me the message?"  The postal imp responded with a lot of technical phrases like "... only the first 20 messages are guaranteed" and "... should use the search function to make our lives easier", followed by a muttered "can't have everything".

Over at another counter he heard a different adventurer complaining, "I deleted that message, it WAS the fifth message, please show me the NEW fifth message."  The postal imp responded with lots of fast speech using phrases like "can't alter the order", "the fifth message is still the fifth message", "you should just leave", and "I can't help you unless you get back in line again".

The adventurer in front of Kerrik was peevishly asking why he had to specify which messages he wanted to delete all in a row without having to get out of line and then back in again if he wanted to delete another selection of messages.  It didn't make sense that he couldn't just mark all the ones he wanted to delete and do it all at once like in other castle post offices.  The postal imp told him he could just go to that other castle if he wanted to delete different messages that weren't next to each other.

When it was his turn to talk to the postal clerk, Kerrik flashed his Ducal Ring at the clerk and asked for the postal manager on duty.  Fifteen minutes later, when the flustered manager finally arrived, Kerrik asked him why the postal services seemed to be so inconvenient of late.  He recounted what he had observed with the postal imps and the other adventurers.  The manager apologized profusely, but opined that there wasn't much he could do about the situation.  The imps had gotten some peculiar ideas of late and he didn't know what to do about them.

Off to the side Kerrik noticed a grizzly old postal imp slowly nodding his head like everything was as it should be.  Every once in awhile the old postal imp would stroke a large button on his chest that had the words "Shop Steward" on it.  "So", Kerrik thought to himself, "we have an old imp trying to organize the postal imps, eh?"

Duke Kerrik returned to the wiki pages, and one by one he summoned each of the postal imps into his study for a brief but pointed questioning session, starting with the most junior of the imps and working his way towards the grizzled old postal imp.  Each of the postal imps was required to answer questions about what they wanted out of the Soupir postal service, what kind of working environment they would prefer to work in, and what kind of fellow postal imps they would prefer to work with and without.

Armed with this knowledge, Kerrik returned to the Soupir Post Office and made some radical changes.  First, the grizzled old imp was sent to the Gaoric Outpost Post Office to handle all Gaoric-bound mail; it was pitched as a retirement posting.  Second, the younger imps were re-organized so that each imp was closest to the area of NEaB in which he or she preferred to live and working with those imps he most preferred to work with.  Third, the imps were given base salaries instead of hourly wages, with added bonuses for high adventurer satisfaction levels.  Fourth, all postal imps were required to be polite and show their adventurer customers EVERY message they asked for, not just the first 20.  Fifth, when an adventurer requested that a message or messages be deleted, the imps would change the order of the messages in the adventurer's message list to represent what messages were left, not what messages used to be there.  Sixth, postal imps were required to allow adventurers to indicate which messages they wanted to delete individually and separately and then delete them all at once, without having to be next to each other.  Seventh, postal imps were taught to anticipate which message an adventurer wanted to delete based on the current message.  And last, the imps were given every other Thursday off during normal business hours so they could take care of their own affairs.

Many adventurers have remarked about the improved services in the Soupir Post Office.  Perhaps you should visit and see for yourself.

This week was a little strange.

First there was the great scroll hunt over at Archmage Valdemar's Athenaem.  Someone, who will not be named, hid all of Valdemar's combat scrolls just before the Biennial Archmage Competition.  Despite the inconvenience of having to re-write all of his scrolls in a very short amount of time, Valdemar was a good sport about it.  He said it helped him re-focus on the spells he would really need the most in the contest.  Anyway, once again Valdemar has been awarded the title Archmage of NEaB.  Heheheh.  Who knew he could still be that good at his age?

And then of course, when Valdemar finally found out who swiped his combat spell scrolls, well, let's just say I have been busy writing more general support spells for the infrastructure of Nowhere Else.  And, of course, I was 'convinced' of the importance of helping Valdemar set up his little tests for training aspiring scribes in how to write their own scrolls.

Then there was the Butterfly Hunt for the celebration of the anniversary of Suzumi's coronation a year ago.  Do you know how hard it is to find enough crystal butterflies on such short notice?  Not to mention organizing the castle staff in getting all of those cardboard boxes ready and in place exactly at midnight.

And finally, Glum has been requesting an upgrade to his player recognition spells in the chat room.  Well, now he can recognize any player he is asked about.  He may not feel like responding, but he knows more about them now.

I lost it today.

It all started when I went to look at someone's latest blog entry and I saw a spam comment.  So, I thought I would go visit my own blogs and see if there were any spammy comments on my blog.  And there was one.  So, yes.  I decided to delete it.  But, it was taking so long that I decided that I would go delete it straight out of the database instead.

Yes, I agree.  That was a bad idea.  Very bad.

All I intended to do was delete one stupid spam comment.  But when I looked in the database, what did my eyes see?  Thousands and thousands of the same spammy comments from the same spammy email addresses and spammy web sites and all were definitely from non-players.

No, I do not want to buy your cheap illegally imported drugs, nor your cheap bulk cartons of non-taxed cigarettes, nor your imitation Rolex wrist watches or other fine fake jewelry, nor your poorly researched hot term papers, nor do I want to sell you my silver or gold for pennies on the dollar of its intrinsic worth even melted down, nor visit your web site to meet hot singles who just want to talk dirty to me on the phone and charge my credit card for phone ... services.

I am afraid I got a little angry.  And the more spam I deleted the angrier I got.  By the time I had eradicated every russian email touting the joys of using their plagiarized material for my college courses, there was nothing but ... a lot of missing comment ids in the database.  I shuddered in the shame of the knowledge of the massive destruction I had caused to the spammers and their comments ... and the ebbing of massive doses of adrenaline as I brought myself back under control.

Would I do it again if given the chance?  Of course, ... and therein lies the danger.  I must control myself.  I must remove myself from the temptation.  I must leave the pages of this blog and the database that lies thereunder.  But, .... I know I will be back.

Yours faithfully,

Kerrik (junior admin)

SOLVED

Sometime Monday morning players started noticing that the titles of many players had been mixed up.  What was unusual was that it wasn't even April 1st, but just a normal Monday in December.  Inspector Glum immediately got on the case taking down the following notes, hoping to determine what title each player used to have, what title they were given, and the order that their old titles were returned to them by the admins, but that is as far as he got.  Your job is to help Glum.

1.  The players' original titles were Adventurer, Barefoot, Historian, Silent, Shepherd, and Sweet.
2.  The players received the titles Beggar, Dirty, Drunker, Good, Non-Smoker, and Thief.
3.  The first player to get her title back was MonstaKilla who was not a Historian and never Good.
4.  The Silent player was the second player to be re-titled.
5.  The third player to get his title back was not Sweet nor did he become a Beggar for awhile.
6.  The fourth player to be re-titled was not Tallboy nor the Historian.
7.  The Non-Smoker was the last player to be re-titled.
8.  HotStuff was neither first nor last to get his title put back to what it was.
9.  The Adventurer was dismayed when he saw he had been given the title Dirty.
10.  MegaStar, who was briefly given the title Thief, regained his proper title before the Adventurer but after the Historian.
11.  Tallboy was re-titled sometime after the Barefoot, the Good player, and the Shepherd, but before CoolDude.
12.  Beamer had never taken a drink before in her life, but somehow was labeled as Drunker.
13.  The last three players to get their titles back were (in no particular order): the Shepherd, TallBoy, and the Non-Smoker.
14.  The Silent player was never Good nor a Thief.
15.  The Barefoot player did not get re-titled to be a Thief.

The first player to send me the correct answer will be awarded a Riddle Token.

Four adventurers were in the Glum and Parrot complaining about how poor they had done at fishing the day before.  Each had fished all day long and each had caught only one fish, although they had all caught many other non-fish objects.  Amazingly, each had fished in a different location, used a different bait, caught a different fish, and 'caught' the most of a different non-fish object.  From the following clues, determine which adventurer caught which fish using what bait, the location each was fishing from, and the objects that each adventurer caught the most of.

CoolDude liked fishing off the pier in Goadlo Harbour.
FlameDude finally caught a red herring, but not from the Soupir docks.
GhostBoy caught the most sea shells, but never caught a red snapper.
TallBoy used a cricket to catch his fish, but it wasn't a blue pike.
A furry was used to catch a fish in the waters of the North Part
The adventurer who caught the most strange stones finally caught a red snapper, but he was not fishing in the North Part.
The adventurer who caught the most catfish also caught the most old ropes.
The adventurer who caught the most old shoes did not use crickets for bait.
The adventurer who tried fishing without any bait did not catch a red snapper.
The blue pike was caught in the waters off the South Beach.

The first player to forward the solution to me will win a Riddle Token.

A few weeks ago, five adventurers participated in Defender's Week by hunting down gaorics with the rest of loyal NEaBians.  Although the five of them never progressed further than the first five levels, they each had a grand time slaughtering gaorics.  From the following clues, determine their names, what class they are, which level they ended on, which medal each one had the most of, and how many times they died.

Each of the five had more medals from exactly one of the first five levels than the other four and finshied the contest on a different level.

Each of the five died a different number of times, between 3 and 15.

Bold Man won the most Initiate Medals, but he died more times than Clever Girl, who finished the contest on the Mountaintop Settlement.

Doubting Dude died more times than the Cavalier and Vandale warriors.

Running Man, the Air Mage, did not finish the contest in the Small Outpost.

Tremulizer was not a Rogue, but he did gain the most Spellcaster Medals.

The Marauder warrior died 3 times more often than than the adventurer who won the most Infantry Medals.

The adventurer who finished the contest in the Wizard's Overlook died 10 times.

The adventurer who won the most Peasant Medals died 9 more times than the adventurer who won the most Assault Medals.

The adventurer who died 7 times did not finish at the Guard Post nor did he win the most Initiate Medals.

The adventurer who finished the contest in the Assault Camp did not win the most Infantry Medals or Assault Medals.

The adventurer who finished on the Mountaintop Settlement died 9 times fewer than the Air Mage but 3 times more than the Vandale warrior.

The adventurer who finished at the Assault Camp did not win the most Initiate Medals or Spellcaster Medals.

Neither the Clevel Girl nor the Vandale warrior won the most Infantry Medals.

Kerrik was out with his brand new butterfly net trying to catch some butterflies a few days ago.  After many attempts he finally managed to catch exactly six of them, each one a different color.  From the following clues, determine the color of each butterfly, the order Kerrik caught them, where each one was caught, what it was sitting on when he caught it, and who was nearby watching.

1. Kerrik did not catch his first or last butterfly in the throne room.
2. The green butterfly was not caught on the wheelbarrow.
3. Glum did not visit the throne room at all that day.
4. Dracme and LadiC were not around when Kerrik caught the green butterfly.
5. Dracme was not around when Kerrik caught the purple butterfly.
6. Kerrik chased a butterfly into the old mines after catching one sitting on a shield.
7. The red butterfly was caught on a fence post in the graveyard.
8. The purple butterfly was not caught on the back of a horse.
9. Retor was not around when Kerrik caught his first butterfly.
10. Kerrik caught a butterfly on a tree stump before he caught one on a fence post.
11. Shorty was not around when Kerrik caught the butterfly that was sitting on the shield nor was she watching when he caught a butterfly near the void shop.
12. Kerrik caught a butterfly near the blacksmith's shop before he caught the yellow butterfly but after he caught a butterfly while Retor was watching.
13. The blue butterfly was caught before the butterfly caught on the fence post but after the butterfly caught while Zonneschijn was watching.
14. Kerrik caught a butterfly that was sitting on a tree stump before he followed another butterfly into the throne room.
15. After catching an orange butterfly while Glum was watching, Kerrik caught a butterfly on the back of a horse.
16. The order he caught the butterflies was the one that was sitting on the castle wall, the one he caught by the potion shop, the one he caught while LadiC was watching, the purple one, the one that was sitting on a wheelbarrow, and the one he caught by the old mines.

SOLVED

Five little pigs went to Castle Soupir to find out what had happened to Croesy.  They all arrived on the same day (but at different times) and each one asked a different person in the castle if they had seen Croesy.  From the following clues, determine what time of day each pig arrived, each pig's name (mood), skin color, and what each pig was wearing.
1.  The pig who arrived first immediately went to see the Cook, whom he questioned while eating breakfast.
2.  The pig who arrived at Noon brought food in his Backpack so he never went to see the Cook.
3.  The skin of the pig who arrived at Dusk was hard to see clearly because it was mottled Grey.
4.  The pig who arrived in the Evening was very Sad, but his skin was not Spotted or Green.
5.  The pig who arrived at Midnight giggled so much that Carmen barely understood him.
6.  The pig that was very Happy arrived before the pig who was constantly giggling but after the pig who was Sleepy.
7.  The pig who visited the Fortune Teller was definitely Crazy; they got along just fine.
8.  The pig with the Pink skin liked how his belt complimented his complexion.
9.  The pig wearing the Hat arrived before the pig wearing the Tie but after the pig wearing the Necklace
10. The pig who questioned Hemphirius also paid to be healed, so he had to remove his Tie.
11. The pig with the Green skin frightened the Lottery Boy when he appeared in the sunlight.
12. The pig with the Black skin started out for the castle after eating lunch at Noon.

(First player to send the correct solution will receive a Riddle Token.)

One day Outdated was out exercising his pets (he has hundreds of them), when five of them escaped into the wild, forcing him to spend the time to hunt them down.  Determine the name and type of each escaped pet, where it hid, what weird food Outdated used to lure it out into the open, and what he used to recapture it.
1.  Cutie doesn't like bleached bones or mushy peas nor was he caught with a magical lasso.
2.  Outdated had to use a fishing rod with a net attached to the end to catch his pet named Harvey.
3.  The five pets were represented by Rahu, the Pig, the pet who hid up a tree, the pet who was lured out with a handful of smelly peas, and the pet who was caught in a really big box.
4.  The pet named Spider did not hide in a candle shop nor was it  caught in a deep pit trap.
5.  Tiny hid on a pirate ship but could not be lured out of the captain's cabin with a gigantic potato.
6.  Despite having wings, the Dwarf Rooster was easily caught in the deep pit trap.
7.  The Falak and the Griffon were two big to capture with the butterfly net or the really big box.
8.  The Turtle (who was not named Harvey) hid on a pirate ship but was not lured out with bleached bones.
9.  The pet who was captured with the magical lasso did not like bleached bones.
10. The pet that hid on the castle walls could not be caught with a deep pit trap or a really big box.
11. The Griffon (who is not named Spider) does not like colorful corn or smelly plants.
12. The pet who hid in a bar was lured out with a handful of colorful corn but was not caught with a magical lasso.
13. There was not enough room to use the magical lasso in the candle shop.
14. The Falak was not found up a tree nor was it lured out with smelly plants.

Princess Shorty couldn't get to sleep so she started counting sheep, only that didn't work so she started counting cows.  When just counting them didn't work, Princess Shorty started giving them names as they approached the fence.  When Princess Shorty woke up, she could only remember five of the cows.  From the following clues, determine the order of the cows, the number of each cow, its color, how the cow dealt with the fence, what made the cow distinct, and what name Princess Shorty gave it.

1.  The five cows were (in no particular order) the 42nd cow that Princess Shorty counted, the brown cow, the cow that slept on the fence, the cow with a heart shaped spot on its side, and the cow that she named Drake.
2.  Princess Shorty counted the black cow before the cow she name T-Bone, but after the cow that crawled under the fence.
3.  Princess Shorty counted the cow with a bell around its neck before the cow named Dutch, but after the red cow.
4.  Princess Shorty counted the cow with no tail befor ethe white cow, but after the cow with a saddle on it.
5.  Princess Shorty counted her 54th cow after the mute cow (that could not say moo), but before the cow that tried to bite its way through the fence.
6.  Princess Shorty counted the golden cow after she counted her 37th cow, but before she counted the cow that walked around the fence.
7.  Princess Shorty counted the cow that jumped over the fence after the cow she named Walter, but before the cow that she counted 63rd.
8.  Princess Shorty counted the cow that was mute after the cow she counted 18th, but before the cow that she named Waldo.
9.  Princess Shorty counted the cow she named Walter after the cow with a saddle, but before the cow that tried to bite through the fence.
10.  Princess Shorty counted her 42nd cow before the cow that tried to bite through the fence, but after the cow that was mute.
11.  Princess Shorty counted the cow with no tail before the cow she named T-Bone, but after the cow she named Waldo.

Five adventurers wanted to settle who among them was the best pet trainer, so they all rented pigs from Croesy's Best-of-Breed Pig Farm so that they could have a race.  Over the next few weeks, each pig trainer added a different special food to his pig's diet and trained his pig in a different secret location.  On the day of the race, each pig got into a little trouble during a different part of the race.  Given the following clues, determine the name of each trainer, the name of his pig, the name of the secret location where they trained, the special food the pig ate, what trouble the pig had during the race, and what place the pig finished.

1.  The adventurers were represented by the trainer of the pig who came in last, the trainer who trained his pig on Death Isle, the trainer of Baconator, the trainer who fed his pig potatoes, and the trainer whose pig was distracted by a shiny object on the ground.

2.  The order the pigs finished (first to last) is the pig who trained on Jhal-Abul, the pig who was trained by Beamer, the pig who was fed corn, the pig who tripped over a stick, and the pig named Mr. Hogg.

3.  Curly Tail was fed peas but not by CoolDude.

4.  HotStuff did not train his pig on Nutty Island nor did he feed it corn.

5.  MonstaKilla's pig finished before the two pigs who ate beans and peas but before the pig who ate cake.

6.  TallBoy's pig (who was not named Curly Tail) finished three places behind the pig who stubbed his toe on a rock.

7.  Fatticus finished two places behind Hameister, who was startled by a cat.

8.  The pig who was fed truffles was not trained on Shrubbery.

9.  The pig who was trained on Ice Inferno finished after the pig who was fed corn.

10.  The winner was not fed cake while training.

11.  The pig who trained on Shrubbery finished just before the pig who trained on Nutty Island.

Each week, Retor lays out the gazette in two columns before approving it for publication.  This week he was surprised with how easy the gazette was to lay out.  From the following clues, determine the order that each article was submitted, who wrote it, how long it was, what it was about, and where it was positioned in the gazette this week.
1. The right and left columns were exactly the same length.
2. The articles were 13, 18, 24, 25, and 36 lines long.
3. Each article is preceded by a picture that is approximately 6 lines long.
4. Beamer was not the first to submit an article to the gazette this week.
5. Neither Beamer nor TallBoy's article had anything to do with food.
6. CoolDude and MonstaKilla barely made the deadline.
7. HotStuff's article was placed at the end of its column.
8. The birthday list was too short to place in the left hand column.
9. The island review was placed directly below the short story.
10. Retor placed the poem about a pets favorite food at the top of its column.
11. The recipe was neither the shortest nor the longest article.
12. The first article submitted was not placed in a corner.
13. The two articles that only differed by one line were placed side by side.
14. The longest article was place in the top left corner.
15. The recipe was not placed in the bottom left corner.
16. The short story was submitted before the island review but after the birthday list.
17. The poem was shorter than the short story.
18. The birthday list had an even number of lines.
19. Because HotStuff's and CoolDude's articles each had an odd number of lines, one was placed in each column.
20. The article in the top right corner was not submitted last.

Five island managers were sitting in chat discussing how long they had been promoted to be public island managers, what tile sets they liked best, and what they found most difficult about managing their public islands.  From the following clues, determine what each island manager has the most trouble with, which background tile set they like the best, and how long they have been an island manager.
1.  The five island managers had their islands promoted to 'full public' access 7, 8, 9, 10, and 11 months ago.
2.  The island manager who loves using the Dungeon 3 background tile set has the most trouble getting the High Scores commands to work and has been a public island manager two months less than Sir TallBoy, who has been an island manager a month less than the one who has problems working with his island's Monster Drops.
3.  The three males are the public island manager who really loves to use the Dungeon 4 background tile set, the island manager who has a lot of trouble getting the Smart Draw tool to work properly, and the one who's been a public island manager for 8 months.
4.  Dame HotStuff has been an island manager a month longer than the one who has trouble with the High Scores commands, and a month less than the one who likes the Ship background tile set (who isn't Dame Beamer).
5.  Sir MonstaKiller (whose has no problems using the Smart Draw tools) is not particularly fond of the Lava Dungeon background tile set, which he rarely uses.
6.  The island manager who has trouble with Map Actions has been an island manager longer than the island manager who has trouble with Map Parts.
7.  The public island manager who likes to use the Castle background tile set the most has been a public island manager longer than either Sir CoolDude or the island manager who has a lot of trouble with Map Actions.

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• Massive Island Project
• New Player Class: Sanitation Engineer?
• Upheaval in the Post Office
• Crystal Butterflies and Other Oddities
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• Mystery of the Changed Titles
• Fishing
• Defenders
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• Pig Detectives

• General Ramblings [5]
• Logic Puzzles [23]

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