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Demonbusters
Today kicks off Gaia's creepiness as H2k9 sets in. So far we get the first couple pages of a manga that explains Boo and Sin's roles in Gaia's past. I still want to know what all of this has to do with a potato.
[announcement]
I also can't wait for ToTing to start up.

Cars and Garages
[info thread]
New garage has a cleaner interface and allows us to have up to three cars. I wrote about it in a journal entry already as we were given a heads up that it was coming... well.. it's here! For some of us:
10/21 - released to user ids ending in 0 and 1 ( released )
10/23 - user ids ending in 2-4
10/26 - user ids ending in 5-7
10/28 - user ids ending in 8-9

"You won't be able to park your car in rally until the corresponding date for your user id has passed." I feel sorry for the Rally regulars who can't park their cars for another six days. They must be going nuts.
"If you are an old Gaia user, we'll teleport your old car to the garage for free! New users will get a starter Scion xD. Currently, there are 6 cars in Sams parts for sale by gold. In the future, we will try to develop more cars based on user response."
"The car signature will be be phased out once the release is complete. As a result, if you update your car in your garage, your signature will not be updated."

Azrael's Trickbox
[announcement]
Latest RIG. Very fitting of Halloween. Apparently, you'll know right after clicking it whether you'll get a bad item, mediocre item, good item or super special item... You open it, you get a box to open. Each box contains an item within certain value ranges.
[Item List]

Bewitched
Watch the first couple minutes of the first episode, get a broom. <3
I always loved Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie. Two very good shows for when there aren't any cartoons on.
[announcement]

New zOMG powerups not sb
[announcement]
"By popular demand, any new PowerUp purchased from Back Alley Bargains will be unsoulbound!
Existing PowerUps in your inventory, and any PowerUps found or acquired by any other means, will still stay soulbound. However, new purchases will be unsoulbond and may be sold in the Marketplace!
As usual, once you use a single charge out of a PowerUp, it is automatically soulbound to the user, but as long as the new PowerUp is unused, it may be bought and sold as many times as desired."

zOMG Crew Pane Update and VOIP
[announcement]
Wonderful! Simply wonderful! <3 This update just came out about an hour ago. I haven't been on with a crew yet, but so far I love it. We can see the number value of people's health. There's a big difference between someone with 1/3 health left who has a meat buff on, and someone who has 1/3 health left without a meat buff... so much easier now without having to look for a meat buff on the crewmate to see if they're in trouble or not.
I like that we'll be able to see rage bars. XD Though that might get me in trouble. I like to save rage for myself first. Once I've got a good defense up, I'll use buffs with rage on other people.. often before I have full rage buffs on myself... ...but a picky person might not like that I'm saving up rage for my own buffs. :B Oh well. I just won't even buff them the next time. *ninja*
I love being able to see CL without having to click their avatar, click for more info and waiting for their whole little info page to load.
Now the only thing I'd love is to be able to see a countdown of how much time is left on our buffs. You know, like what our ring icons do as they cool down. I'll have to see if that's been suggested at all.. ... Because when someone else uses divinity, I'd love to know whether I should be gathering rage so I can cast div when theirs drops or whether I still have time and can buff myself. <.< >.>
I'm not too keen on this new chat system... but I'll get used to it. I don't like the drop down menus. I liked that I could quickly click between chat systems before.

Also, Karma, six of my eight main rings are CL 9. The other two are CL 8.5. Also, most of the other rings I use are in the 7-8 rage. I still have around 450 orbs I haven't used yet either. I only play for about an hour every couple days... but I've really been gathering up orbs. I was playing Papa Saw over and over. My goal is to use orbs on rings to ready myself for the Gauntlet. Just thought I'd give ya an update on where I'm at.

New Crew List and Targeting Widget!
There is a much improved Crew List in this update. (The Targeting Widget is also improved in the same ways as the Crew List and shows much of the same information.)

The Crew List now shows the following information:
- All buffs are shown with icons big enough to tell what they are at a glance.
- All debuffs are also shown. (Mouseover the debuff icon to see the name of the attack being used against you.)
- The avatar faces of your Crewmates are shown.
- The rage bar status of your Crewmates are shown.
- The overall CL of your Crewmates are shown as numbers (in addition to "strength" colors).
- When using VOIP, your Crewmates portrait will flash when they talk.
- You still see health and stamina, and you can still select Crewmates by clicking on their portion of the Crew List.
- The pull-down menu on each Crewmate position is context-sensitive, with the Crew options listed at the top, in grey, and the "regular" options (like "ignore", "add friend", etc.) are below that in white.
- When a Crewmate is not in the same zone as you, their zone is shown instead of all the other information. This makes it really obvious when someone has left to go to the Null Chamber, or isn't ready to join you on an adventure yet.
- When you are Dazed, a big "Dazed" indicator appears over your avatar face so your Crewmates get added reinforcement that you're no longer with us. wink

The Targeting Widget is also improved and shows the buffs, debuffs, and CC effects on a monster. (Now you can tell which monsters have Adrenaline or Knife Sharpen on them already!) Numerical monster CL is also shown.

Improved Chat Pane!
We simplified the Chat Pane, making it easier to understand and a lot more legible.

There are simple options so that you can now mute/unmute different chat channels now. (Tired of hearing people /shout in the zone? Now you can turn them off!)

The font is also easier to read, it's easier to understand how to change broadcast channels, and the color-coding is correct.

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP)!
Otherwise known as "yakking to your Crewmates over a microphone!"

But it's very easy to use it. This is an "opt-in" feature, meaning that you do have to download a small app if you want to use it. When you get to the World List page (where you select a server at the start of the game), you'll see a large button talking about installing VOIP. Click that button and follow the on-screen instructions.

It's painless. Do it! smile

After that, there's nothing to activate at all. You just play the game, and anytime you join a Crew, you can talk to your Crewmates over your microphone. Everything else is handled auto-magically for you!

Some features:
- When anyone in your Crew speaks, their avatar portrait on the Crew List flashes. Also, their player dot on your PDA Map will flash. This helps you identify which voice belongs to which avatar.
- You have the option to mute/unmute any player. (It's a button on the Crew List.)
- If someone is really annoying, then you can also just kick them from your Crew (at which point they can't talk to you via VOIP any longer).
- If you're not the leader, then another option is that you can always quit an annoying Crew if their voice chat is bugging you.
- (And soon!) You'll have the option to ignore any player. Doing so will prevent you from ever hearing their voice again.

Please note: No customer service support is available for the VOIP feature. If someone bothers you while using VOIP, the mute, kick options (and later, ignore!) are more effective, and far timelier, than any customer service feature could be. Please use them instead. smile

Customer Service Knowledge Base VOIP Entry

Supported Browsers
Internet Explorer 7
Internet Explorer 8
Firefox 3, or above

Browsers, Not Supported
Chrome
Safari
Internet Explorer 6
Firefox 2

Voice Fonts!
But wait, there's more!

Not everyone wants their normal voice to be heard by other players. So there is also a GCash feature available called "Voice Fonts".

Basically, these are filters that twist and distort your voice to sound like someone other than what you really are, including things like:
- Male to Female
- Female to Male
- Radio Announcer
- Military Helmet microphone
- Super Deep Voice
- and more.

Voice Fonts are only 99 GC for a month of use.

Training Improvements!
* The Waterworks (used to be called "Barton Sewers" wink is now a battlefield again. You can enter it, even after you finish training, by going through the floor grating near Ellie in Barton Town.
* Training is way, way shorter. This means that some story has been removed from the start of the game and moved further into the game so that new players can get to the action more quickly.
- When you're done with the two-minute training, you can either go to the Waterworks (and learn more about how to play the game), or go up a ladder and into Village Greens to get busy fast!
* The Aekea bots have distributed a new HyperNet access system which allows you to learn more about what's going on in the world. This system is rudimentary currently (but still useful!) and will be expanded further in the future.
- NOTE: You get gold and orbs for opening each HyperNet topic the first time, so don't forget to check it out!
* Ring grants are now "staggered" again like they used to be in the early days of Open Beta. What this means is that when you get your first ring grant from Elizabeth, you won't have all 40 rings to choose from. Each ring grant NPC will offer more and more of the rings to you, until after Bass'ken Lake, you're once again choosing from all 40 rings again. (With the addition of the SWAP feature, this game design becomes effective again, preventing new users from being bowled over with too many options early in the game.)
* There are new "placard" graphics in many places throughout the game, so that new users don't have to read a novel to learn how to do something. Please realize that the graphics you are seeing now are temporary, and will be replaced with better ones sometime after Halloween is complete. (The art team is busy with Halloween stuff right now.)

Works in Progress!
One last caveat : For the first time in a long time, you are seeing some things as true Beta works-in-progress. As examples:
a) The UI overhaul is only partially done, so the Crew List and Targeting Pane don't really match other stuff...yet. They will!
b) The training stuff is not yet complete. There are PowerUp grants that are not in yet, and we're still massaging the story elements that were removed from the old training.
c) The training "placards" are temporary artwork and will get much cooler looking in the future.
d) The new Crew List is much better than the old one, but it's also much bigger. We intend to make a "minimized" version of it available later on.

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