Hybrid Souls

Greetings Krafties!

First off, I want to apologize for not posting sooner. Since the last post, I've been having some health issues as well as real life issues; and the first rule of the internet should be: Real life comes first!

So it appears that everyone is going ga-ga for the latest new craze: Hybrid souls! As you know, we've had only the four basic elements of Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth. Now we can take those elements and combine them, creating brand new and amazing looking hybrid souls.

This will require 500 Energy (375 if you have gold membership) and a soul shard. It also requires you to have at least two different elemental krafties linked to your temple. Now, there's a bug going around on this where if you have a mind kraftie in the temple it'll cause an error. That's because the dialog box (the blue menu box) can only handle 12 menu buttons at a time, and since adding all four basic elements creates 12 different hybrid combonations, mind only makes it more then 12, causing the error.

The above chart is to show the relation of which elements create the new hybrids. In the case of the center, which might be confusing for some, Water and Wind make Ice, while Fire and Earth create Volcanic.

Each of these amazing new hybrids create new colors and powers. One in particular was my plant Felion, Dahlia, who gained a self buff called "Cultivate" which buffs her attack, strength and Defense slightly.

This should add a new level of excitement and innovation to the fellow krafters and new friends to collect.

And as always, Keep on Krafting!

Crafting 101

One of the most important aspects of the game of Krafties is of course, Crafting! From this, you make amulets, potions, food and even souls to bond with unbonded creatures and make new friends to add to your collection. It's going to be important that everyone from the new to the experienced know about the basics of Crafting.

To craft anything you need at least the following items:

1. A Bonded Kraftie with a minimum of level 3 overall or better.
2. Energy that is stored in your hud.
3. Your own personal and active crafting temple.

To make items like amulets and food, you'll also need to have the appropriate ingredients for each item, which can either be found by battling wild krafties or trading them from other players.

When you link with a temple, everyone benefits.

Linking is another big part of how to craft. Linking means by connecting other player's pets to another temple, thereby adding the power of their pet to yours for building items and souls. For items, this isn't often a factor, but for crafting souls, it is vital for making a powerful ones. The advantage to this is that while you gain crafting experience for making something, everyone else linked to your temple shares experience as well. This often makes Crafting a highly sociable trait in Krafties.




Note that if you are not a gold member of Krafties, once you have finished a big craft like a soul, your Temple will enter cooldown for at least 24 hours until you can do it again. Most items do not cause a cooldown.

Crafting Souls

The Elemental souls (Earth, Water, Fire, and Wind)

Soul crafting is one of the more exciting things to make in Krafties. With other items, you know what to expect in most cases, but with a soul, you could wind up with something powerful, or something weak. Knowing what other players have learned about crafting will help you learn a bit about how to make the best souls ever.

Energy: To start anything, you need energy. For the main 4 elemental souls (Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth) you need at least 250 energy (187 if you have a gold membership). This energy must be stored in your HUD. To make a soul from the elements of Mind and Affection, you'll need 500 energy (375 for gold members).

(Ruby, Emerald and Sapphire Shards)

Special Ingredients: For souls like the Mind and Affection elements, you'll need a special item; a soul shard. These are created by crafting one, using 3 ruby, emerald, and sapphire shards and 50 energy. This item must be stored in the HUD when you attempt to build these particular souls.

Linking: It is advised that you get the maximum of ten players (including yourself) to link when making a soul. Although it hasn't been proven fully, the better the variety of players, the stronger the soul will become. When making a Mind soul, remember that you must have at least ONE of each basic elemental krafties connected to your temple before you can make one. If you are making an Affection soul, you only need a mind kraftie linked.

Some interesting tidbits to know: Through study and testimony from other players, I've learned that if you get everyone to change their battle styles to "All Around" the stats of that soul being made will be more balanced out. Shifting these battle styles may produce other effects as well.

This should get you started in understanding all the things you can do with crafting. For further information and recipes, check out the Krafties Wikipedia page here.

And as always, True believers: KEEP ON KRAFTING!

The More you know...

Today, we had a rare situation at the Krafties sim involving the typical lame attack you'd find from griefers. Thankfully, the Krafties CSR's handled the attack with skill.

What was unique is that the person believed to be responsible apparently rezzed something on the sim that she had gained from the actual griefer, and unwittingly rezzed it. This resulted in the sim being attacked and the unwitting victim being banned and ejected.

This brings up something you all should know. NEVER take objects from strangers! If someone gives you an object or an item, make sure its someone you know and trust. If it's not, delete it. Do not rez it anywhere but get rid of it.

If you do rez the object, get the name of the original owner or the person who gave it to you. Most griefers have disposable accounts that are only a few days old or have no payment info. Many also have no groups, which is another good clue that they're just griefers who use the account to attack then dispose of before Linden Labs can ban their account.

Griefers love to see people get pissed or emotional, so the next thing to remember is to stay calm. If you start raging or crying or making drama, all you are doing is giving them satisfaction. NEVER let them get to you, or you give them power. If you have to deal with someone who is screaming on voice or spamming text...block them.

Sometimes, like in this situation apparently, the griefer is someone who didn't realize they were doing anything wrong. Even people who have been on Second life for a while can do something newbish and get in trouble. Don't judge, just get the facts and try to help. Sometimes a griefer might wind up to be just some 2 day old player who didnt realize that object was a sound spammer.

If we remember this, we'll all be able to enjoy Second life together.

And remember, Keep on Krafting!

And the next Kraftie coming is...

Everyone is anticipating the next of the Krafties to appear for us the capture, bond and generally have diabetic-inducing squeals of sugary sweet loving for the latest plushie fighter that is already clogging up our inventories like the sewer lines at commercial time during the super bowl. A while back, the creators posted a few pics showing what they believe will be one of these adorable combat critters that are going to be the desire of every player out there to pounce on.

WAA! Mutant Seahorse!

First up is this...uh....not sure what it is, but they're calling it a seahorse. Reminds me more of something that jumps at you and hugs your face. Still, we have yet to get any aquatic based krafties yet.

A wolf...show of hands? Who saw this coming?

A wolf...Only reason I find this obvious is cause of all the jokes of seeing them chasing Felions up trees. I definitely see dog collars, bones and puppy based attachments for this guy whenever he comes out.





 

A panda...the Chinese are going to love this one...

A Panda, cool! I remember the Chinese had their knickers in a twist over Blizzard for wanting to add Pandarens to World of Warcraft. Apparently, depicting anthropomorphic representations of their national treasure as they get beat up and killed is a declaration of war. Eventually Blizzard got their way, so they shouldn't get miffed over these.

Owls! Now Owls are a kickass bird! Nocturnal, stealth predators, and they can spin their head almost completely around that doesn't require being possessed by the devil.




From what I've currently heard, the Panda is the likely favorite, but don't be surprised if we see all four in the near future. You can find more of Kaz's work at his blog here. He is a phenomenal artist and cosplay enthusiast. I'm sure you'll find him a hit too.

Got an idea for a new Kraftie? Drop a comment below and let's hear what you got to say; and remember folks: Keep on Krafting!

Random acts of rageface?

I was in the main island today when I heard a very unusual thing. Turns out there's a growing number of players who seem to have their undies in a square knot over other players healing their pets as they fight. Even a rumor that a CSR is getting up in arms about people healing each other's creature. Apparently drive-by healings are consider by some as criminal as griefing or trolling.

Seriously?

Since when is helping out your fellow player a bad thing? We see very few random acts of kindness in both real life and second life, so when your fellow krafties player decides he's going to heal your pet, why do you consider it more of an insult? What's going to happen next, we have people bitching about having people linking into your crafting temple for XP?

OMG! The scandal! helping one another out! Call the butthurt police!

Sure, healing yourself or others is good for gaining crafting XP, but is it really that big a deal now that we are going nutbuggers over something as minor as casting low heal on your pet when he's about to get knocked out, giving you a bit more time to get just that bit of experience out to level up?

I'm sorry, but if I see a person and their kraftie is getting hurt bad, I'm going to break out my healing pet and give them a heal. What are you going to do, report me? I'd love to see the looks on the CSR's when they see your post where you're crying about me casting a heal on your pet. Or better yet...I dare you to contact the Lindens! Report that I helped heal your pet and that I was griefing you...let's see what happens then.

People, it's a game, and it's a game that encourages people helping each other, socializing and being generally non-selfish against your fellow player. If you can't handle that, do us all a favor, go back to playing your FPS games where you can find sick pleasure in teabagging your own teammate that you just headshot from behind.

Some personal time with Krafties kreator Kristopher!

Today is a real treat, Krafters. As some of you know, I worked for a short time as a wiki writer for Krafties, and worked closely with the creators. Today, I managed to wrangle a little interview time with Kristopher Gravois, one of the inventors of the game. Naturally, Kristopher isn't allowed to divulge any secrets, but he did give me a general idea about some great things coming soon for players.

Darrien: I know you guys were working on quests and production stuff like fishing and farming...BTW, Dinkle? Cute idea!

Kristopher: Thanks :)

Darrien: Is it safe to assume more quests are coming later? (Stupid question, I know.)

Kristopher: I guess it would be a pretty good assumption :P

Darrien: let me ask you this...is there some sort of hint as to what's next you can tell the players?

Kristopher: Too many things to hint at really.

Darrien: would you say its a major update?

Kristopher: John and I think up new zany ideas everyday, couldn't say what's next.

Darrien: This game probably gets the imagination going nuts, huh?

Kristopher: Yes, so much so I have trouble sleeping at times. Last night especially.

Darrien: Do you do the scripting and John does the sculpting? or is that vice verse?

Kristopher: We both do scripting, and I also do some of the design work as well.

Darrien: So its a team effort?

Kristopher: Yep, we both understand the internals of the game and know for the most part how we want everything to come together visually. It lets us talk about the game on a much deeper level, and flesh out ideas rapidly.

Darrien: Just was curious about something...why affection?

Kristopher: Because it was either that or empathy :P

Darrien: I mean to say..why an elemental power that is mostly support?

Kristopher: Because we'd like to include many different strategies, and add to the game in a way that will allow people the freedoms to think and plan in ways that aren't purely confrontational and direct. Plus, the social aspect of Krafties is huge for us. A support type is natural in that regard as well

Darrien: So do you see PvP becoming a big addition to Krafties?

Kristopher: Bigger and bigger with a lot of our new additions. I saw someone today that has a tournament board now. I'm excited to see how that's going to pan out.

Darrien: for Krafties?

Kristopher: Yep If I understood what they were saying in connections correctly...We've designed a battle API that should allow third parties to create things like that.

Darrien: So you see a lot more third parties getting involved now?

Kristopher: We hope to get more and more. Ideally I'd like to give scripters the flexibility to create add-ons much like what we've given designers with the attachment maker.

Darrien: You don't worry that people are going to make cheats or hacks using this API?

Kristopher: To answer that, we make sure that Krafties are as secure as possible. Our APIs currently are read only, which basically means that the scripters can grab information about the pets and the battles going on, but not influence them from the outside. In the future we have big plans for our third parties. For now we give basic information and make sure to protect as much as possible.

There you have it gang! Kris isn't allowed to tell us specifics, but its safe to assume that we got a lot of surprises waiting for us. So until that day comes, Keep on Krafting!

The Market

I got to tell you folks, the response to the Khronikle has been growing fast. People apparently like the idea of a Krafties blog and I'm getting more people asking me questions and wanting to promote their krafties sims.

Might, owner and manager of the Market

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of talking to Might, the current owner of what I believe is the largest Krafties sponsored sim markets around the grid, The Market @ Engobe, Deerdark and The Kraft Her various marketplaces and battling arenas are stationed in half sims interconnected together as one big sim, which she says is to help generate less lag, which I find rather clever to do.

My first impression was on how beautiful this marketplace is. Designed to look like an almost valley like setting, she has large mountainous prims around it to give the sim the feel of massive space and not look like some slab of disconnected space. Combine that with trees and waterfalls, it adds a natural splendor and relaxing atmosphere.

The Market at Engobe

Secondly, The various markets are pretty widely dispersed among the sections she's using, which seems to help with the obvious lag of so many scripts in each sim. To the casual observer, one would think this is disorganized and sloppy, but when you consider that these market stalls are sharing room with home temples and spawned wild krafties, the need to space things out is paramount to keeping the sim from slowing to a crawl.

There is just about everything a Krafties player will need here. She has over 50 home temples spawning every kind of wild kraftie for players to beat upon. In each section of the sim, a large market abounds with ample creatures, souls, goods and tools needed for your shopping pleasure. All of them are specially designed for the sake of promoting a low lag experience.

The Market is one of those really nice big spots when the main sim is proving a bit choked up by players and crafting, so feel free to check it out!

Until next time, Keep on Krafting!