Jazabelle's Everfrost Office

The old arched windows of the Everfrost portal hub.

From the moment I understood how prestige housing portals would work--and I admit it took me a few days and a bit of research before I was positive I understood it properly--I was determined to put together a portal hub.

My first attempt at a portal hub took the arched windows I'd constructed for Dolthaic back in April of 2011, and turned them into "windows" into the different homes. I liked the idea, but there wasn't enough room for expansion.

The round portal/transport room.

And ringing a room with ten windows meant over 100 items for the "windows" alone. With the low item count of the Everfrost house, that didn't leave me much room for decorating the rest of the house.

Regretfully, I put my office on hold and worked on other projects. I just couldn't seem to figure out a setup for my portal hub that would work for me. I accumulated portals in the meantime, tossing them into the Everfrost house wherever the mood struck me.

Framed portal "painting" at H&T.

Then in early June of 2012, I revamped the guild hall. Afista had used tiles frame the portals in her portal hub. I used the same idea for the portals in my guild's hall, but tweaked the design a little bit--I included paintings to frame the tile and give it a more finished look, much as she framed tiles in her portal hub to showcase them. The result was a framed "painting" of a portal hub that received quite a few compliments from guildmates and visitors alike.

Not long after that, sometime in mid-June, Hopsalong built her portal hub. She took the idea Afista came up with that I tweaked, and also tweaked it. The result was an elegant portal hub with plenty of room for lots of portals, and a very easy method of expansion.

Hopsalong's portal hub.

I admit that Hops' portal hub made me insanely jealous. It was gorgeous! And if I were the sort of person who bought layouts from other people, I would have snapped up her hub in an instant. But I'm not. Besides, I don't own a Felwithe house, which is what her portal hub is in.

Hopsalong's hub spurred me to start working on my own again. I went through several attempts to build a suitable layout. The first was very similar to both my original hub and Hopsalongs--a hallway that terminated in a round room, then branched off into other rooms. While it was nice, I felt too much like I was copying Hopsalong rather than being inspired by her. It also didn't help that I went exclusively sumac, without the trim and color Hopsalong has in her hub to cut back on the "sumac poisoning."

A baseboard and some crown molding would do a lot to cut back on the overwhelming sumac feel.

I struggled with the hub for several days, popping back and forth between Hopsalong's hub and my own. No matter what I did, I didn't like it.

It was while I was running circles around Hopsalong's hub, trying to think of materials other than black marble building blocks (which I didn't have, and refused to spend SC on) that I really looked at the paintings lining her walls. Gold and sumac, opulent, easily sized--the paintings would make a perfect baseboard!

I immediately crafted several and popped into my portal hub. But no matter how I tried, the shape of the rooms and the paintings meant that they just wouldn't work as baseboards. I couldn't sink the paintings low enough to act as a baseboard. If I angled the painting and hid most of it in the wall, by the time the sides of the painting stopped poking through, the bottom did, too.

The first time I actually liked where the hub was going.

Eventually, I realized I was trying to stay too close to Hopsalong's work. Her work was "safe"--I'd already seen how it turned out, and really liked it. If I wanted the paintings to work with my house, I'd have to do something different.

Luckily, it turned out I didn't have to do too much different. I could keep the front hall that opened up into a large room. However, I went with a square room because of the patterns I wanted for the paintings. I kept the sumac walls, but ditched the sumac floors. And I definitely wasn't going to go with a stained glass ceiling--while I adore Hops' hub, I'm not a rainbow person. I'm also not big on stained glass. I feel that it should be used to accent. With Hops' hub, it works. All that sumac means that the stained glass isn't overwhelming, especially since it's a focal point. That wouldn't work in my house. So I went with a plain white ceiling, and jazzed it up with more gold.

The front hall opening up into the center room.

Confession time: I'm not really a gold person, either. If I were to see something like what I built for my Everfrost hub in real life, I'd look at it and think it's pretty, but much too ornate for me. But in-game, this works. Part of why I enjoy decorating in-game is it allows me to step outside my comfort zone with furnishings and architecture.

Back to my portal hub! I left the hub pretty much undone for the rest of July and August. I'd done the front hall, but was stuck on how I wanted it to transition into the large center room. Plus I was out of town in July, and by the time I came home in August, I'd lost my drive to work on the hub.

But on September 1st, I went back to working on it, and I worked hard. It was like a mental block had cleared, and I had more ideas than I could build! There were some rough patches, and plenty of ideas that I worked on for hours, then scrapped completely. I moved my teleportation objects around the hub several times a day, trying to find a good spot for them.

Eventually I had the layout set up how I wanted it. And then I moved my office from my guild hall to the Everfrost hub. I decided it wasn't fair that my office used over a hundred items, while everyone else was limited to 20. With my office in my Everfrost hub, people would be able to expand their customization of their offices in the guild hall.

Seating!

Because it was an extension of the guild hall in my mind, I included some similar items, like the circular seating in the center of the large room. I went with a different color scheme, but kept the idea of seats arranged around a planter.

I actually spent the least amount of time decorating my office in the hub, although it probably looks like I spent a really long time working on it. For the most part, I just transported the layout from the guild hall to the Everfrost hub.

The office desk, transported from the guild hall.

Everything on the blue carpet is exactly as it was in the guild hall. The changes were made to the sides of the room and the fishtank--where in my old office I had a single bookshelf and a small set of shelves on the wall for trophies, I wanted more space in the Everfrost office. I also wanted to make sure that my portal objects didn't look odd displayed around the room. That meant building a set of shelving units to house any portal objects that didn't hang on the walls. I also needed space to display random other items--like the Community Cushion, and the prize for submitting a home to the NotD contest (I'm still sad I didn't win, but not too sad. I got my present and my scare "crow," and that's really the only reason I entered in the first place!).

Shelving unit and portal paintings.

While it's a little bit annoying to not have the portal objects right in the front room when I zone in, it's not bad enough that I'd move them back there. The portal objects being at the front are nice, but this way I get more use out of my office. I have to run back there each time I want to teleport to one of the DoV zones.

The biggest difference between this office and the one in my guild hall is the aquarium.

Yes, I like to do the stereotypical aquarium. There seem to be two types of people--those who like them, and those who don't. In real life, I'm not a fan. The wet, fishy smell irritates me. But I enjoy looking at fish, and I enjoy the artwork that people turn their aquariums into.

Shark tank! Don't go swimming in there...

So in-game, I build them. This one was partially inspired by my own shark tank in my Kelethin home, and partially inspired by Tock's tank in The Spider. I liked how the water in the back with a misty tile turned out for Tock. It's an idea I'd been playing with using since the first time I saw the misty tiles. However, I hadn't had a chance to build an aquarium since they came out. When I saw what Tock had done, and how well it turned out, I decided it was time to put my own attempt into play.

Jazabelle has a thing for sharks. She loves them. It has absolutely nothing to do with an easy way to dispose of evidence, I swear! So that meant another shark tank. But when I put together the tank, I realized that sharks alone are a little bland. So I tossed in a sea turtle and some slugs. Then I added in a few other items to add motion, such as the seafarer's float net, the doomed prisoner, and the new crafted Withering Lands flowers. The spores from the flowers float slowly, and really give the impression of being under water. The tank looks much better in person, with the swaying, the rippling, and the flickering blue light (Thanks for reminding me to put those in, Tock!).

If you'd like to visit, feel free to stop by Jazabelle's Everfrost Summer Home in Qeynos, on the Antonia Bayle server.

For more screenshots of the home that weren't included in the blog, as well as expanded captions on most screenshots, click here to visit the Facebook photo album.

To Commission Or Not

The Cathedral -- probably my most well-known project.

On occasion, I'll get a tell out of the blue, asking if I do commissions.

Sometimes the tell starts with flattery. The person contacting me offers praise, and specific examples of their favorite aspects of my work.

Other times, they've heard about me from a friend, or maybe they've seen a single home I've done. They aren't sure how to approach me. House decorating isn't their thing, and while they want a nice looking home, they really don't know what to say to one of those crazy decorators.

People come to me with awesome ideas, ordinary ideas, or no ideas. The one thing that everyone approaching me has in common is that they've decided that I'm the decorator who should work for them.

What do I tell them when they ask to hire me? The short answer to that question is "maybe." As I mentioned in the Cathedral blog post, I'm terrible about doing commissions in a timely manner. If it's not life biting me in the rear, it's me becoming distracted doing something else. I should say no to people, because honestly, it's not fair to make someone wait six months to a year while I hammer out a house. However, I have a hard time saying no when asked.

Do I like doing commissions?

Nope. I really don't. I love the ideas that people come up with, and I love trying to capture those ideas. But I don't like decorating for someone (see note at the end of the article). It's one reason why I had such a great time building my Tudor Farmhouse and then putting the layout up for sale. I got to build what I wanted, when I wanted, with no stress about finishing in a timely manner. Putting it up for sale as a layout like that also means that any time someone wants the layout (with or without modifications), I can easily just pop in to the house and load it up. It means no waiting for either party.

The Tudor Farmhouse -- I should have waited for building blocks!

There's also the issue of the homeowner's vision versus my own. Some homeowners are great to work for. They let me do what I want, and only pop in to say things like, "I'm not really that fond of the centerpiece you built. Do you think you could switch it to something else?" I'm okay with being told that what I've done doesn't mesh with the vision someone has for a project. It's their home, after all. However, I like to be given the freedom to do what I want. Sure, I'll discuss it with the person. I'll ask them what they were hoping for, so that I have an idea of what to aim for.

If the house is meant for roleplay, I'll ask what sort of roleplay, and tailor the home to that. When I did the Cathedral, I knew that the home would be used as a venue for speeches. Much like a real life house of worship, the people roleplaying followers of Innoruuk would be gathering there for sermons. That meant that I had to ensure that the benches I used could be sat on, and with as little fiddling around with positioning as possible. Little details like that are what make a good project great, in my opinion.

Menan's Manor. I don't think the homeowner plays anymore.

Unfortunately, for every homeowner I've worked for who has been awesome, I've had a homeowner who insisted on moving things around on me or "helping" me decorate. I don't play nice with others when it comes to decorating a space. If you've asked me to decorate your house, and then you come in behind me and tweak things right and left, I start to feel like I shouldn't even bother. After all, you've shown that you have the ability and the inclination to decorate, so why am I here?

If a homeowner comes in after I'm done and I've been paid, I could care less if they move things around, tear things down, add things in, or just pack up the house (all right, I might be peeved if they packed up the house). I did what was asked, and I've received my compensation. Besides, it's their home. But if a homeowner does this while I'm working on a home, I start to become annoyed.

Occasionally, when someone hires me, they start to feel like they're better than I am. They've hired me to do a job. That means that no matter how much they admire me or my work, they're in a class above me. I'm working for them, after all. It doesn't matter that my $15 a month for my Gold subscription is just as good as their $15 a month. It doesn't matter that decorating is just as valid a play style as combat or raiding. I'm not "really" playing the game as it's meant to be played, so I'm not as good as they are. (Don't get me wrong. I respect all other play styles. Just because it's not my cup of tea doesn't mean that I don't respect it. However, this is the attitude that I've had thrust upon me more than once simply because I prefer the non-combat aspects of the game, and am working for someone.)

Then of course, there's the problem of cost. What do you charge someone who's asking you to build something? Especially something as individual as a house?

My guild's hall, and the only guild hall I'll ever decorate.

It's only recently that I've learned to save my platinum. I've been playing since late 2005, and my platinum amount across my account fluctuated from between no money to maybe, if I was lucky, thirty platinum. At one point, I had to sell some of the gear I'd saved for appearances in order to afford the price of the boat (back when the boat cost money in Freeport and Qeynos) in order to go out questing.

A house one year ago would cost me approximately sixty to eighty platinum to decorate. Today, I can drop sixty platinum on a stable. Not an entire house, just a stable. This doesn't take into account the amount of time a house takes me. Even when I'm obsessed with completing a project and work on it nonstop (and this doesn't happen often), it still takes me upwards of 40 hours of gameplay to finish. It's not that I'm slow at decorating. I'm actually pretty fast about getting the structure up and into place. The problem is that I'm also compulsively detail oriented, and will tweak items until they are lined up to the pixel. Shifting items by 0.0001 units is not uncommon for me.

Back to platinum and gameplay--in 2 hours of gameplay, questing in a level 90 zone I've never been to before, I can make probably 20 platinum. Questing in a zone where I do know the zone and quests, I can make more than that.

So if I were questing rather than decorating, I could make 400 platinum or more in the amount of time it takes to build a house.

The Norrathian Research Library is perhaps one of my favorites.

However, as I said, it's only recently that I've begun to actually save platinum. 400 platinum sounds like an obscene expense to me. And when you do projects, you're supposed to come out ahead, not just break even. That means that to "come out ahead," I'd need to charge more than 400 platinum. I understand that there are people out there who wouldn't blink twice to drop 400 platinum on a house. I wouldn't drop that on a house, and I'm the one building the house!

Then we need to take into consideration reputation. I don't believe I'm that good. Yes, my houses are close to flawless from an alignment standpoint. My textures line up the best I can make them, and if it's a tossup between a wall with varying sizes of building blocks that only takes three items, and a wall of identically sized building blocks of twenty items, I'll go for the twenty items because it looks better. But for the most part, the homes I build are simple homes. The Tudor Farmhouse? It's just a house. My Kelethin cottage? Once again, just a house. The Cathedral isn't, but that one was done on commission. And when you come right down to it, the Cathedral isn't actually that architecturally impressive. It's a rectangle. A pretty rectangle, but still just a rectangle. There are plenty of people out there with the vision to put together architecturally impressive pieces of work that I'd love to have for my own. They may not line things up as nicely as I do, or have flawless textures, but their work is more intricate than mine.

So should I be charging what I feel I'm worth, or what other people feel I'm worth? Especially when the amount I feel I'm worth is very different from the amount that other people seem to be willing to pay?

But not all people think my work is worth much. In quiet times, I've had people request houses. We discussed the house they were interested in very seriously, right up until we got to price.

There are people who think they're doing me a favor by offering me an empty house to decorate, and expect that I should do it for free. Of course they'll cover the fuel costs. They're keeping the house, after all. But I should be honored that they're offering me an empty house to indulge in my silly decorating pastime!

I've never had so much traffic during construction as I did with the Cathedral.

Then there are the people who would like a house, but don't have a lot of platinum. For them, a couple of hundred platinum for a house is outside the bounds of reasonable. They'd have to save for a year or two to see it.

And then, I've been offered upwards of 4000 platinum to build a home.

I turned them down.

Why?

When it comes right down to it--stress.

I decorate in EQ2 for a variety of reasons. I play because I love decorating--I've done it everywhere from The Sims to SWG. I decorate because it's a form of art, and the fastest and easiest method I've found to express my artistic side in a method that people can interact with and enjoy. I decorate because it's stress relief. I become absorbed in the numbers of the editor, in the placement of items, in trying to get reality to match my vision. Yes, there can be times when it's frustrating, especially if something isn't working out, but overall it's much less stressful than anything else life can throw at me.

Stress is a big problem for me. In Homeshow, I've mentioned a few times (all right, probably more often than I should--I do tend to whine about it) that I suffer from food allergies. I've mentioned that the foods trigger migraines for me.

What I haven't mentioned is that the food triggers are only one set of triggers. Stress, weather, sudden exposure to light--the list goes on. And I don't just get migraines. I have what one neurologist likes to call "intractable chronic debilitating migraines." In layman's terms, that means that I come down with migraines so bad, I'm put out of commission for days or weeks at a time. And it happens a lot. And they don't respond to medication.

Did I mention that stress is a big problem for me? I think I did. Even thinking about being stressed causes me minor migraines. Actually stressing out can send me to bed with the curtains drawn and the covers over my head.

Decorating is a sort of meditation for me. You don't need to use (much) math with the layout editor, but to get things lined up precisely, it helps to know how to do it. Math is also a form of meditation for me. It keeps me calm, even when the numbers aren't adding up right. I use more math than the average decorator because of that. Not only do I use it to ensure that things line up perfectly, but it's soothing for me.

It's one of the few things I can do even with a migraine. And while it doesn't help the pain, it allows me to mostly ignore it.

The real answer to "to commission or not?" is "I really shouldn't." I'll do it, especially if I really like an idea that someone has, but I shouldn't.

Note: Thank you to Niami for reminding me of this. I wanted to add it on, but forgot to before I posted.

One thing to keep in mind though, is that this is mostly about people I don't know approaching me with commission projects. When people I know approach me, it's a different story. This is especially true when they understand chronic conditions.

I like to do projects for friends and close acquaintances. Strangers are different. Strangers may say they understand chronic issues, but chances are that they'll become frustrated if their home isn't done within a month. I've had it happen time and again. I tell people that it'll be a while before I can start on their project, and once I do, they may not see a lot of progress. I tell them they can expect the project to take anywhere from a couple of weeks to a year from when I start. They say they're okay with it, and then they become pushier and pushier if it's not completed quickly once work starts.

Friends understand that I've had periods of time where I disappear from the game for a month or more, and that when I do, I'm probably flat on my back in bed, desperately wishing for a migraine cure. Close acquaintances have the potential to become friends, and oftentimes it's a decorating project that does it. I enjoy those sorts of projects. It's much less stressful for me when a friend and I can negotiate a price, instead of the onus being on me.

So feel free to approach me about a project, but understand that I may say no. And if I say yes, please understand that I will take my time. It's not that I don't like you. It's not that I'd rather work on other projects. It's that I do what's best for my stress levels at the moment, and if I'm not feeling like your project is one I can handle at the moment, I may work on others, or I may not decorate at all.

Happy decorating!

Zhadowsee's Birthday Stables

Yes, I'm still around. Life just caught up with me (I took a trip out to visit Z, and coming home has been an adjustment. Then migraines and other facets of life hit, and gaming took a backburner to everything else). But I'm here now.

Just in time for Zhadowsee's birthday, in fact.

I bought Zhadowsee a mount for his birthday. Meet Compass, the drake. However, it seemed a little cheap of me just to get Z a mount for his birthday. Your birthday is only once a year, and unlike the grandfather clock and sweet note he gave me, I couldn't be sure that he'd like the drake. After all, I'd raved about how much I adore grandfather clocks, and built several in-game before they came out with the station cash one. Plus, the station cash one has a dragon on it! Anyone who's spent a bit of time with me knows that I'm dragon crazy.

Then I decided that I would build him some stables to go with the mount. I've never actually decorated a full house for Z. I've done rooms, partial homes, partially completed homes, but I've never finished anything for him. Part of it is that he likes to decorate on his own. Part of it is that out of the two of us, he's the storyteller. Decorating is telling stories with scenery, but it's a very slow method of storytelling, and I'm better at vingettes than telling a full story. His decorating is more organic--he once did an RP scene for me, in which objects in the house kept moving. He had several layouts, plus what he moved by hand. Depending on what I noticed, what happened next changed. So I've never done a house for him, leaving him to set them up himself.

The first thing I did was to sneak onto his account. Unlike me, Z doesn't have a ton of empty houses waiting for use. He had exactly three houses, and all three of them are already in use.

Well, that was no good for my purposes. I immediately tabbed back to Jazabelle and started touring prestige houses. I knew I wanted the house to be a prestige house, for the portals. The stable was going to connect to his home in Neriak, whether he wanted it to or not!

It was as I was browsing houses that I realized that the Secluded Sanctum has an item count of 800, and costs only 1000 SC! All other 800 item count houses cost 1350 or so. Plus the Secluded Sanctum has a very wide open front room, which was perfect for my purposes.

I added the Secluded Sanctum to Zhadowsee's gift, tabbed back to Zhadowsee, and claimed the house. Then I snagged the mount out of the mail, dumped it in the house, and set Jazabelle trustee. Carefully, I positioned Zhadowsee exactly back where I found him, and logged him out.

Then I feverishly set to work.

The front doors, minus the door frames. Those came later.

I had seven hours to complete the house, not counting the time off I would have to take for food and housework, if I wanted to finish it up before Zhadowsee got home and logged on.

The first step was to build the walls of the stable. The Secluded Sanctum is rotated 22.5 degrees off of the cardinal directions, so I had to figure out how I was going to cover the existing ground in the Sanctum, while keeping to the shape of the stables that I wanted. Luckily, it wasn't too hard. The center pathway of the Sanctum is 12 units wide--exactly the width I wanted the stable's main hallway to be. And with the rotate group around point tool, it was a simple matter to build the stable on a straight East/West axis, then rotate everything around the first tile to line it up to the house. With that figured out, I really got down to business.

Unfortunately, I didn't reach my self-imposed goal of finishing before Zhadowsee got home.

I gave him some very firm instructions. I'd done my best to ensure that he wouldn't be able to find the house, except that I'd gone ahead and dropped a portal into his Neriak house, so that I wouldn't have to do it later. He was very good about not sneaking into the work in progress.

The final view of the stable doors.

Happily, he had plans away from the keyboard (I know you're not supposed to say that about your significant other, but sometimes you just need that privacy to get things done! I didn't want to feel like I was ignoring him in order to finish up his present, so the fact that he had things to do was perfect). So, given another couple of hours to get things done, I went to work even harder!

Originally, I'd set up the stable with 8 stalls. I had five mounts on me that I wouldn't mind missing or were easy to replace (The Gorowyn, Neriak, and Kelethin destriers, the quested Gryphon from DoV, and the Winter Wolf mount). That left two empty stalls--stalls which Zhadowsee could put any of his own spare mounts into.

View from the front of the stable.

I divided the stalls up into meat eaters on one side, grain eaters on the other. Yes, normally that would be a bad idea. Having the poor horses face predators would probably stress the animals unduly. However, this is a fantasy game, and horses stand around calmly next to predators all the time. (I really do put that much thought into layout and position.)

The stable itself was very easy to build, once I'd decided on how I wanted to do it. The stall doors are taller than I'd like, but we don't have any half dividers. If we ever do get half dividers, I'll switch them out and make things a bit more realistic in there. As it is, Zhadowsee's stable has really tall walls.

I built one stall, then duplicated it three times. I'd made sure that the stall was 7.5 units long, so it was a simple matter of moving each new stall 7.5 units further down the line than the stall before it.

Then I took everything I'd made so far, and I mirrored it around the E/W axis. That gave me all eight stalls with minimal work.

Zhadowsee meeting Compass. I'm not sure they like each other.

Unlike my usual method of construction, where I build the structure first, then go through and add in major structural details, then go through for minor structural details, and finally end with putting in decorative details, I built this stable in phases.

I could have allowed Zhadowsee to peek the minute he got home. The structure was up, the mounts were in their stalls, and it looked vaguely stable-like. But for the most part, it was a bunch of empty boxes with mounts standing in them. Not exactly an awesome birthday present. However, I continued that method of decorating, putting in waves of details, both decorative and structural alike (mounts count as decorative. The rails for the doors to slide on are structural details. The rails showed up in phase three or four of decorating. The stops at the ends of the rails showed up in phase six or seven). I didn't know when he'd be getting home--I had an approximate idea of how many hours I'd have, but not a definite one--so I wanted to be sure that the stable would be ready for viewing the instant he got home. I could go in later and add more details. The idea was to give the appropriate impression of a stable, no matter when he walked in.

Compass in his stall. This was before the rail stops were added in.

Zhadowsee showed up after I'd gotten most of the details down that I wanted to. I still hadn't added flavor (like muck in the muck cart), but I had a lot of the little bits in, like the hay for the animals, the food and water bins, and nests for the drake and gryphon. I'd put in a couple of hay bales in the hay bin, but hadn't yet put in the number I wanted. But once again, it gave the impression that I wanted it to.

The tour of the stables started in Zhadowsee's Neriak house. When he logged in, I demanded that he head directly to the house. There, I'd left a book under three roses. Roses are a thing with Jazabelle--stereotypical, I know, but I personally adore roses, and when roleplay took Jazabelle in that direction, I ran with it. I'm the one playing her, after all.

Click it to read it.

So Zhadowsee found a note in his house. In my head, I'd constructed a story for the appearance of the stables and the mount, and I wanted to share it with Zhadowsee. My idea at first had been that I'd do all of this the night before his birthday, and he'd wake up and log in to find himself standing on the note and flowers. That didn't happen--I fell asleep at the computer while planning what I was going to do. But I liked the idea of the note and flowers.

The idea then changed that he'd get home from work, log in, and find the note and flowers. That didn't happen either. But I really wanted that note and those flowers in there! So when he logged in in the evening after doing his AFK things, I'd set down the note and flowers, tweaking the story I was telling him just a tad to fit the series of events better.

The warg's stall. Z dropped this one himself.

It's not really a long scene, and I didn't even need to be there for it. But sometimes it's fun to see what people do when they look at what you've built. So I followed him through the doors and watched him wander around. He had a fun time avoiding the stall with the drake--at the time, the drake's stall was the only stall with an open door, so it was pretty easy to tell which stall was the focus. He stopped at the stall beside the drake's, and pretended that it was the one he was supposed to be looking at. He really is very silly.

But eventually he did walk over to Compass' stall, and we hung out and chatted for a bit. He was happy with what I'd done for him, and had some story ideas already for the space. He seemed especially pleased by the fact that he could fill it with whatever mounts he chose, and that I could easily extend the space by several more stalls if he wanted.

Yep, I really did put muck in the muck cart.

After he went to bed, I did another two phases of decorating. I added another pair of stalls (mostly to test how easy it actually would be to do--quite easy, as it turns out) and fleshed out the details in the rest of the stable. Muck in the muck cart, for example!

The rail stops were also added in at this point, as were the hitching rings for the halters.

We don't have a large selection of rope, so I wound up using the Othmir Hanging Lamp in order to have some sort of rope hanging from the hitching rings.

Hitching rings with rope hanging, waiting to be tied onto a halter or bridle.

Someone needs to clean this horse's stall.

Finally, right before I went to bed, I popped into Zhadowsee's Neriak house and built a connecting door to the stable. Then I moved the note and roses to the step in front of the stable door, and crashed in bed.

The door to the stable. Don't bring mounts into the house!

I'll probably continue to add details as I think of them, and tweak things until they make me happy. Right now, I'm going to go and fix some of the ropes so that they hang better.

Over all, the stables took me under eight hours of decorating to complete, and most of that time was spent crafting items. The decorating itself went incredibly fast. This is, to date, my fastest project ever. Details will change as I think of them, but for now it's good!

If you'd like to see any updated or added screenshots, or any screenshots that I didn't post in this blog, please click here. This will take you to my Facebook album, which has all of the images.

Tinkered Building Blocks on Test!

I woke up to a rather awesome Facebook wall post this morning from Niami Denmother informing me that our dream of tinkered building blocks is true!

That's right, tinkered building blocks in impacted metal and rhodium plating are coming with Tinkerfest. Metal building blocks that don't have to be purchased with SC, and can be used in guild halls! Pardon me, I feel the urge to dance around the house.

Read Niami's (very brief) preview on EQ2 Traders Corner. She includes a screenshot of a few of the pieces.

She's hoping to have the full Tinkerfest write-up up by next week (but we won't begrudge her the time if it takes her longer, considering how helpful and fun all of her write-ups always are!).

How To: Create Spiral Staircases

(Updated June 23, 2012 for use with layout editor version 1.7.2.14)

This tutorial is for use with version 1.7.2.14 of the layout editor. If you don't have this version, I highly suggest you download it now. Because this tutorial was written before 1.7.2.14, some of the details on the screenshots may be different than the windows you see. However, the important parts of the windows are the same (the parts boxed in red), so I have not updated the screenshots. If that ever changes, I will update the screenshots to match the most current editor.


I also suggest reading the How To: Use The Diff Button tutorial before continuing further. This tutorial was written with the assumption that you have read and understand the Diff Button as explained by Jazabelle (that would be me).

So, you want to create a staircase. Not just any staircase, but a spiral staircase! You've heard that one of the features of the layout editor can do it for you, (almost) no math required. But no matter how hard you try, you can't quite figure out what all the different boxes on the different tools mean.

That's where this tutorial comes in. And just to make sure you fully understand how this works, there's also a video at the end of this post, showing building staircases in action!

Don't be intimidated by this tutorial's length. The Circle or Spiral tool is a complex, versatile tool. However, once you get the hang of it, it's actually very easy to use.

Our first step is going to be to put all if the items we want to use to build our stairs into the moving crate. That's right, you don't want to have the items out in the house. You want them in the moving crate. In our case, we're going to be making stairs out of "black marble half block"s.

In game, once the items are in the moving crate, we're going to click our WITH macro.

Next, we'll open up the layout editor.

As always, make sure that the UID column is visible on the right-hand side of the layout editor window.

Go to File -> Open, and open your WITH layout.

Once your WITH layout is open, go to Tools -> Create Objects -> Circle or Spiral.

At this point, a very scary window should pop up. There are empty boxes waiting for your input everywhere! But don't worry. We'll go through and demystify this window one row at a time.

The first two lines go together. The Create new group check box tells the layout editor one of two things.

1. If the box is checked, the layout editor knows to make a new group in the groups tab. The new group will be named whatever you type into the Group Name box.
2. If the box is unchecked, the layout editor knows to arrange the items in the Main tab. It will not create a group, but will instead put the items directly into the main tab, to be saved as part of master layout file. The Group Name line will be grayed out if the box is unchecked.

I prefer to work in groups, so I tend to leave the Create new group box checked.

You can name the group whatever you wish. Something descriptive is usually a good idea. For this tutorial, I'm just going to leave it as the default name of "New," but usually I would name it something like "Spiral staircase."

Next is the Select the 2D plane box. This one has three scary options--XY Plane, XZ Plane, and YZ Plane. Luckily, Jesdyr has been kind enough to include (floor), (East/West), and (North/South).

XY Plane (floor) means your circle will be on the floor. Another way to think of this is that if you were standing on the floor, the circle would surround you.

XZ Plane (East/West) means that the circle will be on either the East or West wall of a house. This would be good if you were building a clock, for example, and wanted it on either the East or West wall.

YZ Plane (North/South) means that the circle will be on either the North or South wall of a house. Using the clock example from before, the clock would either be on the North or South wall, depending on what other information you put into the layout editor.

Because we're doing a spiral staircase, we're going to leave the editor on its default setting--XY Plane (floor).

The next line contains three boxes. Center Point is the center of your circle. It is the point around which the layout editor will align your items.

If I am standing in the middle of the circle, my /loc is the Center Point. The easiest way to find your Center Point is to stand about where you want the center of your circle (or spiral staircase, in this case) and type /loc in game. The first number is your X value. The second number is your Z value. The third number is your Y value.

I am standing at the Center Point.

In this case, we're going to use the /loc of 20.5, -7, -121.5.

Number of Steps makes sense in this case--it's the number of items that you want to use to make your steps. We want a spiral staircase with 10 steps, so I've input the number 10 in the Number of Steps box.

IMPORTANT! Make sure that the Number of Steps does not exceed the number of items you're planning to use and have in the moving crate! If you make the number larger than the number of items in the moving crate, the game will randomly use items of that type that are already out in the house. For example, you built a spiral staircase out of Black Marble Half Blocks. You want to build a second staircase out of Black Marble Half Blocks. If you have 10 blocks in the crate, and set your Number of Steps to 11, the game will pull a block from the staircase you'd already built. This can be a pain in the rear to fix.

total angle is how much of a circle I want my staircase to be. If I wanted a curving staircase in a half circle, I'd put 180 in the box (half of 360). A spiral staircase that winds around twice would have a total angle of 720 (360 * 2). In this case, I just want the spiral staircase to go around once, so I'll put in a total angle of 360.

A positive angle in the total angle box will create a staircase that goes up counterclockwise. That means if I run up a staircase made with a total angle of 360 degrees, I will wind up running counterclockwise.

A negative angle in the total angle box will create a staircase that goes up clockwise. If I run up a staircase made with a total angle of -360 degrees, I will wind up running clockwise.

Quick and dirty example of a 360 degree total angle.
Spirals counterclockwise.

Quick and dirty example of a -360 degree total angle.
Spirals clockwise.

The next box causes no end of confusion for some people. The Start Angle is where the first item in your spiral starts at. The most confusing aspect of this is that there is a typo. The layout editor tells us that if we leave the Start Angle box with an angle of 0, the first item will start to the North of our center point. This is untrue. A 0 angle actually starts us to the West of our center point. As of layout editor 1.7.2.14, this typo has been fixed. It now correctly displays W = 0. 

West = 0

South West = 45

South = 90

South East = 135

East = 180

North East = 225 or -135

North = 270 or -90

North West = 315 or -45

For the purposes of this tutorial, we're going to set the Start Angle at -90, so that our staircase actually does start to the North of our center point. It will spiral counterclockwise since we have a positive angle in total angle.

This is a screenshot of layout editor version 1.7.2.12.
In layout editor version 1.7.2.14, "N = 0" has been replaced.
It now correctly shows "W = 0."

Now we come to our Radius. This is how far each item is from the center point. Remember that an item's location is determined by the point it rotates around. So an item like a half block of marble (the item I'm using for this tutorial) has its rotation point on the bottom of the block, in the middle. An item like a painting usually has its rotation point on the back of the painting, near the top. This spot is different for almost every item type, so you may have to play around with numbers until you figure out the distance that's good for you.

Keep in mind that one unit is equal to the length of a normal crafted tile set to scale 0.5. So if you set your Radius to 1, the distance from the center point of your spiral to the center point of your item will be 1 unit. The edge of the item won't be 1 unit away. The point it rotates around will be 1 unit away. For the purpose of this tutorial, we'll set our Radius to 2 units.

Just like total angle, if you choose to make this number negative, the layout editor will create the circle in the opposite direction from default. Default is to build counterclockwise. Putting in a negative Radius will cause it to build clockwise.

Because we're doing a spiral staircase, the next box is very important. The Z increase is how high we want our spiral to go.

There are two ways we can do this.

The first is to put in a total Z increase. This is the default setting for the circle and spiral tool. That means that if we put in a number (10, for example), the layout editor would take our original Z and add 10 to it. In this case, that would put it at 3. Then the layout editor would space your items evenly from -7 (our original Z) to 3. It doesn't matter how many items we had, the layout editor would evenly space them between those 10 units.

If we had two items, the layout editor would space them evenly between -7 and 3. The distance between the two items would be large, but the layout editor would do it.

If we told the layout editor to build a spiral with 100 items, the layout editor would still space those 100 items evenly between -7 and 3. In that case, we might wind up with something almost more of a ramp than a staircase. So many items spaced in so small an area would raise only a tiny bit from item to item, in order to fit all 100 items between -7 and 3.

This method is good if we know exactly how tall we want our staircase, but we don't care about how high each step is.

To do this, we would input our number into the Z increase box, and leave the Per Step? check box unchecked. The Per Step? box does not appear until we input a number in the Z increase box, and then navigate to another box.

The second method is to put in a Z increase per step. That means that we put in the height we want each item to be above the item before it. This is my preferred method, since I find that steps of about 0.5 make for a comfortable balance between height and item count.

To do this, set your Z increase to the distance you want between each individual step. Click in one of the other boxes so that the Per Step? box appears, and check the Per Step? check box.

For both methods of using the Z increase box, a negative number will cause the layout editor to build down instead of building up. For example, if I wanted to build from my second floor down to my first, I could instead put in a Z increase of -0.5, and check the Per Step? box.

Radius increase works the same way as Z increase, except instead of telling the editor to move your items up and down, it tells the editor to move your items further away from the center point. In this case, we want a simple spiral staircase, so we're going to leave Radius increase at 0. If we were to change it to a number other than 0, other options would appear. Since we're not doing that, we're not going to concern ourselves with those options.

For a simple spiral staircase, just ignore this option!

Next are the two lines that tell you and the editor which items to use.

Item Name does not matter. I repeat, it does not matter. You can put anything you want right here. You can copy the name of the item as it appears in game. You can put in a descriptive name, like "spiral staircase steps." You could call it George. It does not matter. This is just for your benefit, so that you know what goes here. The game doesn't care, and neither does the layout editor. I've put blocks as an easy, descriptive name letting me know what item I used as my steps.

Item ID is the important line. The easiest way to find out the Item ID of the items you want to use is to go to the Crate tab of the layout editor. Find the items you want to use. Look at the left hand column. That column is the Item ID column. If you copy that number, you can then paste it into the Create Object - Circles and Spirals window.

The next box tells the layout editor whether to use the UIDs of items from the crate, or to just create "fake" UIDs. I tend to always make sure this is checked, since I always make sure the items I'm using for my stairs are in the moving crate already. This way, the game won't steal other items from around my house when I load the layout.

The last several boxes are very similar to normal layout editing. Item Start rotations are just to inform the layout editor whether you want your items pitched (X), rotated (Z), or rolled (Y) from their default locations when placed in game.

If you look back up at the images that show the quick and dirty spiral staircases I did to demonstrate spiraling clockwise and counterclockwise, you'll notice that my blocks have created stairs that are longer than they are wide. Traditional stairs are wider than they are long. With that in mind, I know that I need to have all of my stairs rotated 90 degrees more than they are now.

Instead of doing that manually, I can tell the spiral tool to do it for me. I just have to change the Z (rotate) number to 90.

I also felt that my steps were a little bit small, so I'll change my Item Scale from 1 to 2. This is the size of your item. For most items, this number can be anywhere from 0.5 - 3. Floor tiles usually go from 0.5 - 6. Some items, like building blocks, go from 0.5 - 12. A very few items go as small as 0.3. A few may even go as small as 0.1, but I'm not positive. For the most part though, chances are your items can scale from 0.5 - 3.

These four boxes are the boxes you'll most likely have to play with a bit to get your items to do what you want. Experimentation is key here, and don't get frustrated that the staircase doesn't do what you want the first time you try. I've been using this tool to build spiral staircases for as long as Jesdyr has had it in the layout editor, and I still need to play around with numbers a little bit to get the stairs I want.

And with all that said, we can now click Create!

YAY FINALLY!

If we've done everything properly, our layout editor should have something that looks sort of like this:

If it does, then we can go ahead and hit the Save Group button, then hit our LOAD WORKING macro in game.

And then we should finally have a spiral staircase in game!

Oh thank goodness. I'm so happy it's done!

Here's a video of building a spiral staircase, just in case the picture tutorial didn't quite convey how to do it.

Sometimes you just have to vent...

This isn't about housing. This is about roleplay. It isn't a nice piece about roleplay, either. If you don't care about roleplay, don't read further. If you don't want to hear me rant about a situation that happened to me, skip this post.

I've purposely left off names, including the name of the establishment. If you do figure out who and where I'm talking about, leave them alone. While I appreciate that you guys are protective of me, it's not necessary. I'm choosing to let this go. I just need to vent.

For the most part, I spend my time decorating. If I'm not decorating, I'm roleplaying. In general, I have fun roleplaying. I get to put on a persona and pretend to be something I'm not, while other people do the same.

Other times, roleplay isn't so fun. That happens most often when people take in character action for what they perceive as an out of character slight.

It all began when I decided to attend a venue with a name that can be taken as either innocent, descriptive, or naughty. If we were talking about a restaurant, I'd think of a family style barbecue restaurant reminiscent of a summertime barbecue in the yard. But a bar? Like it or not, a bar is more likely to call to mind sexual innuendo. It's something to do with alcohol and how it loosens inhibitions.

I invited a guildmate to come along. Rosaphina was eager to go, as she's still setting up her persona. She's a stuck-up Koada'Dal, and not afraid to show it. We entered the home and went upstairs to the bar, where we ordered drinks.

We had a little bit of private conversation about the bartender's mustache. Jazabelle thought it was to attract human females--perhaps more hair convinced them that the male was more virile? Rosaphina agreed that it was a possibility. Simple, silly banter between co-workers.

The trouble started when Rosaphina referenced that conversation in /say. She informed Jazabelle that their suppositions appeared true. Jazabelle pointed out that there were no human females present. Rosaphina shot back that not all whorehouses only have humans.

The proprietress corrected Rosaphina. The establishment is just a bar, not a whorehouse. Jazabelle pointed out that "the name implies a certain degree of sexual promiscuity on the premises, but perhaps that was unintentional." She then added, "A <removed to preserve anonymity of the establishment> may also imply a family style establishment, as in a <removed to preserve anonymity of the establishment>." That was the last Jazabelle spoke on the matter, aside from an inept apology for the incorrect assumption.

Rosaphina said a few more things, mostly explaining why she came to the assumption that there might be a whorehouse associated with the bar. She then apologized. Finished, right?

Not really.

As you see, I talk about Jazabelle in the third person when I talk about roleplay. Why? Because I am not the one making these assumptions. I knew very well that the establishment was just a bar, even though the name called to mind something naughty. Jazabelle isn't good at interacting with others. You might even say she's socially inept. She's learning, and it's been a learning process over the last few years of roleplaying her. But one thing she's not shy about is discussing mating habits of various intelligent species. She isn't a sexual creature, and finds the mating rituals of others worth study. She doesn't understand why they do it, and she wants to understand. Plus it gives me a reason to take a socially inept character to a bar. What better place to watch intelligent species engage in mating rituals?

I chose to go this route with her because it allows me to be funny while appearing to be completely serious. Jazabelle rarely jokes. For the most part, she's very serious. She takes everything seriously, and says some of the weirdest or dumbest things completely seriously. Deadpan is my preferred form of comic relief.

But that didn't happen here. She wasn't the one who said it was a whorehouse, although that's what it came off sounding like when Rosaphina spoke up about their private conversation. In fact, Jazabelle was the one who pointed out that the phrase used as the name can refer to something completely innocent.

Jazabelle dismissed the conversation after her own inept apology. She and Rosaphina moved on to discussing a "situation" at the office.

Rosaphina is--as I said--a stuck-up Koada'Dal. She's sharing office space with a bumbling, lewd, crude human pirate named Jadirah. Jadirah has a gas problem. Jadirah also has a potty mouth. Rosaphina took the time to complain about sharing an office with her.

Jazabelle pointed out that Jadirah is a filing clerk, and needs to be near the secretary to do her work effectively. She also pointed out that Jadirah is an investment--she's an inventor, and her inventions (when they're not exploding) bring the company good money. They also more than pay for the desks and chairs she routinely destroys.

Of course, not all of this was said. This is guild roleplay that was alluded to while we were talking.

Rosaphina and Jazabelle have a less-than-amiable relationship. Rosaphina hides it well, but she hates her employer in the same measure that she enjoys working with her. Working for Jazabelle allows Rosaphina to exercise skills she wouldn't otherwise be able to exercise. But she resents having to work in the first place.

Jazabelle was very firm in explaining to Rosaphina that she should simply give detailed instructions to Jadirah, and that office assignments would not switch, because that office was the best place for Jadirah.

Then things finally went bad.

See, the conversation earlier apparently upset the proprietress. She was roleplaying about being angry. Jazabelle ignored her, figuring the apologies had been enough. You can't help the assumptions you make, and it's not like they tried to hire whores or anything--not that either character would be interested in that. Jazabelle is not a sexual creature, as I said before, and Rosaphina is a prude. Besides, I assumed her anger was completely in character. Which it might have been, but there are just certain lines you don't cross if you're trying to run a venue.

But then one of the other customers said, "This hussy next to me seems rather mouthy, am I allowed to slap people?"

To be honest, I was extremely confused. I scrolled up and reread all of the nearby chat, wondering what I'd missed. Proprietress being angry? Nope, that can't be the mouthy hussy. Men talking. Probably not the mouthy hussy. Another woman saying the words "dirty wench?" No, that probably wasn't it. Maybe she was talking about Rosaphina, who was mouthing off to her boss about Jadirah? I sat back to see what would happen.

And then the proprietress crossed that line, and told the customer that she was free to slap people. So the customer "/e eats a few dragonflies and slaps Jazabelle across the face hard." Then said, "Quit treatin your client like crap heffer!"

I sat there in shock. First, when you take action against another character, it's generally polite to /e attempts to slap so-and-so. It's considered minor "god modding" to not give someone a chance to counter your action. Second, Jazabelle wasn't speaking to a client. Third, while Jazabelle was firm, she was polite to Rosaphina. Fourth, the proprietress encouraged the customer to take action against another customer.

So I chose to have Jazabelle "evade" the slap and inform the other customer that it was none of her business. Jazabelle wasn't talking to a client.

The customer compounded her rudeness by telling Rosaphina that "You are one of her little city whores, Rosa!" At the time, I had absolutely no idea where any of this came from.

I'm a firm believer in keeping in character issues in character, and not letting it affect out of character. I can easily roleplay an angry person when I'm happy, or roleplay a happy person with someone I detest. I try to avoid the second situation if I can, but I can do it. This however, felt like the proprietress and her friends were ganging up on me, both in character and out.

Not only did the proprietress give the customer permission to act out violence upon my character, but the bartender encouraged it, and took the customer's side when I spoke to Rosaphina about leaving since the venue apparently allowed violence. We'd been unaware of that when we entered.

I couldn't figure out what I'd done to gain their ire. Sure, Jazabelle bumbled a bit socially. Yes, her employee assumed it was a whorehouse. No, Jazabelle didn't assume it was a whorehouse, but perhaps I didn't make that clear in my roleplay. Jazabelle pointed out that it could be assumed based on the name, but that it could also imply wholesome, family style entertainment.

Then I realized that earlier today, after someone complimented my name in a public, out of character channel, the proprietress brought up the fact that my name is very similar to Jezebel. She further insisted that they have the same root. I pointed out to her that while Jazabelle is similar to Jezebel, that wasn't where my name came from. Several other people jumped to my defense. Eventually, the proprietress claimed to love the name, but to hate the base meaning (despite that I had pointed out that Jazabelle is not Jezebel, although the look is similar). "Belle" is the feminine version of the adjective meaning "beautiful" in French. There were a variety of reasons for me choosing "Jaza" as the prefix to "belle." I didn't go into any of that in the chat with the proprietress. I just left it that Jazabelle was not Jezebel.

The name Jazabelle does not appear on any baby-naming websites (or at least, did not when I chose the name about eight years ago in another game). It is a recent name, and each individual who has the name was given it for different reasons. It does not have the history associated with it that Jezebel does. Fine. The proprietress is welcome to think whatever she wants to about my character's name. That doesn't make what she thinks true. If she refuses to take my word for the fact that my name is not based off of Jezebel and the religious references tied to that name, there isn't anything I can do about it.

From her reaction this evening, I'm beginning to think she took it to be my fault that people defended my name. I exchanged a total of one sentence with her (my explanation about Jazabelle not being Jezebel), and left the conversation to the others. I didn't want her to feel like I was encouraging people to gang up on her by participating, especially since I choose my character's names for me, not for other people. I don't care if she thinks it's similar to Jezebel, just don't imply that I am similar to Jezebel.

Then of course, there is the fact that a few days ago, the proprietress advertised a clothing-optional event in a hot tub. I've since been told that that event may have caused quite a few people to accuse the proprietress of running a whorehouse. I wasn't aware of this when I went to the event, nor was Rosaphina. I found out about it later. They may have thought that Rosaphina was using in character as a chance to slander them. If that's the case, why did they attack me?

The proprietress even asked someone to "bounce" me, when I hadn't done a thing to anyone, and had in fact been the recipient of violence at her encouragement. I chose to leave the bar, rather than deal with people ganging up on me. I felt it was the mature thing to do. As I was leaving, she encouraged the customer who'd attempted to /slap my character to stay.

I'm told that once I left, the customer who tried to slap Jazabelle (and would have slapped her, had I not taken offense at the god modding) bragged about "running the hussy off."

It's no wonder that I tend to only roleplay with my friends, unless dragged out to bars. One of the rare times I decide to attend a bar of my own volition, the lack of maturity sends me right back to my houses.

I won't be attending that establishment again. I choose not to interact with any of the individuals who participated in encouraging someone to treat my character poorly.

Am I allowing in character actions to color out of character actions? Yes. In this case, when it appears that out of character actions were allowed to color their in character actions, I choose to end any association with these people. My play time is too valuable to be spent letting other people act nasty to me or my character (without my agreement and permission).

I have had raging in character fights with people, while happily discussing other things out of character. The difference between those situations and this one is that in those cases, warning and permission were given out of character before anything occurred. This was not like that.

Perhaps Rosaphina's player said it best. "This person is running a public venue, and chose to treat someone like shit based on their own OOC perceptions of that person. Even when I was tending my own venue, I tried to treat everyone with respect, even those who upset me. The venue is there for the public, not for the proprietor to wank over RPing with their approved circle."

This is exactly why I will not be attending this event again, and why I will not be interacting with those individuals again. If they choose to use the venue to stroke their own egos, I will choose to attend other venues where I do not have to deal with that level of immaturity.

All right, I'm done venting. Back to your regularly scheduled book and house discussions!