User:Avanya

Greetings!

Originally from the Bastet server, I transfered to Tale 5 with some friends. (Now we form the Bastet Hounds Guild). My primary passion in Egypt is glassblowing and glassmaking. I also enjoy the Test of Pyrotechnics, Thought puzzles, and crossbreeding flowers. I am always open to helping people in any way that I can, so please chat me anytime. I reside in Alcyone, at 1748, 2478. It's a short jog north of the chariot. My thought puzzle and Art coordinates can be found in my /info.

Glass Services

I sell most glass products, but I do not use a trading point system. I prefer to work out a trade that is fair and considered what the buyer has available to trade. My products include:

• Thermometers
• Barometers (5k, 6k quality)
• Hookah bowls (will assemble into finished hookah with your 14 canvas)
• Chemistry Calibration kits
• Distillation Coils 7.5k quality
• Wine glasses (sorry 8k quality and down, I need more practice)
• Mirrors (with your 200 silver powder though)

I am also willing to sell sheet glass, glass jars, glass pipes, glass rods, glass knives, glass torches. Bulk orders are subject to approval :)

For questions about getting started making glass, please see my guide: http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale5/User:Avanya/Glassmaking_guide

Buying

I am currently buying materials needed to continue my work with characterizing mutagens. This includes:

• Mushrooms (Sand Spore, Slaves Bread, Razor's Edge, Peasant Foot, and Salt Water Fungus).

I am also always happy to purchase

• Silk, Sea Lily Bulbs, and Dung.

Yes Dung. I love Dung. (Test of Pyro should be renamed Test of Tons-of-Dung)

Star Labs

I am hoping to help Egypt make better use of its Portable Star Labs. I see so many of them laying around unused, or used as decorations. They are meant to be used and returned to a university of Art (preferably Sterope). I have a Law Petition circulating to help us use them more effectively. Please remember they are used for opening new Star recipes only...they are NOT part of the Principle or Test of Pyrotechnics!! They are given out in a limited amount, so they are a precious resource. Please see http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale5/Portable_Star_Lab if you have any questions, or chat me in game.

In addition, I am happy to help anyone with passing the principle of Pyrotechnics. If you have questions how to use a mortar, make stars, or anything pyro related, please chat me. If I can't help, I can probably direct you to someone that can!

Mutagenics Research

You can find my test data for mutagens at the following page: http://www.atitd.org/wiki/tale5/User:Avanya/mutagenics My most recent data is not on this page, because it got too long to put it all on there, lol. But if you are interested, please chat me, and I can get you copies of data from my notes.

Test Ideas

Test of Gemology

• Summary: This game has a designed layout of different colored/shaped gems laid out on an inclined board. The player of the puzzle makes moves by picking two adjacent jewels to swap positions. When a linear match of 3 or more of the same jewel type is formed, the matched set is removed from the board and the remaining pieces slide vertically down into the gaps. The object of the game is “sort through all the jewels” by making matches and clearing the board completely.

• Reference: This type of mini-game is often found in casual web-based “match 3” games.

• Setup: The player building the puzzle needs to build a game board, called the “Sorting Table”. It would be built inside a CP, and have an angle to it, so the pieces can be understood to slide downwards. It should be fairly large, so the installed gemstones can be seen clearly on it. It will have an inherent grid on it that the player will set gems into. Suggested size of the grid is at least 8x8 slots.

After a player has built the table, they can choose to edit the design. In this mode, they can toggle each space to have a different colored gem, or no gem at all. Not all spaces on the board have to be filled, but there should be no spaces under gems (which would violate gravity). Once they have a gem setup they like, they can choose a mode “solve as designer” (much like a venery has). This is very important because most random color assignments will not have valid solutions!! A designer needs to first validate the existence of a solution to their initial conditions.(see note 1 below). There should be a “reset” option in the menu to set the pieces back to what the player designed, as most puzzles will take players multiple attempts to solve. At any point, the designer may re-enter the “edit” mode, and adjust the initial gem board. In Edit mode, there is a menu option to set the number of swaps allowed. When the designer successfully solves the puzzle, this number of moves they took is set as the default number of moves allowed. (However, they can manually set this number higher if they choose to). Once the designer has found a solution, they will then be able to choose to “open the test” to the public. (If they solve it, and re-enter the “edit” mode, this option to open the test will disappear until the puzzle is re-solved.)

After the Puzzle is open, players can walk up and choose to play. They make moves by toggling a selection highlight over gems. They pick one gem, and can either unselect it, or select an adjacent gem. When two adjacent gems are highlighted, their positions swap. Gems cannot be swapped with empty spaces. If a set of 3 or more matching jewels (in a straight line) is made, those gems are removed from the board, and the pieces slide vertically down, filling in any gaps that were created. Then the player makes another move, etc. At any point, they can click on the table to choose to “reset” it. When they solve it by clearing the sorting table, they will get a pop-up message that they were successful, and be given the option to judge it. At that time, the table will reset as well.

Passing the Test: Like other Thought Tests, the designer will accumulate a score based on the judgments of successful players. Each week, the two highest scores will pass the Test.

• Examples:

This is an example of a very simple board. Swapping the circled gems in a move will win the game.

This is an example of an invalid design. The green gems on the right have nothing underneath them!! In addition, the blue gems have no way to be matched.

This is an example of a proper design. It is solvable in 5 moves (2 of which are only swaps, 3 of which make sets).

• Construction Suggestions:

14 Medium Diamonds

14 Medium Emeralds

14 Medium Opals

14 Medium Quartz

14 Medium Rubies

14 Medium Sapphires

14 Medium Topaz

100 boards

200 bricks

(mats are meant to be easy to obtain early in the tale)

• Note 1: This test is different than many other Thought tests because of how the player approaches designing the puzzle. Other tests, like Bijou, Constellation, Pathmaker, and Hexaglyphs, have a player first construct a solution. They don’t experience how the flow of the puzzle is for another player when they reverse engineer like this. Therefore, these tests often have solutions that are arbitrarily hard, because a player just hit a lot of random selections which are difficult to replicate. Furthermore, with inherent knowledge of the solution, the designer can’t genuinely gauge the challenge level of their puzzle. These tests can be hard to tune to a desired level of difficulty for this reason.

For this test, the designer must think like a player doing the puzzle. They can still choose to make it very hard or very simple, but by having to go through the same pathway as the player (thinking through it from start to finish), it will be easier to gauge the player experience of it, and therefore tune the level of difficult to what they want. At least, that is my hope.

• Note 2: This test is also meant to be quick to attempt for players. (There are already many puzzles that involve significant time commitment to solve. This is meant to balance that).

Test of Sponsorship

Summary: In this test, players nominate fellow Egyptians that they feel are good leaders, and try to convince others in small random groups to support their candidates. Each participant gets one vote per round. Players cannot nominate themselves, and cannot vote for whom they nominate. Each week the player with the highest total of votes (cumulative) will pass the test.

After signing up for this test, a player can designate a “nominee” at a University of Leadership. They cannot nominate themselves. The nominee must have a paid account, and also be on the Test. Their selection can be changed at any time unless a voting round is in progress.

Each month, everyone that has nominated an eligible player gets put into random groups of 7 people (much like a demi-pharoah first round is done). The group shares a chat tab, and has 3 real days in which they can (and should) try to convince the other group members to vote for their nominee. Every person has ONLY one vote, and it is cast at a voting booth. Their choices of who to vote for at the booth are the nominees of the OTHER six group members (e.g. Playername sponsoring Bob). Players cannot vote for their own nominee. Votes can be changed at any point during the group discussion time. Votes are NOT announced to the group.

After the discussion round ends, all nominees that received votes earn one point per vote. This total is cumulative, and does not diminish. Each week, the player that has the highest number of points will pass the test. Test passes will NOT announce runners up, but players can check their total points in their Self--> Tests menu.

This test is aiming to recognize true leaders of Egypt. It is completely up to the players involved to determine what constitutes a good leader, and part of this test is to communicate that effectively to other participants. A common complaint about Leadership tests is that they are simply popularity contests. Here, the anonymity of voting is intended to allow players to vote their conscience freely. Because players cannot vote for their own nominee, and groups are random, there is less “vote trading” opportunity, and less ease of having mule characters pass. Also, it will likely be harder to “campaign” for passing the test because of the anonymous nature of voting.

In order to encourage participation beyond the principle completion, only players that have valid nominations can themselves be nominated by others. Therefore, anyone hoping to *be* nominated and pass this test must themselves participate and support others. This also means that the players who receive points each month will not be absentee or quit people, but actual leaders in the current community.

There is, of course, the chance that two people in the same group nominate the same person. In that situation, each can vote for the other person’s selection, which in effect, means voting for their own nominee. There is also the chance that a nominated player will end up in a round where they can vote for themselves! (if one of the other random group members had chosen them to nominate). These outcomes should only occur if the player has enough influence to be nominated a lot, and therefore these exceptions to the “spirit” of this test are allowed (and would not be considered “gaming” the test).