Three weeks ago we asked the community for questions for our developers to answer. We have already answered some of these questions, and today's answers extend that to the first 34 pages.

The in-game system of skills and crafting is amazing in its logic and variety. Have you thought about creating a PoE card game, or maybe adding a mini-game that you could play with some of the NPCs? (Question from Russian community)

We briefly thought about it but decided not to go ahead with this type of idea. We want to make sure to build on the strengths of PoE's core gameplay and we felt that a built-in card game would be a distraction at best.

Do you plan to add new secrets and traps into Labyrinth? (Question from Russian community)

The team intend to keep updating the Labyrinth over time like any other game content. I can't promise new traps, but it'll certainly get attention (both in terms of content tweaks and ongoing rebalance).

Is it possible to have separate ladders for each region as well as the common ladder? (Question from Russian community)

Yes, this has been discussed a few times recently and has a reasonable amount of support behind it internally. I don't know a timeline yet - probably after 3.0.0.

Will we have a Path of Exile client for Linux? (Question from Russian community)

As we port Path of Exile to more platforms over time, it's more likely that a Linux port will be created. At this stage there is no strong financial argument for it and it would also significantly increase our QA costs, but it may happen one day.

Why are there no rare or unique Leaguestones in Legacy?

There are no rare Leaguestones because there aren't enough mods to support it yet. It'd be cool to make unique Leaguestones, but we decided not to include them in Legacy league because of time constraints. There are many other leagues to work on, as well as 3.0.0. Maybe you'll see rare and unique ones in the future if we continue to expand that system.

When and how was the first concept/idea of PoE born? What was the first steps of its actual realisation?

Jonathan and I had talked about creating an Action RPG for some time prior to us starting Path of Exile. We knew that Erik and Brian were interested in being involved, but we just needed to find the right time to start the project. That time ended up being November 2006, once Jonathan had finished university. Initially we worked on getting a rudimentary online realm up (without 3d graphics) and an item system. Being able to log in, move around and manipulate items was a core early goal.

I was wondering if there has been any consideration of a form of a side pouch for dedicated currency pickup, as inventory slots are valuable and I usually can't afford to carry all the currency that would otherwise enhance my experience of maps and such without sacrificing that space I would otherwise need.

This is a cool idea that the community occasionally suggests. I haven't talked to the team about it recently but it sounds like the kind of thing that would be considered for a later expansion.

What's the process like for getting various new ideas through into testing/development?

An idea is either proposed in a design meeting or through various channels like the "Feature Request" list in our issue tracker. Once it has approval from senior team members, then an early prototype is made to test viability. If this is given the green light then developers work on getting a testable version of the feature across to Quality Assurance. After a number of iterations it gets its final touches like translation and is then added to the appropriate live patch (which could be one that is months away).

Are there any plans for a new engine or engine update so the game doesn't look so dated?

The team are constantly updating the engine and the game's graphics to avoid it looking dated. For example, 3.0.0 has significant improvements to the water tech. I suspect that the areas you feel are dated are the older assets in Acts 1-3 that haven't received attention for a while. We're gradually going back and replacing things (like rocks in Act 1 for example) to address this problem.

Please help settle this once and for all. Is the Atlas mechanic of not having a map unlocked causing it to go down a level (basically allowing for more shores and more strands etc) a real thing? It's very rampant among the community to do this but no one has provided proof that this actually works.

If you have no other maps above or equal to Shore unlocked and then a higher-tier map drops, it will go down a tier to become a Shore. This is useful if you want to trade higher-tier drops for ones with a layout that you prefer over the better items and experience from the other map.

Can tell us something about the "development history" of double dip mechanics (Poison and Ignite mostly)? Was it 100% intended, the result of some miscalculations from the design team, or some unpredicted behaviour of the game code?

It was a consequence of how the calculations used to work. Many years ago when it was first noticed, it was seen as just a harmless quirk because it wasn't particularly overpowered. Over time, as more tools became available to players, it certainly became overpowered and was scheduled for an extensive refactor. Fixing it has been a lot of work but will be worth it.

Why are bosses given complete immunity to certain ailments rather than "reduced effectiveness" or "Unaffected by X"? The latter prevents bosses from being trivialized, while also not gimping legitimate builds that rely on targets simply being under those ailments.

The team intend to tone down or remove outright immunities, potentially as early as 3.0.0. This requires other solutions to the same problems, which are under development.

Why do some of the Master currency offerings seem so... bad? Vagan sells 10 alchemy for 8 regrets. Are you expecting the market/drop rates to significantly change in the future?

There are two types of deals offered by NPCs for currency exchanges. Regular NPCs and Masters. Both are priced to provide a range of values that the player can trade within. If the player-driven trade values stray outside this range then the players can use the NPC values as a fallback. So far this hasn't happened and the player-driven exchange values have generally stayed within the limits we set up. This is a good thing, but does make some of the NPC currency offers appear a little pointless.

Is it OK to feel guilty for killing an albino rhoa? The poor thing was scared and running away, and I slaughtered it. Does that make me a bad person?

Yes.

Why is the Six Linked Sockets fusing orb requirement on Artisan bench so unfairly high? Will this requirement get lowered anytime soon?

I'm sorry that you feel it is unfair, but it was actually set at a rate where there's no penalty for using it compared to the expected number of Orbs of Fusing required to roll the item by hand. It's high because that's how rare six-linked items are.

Would you rather never eat cheese again, or have to eat it with every meal?

My doctor would be very disappointed with my initial answer to this question.

Please let us ctrl-click on items in our inventory while not in town to drop them

This is a great convenience feature for players who know what they're doing, but would be a major liability for new players who may try to lift the item and instead toss it to another player. It's unlikely to be added in this form, but I'll bring the suggestion to the team.

Have you considered adding a new damage type to game? (Psychic/mental please)

Over time, the concepts of burning and poison have almost become their own damage types. We're conscious to not spam too many of these new damage types because the game is already very complex. A new damage type would only be added if it either substantially cleaned up a current system or added more to the game than it cost in terms of complexity.

Could you separate daggers, staffs and scepters into melee- and caster-specific base types? (e.g. dagger that can only roll spell caster mods)

A while ago we introduced a system where the presence of melee- or caster-specific mods on these hybrid base types would bias the generation of the remaining mods in that direction. This helps quite a lot. It's possible that we may one day do what you're suggesting and actually break out some of these hybrid items to be purely for casters or purely for melee.

As Path of Exile grows, and in turn Grinding Gear Games as a company, have you thought of developing other games (in particular -- an MMORPG)?

We don't have the money, time, expertise or desire to develop an MMORPG. Path of Exile is more than enough work for all of us at the moment!

Why does the guild stash work differently than regular stash tab? (e.g. moving tabs, CTRL+clicking items, swapping cursor item for stash item etc.)

The reason is because the guild stash is an entirely different system. It may look like a regular stash, but that's where the similarity ends. With normal stashes, the game server you're connected to has full control of them, so it's easy and fast to move tabs around and fully manipulate items. A guild stash is shared between several instances so involves synchronising all changes immediately with our master database. We have both security and server load considerations with this, so the actions that you can perform are limited to ones that we have verified are safe. It's certainly possible to add the other functionality that you're describing over time, but these are harder features to implement.

Will the beta for 3.0 be like standard regarding league mods?

The Beta for The Fall of Oriath will have just a Standard and Hardcore league. We intend to start the next full challenge league alongside the final launch of The Fall of Oriath on the live realm.