Thanks in advance for the answer.

-GJ

---------

In fact, the answer *is* partly sinister, since making it trivial for people to assume a new identity is not in the best interest of the community. (hint: if you DO want a new identity, ain't nuthin nobody can do to prevent you from re-formatting your hard drive, and that will successfully hide any previous indiscretions, WoS or otherwise).

But mainly it is because the program doesn't particularly hook into your operating system (doesn't add any nasty things at startup, doesn't modify any system DLLs, Doesn't register any new file types, etc.) So deleting the folder it is installed-to accomplishes uninstallation to a high degree.

If I required a Golden Soul in order to play online, I could safely include an uninstaller. Currently, I don't think that's a popular trade-off.

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 08-20-2001).]

---------------
Okay, thanks! I won't touch a thing, sir!

-GJ

I'm just curious...my last question was only because I wanted my full 1,000 hours for Monster Radar. I'll buy a hat or something sometime soon. If I have any money left after my comp upgrade, that is...

-GJ

---------
Samsyn Says:

That page is generated on the fly as needed. Your deleting it matters not. If you need the space, go for it

What are these mystical Halo Points and Halos? I asked like a thousand times what they do but no one answered me. Thanks..

----

Samsyn Says:

Halos cost 1,000 Halo Points each, and are purchased via the "Halo Dialog" which you open by clicking on the "Karma Meter" while viewing your characters statistics.

Halo Points cost 1,000 PP each, meaning a Halo costs one MILLION PP.

Halos serve absolutely no purpose other than their intrinsic collectability. They are just a means to squander PP after you've gotten everything else PP can be spent on.

They are the answer to the question: "Hey, I have everything and I want something to mindlessly spend PP on to continue justifying my existence!"

They are just something to brag about, be jealous over, and mourn the loss of after your disk crashes without backing up your WoS\Save folder.

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 08-20-2001).]

--------
Should I change my mind and make Halo Points have any secondary function, I would prefer to avoid making it a power-related function (more Halo Points making you more likely to win a fight, I mean)..

However, I know people would like a way to "pay other people rewards" for one thing or another. And paying in GP is rather worthless, paying in PP would upset gameplay, paying in XP would be ridiculous.. but paying in Halo Points... Now that's something that might actually be meaningful.... And still be meaningless in the long run, which is the whole point.

"Why are there restrictions on how much money I can carry, and how much I can give to people?"

---------
Samsyn Says:

Aside from the general game-nature of restricting your wallet-size by your level (just one more thing which improves as you level your character), it really boils down to seeds.

Seeds... or Ability Seeds... give you a permanent increase in one or more of your five character abilities: Strength, Wisdom, Stamina, Dexterity, and Agility.

Normally, you advance these abilities slowly during the game, and would not be able to "max out" your abilities before reaching level 100.

But seeds let you get a bit ahead of the game. Seeds (or their equivalent) are traditional to RPGs and are supported by the WoS game engine for that purpose, although individual world designers can choose how they wish to offer them. (for example, in your world you might only provide them as quest rewards, or sell them at outrageous prices. Or sell them at a terrific bargain, in fact)

In Evergreen, I sell them at a fairly-high-but-not-astronomical price. I might change that, actually.

So, as it turns out, the main reason people wanted to give large amounts of money to other players was specifically so as to allow them to purchase seeds they otherwise could not afford. In effect "giving" ability points to other players.

------

Samsyn Says:

Seed prices are a world-thing, so this would only affect Evergreen. But I think it could be argued that seeds are too cheap (or that money is too available, of course).

But in general, at present, in my humble opinion, in Evergreen, people are buying too many seeds.

Plus people are fixated on them.

In a more perfect Evergreen, not *everyone* would be maxed out to 255 in all abilities, all the time.

Variety should be the spice of life.

------

Samsyn Says:

The 'monster radar' is a Golden Soul feature. Without a GS, it is only available for the first 1000 hours of play.

--------
Samsyn Says:

While the full truth is a bit complicated, it basically means you cannot enter a scene with that player. (For example, they have a different version of the world than you do).

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 09-17-2001).]

--------
Well I've entered there camps before. I want the full truth then please. If you don't want to tell the world then E-mail me.

[This message has been edited by Nitro (edited 09-18-2001).]
--------
What does it mean? >.< I want to learn and know as much as I can about WoS and anyother game I play alot.

how do i transfur my soul from one computer to another without a golen soul and without becoming a modder?

------

This has been answered before, and I can't be bothered to mindlessly retype the answer again

http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosSuperFAQ.htm

This only started in A62..Whenever I do anything click-intensive (i.e. PKing in a laggy camp requires fast clicking..Or a double-click button, like I have) I get an illegal error, which is definitely not shibby. What's up with that, Dan~man?

---

excessive clicking (i.e. auto-clicker speed) will shut you down. But that's a LOT of clicking. Faster than you should be able to do with your own little fingers.

It should fail *slightly* more gracefully than actually popping up error boxes.

But we're talking 10-20 clicks per second here. For the sake of your carpal tunnel syndrome, you need me to slow you down.

---------

This is because most servers implement a special option which won't allow two players to share the same IP address (you and your brother are sharing an IP address).

Some server admins turn off this option (You have no way of knowing without a) asking, or b) just trying.)

You can always run your own server (if your goal is to play with your brother), if you can't find someone else to host such a server for you.

Sadly, I have to disallow multiple IPs on my own server since it allows various mischievous pranks otherwise.

Do you also get a message about "Another player in the game has the same Soul ID as you"?

Each PC on the server must have a unique Soul ID.

--------

At 100% those particular attributes stop growing. However, the effectiveness of attacks and defenses still goes up as the level goes up, since the level itself is one part of the equation.

Chaos-element monsters can only use spells of their particular chaos-element, no matter how wise they get.

sensitivity-wise, chaos spells act like Evergreen death-element spells. (affect all other elements equally)

---------
conspiracy adds:

The way I understand it, the pet has maximum stats for each level he gets to. You can get his stats to 100% when he's on level, say, 12, and when he goes up a level, his percentages will go down so you can fill them to 100% again.
Sort of like your HP, I guess. You can't overfill your HP, but when you go up a level you have a little bit of extra space to fill with HP. Or maybe I don't know what I'm talking about!

---------
cactrot adds:

The pets stats (STR/WIS/STM/AGI/DEX) are not affected by level. BUT if you have the pers ATTACK or DEFENSE at 100%, it will drop to say 98% or so when it levels up, as it's capacity for defense grows.

---------
Deadlock adds:

Time to finish this pet argumentation.
PETS are monsters.

PETS are caught through either enchant, followed by tame, or through purchase.

PETS have a max stat level of 255, just like players. They can get to 255 in their stats of WISDOM, STRENGTH, DEXTERITY, AGILITY, and STAMINA at level 1 as easily as level 99. The STATS are increased by TRAINING them in the respective way;

FEEDING for STRENGTH
RIGHT COLOR FOOD for STAMINA
PLAYING GAMES for WISDOM
WASHING for DEXTERITY
RUNNING AROUND for AGILITY

ATTACK and DEFENSE are the the statistics that affect their ATTACK and DEFENSE like EQUIPMENT affects A PLAYER. To increase these, you FEED your PET, after you CALL them out into a CAMP, ARMOR AND WEAPONS WITH ATTACK AND DEFENSE STATS. This INCREASES their ATTACK AND DEFENSE. This IS THE ONLY STAT that will have a LARGER possible value over LEVELS OF THE PET. Only HIT POINTS, MANA, AND ATTACK/DEFENSE POTENTIAL increase during a level. As well, levels cause a general increase in combat efficiency, making them better fighters.

STATS do not have potential increases over levels. 255 is the max. PERIOD.

------
Samsyn Says:

Your rating is only affected when you battle another player on an 'Arena Ladder Map' (a map in a world with the 'ladder' flag set) For example, in Evergreen, this would be at the PK Arena in Westin.

The winner of the fight has their rating go up, while the loser has their rating go down.

The amount by which your rating changes is based on the chess federation rules and cares only about your relative ratings (NOT YOU LEVEL).

You are rewarded most for beating someone with a much higher rating than yourself. If you beat someone with a lower rating, you get less benefit.

Likewise, if you lose to someone with a much higher rating than yourself, your rating doesn't fall much (you were expected to lose). But if you lose to someone who is rated below you, it hurts your rating more.

--

Halos (see above) are merely collectors items. They have no effect on your character.

On the EQUIP screen is a halo meter on the left, which displays your halos (if any). If you click on this meter, it opens the Halo Management Screen where you can buy more halos.

Halos are bought with PP, and they are very expensive.

Halos exist to solve the age old question of "What do I do with all this PP now that my character is already maxxed out in training?"

-------
Conspiracy says:

Well, if guilds are character-specific, meaning that guilds only apply to one character, then that would make them world-specific, wouldn't it? You wouldn't be able to use any character in more than one world.
Unless you mean just have members from the guild from many different worlds? If that's what you meant, then I have no idea! =)

---------
Leniad adds:

Guilds arent world specific, and can travel to all worlds.
The trick to get your guild in evergreen to, say, aerianell, its to make a character called eactly the same than an already member in aerianell, then the game will regonize the name and your Serial Numbe and you'll be able to pur that uniform, them people will be able to petit with their aerianell chars to you.

---------
Samsyn says:

Normally, a pet with zero wisdom cannot ever have wisdom (because its monster type has no wisdom to begin with)

However, if you have a smart pet which you allow to become stupid, you can resurrect its intelligence through proper training.

----
I dunno, why don't you have a pair of red socks with little pikachus on them?

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 10-15-2001).]

[Psh.....I'll be sure to score me a pair.]

(Note: I'm personally in favor of spending the $25, but my Elder [aka mom], who's credit card is used in my donation, complains that I've already bought one...)

So, I could avoid some sort of conflict with my parental figure by just transferring the golden soul number to my new computer.

Also, if I cant uninstall one, can I reinstall a GS with a new number? (if I wanted to have my old number on my new computer, and get a new number for my old computer...)

Thanks

-Jacius

[you can just type the activation code into the new PC. Of course, then the old PC can't be used in the same server... but that's like.. oh.. I dunno.. a single-use licensing agreement? :-) But yeah, for semi-obvious reasons, I have to sort of .. well... less said the better, nudge nudge wink wink.. -s]

[ http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosSuperFAQ.htm -s]

=O(

I have tried in different shops, on different worlds, tried it in the equip list and the item list - tried quitting and coming back, restarting the computer.... everything I can think of. But nothing works.....

Please help!!

~*~Wytch~*~

*blush* I finally figured it out..... I took a scavenger - apparently they can't have any gold.... so it isn't a fault - just me being completely dim.... =O)

I have other computer games of various kinds and for each of them I don't have to change it. (if I DO change it it won't work at all)

I am able to use it on FM WITH the sound effects for awhile, but after about 30 minutes the effects break up and I have to disable it. (I don't get any sound whatsoever if it's on the normal setting)

Help!

-Shadow

------------

Samsyn says:

Well, first off you should visit the web site for your sound card and get new drivers.. the 30 minute deal doesn't sound good.

But here is a bit of background about sound cards.

In the bad old days, only one program could use the sound card at a time. The first program to ask for it got it, and any programs you ran after that point were either without sound, or would crash.

Nowadays, with a current version of DirectSound and a set of polite games, and a reasonable sound card, several applications can be making noise at the same time (or can quickly hand the speakers to whichever window is 'on top')

Now, Enter the MIDI.

In the bad old days, MIDI was achieved through the AdLib/Yamaha FM Synthesizer chip. It sounded glorious at the time, but now we all think it stinks because we are so used to digitally sampled instruments and FM-synth is just to 70s for us. But for compatibility that FM chip is still included on all sound cards (and lucky for you, I suppose).

Somewhere along the way, SoundBlaster (I'll give them credit) added "WaveTable" sound to their sound cards. This gave you a second option for MIDI instruments. Instead of being FM-synthesized as little sawtooths full of harmonics, there was a memory chip on the sound card with digitized samples for several instruments. When you needed a piano, an actual recording of a piano was used. The hardware to do this was completely separate and so it could be used at the same time as the sound effects "waveOut" device.

So, at this point in history, a nice sound card could simultaneously make 3 different sorts of sounds:

* digitized sound effects (wavOut)
* Fm-Synth MIDI (FM Synth)
* WaveTable MIDI (WaveTable)

The outputs of these three separate bits of hardware were mixed together (with the mixer) and you could adjust their relative amplitudes, and life was good.

As we grew ever more fussy in our desires however, the waveTable memory was increased in size so that higher resolution samples of even more instruments could be obtained. Life was still good, but sound cards were getting a little pricey.. All that sample memory started to add up.

The first attempt to cheapen it (and make it more flexible) was to replace the waveTable read-only memory, with read-write memory instead, and then download the samples from disk into the sound card when you started the proggram. This was very cool since you could add instruments after the fact (but kinda bad because if you didn't have the same instruments that the MIDI composer used, you didn't hear what they expected you to hear).

Still.. all in all, it was cool.

Along a parallel track were all the owners of cheaper soundcards which didn't have the waveTable hardware.

They wanted to hear nice sounds as well, so software came into existence for them as well, simply by playing the music samples through the wavOut sound effect channel.

This was a lot more work for the game in question, since it had to merge sound effects, music, and maybe voice-acting all into a single stream of digital numbers going to the single waveOut hardware of the sound card. Music sounded good though, and was no longer MIDI (but the CD-Rom had room for plenty of digitized music, so long as you had the budget to have some composed for your game.)

Then, enter the PCI bus. It wasn't long before sound card developers saw that with PCI, the sound card didn't really need to have any memory of its own, since it could reach out and use the regular system memory quickly enough to meet its needs.

So BAM! A rash of inexpensive sound cards was created which had no memory, no hardware wavetable, no nuthin (but still that FM chip, of course). Just the ability to play digitized samples straight from main memory, and a lot of fancy drivers.

The drivers grew fancy enough that on the left side they looked like a MIDI interface, while on the right side they were just funneling system memory straight to the digital-to-analog converter on the worlds cheapest sound card.

This was often called "software wavetable" or "synthesized wavetable" and sounds great, but it uses the wavOut hardware. And the cheap sound card has only a single channel of waveOut hardware (really cool sound cards have hardware wavetable AND multiple channels of waveOut hardware.) You will never be truly happy until you have one of these (SoundBlaster Live!!!)

Now, back to DirectX.. DirectSound in particular. DirectSound is the miracle which allows all these applications to share the sound card. But more accurately, they only can share the sound card if they are all DirectSound-aware.

So, WoS is DirectSound-aware, so what's the big deal? Well, WoS uses DirectSound to play the sound effects, and they get shared very nicely between applications (though I have WoS set to shut up when it isn't the front window, since that seems the polite thing to do)

but.. guess what... DirectSound won't do MIDI. No problem, microsoft has had built-in MIDI support for years as part of their "multimedia" support. But guess what. DirectSound won't share a waveOut channel with "multimedia" So if you only have one waveOut channel (sounds like you do), then you can either have "multimedia" use it, or have DirectSound use it, but not both.

"multimedia" only uses the waveOut channel for MIDI if you have it set to "software wavetable" (or whatever your cheapo sound card calls ;-)) Otherwise it uses FM Synth and DirectSound is more than willing to share that.

---

Samsyn Says:

Your language rating, shown in the Soul Diary, is a result of what words you use while chatting. Excessive profanity brings it up towards XXX, and a long period of no profanity brings it (very slowly) down.

There is no banishment associated with language ratings. However, individual players can set a level at which they automatically mute people. For example, Little Billy might be set to automatically mute anyone with a language rating of R and above.

It's conceivable that there might be a server rule someday which limited access to a particular server based on language rating, but that is not the case today.

Basically it's just an attempt to serve two worlds (the sailor and the nun) without forcing anyone to see anything they would rather not see.

The idea being that if you say F, S, and MF a lot (which would normally be bleeped), you're likely to also say a lot of raunchy things which would otherwise get past the bleeper.

it seems to work remarkably well, if I do say so myself.

I seem to have a very high correlation between dunce hats and language ratings... But then a person's language generally affects me more than I think it does some people.

------

Samsyn Says:

No, it won't make your characters a modder to play in another world, because...

No, you can't move your Evergreen characters to other worlds in the first place

Each world has its own characters (otherwise, all worlds would have to have the same spells, items, etc and then they would be so much like Evergreen as to make you ask what the point was :-)

---

The miracle of WIN32 (foundation of Windows 95+) is the virtual memory system, which both makes it unnecessary, and pretty much impossible, for you to micro-manage that sort of thing.

By the time you have visited several maps, WoS is using a pretty huge footprint in your system's memory. (15 megabytes on my PC).

Add to that the memory used by windows itself and any other geegaws you have running and it's pretty easy to exceed 64Meg, which is what I am assuming you have in your PC.

Once you exceed your physical memory limits, then you notice your system slowing down as virtual memory is constantly swapped back and forth from disk.

This is why adding RAM to your PC is always your best bet for getting a huge performance enhancement.

----

Now, if you meant you merely have two installations of WoS on your hard drive, that's no reason for your computer to slow down (unless you are critically short of disk space, and/or in need of a serious de-fragging).

But actually running two copies of WoS at the same time, doubles the footprint (more or less) and can definitely take you over the top if you were close to exceeding physical memory in the first place.

Of course, from the nature of your post, I assume you probably already knew all that, so I am really just spouting off for the audience.

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 11-23-2001).]

I guess I should have been more clear on what 'loaded' meant... I 'installed' a couple extra copies per the testing and whatnot, and after investigating it discovered some odd glitch that has caused windows to think that I have four copies of WoS open whenever I have the main one going, thereby sucking up four times the resources.. and now I'm going to have to reformat the primary partition and reinstall windoz to clear up the error (after talking to tech support). So I don't know if this was related to one of the A63 patches as this problem did not exist before testing, or if it was just one of those odd things per an installation glitch. Anyone else having this issue?

You spent a long time typing up all those FAQ's...but you forgot the all-time greatest WoS question

Will you level me?

---

Samsyn Says:

Sure, I'll level you! Level ZERO coming right up!

--------

Guppyman Says:

First of all, that is not a WoS question. ;-)
Second of all, the mix master is working. Dan does not constantly run a mix client for people to play on, as anyone can launch their own.

Samsyn Adds:

On occasion the WP master server *is* broken (no time recently to my knowledge, but it *has* happened).

I don't run a regular server of my own, because WP is a bit high-bandwidth (compared to my other games) and would eat into my DSL line enough to interfere with the other games I *do* host.

I try to keep the individual data-generation rates to under 300 baud when I can. I think Warpath is like 2400 baud when things start popping. And it's a pure broadcast model, so all 2400 gets sent to all other players. Hence in an 8 player game, each player receives 7*2400 in (16.8K). Which means the server is shipping 8*7*2400 out (134K). (and receiving 8*2400 in (19.2K)). Of course, that's only during peak load, but in WP there are a lot of peaks :-)

WoS and Arcadia achieve lower data rates to begin with, plus they are able to target data to individuals and subsets of players, further reducing server load.

Hey, I notice that I am unable to receive skins from the other players. I have already read the many bits of description on this subject, both in this FAQ, and also in http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosSuperFAQ.htm

I have so far been unable to understand what that means and what I can do about it.

I am getting really frustrated by this, and that makes me use language and attitudes which are generally frowned upon in the WoS community, and I am probably sorry if I offended anyone, and I probably understand that they are only trying to help me.

I am probably willing to chill out and start over in a way to calmly get to the root of the problem so that I can enjoy the creativity other people have put in to their skin designs, and perhaps I want to add to that creativity with some designs of my own to be shared with the other players.

-------

GuppyMan Responds (more or less)

Although there are several possible explanations, it is possible that your computer is behind some sort of firewall, gateway, router, or proxy server which is preventing it from receiving so-called "UDP" packets from other players.

If you pursue this concept with the administrator of said firewall, gateway, router or proxy-server, they might ask you "Which Port Would You Like to have 'opened' for UDP traffic"

It is not clear that you can give them a good answer for this, since WoS selects port numbers dynamically, for the most part.

However, if you press the "Network Options" button on the "where would you like to play" dialog of WoS, you will see a field called something like "UDP Port"

If you magically determine a suitable number to stick there... oh...10000 maybe? And then have your firewall 'open' that port to UDP, then MAYBE it will solve your problem.

Samsyn Adds:

Thanks, GM! I hope that something like that works out for Myztik Gohan. Unfortunately, the situation usually doesn't, unless the firewall, gateway, router or proxy server pretty much opens all ports for UDP traffic.

You can have a couple problems along these lines. One is that your computer may not have a 'real' IP address of its own. Hence when the packet arrives at the gateway PC, the gateway has no idea which slave PC to send it to.

The other is the more obvious case where a security firewall is just suspicious of incoming UDP traffic in the first place and simply throws it away before anyone gets to see it. Web browser use a different protocol (TCP/IP) and a very specific set of ports. So really tight firewalls tend to only allow that sort of access, thinking that the only thing the individual client PC should be allowed to do is browse the web.

Cable Modem ISPs in particular, suffer from more than their share of security issues (your neighbors sending documents to YOUR printer, or using your hard drive as a file server), and they tend to impose more draconian firewall controls, without actually telling you about it.

SO, at the end of the day, what can you actually DO about this?

Talk to your ISP, your admin, of course. Make sure that the problem isn't one of the other issues mentioned in the FAQ (for example, having "Ask for New Skins" turned OFF in the FILE menu.)

But at the end of it all, you might find it simpler to visit one of the many WoS Skin Site Web pages, and simply download a thousand skins at once.

Asking around in the game should help you find skin sites, but you can also find a list of some at http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosDownload.htm

----

Samsyn Says:

Not sure about the Beethoven part... but that was the 20 hour advertisement. You see it every time you rack up another 20 hours.

Something to look forward to :-)

Ill wind BAD0001B/0/0.1

--------

Samsyn Says:

Tell your little brother to stop running ArtMoney.

-----

Samsyn Says:

I can not explain that. Which spell was it? "Confuse" was removed from the spells which humans are allowed to learn, but that was in A63 itself.

-----

Samsyn Says:

CONFUSE is a spell monsters use, not people. People had access to it for awhile, but it was abused. So the universe reached out and plucked CONFUSE from mankind's quiver.

---

Samsyn Says:

Unless your computer's calendar/clock changes in inappropriate ways, gags always wear off.

//GHoZt

----------

Samsyn says...

Let me guess.. you were the guy on my server a bit ago with the character name "f-*-*-*-A-*-*-*" (asterisks are mine)

Enjoy your play on other servers.

----

Samsyn Says:

You have serious mental problems, consult a specialist immediately. Or perhaps call your local police department and ask them the best place to buy drugs.

Hacking is *bad* and you should *not* be seeking to do it in the first place, but here? I refer you again to the start of this paragraph.

----

Samsyn says:

There is no hope for sending a skin that size automatically. If you can convince people to manually fetch it, then they will see it.

However, it is extremely unlikely that the file could be that large unless the file format was still not correct. Paint programs seldom agree on terminology, so the term RLE doesn't always mean the same thing (for photoshop in particular).

If the instructions at http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosSkins.htm (the bit about using paint shop pro to get the format right) don't work for you, then you might consider emailing me the file for analysis.

---

Recently, the tool found at http://www.synthetic-reality.com/WoSViewer.zip has been extended to do these palette conversions for you.

---

Samsyn Says:

If the installation was successfull (unzipped automatically by WoS, not unzipped manually) then the world should appear on your worlds list when you play in solo mode.

When you play on-line you must play the world which is already being played on the server you connect to (if any).

But I'd try it in solo mode first just to make sure the installation really was successful.

FYI,
=traumchen=

quote:

---

Originally posted by samsyn:
[general question]

HOW DO I GET THE PALETTE RIGHT IN MY WOS SKINS?

---------

For your skin to appear in the game anywhere close to how you intended, you MUST use the official WoS color palette.
This can be found in the file:

...WoS\art\souls.pal

[SNIP!!!]

---

-------
Samsyn Says:

Samsyn is a little confused since isn't this already in the FAQ and isn't that where the SNIP came from?

However, yes, a good skin file should be about 20K bytes in file size. Big fat Porky skin files are allowed to get almost to 50K in size and still be automatically transferred, but that doesn't make them right. If your skin is over 25K you are a greedy pixel-hogging enemy of planet earth!

Unless it looks really cool!

However, the traditional explanation for porky skins is twofold:

1.) not 256 color (the vast majority of porky skins are 24 bit color and get 3x smaller just by being palettized)

2.) not 'run length encoded' (more than one file format goes by that name, specifically the RLE made by PhotoShop is NOT the right format) This makes a huge difference in most skins, since most skins have long sections of background color which compress nicely. If you set every other pixel of your skin, then you won't see as much of an improvement.

After years of saying "follow the instructions at http://www.synthetic-reality.com/wosSkins.htm and use PaintShop Pro" I can now start saying: Use Uncle Dan's WoS Viewer program. The URL of which might be:

http://www.synthetic-reality.com/WoSViewer.zip

BUt I tend to get that URL wrong...

[This message has been edited by samsyn (edited 06-17-2002).]