Yes, soon the v.3 Signature Gags will be upgraded to v.4 for free. This will make the Gags fully compatible with the v.5 HUD, leveraging on the stability and other features built into the HUD.

Chief among the v.4 Gag changes is the way the Trials are conducted. They will be streamlined a bit to be consistent in the way they are started, and there will be more help pages.

But most importantly, the subbie will no longer be able to “sleep” through a Trial, if you know what I mean. Many people have questioned the validity of the Scoreboard timings, and these coming changes will ensure that if you make the new Scoreboard, you can hold your head up high with pride – there is no shortcut.

I’ve already announced these impending changes back in December, and now I’d like to share some details.

The No-AFK feature will be implemented for the v.4 Gag Trials. This levels the playing field, so subbies who have access to sims or bots and such do not have the easy way out. Don’t worry, you are given about five minutes’ grace to respond to the prompts, so you can still get a quick coffee, rush to the toilet or even check the baby and still be fine.

If you fail to respond within the 5 minutes, or if you respond incorrectly (macros won’t work here!), you’re busted.

This is what happens if you’ve been busted for “sleeping” on the Trial:

Before you level to the next Circle, any No-AFK breach will not terminate the Trial. Instead, your time spent on the current Trial will be reduced by more than the “missing” time since the last No-AFK check. So you’re worse off than if you had been paying attention.

However, once you’ve leveled to the next Circle, any No-AFK breach will terminate the Trial immediately, freezing your highscore. This will affect subbies who are going after the Top20 Scoreboard.

Speaking of which, the v.3 Scoreboard at the Warehouse will be frozen soon and kept aside (I’ll take a snapshot for the blog, to be preserved for posterity). A new v.4 Scoreboard will take its place.

With the v.4 gag update, your current Circle will not be affected. Neither will your best time be affected if they are below 24 hours. If they are above 24 hours, they will be reduced to 24 hours, to level the playing field. If you wish to go for a higher best time (and you really don’t have to, it is entirely optional), you need to start a new Trial.

Naturally, the v.4 Scoreboard will only accept new high scores from v.4 gags.

Lulu