AC2:Announcements - 2004/07 - Message from Home

Teaser

Original Link (now dead) - http://ac2.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=255

July Teaser: Message from Home

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Outside the captain’s quarters, the storm continued to build. Sheets of rain whipped against the pitch-dark portholes, and every few seconds the floor heaved tremendously as the Shaper's Quest plowed through another swell. The cries of alarmed sailors could barely be heard above the howl of the tempest. The chaos outside the cabin, however, was nothing compared to the chaos within.

Three bedraggled men sat around an age-cracked wooden table, tense and glaring at one another, exhausted by hours of argument. Their leader was the first to break the silence.

“By the Olthoi Queen, no!” Lord Sigurd shouted, slamming his heavy fist on the table. The other two men flinched. "We'll not turn back! It's too late for such cowardice. We’ve less than half of our fuel remaining, a week's worth of stale biscuits, even less fresh water, a single boiler that barely holds steam—"

“...and we've cannibalized the other beyond repair,” agreed Albert, Lord Sigurd’s gray-bearded Prime Engineer. "We all know the facts. But these are reasons to turn around, not to press on. If the last boiler blows at sea, we'll die out here. We’re heading into strange waters without charts, without provisions. Now this…” Albert was interrupted by a drastic lurch to starboard. From below, there were crashes and curses as dozens of small items clattered to the deck.

When the tumult subsided, Albert continued. “This storm seems like a warning, sire. Let's turn around and head for the mainland at full steam. Our remaining coal might last us that long. If we spend a few months ashore, maybe my engineers can forge a new valve assembly for the first boiler. Then, if our prospectors find a new source of coal, perhaps…”

“Maybe? Perhaps?" Lord Sigurd interrupted harshly. "Maybe we'll be eaten by Olthoi. Or perhaps, Albert, we'll be eaten by Olthoi! Our old protection is gone forever. We'd hold them back for a week, two weeks at most, and then they'll overwhelm our camp and pick clean our bones."

"We could live on the Shaper's Quest, send boats to the mainland..."

"Let's imagine that those boats actually returned from the mainland, which they would not. We'd still die a slow death at sea. Albert, you know this ship better than I do, and even I know she's almost spent. The first boiler will never fire again, the second will rupture within a fortnight, and then the Quest will be nothing but an oversized rowboat."

"Sire, my engineers have brought the Quest back from the dead before," Albert replied stiffly. "They can do so again."

"Not any longer. I mean no disrespect to your crew, Albert, they're the best tinkers alive. But this ship is built on magic as well as metalwork, and both are rusting away. For all we know, even the Empyreans who built her couldn’t restore her to fighting trim."

Now the third man, a narrow-boned, wide-eyed scholar, spoke up. "There is another way, milord. We could fight the Olthoi. We could build an army and drive them back underground...."

"No!" both Sigurd and Albert exclaimed in unison.

"But you saw how my Gear Knight fought against the bugs! They couldn't touch him!"

Lord Sigurd's hand moved involuntarily to the still-painful wound in his side, where an Olthoi's talon had nearly ended his life. "One Gear Knight, Ludward," he sighed. "One Gear Knight, and how long did it take you to rebuild him?"

Ludward scowled. "That doesn't matter. It'll be easier next time."

"There won't be a next time, Ludward. The matter is closed. And," Sigurd added, looking at Albert, "it's time to put this talk of turning around to rest, too. We have the Empyrean charts. We know the island is out here. We know we're getting close. Unless the lands have changed, we'll make landfall in a matter of days."

"And if the lands have changed?" Albert persisted.

"Why, if the lands have changed, we might arrive even...."

The rest of Sigurd's words were drowned by a sudden, incredible shock. Metal screamed in tearing agony as all three men tumbled across the room along with most of their furniture. A jar of watered wine toppled from a low shelf and shattered, washing the cabin floor with the color of blood.

Lord Sigurd was stunned by pain as his wound ripped open once more. Hazily, he stumbled to his feet as Albert leapt across the room and flung open the hatch. A torrent of wind and water blew into the room along with the cries of terrified sailors. "A reef! We've struck a reef!" one voice shouted. Another yelled, "We've been breached!" And then the dreaded death sentence: "Man overboard! Man overboard!"

At that moment, Albert's face was crossed by a look of exquisite pain. Lord Sigurd had seen the look before, on parents whose children had been taken by Olthoi or fever. But the Prime Engineer mastered himself in a moment. "The longboats! For the Shaper's sake, see to the longboats!" he yelled, and vanished into the rain. Lord Sigurd, leaning heavily on frail Ludward, followed him out. As they left, the ship's mighty horn sounded three times, summoning whatever aid might exist on this alien shore. Lord Sigurd felt certain that he would never set foot in the cabin again.

Less than half an hour later--for the folk of the Brotherhood were quick and decisive at need--the longboats had been hastily laden with men and women, a handful of children, and what few treasures could be gathered in a hurry. Albert was the last to clamber up from below deck. He quickly moved to his lord's side, shouting above the drenching storm.

"We couldn't shut down the boiler, sire. Six of us tried to close the valves--it's no good, they're frozen open. Something must have been damaged in the collision. There's no telling when, or if, she'll tear free of the reef."

"And she's still taking on water?"

"Slowly. The lower compartments are completely flooded...." A great wave struck the ship broadside, and for a moment Albert's voice was drowned out by the screaming children in the longboats. "Completely flooded, and the water's rising towards the engine room. We're not sure what will happen if the boilers are submerged...."

Sigurd nodded. "With any luck she'll stay pinned here, and we can return for salvage tomorrow. But for now, we have to get clear." Albert nodded his sad assent.

"Launch the boats!" Sigurd cried. He stepped carefully into one of the sleek vessels as Albert did likewise. Ludward was already at the back of the boat, sandwiched between several unhappy apprentices and looking miserable. Slowly, grindingly, the Quest's ancient winches lowered the four boats into the turbulent waters.

"Everybody grab an oar! Row for shore! Row for the lights!" For, indeed, a few dim signal lights were now shining from the direction of the beach. Someone on shore must have responded to their horn blasts. Sigurd hoped they were friendly, for he doubted his men had much fight left in them.

But, as it turned out, there was no danger. The people who met Sigurd and his guards on the shore were not warriors, but merely the sleepy citizens of a place called Cavendo. Sigurd questioned their leader, a preening fellow named Kanten, until he ascertained that they were not in immediate danger from Olthoi or the Cavendo-folk. Then he relaxed. When shelter was offered, he accepted it gratefully. Word spread among the beached longboats that the Brotherhood was safe among friends.

As the voyagers made their confused, exhausted way toward the lights of the nearby town, Sigurd heard a shriek of terror from the rear. He turned to see Ludward sprinting desperately towards the surf, with Albert hot on his heels. Ludward made it eight paces into the pounding waves before he was tackled from behind, then dragged bodily back to shore. When Sigurd reached them, Ludward was still spluttering and trying to free himself from the old engineer's grip.

"I left him--I left something on the ship, Sigurd! Oh, please, we have to go back!" But Sigurd shook his head sadly and pointed towards the sea. Ludward squinted into the rain and darkness, then uttered a soft cry of dismay. The dark silhouette of the Shaper's Quest was gone.

Still, Ludward wouldn't leave the beach. They had to drag him up the hill towards Cavendo and safety.

The Knight was bored, bored. He'd often found himself bored since he lost his body. It wasn't much fun to be a head on a shelf, even if you had a friend who talked to you every day and told you stories about the new bodies he'd build for you. But it was even less fun to be a head stuck in a corner with absolutely no friends at all.

To be fair, things had gotten very exciting a few days ago. There was the shock of the collision that had hurled the Knight's head from its usual resting place. Then there was the shouting, the hustle of people running to and fro, and the rising water. The Knight was delighted to discover that he floated. He briefly entertained the notion of asking his friend for an aquatic body, maybe something with fins and shark teeth, until he remembered his feelings about rust.

But then there hadn't been any more shouting or visitors, and the Knight suspected that he'd been left alone. That didn't cheer him up much. Then there was another terrible lurch, and the water started rising much, much faster. This also seemed less than promising. Before long, the Knight found himself floating free through the corridors of the Shaper's Quest along with innumerable bits of flotsam and trash. He rather expected to end up as a sunken treasure. It seemed like a lonely fate. Perhaps a family of brightly-colored fish would make a home in him, he thought without much hope.

Then the strangest thing happened. A wailing siren began to sound from all directions, and rumbling mechanical clanks and whines echoed through the length of the ship. And the water started to recede! At first the Knight assumed he'd been saved, and he started shouting joyfully to his unseen rescuers. But as he floated lower and lower, and the only voice he heard was his own, he began to have his doubts. Maybe the ship itself had decided not to sink. He hadn't known it could do that, but then, he hadn't known he could float, either. One had to keep an open mind about such things.

After much bobbing and drifting, the Knight found himself wedged in a corner of the ship's hold as the last of the water drizzled away through unseen drains. After that, he had plenty of time to think. He wondered why his friend had left him behind. He wondered why the water had left him behind. And he wondered very much where the ship was going, and whether there would be anyone at the end of the journey who might care to remove him from this extremely dull and uninteresting corner.

Failing to answer any of these questions, he began to hum an old, old song. After all, things weren't so bad--he still had his courage, didn't he? And he was used to waiting.

Rollout Notes

Original Link (now dead) - http://ac2.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=252

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A Note on Crafting 2.0: We are still observing crafting behavior in the player population. We are making only a few very small adjustments right now (listed below), because any changes we make to crafting now could easily be overpowered after players increase in skill levels. We aren’t turning a blind eye to crafting concerns, but we have to proceed carefully with changes given the newness of the system.

ATTENTION: A final Craft Skills reset will be offered with the July 13th hotfix. This reset will have a 2-hour real-time window as before, but the time starts the first time /crafskills reset is typed. The reset will also be REMOVED with the July Prop. For more information, go here.

SYSTEM CHANGES

Aura Buffing
The new Aura Buffing system has arrived! With the new system, certain buffs (see below) will now become “inactive” buffs; they can be toggled on and off and automatically buff all members of the same fellowship within range (300 meters above-ground or all in the same dungeon) at regular intervals.

At each “pulse”, inactive buffs will apply a short-lived effect to all fellows in range. If they are out of range during a pulse, they will receive a visual notification on the effect icon so that they will know to move back into range. The inactive buff can be toggled on by using the skill, and using the skill a second time will turn it off.

The following skills will now use this system for July:

Featherweight Tenaciousness Encase Insidious Concoction Shield Wall Benevolent Leader Seething Tonic Trailblazing Balance Impenetrability

Infected Caress Bladeskin Clear Minds Inferno's Blessing Storm's Blessing Alacrity Esprit Acumen Winged Feet Intervention

Focusing the Spirit Protecting the Flock Insulation Innoculation Burgeoning Will Wind's Blessing Wound Twister Bolster Conviction Life Unbound Robustify

The range for aura buffs is the same range used for quest propagation and experience-sharing in fellowships, so this is also a good way to gauge whether or not members of your fellowship are close enough to receive quests or experience points.

SKILL CHANGES

• The appearance effects for Human Sorcerer skill “Turnblade” now wear off
• The Tumerok Magic skill “Winged Feet” should no longer override the Human Ranger’s “Trailblaze”

ITEM CHANGES

• Mirra Recall: In the July prop, Mirras will be removed from those Quest Items that were adjusted in the June event Item Balances. Please make sure you have enough pack space to accomodate your Mirra!
• Butchery and Mining: All Butchery and Mining tool bonuses will be increased by +5 in July. (level 1-50 tools will go from giving a +1 to +50 bonus to giving a +6 to +55 bonus). Also, “starter” tools will no longer inflict a 75% penalty to Craft XP earnings.</spam> Note: This adjustment does not affect pre-existing tools.
• Crucibles had incorrectly low skill requirements, spinner has been corrected
• Practice recipe products are now inscribable
• The reset timer for surveying recipes has been reduced from 15 minutes to 5 minutes
• Surveying maps no longer disappear after 1 hour
• When a new surveying map is created, all other maps for the same continent are destroyed from the player’s inventory
• Miscellaneous fixes to survey maps
• * Linvak: teleport and hint location tweaks to some Linvak maps
• * Omishan: corrected incorrect descriptions and coordinates on some Omishan maps
• * Osteth: Mad Crone Mountains destination changed in response to player feedback
• Level 1-15 hammers no longer all have a minimum level 15 requirement
• More Drudge Slinkers may be found carrying Mad Crone Glyphs near the Mad Crone Vault
• Gurog Minions in the Thusik area have started carrying more Thusik Glyphs, too.
• Frangere, Brittle Bones, and Brittle Skin shared an effect called Frangere Ward. Frangere Ward is now called Armor Ward to prevent confusion.

CONTENT CHANGES

• ***Weather Advisory***
• For July (and every month thereafter), players will start to notice a reduced number of rainy days, but scattered storms may be somewhat more intense. Nights will appear a bit less dark, and in higher-altitudes, snow cover should be a touch less blinding. Environment groups blame increased industrial activity.
• The Gear Knight quest rewards have been tweaked somewhat for July. When we set the Craft XP reward for this quest, we made it a one-time reward because, at the time, we weren't sure how great an impact it would have on the crafting system. In looking at the impact, we feel that we were correct in making this a one-time-only reward. However, without that large Craft XP reward, the quest isn't worth repeating. To make the quest more worthwhile in July, we will make the following adjustments:
• * All the recipes for the quest give a Craft XP reward which follows the standard 80/20 craft XP breakdown. Players get this Craft XP whether or not they’re repeating the quest
• * The regular XP reward for the quest has been increased. Previously it offered a 5%-of-level reward that capped at level 55. In July, it is a 6%-of-level reward that caps at level 57.
• Please note that the larger Craft XP reward is still available, but only to crafters who are completing the quest for the first time.
• When a player uses a Reckoning Gem, they'll find that all the players in their fellowship will now receive a 10-minute “Dig Point Revealed” quest. You must have this quest underway in order to use a Recondite Machine on the Dig Point to reveal the cache. This change was made in order to prevent another player from using a Dig Point you had just revealed. (this item was added in June, but was last-minute and did not appear in the June Guide).
• The retry timer for the Mosswart Rescue is now visible. When you complete the "Mosswart Rescue" quest, a second quest will appear in your Quest list. This quest is called "Mosswart Rescue Retry." The Mosswart Pet also now checks to see if you are its master before allowing you to complete the quest.

MISCELLANEOUS CHANGES & FIXES (includes July 13 Hotfix)

• Saelar's heart was broken (i.e., he was not dropping it), but he's feeling better in the July prop
• There was an error in the Gear Knight Champion portion of the Ludward's Nightmare Quest where the number of Champions left to be killed would display incorrectly at 5 and below (the Quest functioned properly, this was a text issue only). The countdown is now numerically correct at all stages.
• Crafters who excel at weapon-crafting were incorrectly receiving the title of “Shaper”. Weapon-crafters will now receive their appropriate title
• Weapons without level requirements now have them.
• The Practice Recipe for Spellbinding now asks for the correct runewood instead of moonglass.
• Level 65 and level 66 leggings with the 'battle' enchantment displayed a magnitude of 0. Fixed.
• The Portal from Cavendo To Omishan is no longer stuck in the floor of the portal platform.
• The duration of vulnerability for monsters was a nearly constant 10 seconds, and is now anywhere between 7.5 to 12.5 seconds, as originally intended
• A particular material used by a number of objects in the game (such as the portalspace background in some dungeons) was causing the objects to only show up properly if you had pixel shaders turned on. Adjustments have been made to improve the viewing experience in such cases.
• The trees on which the Tumeroks build their towns were incorrectly set to visually degrade before the houses around them did. Both now degrade at the same time.
• Missing portal in the Sapphire Mine has been added