Announcements - 2004/05 - Mired Hearts

May 2004 - Patch Page

Teaser Images

Turbine:

Exclusives:

ACVault	Maggie the Jackcat

AC Stratics	Warcry's Crossroads of Dereth

Teaser

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Mired Hearts

"There's trouble," Antius said, leading Hendac into the room.

"When is there not?" Elysa responded, motioning to a set of chairs and flashing him a meager smile. She had been looking out her window, running her fingers over the scar in the center of her chest. Even though it had healed it burned still. Often she thought that the burning was all in her mind, knowing that out there somewhere, someone had wanted her dead. She put the thought from her mind and turned toward the table and chairs where Antius and Hendac now waited.

"What is it?" she asked, sitting in a chair beside Antius.

Hendac pushed a small leather scrollcase toward the High Queen. She reached across and took the case up. It was too large to be made by Isparians and the leather was tanned to be softer. It bore a resemblance to the hunting bags carried by the Tonk of Marae Lassel. Elysa recalled seeing the bags only recently; hunters from Marae Lassel had asked to hunt on Dereth and issue challenges to the Ispar tribe. They had set up a few camps across Osteth, and even near Ayan Baqur.

She undid the clasp, a stone buckle. The buckle was heavy and shaped squarely, Lugian-made. Lord Kresovus had expressed some anger over the continued slaughter of his warriors by some Isparians, but there had been fewer skirmishes in recent weeks and the matter seemed to be at rest. The only other group that could have made this was the renegade force that had splintered away from the Virindi.

"Renegades," she read the first few lines. "They mean to join with these new creatures?"

"Apparently," Antius said. Beside him Hendac bobbed his head, the furrow of his brow displaying his displeasure. "There's more."

Elysa finished reading and Hendac produced a folded scrap of parchment from within the folds of his leathers. He rose and walked to Elysa's other side and placed the parchment on the table. He pointed two fingers to his eyes and then tapped the parchment. Elysa knew what he meant.

"How did they build this?" Elysa asked as she stared at the drawing. It was done in Hendac's hand and showed a fortress of some kind. It was set against the side of a plateau with two mammoth stone sentinels towering on the forward edges of the flat land above.

"It's unclear, but Hendac has assured me that the structures appear to be identical to those at Candeth Keep. We visited the keep and found that one of the guards had gone missing recently. A Lugian, Okret." Antius paused. "He'd been stationed there since the work was first started on the outpost. His departure, and the discovery of this fortress well, they seem to be more than coincidence."

Elysa nodded.

"The Blackmire Swamp is being overrun by the Burun, Elysa. This new race has already driven most of the Mosswarts from there. I've no love for the Mosswarts, but they're being slaughtered." He paused. "That missive is from the fort in the Direlands. Muldaveus and Niarltah want to join forces with this new race, and if they do who knows which race they'll displace next."

"I know, Antius. We need to stop them. I'll speak with Kresovus." She paused and folded the parchment before handing it back to Hendac. "Perhaps he'll be willing to send agents of his own into the Renegade camp." It sickened her to say those words. She had prided herself on being honest and forthright throughout her life, now she was resorting to deceit. "We'll do what we can to keep the Renegades and Burun apart."

Elysa stood and walked back to her window, rubbing the wound on her chest.

Rollout Article

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Mired Hearts

The sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh filled the small cavern. Okret had volunteered for this assignment because he knew that Muldaveus and Niarltah would look favorably on him should he perform the task well. As he stood in the entrance of this fetid cave, he began to think this had been an error in judgment. Cautiously he hoisted the great stone chest onto his shoulder and proceeded deeper into the grotto. Wails filled his ears and grew louder, serving as a beacon and guiding him deeper into the living cave.

The ground was moist, spongy and covered in a thin film of yellow slime. The place reeked of the swamp and something even fouler than decay. He paused to look at the peculiar sight of a phyntos wasp firmly stuck onto a small pike. He placed the stone chest on the ground and knelt to study the craft of the pike.

A set of yellow eyes blinked in the darkness of a nearby tunnel. The burun hunkered low, revealing two other sets of eyes. They moved just into the light of the wide cavern where Okret knelt and gnashed their rows of jagged teeth. In unison, the three let out a growl and screech like nothing Okret had ever heard.

Many of this month's changes have already been described in detail in the Letter to the Players. There are a few other topics that we'd like to discuss in detail.

Defender and Lure Blade

We recently discovered a bug with the spells Defender I, III and V; and Lure Blade I, III and V. The amount of the bonus or penalty that these spells granted did not match the amount listed in the spells' descriptions.

To resolve this issue, we made the numbers match and we always used the greater value. For example, if the description listed a greater change than the spell actually granted, the spell was changed. If the spell caused a change greater than the listed description, the description was changed.

Imbue Underlays

There is now a visible difference between imbued and unimbued weapons. Imbued weapons have a colored background, with the color representing the specific type of imbue.

The following chart shows the different colors for imbues:

Unopened Corpse Keys

From the Configure Keyboard option, you can now bind keys to two new commands: Closest Unopened Corpse and Next Unopened Corpse. These keys target unopened corpses in a manner similar to that used by the Next Monster and Closest Monster commands.

These new commands will not only select the unopened corpse, they will also attempt to open the corpse, just as if you'd double-clicked it. This will make your character walk to the corpse if you are not within usable distance of it.

Please note that these new keyboard commands do not currently track whether or not you have permission to open the corpse or whether or not the corpse is currently being looted by another player. For example, if you hit the key bound to Next Unopened Corpse and you may not loot the corpse for some reason, the game will behave just as if you had double-clicked on the corpse. You will walk over to the corpse, if necessary, and then receive an error message in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.

Configurable Timestamping

There is a new option in the Character Options panel: Display Timestamps. The option is followed by some symbols and text in green.

When this option is checked, the text in green will be displayed before each new entry in your chat box. The symbols represent various replacement filters so you can customize the timestamp display.

For more information on configuring this option, as well as examples, visit the Timestamp Options page in Asheron's Handbook.

Stackable Gems

The following types of Portal Gems are now stackable to a maximum of 25: Town Portal Gems, Archmage Portal Gems, and Tusker Island Portal Gems.

Some players use these gems particularly the Archmage Portal Gems as death items, so it's important to note how stackable items work with the death system. When you die, a stack is considered to be one item for the purposes of death items. However if that stack is selected, only one item off the stack will drop.

For example, let's say you can currently cover all of your items with five Portal Gems. After the event, if you do not stack these gems there will be no change. However, if you combine the five gems into a single stack, you would drop one gem and four other items on death.

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Developer's Notes

New Functionality and Content

We've added a number of new allegiance tools such as allegiance officers and allegiance account bans.
We've introduced part four of our ongoing treasure revisions.
The ranged attack slider now has a 40% penalty at maximum speed.
The Palenqual's Living Weapons quest has been revised.
We've revised the following features of a number of towns: Lifestone locations, portal drop locations, Meeting Hall locations, the spells sold by Scriveners, and mundane items sold by vendors.
Allegiance bindstones can be found in towns, but are not yet active.

Miscellaneous Changes and Improvements

Artwork for the sixth character slot has been added.
The paperdoll in the Inventory Panel has two new slots for your character's pants and shirt.
The icons of imbued weapons now have unique backgrounds.
The durations of most negative spells have been changed.
The Heal and Revitalize spells have been improved.
The Defender and Lure Blade spells have been tweaked to resolve a discrepancy between their effects and their descriptions.
Two new commands can be mapped to keys: Closest Unopened Corpse and Next Unopened Corpse.
Several types of Portal Gems are now stackable.
The Spring Cleaner title is now granted by Arcanum agents instead of Town Criers. If you have any of these tokens and wish to receive the title, do not hand it to a Town Crier! The Crier will keep the token and you will not receive the title.
You can now map Toggle Crafting Confirmation to a key.
Crafting chance of success no longer displays if there is no skill check involved.
The Target Next/Closest Monster command will no longer select PK/L players who are in your fellowship.
We've added a new option to the Character Options panel: Display Timestamp.
Your trade window will no longer automatically close if your trading partner recalls away or walks out of range.
The /r command is no longer case-sensitive.
You can now use @allegiance broadcast [text] instead of @allegiance, [text] for allegiance broadcast messages.
Two bugs with emotes have been fixed you can now use < > instead of * * for emotes, and colons display properly in emotes again.
Items that can be dyed or tinkered with Ivory now explicitly state this when they are examined.
We've resolved an issue that could cause Zone ticket timeout errors when trying to log in to the game.
Always Drop on Death items would not drop on death for characters under level 10. This has been fixed.
We've fixed a bug that could cause a character's number of deaths to display incorrectly if that character had never died.
Bowyers will now buy back wrapped fletching supplies.
Some landscape spawns that were too near settlements or on the sides of mountains have been moved.
Some landscape locations that were inescapable have been fixed.
All of the melee and missile weapons from the Ixir Zi and Liazk Itzi temple quests have been improved, with the exception of the Lance of the Bloodletter.
Many other quest weapons have been improved to increase their average damage over time.
The Slithis hallways in the Liazk Itzi temple are now more difficult to run through.
Fadsahil no longer advises characters that are under level 40 to start the Liazk Itzi quest.
The Ward of Rebirth spells no longer surpass Indomitability.
The range on Infected Blood, Infirmed Mana, and Enervation has been increased.
Ulgrim's robe no longer covers your feet. If you are wearing one when you first log in to the game after this event, you will need to take it off and put it back on.
The value and burden of the Realaidain Raiment has been reduced.
It is no longer possible to perch on the kilns in the Knorr Forge.
Some graphics and physics issues with lava pits and statues in the Tusker Holding and Tusker Abode have been resolved.

Minor Details

The non-magic Buadren is now giveable and hookable. Its description has also been clarified.

The updated Sleeves of Inexhaustibility can now be dyed.

Thimrin Woodsetter's maximum buy value has been increased to one million pyreals.

A few lines of text still referred back to the Fire Shreth Hide as being a Fire Auroch Hide. These have been fixed.

Players can no longer identify some Burun-wielded weapons.

The Ancient Armored Bracer is now correctly called the Ancient Armored Bracers.

A small typo in the Liazk Itzi temple guardian speech has been corrected, as have some typos in tells sent by the Sarcophagus.

The name of the Inferior Scythe Aegis spell now displays correctly.

The titles of the beggars in Dryreach are now spelled correctly.

Typos in the Fishing Master speech and Fishing Note have been corrected.