Letter to the Players - November

[Sun_al-Mage]

Welcome to the November 2003 Letter to the Players.
By now, you've come face to face with the Ancient Olthoi Queen, and perhaps even found a way to defeat her. Now is a good time to take a breather and look into the future!

Splash Screen Changes We hope you enjoyed this month's changes to the opening splash screens and the character select screen. As the Olthoi will no longer be an immediate threat in November, these screens will revert to their original look. For those players who want to remember the days when the Olthoi overran Dereth, we've included the screens in this Letter.

Creature Masks Return With the Olthoi threatening all of Dereth, the three mask makers and their apprentices did not have a chance to create new masks for the month of October. They've decided to cast aside tradition and they're hard at work creating new masks for November!

As if the mask makers didn't have enough work to do, the hunters and explorers of Dereth are reporting better luck in retrieving whole limbs and heads from the creatures that they fight. November should see more of the guises and masks from previous years! However, the creatures that drop these body parts have changed in many cases.

Radar Changes Starting with the November event, you'll see several changes to the radar:

Charge radius removed. After listening to your feedback, we've decided to remove the red charge radius from the radar. It only worked outdoors and was only helpful to melee players. We had looked at making it into a toggle, or making it automatically resize when indoors, but doing so proved very difficult. In the end we felt it best just to remove it.


New PK blips. In the past it could be difficult to distinguish PK from NPK players on radar. The introduction of PK Lite has made this even more challenging. To assist PK and PKL players, we've created a new form of radar blip that is context-sensitive. Starting in November, if you are a PK player, other PK players will show up on radar as a red X instead of a red dot. Likewise, if you are a PKL player, other PKL players will show up on radar as a pink X instead of a pink dot. In both cases, members of your monarchy who are the same PK/PKL status as you will show up in the appropriate color as an X with a square in the middle. Players who are a different PK status than you will still show up as dots, and to NPK players all players will still be dots.

New Fellowship blips. To assist in recognizing members of your fellowship, particularly for players who have trouble distinguishing colors, we've made this change for November. Members of your fellowship will now appear on radar as green downward-pointing triangles. Your fellowship leader will still appear as a green upward-pointing triangle. Chalk Boards We're introducing a new housing item in November: chalk boards! These are hookable signs that can be written on by anyone who has access to your house. If your house is closed, players on your guest list can write on a hooked chalk board. If your house is open, anyone can write on one! Anyone who can write on the board can erase what was previously written, although the chalk board does display the name of the last player to write on it. Villas and cottages can have one chalk board each, and mansions can have up to three. Unfortunately, chalk boards can't be hooked in apartments.

New Leather and Armoredillo Hide Armor Starting in November, you'll be able to find new styles of leather armor in creature loot. For now, shopkeepers will continue selling the old style of leather armor.

In addition, the Armoredillo Hide armor that is crafted by Leather Crafters has a new style. This changes the look of both new and existing Armoredillo Hide armor pieces. But what if you were really attached to your old look? Don't worry—the old Armoredillo Hide armor used the standard leather art, and you can purchase standard leather armor from a wide variety of shopkeepers.

Sunstone Gauntlets and Alchemy Gems We're happy to announce that, starting in November, you'll be able to change the color of your Sunstone Gauntlets. These gauntlets can't be dyed, but there is a method—known only to certain denizens of Dereth—to modify their original flamboyant shade.

In addition, you will soon be able to stack several of the life protection gems that you create via alchemy in one inventory space. Both of these are features that players have asked for repeatedly in the past several months, and we are pleased to be able to bring them to you.

Turbine's Asheron's Call Website As we mentioned in the October Letter to the Players, it was necessary to take the AC:DM site down for maintenance. After the maintenance, one feature we plan on introducing is a dynamic Q&A section. Whenever we answer one of your questions on our forums or a fan site, we want to have that question and answer mirrored in the Q&A. That way there will always be a single site to check to see the most recent information, or to find out if your questions have been already answered.

As always, this is just a glimpse at the content we have in store for November. On the day of the event, be sure to read the Dev Notes and Rollout Article for the scoop on everything else we're adding!

See you in Dereth!

- Ibn