[AC] March 2007 Letter to the Players

[Ziv]

[turbine]

http://ac.turbine.com/?page_id=520

Hello there and welcome to the March 2007 Letter to the Players! The people of Dereth have once again rallied together for a greater cause and they have freed the great Asheron from his prison. With Asheron free, the time has come for him to insure that something like this does not happen again.

Colosseum Changes
Some changes have been made to the Colosseum. Here is a list of the changes that have been made for the March event. Please note that any creature changes were only made to those who appear in the Colosseum.

Arena battle 13
- Replaced the second Carenzi fight with a Tukora Lugian fight

Swarm Demons
- Lowered the AL on Olthoi Swarm Demons

Golem Crystal Lord
- Balanced the Golem Crystal Lord so that it can be hit by Melee/Magic/Missile
- Rebalanced Golem Crystal Lord's resistances and AL, it should be friendlier to melee characters
- Removed the Crystal Lord's ability to counteract enchantments and limited his self buffs

Elite Guardians
- Reduced the Elite Guardian's regen rate slightly

Ninjas
- Increased the Ninja fight by 2 Ninjas
- Ninjas now wield a number of elemental tachis instead of just frost
- Ninjas have lower resistances now

Tusker Annihilators
- Tusker Annihilators have lower AL and are more resistant to Bludgeon attacks

Wisps
- Wisps no longer drop treasure

Thunder Chicken
- Thunder Chicken now has a visible electric aura
- Lowered the Resistance values of the Thunder Chicken, which makes it harder to damage with those damage types

General
- Corrected Colosseum NPCs use of the word "Dericost"
- Master Arbitrator returns your ticket if your fellowship already has access to a Colosseum Arena
- Fixed the Colosseum Chest. The chest should no longer lock itself before you have had a chance to loot it
- The amount of XP that the Master Arbitrator gives you for the Empyrean Rings has been increased
- When a Colosseum Arena is in use an Arena Statue appears behind the Arbitrator now. This statue lets players know that its Arena is in use and when used the statue will inform the player how long the Arena has left before it becomes available again.
- Alarms in the Arenas now countdown in a more useful way. They inform players each minute for the last 5 minutes how much time they have left.

Changes and Updates
Currently, players are locked out of the Lower Catacomb and the Ley Line Cavern when they have completed the quest. This should be fixed for March

With April 1st falling during the time of the March event, expect some fun and surprises this month

Spring is in the air and the snow has all melted away.

With the return of spring, we are seeing the return of the baby rabbits to landscape. Those little guys always like to get a head start on things.

Asheron has returned home and has once again made his island open to the people of Dereth. Make sure that you stop by and pay him a visit.

Recent Tech Improvments
Normally this point of the LttP would be used for the in concept section. This month we are going to do things a little differently. We are going to take this opportunity to look at some of the newer tech that has been added to the game in the last few months. This does not mean that we do not have many other things still in concept, this is just a little break from the norm to help show off some of the less noticed features that have been added to the game recently.

One of the newer things we have been able to add to the game is the ability for NPC's to be able to check your inventory for specific items. So for example NPC A wants to know if you have collected ten of the special item. You use the NPC and he/she can now determine if you have in fact collected the items in question. This means that in some cases, instead of having to hand in every item, you can now just talk to the NPC and let them check it, which leads to another new tech item... NPC's being able to take a needed item from your inventory.

When an NPC can take an item from your inventory it allows us to be more creative in what a player would need to get in terms of items to complete a quest. This tech also makes it easier on the players. In the past, after collecting an item or items, players would then have to click and drag an item over to the corresponding NPC in order to advance the quest they are on. Often this would cause problems with completing a quest due to any number of issues. With this new tech, this is no longer the case.

In the coming weeks we will be able to discuss some of the newer tech that players may notice in the March update.

So there are just some of the newer things that have made it in to the game the last couple of months. As we continue to expand on what we thought was not possible, new options will open up for the team as to what we can do in the next few months and beyond.

Please remember that along with everything listed here, there are several new quests and exciting things going into the game for the March event.