letter to the player july 03

[Leoni]

Welcome to the July 2003 edition of the Asheron's Call Letter to the Players. We have an awful lot to discuss this month, so let's get right to it.

A Groundbreaking Opportunity

The contest to name the new town has gone smashingly so far! After receiving more than 900 suggestions, our elite panel of monkey judges laboriously picked their favorite five entries. It was a tough choice! As I write this, the players are voting—and campaigning strenuously—for their personal pick. Remember, the final winner will be announced at the ACPL on July 12th. Don't miss it!

New Tinkering Effects

The July update contains a wide variety of new tinkering effects, including both tinkers and imbues. Here are in-depth explanations of each.



Resistance Rending Imbues

Resistance Rending describes a new set of weapon imbues—one for each damage type—that increases the damage the imbued weapon inflicts with that damage type. In other words, Resistance Rending is like a built-in elemental Vulnerability spell. However—and this is important!—Resistance Rending and Vulnerability spells do not stack. If, for instance, you are attacking with a Slashing Rend Tachi and the target is currently suffering under a Blade Vulnerability spell, then your attack will only receive the benefit of one effect—whichever is larger. Note that the magnitude of the Resistance Rending effect depends on the attack skill of the weapon's wielder.

Unlike previous weapon imbues, Resistance Rending materials are applied using the Weapon Tinkering skill. Resistance Rending imbues can be applied to any treasure-generated melee weapon, missile weapon, or magic caster, but remember that an item can only ever be imbued with one effect, so choose carefully.

Jewelry Cantrip Imbues

Thanks to the hard work of the Arcanum, it will soon be possible for skilled tinkers to add certain cantrip spells to magical jewelry. For now, the list of cantrips that can be added is relatively short, and these cantrips can only be applied to magical, treasure-generated jewelry, but it's a start!

The cantrips that can be imbued into jewelry in July include: Minor Strength, Minor Endurance, Minor Coordination, Minor Quickness, Minor Focus, Minor Self, Warrior's Vitality, Warrior's Vigor, Wizard's Intellect, Minor Health Gain, Minor Stamina Gain, and Minor Mana Gain. Imbuing a piece of jewelry uses the Magic Item Tinkering skill, and also raises the Arcane Lore requirement and the Spellcraft of the piece by 25 points.

Armor Defense Imbues

In July we usher in our first three armor imbues, one for each defense skill. These effects imbue a piece of treasure-generated armor with a +1 stackable defense bonus. This defense bonus, like the defense modifier on a weapon, only comes into play during an attack—it does not help you meet skill requirements nor show up on your skill panel.

Armor defense imbues can be applied with the Armor Tinkering skill to any piece of treasure-generated armor, including Covenant Armor.

Requirement Tinkering

This month also introduces six new tinkering effects that deal with the activation requirements on an item. All of them are regular tinkers—not imbues—and all use the Item Tinkering skill.

Three of the materials can be used on an item with a heritage activation requirement to change that heritage requirement to a different one. Which heritage requirement you end up with depends on which material you use.

Two of the materials can be used on an item with a Melee Defense or Missile Defense activation requirement. These materials swap the skill requirements—Melee Defense becomes Missile Defense, or vice versa—and also change the level of the requirement to account for the differences in the skills' attribute formulas. In other words, going from Melee Defense to Missile Defense lowers the requirement somewhat; going the other way raises it somewhat.

Lastly, one material can only be used on items with an allegiance rank activation requirement. This material removes the rank requirement, but in exchange sets the Arcane Lore difficulty of the item equal to the item's Spellcraft.

Leather Tinkering

The last new tinkering effect for July is a special one: you can use Salvaged Leather on an item to mark the item as 'Retained'. Retained items cannot be salvaged or sold to vendors. Like Ivory, Leather does not require any tinkering skill to apply, it does not add to the number of times the target has been tinkered, and there is no chance that applying Leather can destroy the target.

Covenant Armor Tinkering

Originally, Covenant Armor could not be tinkered at all. Later, tinkers found a way to apply Item Tinkering materials to Covenant Armor. And now, starting with the July update, Covenant Armor can be tinkered with all the materials that can normally be applied to armor except Steel. Steel remains one material that just will not apply to Covenant Armor, no matter what the poor tinkers of Dereth do.

Appraisal Panel Additions

Starting with the July update, the Item Appraisal panel displays some new information. First off, you will now be able to see exact numeric values—in addition to the existing descriptive phrase—to tell you how well your armor protects you from the various elements.

Secondly, we've added a few new types of "Special Properties" to the panel. In addition to listing imbues and slayer types, and telling you if an item is unenchantable, the "Special Properties" section will now also list the following qualities (if they are applicable):

Bonded: This item has no chance to drop to your corpse when you die (a.k.a. "no drop").
Dropped on Death: This item will always drop to your corpse when you die.
Destroyed on Death: This item will be destroyed when you die. The non-upgraded Singularity weapons are a good example of this.
Attuned: This item cannot be transferred to another player, or placed on the ground or in an external container (a.k.a. "no give").
Retained: This item cannot be sold to a vendor or salvaged.


Thrown Weapons Changes

The July update includes several small tweaks to thrown weapons, including changes to the damage done by spikes and atlatl darts. But a more important change for thrown weapons involves the damage modifiers on treasure-generated atlatls. The following chart illustrates these changes.

Wield Requirement Previous Damage Modifier Range New Damage Modifier Range
None 0% to 100% 0% to 120%
250 110% 130%
270 120% 140%
290 130% 150%


In conjunction with the new damage modifier ranges on treasure-generated atlatls, we have also updated the damage modifiers on some quest atlatls. Note that we only updated newer quest atlatls and those that had been upgraded recently; atlatls that are part of older quests will be updated when we upgrade their respective quests.

The Ongoing Saga

Last month, it became abundantly clear that the appearance of increased Olthoi activity is no illusion. The Olthoi on both Marae Lassel and Dereth itself are on the move, digging ever deeper towards some unfathomable goal. Asheron, holed up in his island tower, has no answer for us yet, and Queen Elysa, alarmed by the growing threats—from the Olthoi, the Renegade Lugian and Tumeroks, and now the murder of a member of her Council—is left wondering whom she can trust.

[Julian]

Hört sich ja alles sehr gut an

Endlich werden die Marble Keys interessant
Nur hoffe das bei sovielen Änderungen und Neuerungen net wieder die berühmten bugs sich einschleichen.
Mal lieber net den Teufel an die Wand malen
Auf jedenfall freue ich mich aber ob ich die ersten paar Wochen hinter allem steige werde das bezweifel ich noch *bg*

Lieben Gruß Julian

[Leoni]

hehe, bis man erst mal die ganzen tinker-effekte auswendig kann....

wie die allerdings für alle creature spells tinker effekte hinbekommen wollen mit der zeit, frage ich mich schon...wieviele creature spells gibt es eigentlich so ca? naja, auf manche negativen könnte man schon verzichten vermute ich

[Ziv]

Jo also ich wuerde sagen der July Patch pushed AC mindestens nochmal um 12 Monate.

Es geht wieder das grosse Jagen und Sammeln los. Der Wahn geht weiter...

[Julian]

he he hmmmm was heisst hier pushed AC mindestens um 12 Monate ? *g*
Glaub solange soviele liebe Leute noch auf den Servern spielen wird es nie langweilig Und wir werden immer Spaß haben

Lieben Gruß Julian

[Tirami-Su]

Wer hätte das gesagt...


Nach dem der Massentourismus im DV so stark zugenommen har, auf AL alle Spots besetzt sind.....