Dev Notes July 2003

[Ziv]

She tested the walls of the tunnel, exerting pressure against the ceiling, pressing against the walls, all in an effort to ensure the safety of her children. Her workers had done well. She called to her eldest children and instructed them to organize their broods. The time to move was upon them.

The tunnels stretched endlessly into the dark, but she still felt her other children somewhere beyond. She could also sense the thing that had given her the scar. The magic of the wound was still active after all these years. Soon she would complete what she had started so long ago. The last of the things that had brought her to this world would perish, and then she would stand as the supreme ruler.

Her forces already covered all livable locations, and though her contact with the hive she had sent to destroy the thing had been severed hundred of years ago, she could feel them now. They were without direction and lost, save for a small collection that was held under the control of another lesser Queen. She had already exerted her control over that brood and commanded their construction of tunnels to the new mainland. The two broods would meet in the middle and bring this land under her sway as well.

But there was something else that needed to be done first. She watched as her children marched in columns behind her eldest. She watched as they spread along the tunnels that stretched off into unknown darkness. She watched and directed them to the thing. It would whimper before her, it would make the noises that others like it had made, and she would finally be content.

New Functionality and Content

• The new stronghold in the Dires, Candeth Keep, has begun construction!
• A number of new tinkering effects are now available. Players can choose from three new imbues – Resistance Rending for weapons, armor imbues, and cantrip imbues for jewelry – as well as the ability to tinker some skill requirements on equipment or prevent an item from being sold or salvaged. Please see the Letter to the Players for the details of these new effects.
• New keys and chests are being found in the western Direlands.
• The @day command is now available for players with dark monitors. This command will toggle your outdoor world view to a brighter state and back to normal.
• Two new features show up when you ID an object. When you ID armor, you will now see the exact numeric value of armor protection to the various elements in addition to the traditional descriptive phrase. Also, all items will now display a number of additional properties such as Bonded and Attuned. Please see the Letter to the Players for more information.
• Has that digging noise gotten louder?

Miscellaneous Improvements and Changes

• Many town criers have been awfully surly of late! It can be difficult to find one who will give out information for free. But all of them are still more than happy to chat for a few pyreals!
• Due to an issue with Zbuffering on some systems, ACD3Dsetup now defaults everyone to Zbuffering off. If you wish to turn Zbuffering on you will need to run the setup program and select it.
• Natural resistance no longer affects the mana that you lose when casting spells, or the stamina that you lose when jumping, attacking, being attacked, or healing.
• The damage modifiers on the Weeping Bow, Crossbow, and Atlatl have been adjusted, as has the slayer bonus on the Weeping Wand.
• Thrown weapons have seen some changes, including changes to the damage done by spikes and atlatl darts. In addition, treasure-generated atlatls and some quest atlatls have had their damage modifiers changed. See the Letter to the Players for details.
• The Barbed Fletching Tool can be used on wrapped arrowheads and deadly arrowheads (and even wrapped deadly arrowheads). In addition, barbed arrowheads of all sorts can be used to make atlatl darts.
• Light bows and crossbows are now more useful, with the potential to do more damage.
• Some creatures on the landscape were spawning faster than intended. This could cause problems for players while hunting, as well as cause problems for the servers. We've slowed these creatures down a bit.
  Similarly, the rate at which some creatures summon their minions has been slowed down.
• A few recent creatures have had their health, armor, and attacks tweaked slightly in order to bring them more in line with their intended difficulty.
• Runed chests with a lockpick resistance of 400 are once again spawning on the landscape.
• The Golden Chests at the casinos now give better treasure.
• The randomly spawning hive dungeons on Marae Lassel have been upgraded. In addition, the restrictions preventing you from logging into the game inside the dungeons have been removed.
• Wands with slayer qualities do somewhat better damage against their proper enemy. Try them out!
• Heart of Oak now stacks with Minor Willpower.
• A bug that allowed mansion owners to swear allegiance to others in some circumstances has been fixed.
• You can now squelch characters and the accounts of characters who are currently offline.

Minor Details

• Isparian bows and crossbows once again wield correctly.
• Isparian wands now change appearance depending on which stone is in them.
• The riddle logic in Oswald's Lair has been corrected.
• The coded message on the Wooden Tablet is now spelled correctly.
• Some of the Wai Jhou collectors' speech was not correct at times. It is now fixed.
• The Wai Jhou sign now welcomes you to Wai Jhou.
• A number of objects now have the correct plural forms when stacked. No more "Bunch of Nannerses"!