Rollout Januar 2004

[Ziv]

http://microsoftgamesinsider.com/AC1/jan04rollout.htm

Ayan Baqur saw it first: a black pillar billowing far to the southwest. It rose into the sky and threatened to block out the sun. The black pillar cleared and the ground shook as a wave approached the shore of the direlands. Water rose as the wave crashed just below the edge of the city and dragged the creatures on the western coast into the sea.

When the waves ceased to crash they saw them: teeth that rose toward the sky. The mountains of the island in the southwest had risen to be like knives. The island was changed and only the heartiest and most adventurous would dare travel there now.

While this transpired in the west, High Queen Elysa approved the work of the council in enhancing the methods of communications within monarchies. The work of months came to fruition as all sworn to her could speak amongst themselves at last.

The Sho town of Shoushi saw the first of her improvements as a lifestone was anchored in the center of the town. Asheron and Nuhmudira remained apart from the endeavor. The work instead fell to Shoyanen Kenchu, Master of the Right Hand, who also completed the task of reworking the portal space beacon. The town saw an increased interest from the bestial inhabitants of Dereth, their curiosity piqued by the attention the town received.

The Ongoing Saga
The High Queen continues her work with the same intensity that she has shown since awakening from her coma. As the newly restructured High Council sits down to business, the eruption of darkness in the southwest reminds all that Dereth still has many dangers.

Now let’s take a look at some of the changes coming in this month’s event.

Content Revisions
As we’ve hinted all month, the Singularity Caul and many of the quests associated with it have been revised. Hopefully you took our warning to heart and didn’t leave any characters logged off on the Caul, otherwise they may be in for a nasty fall, followed by an encounter with some of its new inhabitants.

In addition, we’ve revised much of the content around the starter town of Shoushi, rebalancing and tweaking where we felt it was necessary. Over time, we plan on retouching all of the older towns in this manner, as well as making other changes and improvements to make them more fun and valuable to spend time in.

Fellowship XP
In the December event, we made a change to the location of the Marketplace to prevent players from gaining fellowship XP while trading or idling there. In the December Rollout Article, we said, “We intend to fix the code that allows fellowship XP to be shared between players who are not in the same dungeon.” This month, we’ve made good on that intention.

As of this event, you will no longer receive fellowship XP from fellowship members:

If they are indoors while you are outdoors, or vice-versa.

If you are both indoors but in different landblocks.
“Indoors” means inside a dungeon, or inside a building or cave on the surface. As almost all dungeons are in different landblocks, this means that you can no longer gain fellowship XP if you are in a different dungeon than the rest of your fellowship.

In addition, we have decreased the maximum distance between fellowship members at which you can share fellowship XP. In the past, you could be about 8 map units away from each other and still receive full fellowship XP. (8 map units is the distance between 0.0N, 0.0W, and 8.0N, 0.0W.) After that, the amount that you receive would decrease slowly. For example, you could be about 48 map units away—approximately the distance between Lytelthorpe and Al-Jalima—and still receive 50% of fellowship XP.

Starting with this event, you must be within a little less than 2.5 map units to receive 100% of fellowship XP. After that it will drop off quickly—when you are more than 5 map units away from your fellows, your fellowship XP will be at 0%.

These changes are intended to reinforce the design of fellowships as groups of allied players, working together either in hunting or questing.

PK/L Radar Blips
We listened to the negative feedback that we received regarding the PK/L radar blip changes that were made in the November 2003 event. To improve the ability to correctly identify friend from foe, as well as determine the number of possible opponents, we’re making the following tweaks:

Threat blips—the X’s—have been made smaller so that they no longer overlap in confusing ways. They are now the same size as the standard blips.

Allegiance threat blips—the X’s on top of squares—have been removed as they did not have the intended effect. Allegiance members are squares, no matter what their PK/L status may be.
Max Mana Spells

There are several spells in the game that either increase or decrease a player’s maximum mana. Many of these spells did not stack properly. This has now been fixed. Spells that increase or decrease your maximum mana should now stack based on the amount of their effect.

Here’s an example of how things should work now: If you have two spells cast on you, one which increases your maximum mana by 50 and one which decreases your maximum mana by 20, your total increase should be 30. If you then had another spell cast on you that increased your maximum mana by 80, it would override the increase of 50, and you would have a total increase of 60.

[Tirami-Su]

hmm da müssen wir unsere mulen wohl am buffspot parken *g*