Posted by: schild @ 16:43:44 on 6/11/08
Update Notes - 4th of July – Version 1.1.2008.x.welcome.to.earf
General
* By popular demand, we have made resurrection pads a utility for moving between other discovered pads. Also, if you are in a group, you will spawn into the same instance as your group leader.
* Sprinting now takes a flat rate out of stamina. Assassins and any other stamina based classes are no longer broken. We don't remember who came up with the percentage based loss, but he will be strapped down and beaten to death when we smoke him out.
* 'Sitting' hotspots added for all chairs in game. Also made it possible to get out of the chair without any trouble.
* Dancing fully implemented. Priest of Mitra still boring, we apologize. It's not getting fixed.
* Drunken brawling implemented. This should have been in at launch. Whoops.
* Drinking cape made less ugly. Leopard-skin pattern on the inside was a mistake.
* Ring of Acheron now gives bonus through level 80. There's no reason to stop it at 40. We don't even know what we were thinking.
* Fixed texture pop-in and bizarre NPC 'pops out of ground' problem.
* Can now rebind mouse-buttons to whatever action you want.
* Fed QA team for first time since launch. We read some research that says it 'helps productivity,' whatever that means. QA manager now guarantees that patch notes will be 'complete' and 'useful.'
* Fixed texture issue so that when you have high-resolution textures picked, it'll actually load high-resolution textures.
* Hyboria has run out of Vaseline, as such, bloom is now acceptable.
* Trader has been completely redone. Looked at WoW – stole that. No longer need to tie up bank slot for the selling of items.
* Fired a bunch of lazy QA folks and replaced them with people that might actually do some work.
* Hired on more folks to itemize. More on this under “items.”
* Swimming too far out from any landmass will now result in you being eaten by sharks.
Combat
* Hide removed from all classes except Rogue. All points players had put into this stat have been refunded at no cost.
Chat
* Added the ability to pick your own colors under 'options.'
* Typing '/' now takes you directly into your default text input box. Not everyone has a Norwegian Keyboard.
* Added the ability to link craftable items into chat before crafting them.
GUI
* Added an option to remove the ornate borders around hotkeys and the map found under hotkey 'm.' In addition, the mini-map in the upper right hand corner can now be resized.
* Undocked player health and mob health from bottom bar, can now be moved to wherever you please. Can also be resized.
* When the number of fresh kills is not shown, that box is widened and shows the amount of experience left until the next level. We realized that mousing over that sort of thing is a wasted action.
* Removed the arrow by the minimap. Since res-pads are now waypoints, there's no need for this to exist. As a result of this change, when you use a res-pad to teleport, you are also transported to the lowest population instance that already exists.
Items
* All decimal points have been removed (from both items and stats). Everything is now a minimum of 1%. Perhaps we were a little anal with stats. Also, stats now work.
* (Magic) and (Melee/Physical) damage indicators on items now do exactly that. If something has +6 Electrical (Magic), it will add +6 electrical damage to any magic attack.
* Game has been reitemized from top to bottom. It is now possible to find and acquire items that are above 'blue' in rarity at any level. All monsters have some sort of chance to drop any non-quest/non-goal specified item. This does not mean that a purple item at level 5 is better than a green item at level 20. Rather, all tiers have been filled out. This was a simple change and should have been in at launch. We'd apologize, but we already have your money. Just enjoy the fix, chuckleheads.
* In a non-instanced quest area (like the Cistern), farming mobs will net you NOTHING! That's right. Take your bitchass to Sanctum, you get what drops the first time and need to progress to the next area. Jerks.
* Leather, meat, and such added to all animals that should drop that. Much like 'harvesting' from cotton will always net you cotton and sometimes cottonwisp – alligators will drop alligator meat and leather. Every time. Sometimes, maybe, they'll drop brindled or gnarled leather. Scorpions drop scorpion oil, etc. Apologies to all the alchemists out there.
* Looked at Diablo II and said – 'oh hay, someone figured out how this stuff works nearly a decade ago.' We think you'll like the changes. Also, sorry for making everything so brown besides capes. The starting bikini is no longer the most colorful thing in the game.
* Swords, staves, hammers, gloves, and other items with extra magical damage now have a proper particle effect to go with them. Example: Swords with electrical damage now have a static-y fog around the blade.
* 'Gem Size' as an attribute is now gone. All gems fit into one square and all squares can hold one gem. Adding statistics to this was ridiculous. They're gone now. If something has 3 slots, you can now fit any 3 gems into it. As a result, adding 3 +3% fatality chance gems to a weapon now give a 9% fatality chance in total.
* Updated textures for all blue-quality capes.
* Items above blue quality exist for all levels. This needs to be reiterated if you missed it the first time.
* Player crafted items now have their own color and the name of the person who crafted them.
Tradeskills
* Got rid of regular professions (mining, prospecting, etc) and made it so that you can gather any item at the level you're supposed to. Using Woodcutting as an example – 20: Ash/Ebon Ash, etc. At each milestone, you'll simply gain the ability at the needed level.
* Starter quests for resources have been gotten rid of. You'll simply get bonus EXP the first time you gather 20 of a resource or a rare resource. No need to give up valuble resources as a result – that was a stupid idea.
* All nodes now have 20 of a resource and regenerate their contents faster.
* All items for alchemy are actually in the game now – as previously mentioned under 'items.'
* Weaponsmith and armorsmith have been reworked. You can now pick from specific attributes for items depending on what resources you use to make for it. For example, using ebon ash ads fire resistance to armor. It doesn't have to make sense, it's a game. Items will still have slots, so gemcutting is purely an added benefit.
* The amount of resources needed for an item (including rare resources) has been raised since it's possible that crafted items can be better than found ones.
* There are now 'rare' versions at all levels of armorsmithing and weaponsmithing. Including level 40 gear. No more pointless restrictions. We've done the math on this, and it ups the 'fun' quotient for crafting types by at least 5%.
* Architects can now build house plans. This is being implemented as a way to make money for the architect. A special plot has been added to each guild city. This 'floorplan' can now be used to make your own instance on said plot and you'll now have your own house in your guild city. This house can be decorated by the scalps of fallen enemies, etc. These items will drop after you kill X of any type of enemy. Think of it as an achievement system. Sometimes Microsoft comes up with a good idea. Sometimes companies steal them. We stole this one.
* All items necessary for architecture are now able to be made from common and rare resources by alchemists. This includes Parchment, Ink, etc. Surely, there's a better money sink. Somewhere.
* The are now traders next to all merchants in tradezone cities.
* Fixed incorrect item names, like Ruby Silver. Or whatever.
Guild Cities
* Tradeposts now have a trader and tradeskill merchant.
* Blacksmiths now have a merchant inside that let's them sell their wares (same with all other tradeskill buildings).
* The thieves guild now has a black market merchant inside that lets you sell items tagged “not for trade” for an up front cost. The thieves guild can also be set by a guild leader to be accessible only by guild members. Tier 1 cities can sell items up to level 60 that are tagged 'not for trade.' Tier 2 cities can sell items up to level 80.
* Tier 2 and 3 keeps have a special set of guild banks where higher-ranked members can place things for lower ranked members. The traditional guild bank on the trader where anyone can deposit and only the upper echelons of ranks can access still exists.
* The library has special areas where guild members can leave stories and other tales of their travels in books. Other guild members can read these.
* The requirements for buildings tier 2 and above have been decreased on PvE servers by 50%.
* As mentioned before, gems are now all the same size.
* In front of each Keep (at any tier) there is now a bulletin board that acts as a control panel to rename your city, hire NPC mercenaries, etc.
NPC
* Archer mobs now properly unequip their bow and arrow before trying to punch you to death.
* You can no longer be attacked by mobs during a cinematic. Rather, we've put in a temporary band-aid in the form of total immunity. Jumping into conversation with an NPC while someone attacks you on a PVP server does not trigger a cinematic. You will see “You can not enter conversation while in combat.” Don't be a pussy and think that will work as an exploit. Player-killers have more patience than you anyway.
* Replaced volunteer mods on forums and current mods with living human beings who are capable of independent thought and do not sound like a useless robots. The previous mods have been killed and their flesh will make up tomorrows meal for QA members.
* All current quests have been fixed.
* Added an unreal number of quests for 35+ members.
* Wanted! Posters now send you to areas that have enough spawn to actually finish a quest. Spawn rate has also been upped in these areas. In addition, all experience has been upped on these posters. If you really want to grind, you can. Dork.
* Finally fixed that god-awful “In Defense of Beauty” quest. We fixed it by removing it. It sucked anyway.
Pets
* Pets have learned how to swim! Praise Jesus!
* Not really a pet, but the shadow cast by a bear shaman is now a bear. We thought that was a pretty cool idea. So we did it.
* That's all. Pets are mostly boring anyway. Class Specific stuff is under Archetypes.
Archetypes
* Nothing to report. Dumb idea to begin with. Can't be fixed now. Oh well!
Classes - Used to be Player Characters in patch notes. Even we don't know why.
Alright. I'll admit it. I'm far too lazy to deal with player characters. Honestly, it's such a mess that I don't even know where to begin. So here's 8 (9) things that should eventually be in patch notes.
* Players who have completed Tortage with an archetype now have an option to skip Tortage completely if starting another character of the same archetype (such as Rogue). You begin in the starting city in your swimsuit. You are level 20 and the first leg of your destiny quest is complete. Good luck!
* Necromancers now get a pet at level 1. It scales as they level, and they can always take it out. It's called 'The Hate Machine.' This solves pretty much all of their problems.
* Assassins can now wear light armor.
* Barbarians can now wear medium armor.
* Some assassin attacks have had their range and cone-of-impact increased so they can survive a little better when surrounded by mobs.
* Many ToS spells are no longer AoE! Which ones? Good luck, FotM!
* Direct, indirect, and over-time Healing spells no longer generate anywhere near as much hate.
* Soldiers using 'charge' no longer bend time around themselves.
* Finally, here's an explanation of what all the stats do in the game – probably the most useful patch note in the history of patch notes. You can also find this in-game, and hovering over a stat will tell you exactly what it does in a tooltip. Anyway, here:
Uhhhhh...
Wait. Did you actually expect me to know this? Hahahahahohohohoho.
[discuss]
General
* By popular demand, we have made resurrection pads a utility for moving between other discovered pads. Also, if you are in a group, you will spawn into the same instance as your group leader.
* Sprinting now takes a flat rate out of stamina. Assassins and any other stamina based classes are no longer broken. We don't remember who came up with the percentage based loss, but he will be strapped down and beaten to death when we smoke him out.
* 'Sitting' hotspots added for all chairs in game. Also made it possible to get out of the chair without any trouble.
* Dancing fully implemented. Priest of Mitra still boring, we apologize. It's not getting fixed.
* Drunken brawling implemented. This should have been in at launch. Whoops.
* Drinking cape made less ugly. Leopard-skin pattern on the inside was a mistake.
* Ring of Acheron now gives bonus through level 80. There's no reason to stop it at 40. We don't even know what we were thinking.
* Fixed texture pop-in and bizarre NPC 'pops out of ground' problem.
* Can now rebind mouse-buttons to whatever action you want.
* Fed QA team for first time since launch. We read some research that says it 'helps productivity,' whatever that means. QA manager now guarantees that patch notes will be 'complete' and 'useful.'
* Fixed texture issue so that when you have high-resolution textures picked, it'll actually load high-resolution textures.
* Hyboria has run out of Vaseline, as such, bloom is now acceptable.
* Trader has been completely redone. Looked at WoW – stole that. No longer need to tie up bank slot for the selling of items.
* Fired a bunch of lazy QA folks and replaced them with people that might actually do some work.
* Hired on more folks to itemize. More on this under “items.”
* Swimming too far out from any landmass will now result in you being eaten by sharks.
Combat
* Hide removed from all classes except Rogue. All points players had put into this stat have been refunded at no cost.
Chat
* Added the ability to pick your own colors under 'options.'
* Typing '/' now takes you directly into your default text input box. Not everyone has a Norwegian Keyboard.
* Added the ability to link craftable items into chat before crafting them.
GUI
* Added an option to remove the ornate borders around hotkeys and the map found under hotkey 'm.' In addition, the mini-map in the upper right hand corner can now be resized.
* Undocked player health and mob health from bottom bar, can now be moved to wherever you please. Can also be resized.
* When the number of fresh kills is not shown, that box is widened and shows the amount of experience left until the next level. We realized that mousing over that sort of thing is a wasted action.
* Removed the arrow by the minimap. Since res-pads are now waypoints, there's no need for this to exist. As a result of this change, when you use a res-pad to teleport, you are also transported to the lowest population instance that already exists.
Items
* All decimal points have been removed (from both items and stats). Everything is now a minimum of 1%. Perhaps we were a little anal with stats. Also, stats now work.
* (Magic) and (Melee/Physical) damage indicators on items now do exactly that. If something has +6 Electrical (Magic), it will add +6 electrical damage to any magic attack.
* Game has been reitemized from top to bottom. It is now possible to find and acquire items that are above 'blue' in rarity at any level. All monsters have some sort of chance to drop any non-quest/non-goal specified item. This does not mean that a purple item at level 5 is better than a green item at level 20. Rather, all tiers have been filled out. This was a simple change and should have been in at launch. We'd apologize, but we already have your money. Just enjoy the fix, chuckleheads.
* In a non-instanced quest area (like the Cistern), farming mobs will net you NOTHING! That's right. Take your bitchass to Sanctum, you get what drops the first time and need to progress to the next area. Jerks.
* Leather, meat, and such added to all animals that should drop that. Much like 'harvesting' from cotton will always net you cotton and sometimes cottonwisp – alligators will drop alligator meat and leather. Every time. Sometimes, maybe, they'll drop brindled or gnarled leather. Scorpions drop scorpion oil, etc. Apologies to all the alchemists out there.
* Looked at Diablo II and said – 'oh hay, someone figured out how this stuff works nearly a decade ago.' We think you'll like the changes. Also, sorry for making everything so brown besides capes. The starting bikini is no longer the most colorful thing in the game.
* Swords, staves, hammers, gloves, and other items with extra magical damage now have a proper particle effect to go with them. Example: Swords with electrical damage now have a static-y fog around the blade.
* 'Gem Size' as an attribute is now gone. All gems fit into one square and all squares can hold one gem. Adding statistics to this was ridiculous. They're gone now. If something has 3 slots, you can now fit any 3 gems into it. As a result, adding 3 +3% fatality chance gems to a weapon now give a 9% fatality chance in total.
* Updated textures for all blue-quality capes.
* Items above blue quality exist for all levels. This needs to be reiterated if you missed it the first time.
* Player crafted items now have their own color and the name of the person who crafted them.
Tradeskills
* Got rid of regular professions (mining, prospecting, etc) and made it so that you can gather any item at the level you're supposed to. Using Woodcutting as an example – 20: Ash/Ebon Ash, etc. At each milestone, you'll simply gain the ability at the needed level.
* Starter quests for resources have been gotten rid of. You'll simply get bonus EXP the first time you gather 20 of a resource or a rare resource. No need to give up valuble resources as a result – that was a stupid idea.
* All nodes now have 20 of a resource and regenerate their contents faster.
* All items for alchemy are actually in the game now – as previously mentioned under 'items.'
* Weaponsmith and armorsmith have been reworked. You can now pick from specific attributes for items depending on what resources you use to make for it. For example, using ebon ash ads fire resistance to armor. It doesn't have to make sense, it's a game. Items will still have slots, so gemcutting is purely an added benefit.
* The amount of resources needed for an item (including rare resources) has been raised since it's possible that crafted items can be better than found ones.
* There are now 'rare' versions at all levels of armorsmithing and weaponsmithing. Including level 40 gear. No more pointless restrictions. We've done the math on this, and it ups the 'fun' quotient for crafting types by at least 5%.
* Architects can now build house plans. This is being implemented as a way to make money for the architect. A special plot has been added to each guild city. This 'floorplan' can now be used to make your own instance on said plot and you'll now have your own house in your guild city. This house can be decorated by the scalps of fallen enemies, etc. These items will drop after you kill X of any type of enemy. Think of it as an achievement system. Sometimes Microsoft comes up with a good idea. Sometimes companies steal them. We stole this one.
* All items necessary for architecture are now able to be made from common and rare resources by alchemists. This includes Parchment, Ink, etc. Surely, there's a better money sink. Somewhere.
* The are now traders next to all merchants in tradezone cities.
* Fixed incorrect item names, like Ruby Silver. Or whatever.
Guild Cities
* Tradeposts now have a trader and tradeskill merchant.
* Blacksmiths now have a merchant inside that let's them sell their wares (same with all other tradeskill buildings).
* The thieves guild now has a black market merchant inside that lets you sell items tagged “not for trade” for an up front cost. The thieves guild can also be set by a guild leader to be accessible only by guild members. Tier 1 cities can sell items up to level 60 that are tagged 'not for trade.' Tier 2 cities can sell items up to level 80.
* Tier 2 and 3 keeps have a special set of guild banks where higher-ranked members can place things for lower ranked members. The traditional guild bank on the trader where anyone can deposit and only the upper echelons of ranks can access still exists.
* The library has special areas where guild members can leave stories and other tales of their travels in books. Other guild members can read these.
* The requirements for buildings tier 2 and above have been decreased on PvE servers by 50%.
* As mentioned before, gems are now all the same size.
* In front of each Keep (at any tier) there is now a bulletin board that acts as a control panel to rename your city, hire NPC mercenaries, etc.
NPC
* Archer mobs now properly unequip their bow and arrow before trying to punch you to death.
* You can no longer be attacked by mobs during a cinematic. Rather, we've put in a temporary band-aid in the form of total immunity. Jumping into conversation with an NPC while someone attacks you on a PVP server does not trigger a cinematic. You will see “You can not enter conversation while in combat.” Don't be a pussy and think that will work as an exploit. Player-killers have more patience than you anyway.
* Replaced volunteer mods on forums and current mods with living human beings who are capable of independent thought and do not sound like a useless robots. The previous mods have been killed and their flesh will make up tomorrows meal for QA members.
* All current quests have been fixed.
* Added an unreal number of quests for 35+ members.
* Wanted! Posters now send you to areas that have enough spawn to actually finish a quest. Spawn rate has also been upped in these areas. In addition, all experience has been upped on these posters. If you really want to grind, you can. Dork.
* Finally fixed that god-awful “In Defense of Beauty” quest. We fixed it by removing it. It sucked anyway.
Pets
* Pets have learned how to swim! Praise Jesus!
* Not really a pet, but the shadow cast by a bear shaman is now a bear. We thought that was a pretty cool idea. So we did it.
* That's all. Pets are mostly boring anyway. Class Specific stuff is under Archetypes.
Archetypes
* Nothing to report. Dumb idea to begin with. Can't be fixed now. Oh well!
Classes - Used to be Player Characters in patch notes. Even we don't know why.
Alright. I'll admit it. I'm far too lazy to deal with player characters. Honestly, it's such a mess that I don't even know where to begin. So here's 8 (9) things that should eventually be in patch notes.
* Players who have completed Tortage with an archetype now have an option to skip Tortage completely if starting another character of the same archetype (such as Rogue). You begin in the starting city in your swimsuit. You are level 20 and the first leg of your destiny quest is complete. Good luck!
* Necromancers now get a pet at level 1. It scales as they level, and they can always take it out. It's called 'The Hate Machine.' This solves pretty much all of their problems.
* Assassins can now wear light armor.
* Barbarians can now wear medium armor.
* Some assassin attacks have had their range and cone-of-impact increased so they can survive a little better when surrounded by mobs.
* Many ToS spells are no longer AoE! Which ones? Good luck, FotM!
* Direct, indirect, and over-time Healing spells no longer generate anywhere near as much hate.
* Soldiers using 'charge' no longer bend time around themselves.
* Finally, here's an explanation of what all the stats do in the game – probably the most useful patch note in the history of patch notes. You can also find this in-game, and hovering over a stat will tell you exactly what it does in a tooltip. Anyway, here:
Uhhhhh...
Wait. Did you actually expect me to know this? Hahahahahohohohoho.
[discuss]