Publish Notes

Publish 19/11/20

PvP Battleground System

• New PvP system: Automatic Random Battlegrounds! Ideal for those looking for a quick hit of PvP without having to look for it.

• Four different battle modes: Team Death Match, Team Elimination, Super Death Match, and Capture the Flag.

• Nine epic Battleground locations, each of which present unique challenges, with more locations to be added in the future.

Spirit Speak

• Characters which have at least 30 Spirit Speak skill and which meet the other requirements below will now gain a bonus to their maximum Mana. The formula is Spirit Speak skill divided by 4, meaning someone with 100 skill would have their max possible mana increased by 25.

• To be eligible for the Spirit Speak Mana cap increase, characters cannot have 30 or over in ANY of the following skills: Alchemy, Inscription, Tactics, Swordsmanship, Fencing, Macing, Archery.

• An example of a "Spirit Mage" template would be GM Mage/Med/Resist/Eval/Wrestle/Anat/Spirit. This has been done to make pure/stun/disarm mages without alchemy, inscription, or weapon skills more viable.

Changes, Balances & Bug Fixes

• Fire Steeds now spawn in a much wider range. New min-max possible stats: 355-605 Str / 55-155 Dex / 55-95 Int. New base damage: 20-28. New rare hues and change to default hue so Fire Steeds look less like Ki-Rins.

• Explosion Potions should now correctly damage the thrower if they are in range of the explosion.

• A bug which was preventing Resisting Spells from working correctly sometimes has been fixed.

• Total Refreshment Potions now only restore half a character's Stamina instead of all of it.

• The Faction Sigil purification time has been increased to 48 (Trinsic), 24 (Vesper, Ocllo, Nujel'm) and 12 (Britain, Moonglow, Yew, Skara Brae) hours, up from 6 previously.

• A small number of guards now spawn in Britain, Moonglow, Yew, and Skara Brae immediately around their Sigil Monoliths.

• A bug which was making it much harder to meditate than it should have been has been resolved.

• Bulk Blank Scrolls are now available to buy from the Moonglow Town Stone.

• The spell damage bonus from Inscription has been increased from 5 to 10%.

• The spell Create Food can no longer be used in Arenas or in the Jhelom Training Area.

• Characters should no longer hear their clocks chiming from anywhere while they are stored in their Bank.

• Tokuno and Gargish ships have been renamed Junk Ships and Battleships, respectively. Known issue: Shipwright Vendors still sell them by their former names. The cost of these ships has also been reduced.

• Many other minor bug fixes and improvements.

• Added additional content which will be revealed in the future...

21/11 Publish Update

• The Alchemy Bonus for explosion potions is now Alchemy Skill / 7.5 (13 at GM) - This means a GM Alchemist can now do anywhere from 10-21 damage with a Greater Explosion Potion, while a character without the Alchemy Bonus can do just 4-8 with the same potion.

• Base Damage of Explosion Potions has changed - Lesser: 1-4 Normal: 2-6 Greater: 4-8.

• Potion weight is now based on Alchemy Skill. Potions weigh 2 stones for characters with 100 Alchemy skill, while they weigh 4 for those who are not GMs. The exception is explosion potions, which weigh 5 stones for GM Alchemists and 10 for everyone else.

• Greater Heal Potions now have a 60 second cool down. The amount they can heal has been increased to 20-30.

• Greater Cure Potions now have a 10% chance to fail to cure lesser poison.

Publish 20/09/20 - Shard Launch

• Shard Launch! Players can create up to 3 new accounts per IP/household on the shard.

• Special Launch Gift: New accounts created before 31/10/20 will receive a Stallion Statuette in the bank box of the first character created on the account. These unique looking horses have the same functionality as Ethereal Mounts and come in a wide range of different colours.

• Shard Launch and 23rd Anniversary gifts! See the Holiday Gifts page for more info.

• Complete revamp of all Dungeons and many other hunting locations. New as yet un-named Reptile and Fey themed dungeon (entrance South of Shame Dungeon).

• Dungeons now have special Fast Spawn locations to create ideal hunting spots, some which feature unique creatures to fight.

• Characters and Pets will now benefit from a +50% increase to the minimum chance to gain skill whilst inside Dungeons.

• Mages may now cast Gate Travel to the outside world from inside Dungeons. Like Recall, casting Gate from within a Dungeon takes 3 seconds longer than normal.

• Shard-wide adjustments to loot. Randomness and chance for extra gold increased.

• The Lost Lands, as well as the Terathan Keep and Khaldun Dungeons, are no longer accessible. However, many wild and dangerous critters were able to escape into Britannia before the passages were sealed!

• Nujel'm has gained a public Town Moongate on the North side of the island and replaces Delucia in the list of gates.

• Changes to Town Stone and Hitching Post prices and offerings. The stones and posts have also been moved next to banks for convenience.

• Ocllo and Nujel'm have replaced Delucia and Minoc as Faction Towns.

• The towns of Britain, Moonglow, Yew, and Skara Brae are no longer occupied by Faction or Chaos Guards. The defence of these four Sigils is now left entirely to players.

• The towns of Vesper, Ocllo, Nujel'm, and especially the new sole Faction Capital, Trinsic, are occupied by large armies of Faction or Chaos Guards. Capturing the Sigils in these towns, especially Trinsic's, rewards much more Silver and Valor points than the other four unguarded towns will. See the rewritten Factions guide for more info.

• Spell damage balance changes.

• Weapon damage bug fixes and balancing.

• Having decided his throne room is unsafe due to all the Faction activity that happens in it, Lord British has gone for a walk around to the back of his castle to be among his loyal guards.

• Many more misc bug fixes and minor updates.

Publish 22/08/20

War Mount Whistle

• War Mount Whistles are now available from Faction Silver Donation Boxes!

• After a whistle is linked to a bonded War Mount it can be used to call the mount to your location.

• Each whistle has a maximum of 50 uses and cannot be recharged.

• You can only whistle your mount once every 2 minutes. Unlike Pet Summoning Balls, War Mount Whistles may be used in combat and/or while hidden.

• War Mount Whistles are Blessed.

• Only Faction War Mounts (including Dark and Silver Steeds) may be linked to War Mount Whistles.

Updates & Bug Fixes

• Faction and Chaos Guards now carry much more Gold as loot than before. The stronger the guard the more Gold they will have.

• Defeating Faction and Chaos Guards will now reward the character with slightly more Silver and Valor than before.

• Further minor balancing of Faction and Chaos Guards.

• Balancing of AI Arena opponents and AIPKs.

• A potential server crash was found on the test shard and has been fixed before it ever occurred on the live shard.

• Misc minor bug fixes.

Publish 20/08/20

• Three new types of medium strength Faction Guards have been added: Faction Archers (TB & Min), Faction Spearman (CoM & SL), and Chaos Archers.

• Faction Death Knights (SL) are now mages instead of melee fighters.

• Reduction of the number of Guards that spawn in towns.

• The two "Good" Factions (TB and CoM) now share the Capitals of Britain and Moonglow, and may both send large armies to defend either if they control them.

• The two "Evil" Factions (Minax and SL) now share the Capitals of Trinsic and Yew, and may both send large armies to defend either if they control them.

• Skara Brae is now an undefended "Guard free" Faction Town.

• The three other non-Capital Faction Towns (Vesper, Minoc, and Delucia) will now be occupied by smaller and weaker armies of Guards than before.

• Players are now able to Recall out of Dungeons. Casting Recall from inside a Dungeon takes 3 seconds longer than normal to cast.

• Explosion Potions are no longer stackable.

• A bug that was causing the movement of some monsters to glitch has been resolved.

Publish 15/08/20

• Human NPC mages can now have their casting disturbed by taking damage.

• The Spirituality Virtue has been balanced for the Classic Era. See it's Wiki entry for details.

• Explosion Potions now hit all eligible targets within a 2 tile radius when they explode, including the thrower.

• A bug which was preventing the Reveal Spell from working has been fixed.

• Using casted Moongates will now reveal hidden characters.

• A bug which allowed Gate Travel into Town Monolith Areas has been resolved.

• Restarting the shard will no longer reset all Faction Towns to Neutral/Chaos control.

• Gump and Cliloc fixes.

• Faction Traps which spawn in towns automatically will now decay after awhile and re-spawn in a different spot around the Town Monolith.

• Enhancements and bug fixes to some NPC AI.

• The Wrestling Stun and Disarm abilities have had their mana cost reduced by 5 each to 20 and 15, respectively.

• Failing to Stun will no longer consume mana (failing a Disarm already didn't).

• Misc bug and exploit fixes.

Publish 09/08/20

• The "Help Stuck" system has been re-enabled, however it can now only be used by characters who are dead.

• A server crash bug related to boats has been resolved.

• A bug related to Magic Reflect and Mind Blast has been fixed.

Publish 07/08/20

Town Stone Changes

• All the Faction Town Stones have been adjusted.

• With one exception (Skara Brae), each town has one item/resource which it specialises in that it sells at the lowest price available on the shard. The town's secondary item is available at a lower price than normal vendors, however it may be available from another Town Stone at a lower price. Skara Brae has two items which it specialises in.

• Empty Bottles are now available from two towns.

• Enhanced Bandages are now available from one town's Stone. This is the only place that they can be acquired.

Masonry

• GM Carpenters can now learn the Masonry skill! Stone furniture and house walls can now be manufactured, among many other things.

• GM Miners can learn how to dig for quality stone!

• Visit your local carpentry shop and talk to the Stone Crafter vendor to purchase the required books.

Updates & Bug Fixes

• A bug that was preventing Magic Reflection from working has been resolved. Direct damage spells can now be reflected.

• Bug fixes and enhancements to NPC AI.

• Minor adjustments to NPC shop prices to fit in with the changes to Town Stones.

• Misc bug fixes, CliLoc and gump updates.

Publish 30/07/20

Chaos Anti-Faction

• Lord Blackthorn's Chaos troops will now randomly liberate Faction controlled cities and turn them neutral.

• Cities cannot be liberated by Chaos for at least 24 hours after being captured by a Faction.

• Chaos troops are hostile towards members of all four Factions, as well as common criminals. They ignore all others, including innocents and murderers, unless they are attacked first.

• All cities have been liberated by Chaos and are now neutral.

Rewards, Updates & Bug Fixes

• Four new rewards have been added to the Faction Silver Donation Box: Clothing Bless Deeds, House Ladders, Commodity Deed Boxes, and House Teleporter Tile Sets are now available!

• Castle Blackthorn is no longer under the protection of the Town Guards. Lord Blackthorn can now be attacked.

• Wild Horses, Ridable Llamas and Forest Ostards now hate each other and will attack one another on sight.

• Faction Wizards have had their Magery and Eval Int reduced.

• Adjustments to Faction Guard occupation numbers.

• Enhancements to NPC AI.

• Misc bug fixes.

Publish 24/07/20

• Lady Minax has been made stronger and now uses completely different AI.

• Lord British and Lady Minax will now drop at least one Reagent Gem as loot, as well as having a chance to drop either a second Reagent Gem or a First Aid Gem.

• Lord Blackthorn will always drop a Legendary Smithy Hammer.

• Fixed a bug that was preventing Faction Guards from attacking Chaos Guards in some situations.

Publish 23/07/20

• Lord Blackthorn now has a small random chance to drop two different rares when he is killed; a Legendary Smithy Hammer and/or a Chaos War Horse Imprisoned in a Crystal.

• Legendary Smithy Hammers grant a +20 boost to the Blacksmith skill when equipped and have 50 uses.

• The Chaos War Horse Imprisoned in a Crystal will summon a Chaos War Horse when it is used. The horse is instantly bonded to the character who summons it and cannot be traded or tamed. Chaos War Horses are equal to Faction War Horses in strength and functionality, except they do not require their rider to be in a Faction to be ridden.

• White Wyrms now spawn in more shades of white. Grayish white is more common, while brighter whites are rarer.

• More bug fixes.

Publish 22/07/20

Lady Minax

• Britannia is in a state of panic as rumours spread that the vile Lady Minax herself has returned!

• A sinister red Moongate has appeared in the Minax Faction Stronghold!

Lord Blackthorn

• Dismayed by the ongoing wars between the Factions and never one to let his old friend and rival Lord British steal the spotlight for long, Lord Blackthorn has moved back into his castle above Britain and has issued a call to arms to his Chaos troops!

• Faction Cities which rebel and turn Neutral will now be occupied by Chaos guards who have been sent by Lord Blackthorn to defend the city's right to neutrality. Chaos troops are hostile towards all four Factions and will attempt to prevent the city from being recaptured. Sigils in Neutral Cities undergo purification for 2 hours instead of the usual 12.

Updates & Bug Fixes

• Enhanced Lord British's Paladin/Chivalry AI.

• Lord British is now even stronger and drops more loot.

• +10 Ancient Smithy Hammers are now available for purchase from Blacksmiths.

• A bug that prevented the purchase of Dark and Silver Steeds has been fixed.

• Dark and Silver Steeds have been given more appropriate sound effects.

• Escortable NPCs should no longer ask to be taken to Magincia.

• Fixed bug with smelting coloured ore.

• Faction thieves now receive more Valor for stealing Sigils.

• Fixed bug that was preventing armour from being made out of coloured ingots.

• Additional changes behind the scenes to enable current and future content.

• Further balancing of human NPC AI.

• The maximum duration of the Paralyze spell will now be halved if the target is either a player or a human NPC.

• The New Player Dungeon is now known as the Nujel'm Mines and a Moongate to it's entrance has been placed outside the Counselor's Office in Jhelom. This also allows easy access to the peaceful city of Nujel'm itself.

• Savage Ridgebacks and Swamp Dragons can no longer be mounted by players.

• Cliloc fixes and updates to various gumps.

Publish 12/07/20

Valor Virtue & Factions

• The Valor Virtue has been completely redesigned and has been linked to the Factions system.

• Valor is earned by killing enemy Faction guards, human NPC Faction members, and by stealing Sigils.

• Characters must be a Seeker of Valor before they can buy from Faction Town Stones. The Faction rank requirement to use the Stones has been removed.

• Valor Stones have been added! Valor Stones look like red Town Stones and require the character to be a Follower of Valor before they can be used.

• A Valor Stone has been placed in each of the Faction bases. A 5th Valor Stone will be added to the Moongate Hall shortly.

• Four items can be purchased from Valor Stones: First Aid Kits (250 Valor), Reagent Gems (2,500), Exceptional Leather Suits (500), and War Horses (10,000).

• First Aid Kits contain Reagents, Potions, Bandages and Food.

• New Item: Reagent Gems! A character who dies while they have a Reagent Gem in their possession will be granted a bag containing 50 of each Reagent in their backpack when they resurrect.

Factions

• Faction Towns now have a random chance to rebel against their new masters when they are captured and instead go neutral.

• Neutral towns will quickly fill with troops from all four of the Factions who will fight to the death until the town is captured by a player again.

• Sigils in neutral towns do not undergo purification and may be re-stolen immediately to be taken to a Faction base for corruption.

• Even when a town goes neutral afterwards, the thief who captures the Sigil and turns the town from occupied to neutral will still be credited with a town capture and will be rewarded with Silver and Valor as normal.

• The suits of armor available from the Minoc and Delucia Town Stones now cost gold instead of silver.

Stylist Vendor

• Hair Stylist Vendors are now simply called Stylists and offer a range of services to customize your character! They can be found in some alchemist shops.

• Now Available: Name Change, Gender Change, Skin Tinging Tincture, Hair Restyling, Normal Hair Dye, Special Hair Dye, and Special Beard Dye.

Updates & Bug Fixes

• Further enhancements and bug fixes to NPC AI.

• Starvation no longer reveals characters who are hidden.

Publish 08/07/20

Arena Changes

• Two new hard AI Arenas: Labyrinth and Lava Lake!

• The Fighting Pit Arena has been changed from AI to PvP.

• Potions and field spells are now allowed in some Arenas. See the Arenas page for more info.

• Ocllo Arena has been removed from the Arena Moongate list, even though it remains a fully functional Arena. This has been done to free up room on the Arena Moongate menu and because Ocllo Arena is only a very short distance from Ocllo's own Town Moongate.

• The Khaldun Arena area has been altered slightly to make it look better and to create a small space next to the arena building for fighting on the grass outside.

Updates & Bug Fixes

• The four stronger types of Faction foot-soliders have been given a unique boost. Faction Knights (True Brits) now have some Parrying skill, Faction Berserkers (Minax) have higher Tactics skill, Faction Death Knights (Shadowlords) have higher Magic Resist skill, while Faction Wizzards have their strong mage spells.

• A bug relating to the wrong damage being applied in some situations has been resolved.

• CliLoc fixes.

• Variety Dealers now display their shop inventory correctly.

• Enhancements to NPC AI.

• Misc bug fixes and improvements.

Publish 06/07/20

Pet Summoning Balls

• Blood Elementals now have a small chance to drop a Pet Summoning Ball as loot. Blood Elementals can be found on the bottom level of Dungeon Shame.

• Pet Summoning Balls are initially Cursed (can be looted) until they are successfully linked to a pet, at which time they become Blessed.

• There is a 10 minute re-use cooldown after summoning a pet.

• The Balls can hold 3 charges at once and can be recharged a maximum of 25 times.

• They cannot be used by a player who is in combat, is criminal, is hidden, or by someone who is in an Arena.

• Powder of Translocation is used to charge the Balls and can be found as loot on Fire Demons, who now inhabit the bottom level of Hythloth Dungeon.

Fire Steeds

• Fire Steeds now spawn on the bottom level of Fire Dungeon!

• Unlike Fire Steeds on OSI, ours are not neon/blaze in hue. Instead they now come in five different hues that might be described as "Blood Orange" in colour. They also come in four different body types. This means there are a total of 20 different shades of Fire Steed (the 5 hues each look a little different on the 4 horse body types). One hue (4 shades) is common, while the other four hues (16 shades) are rare.

• New horse sound effects unique to the Fire Steed.

• A good Fire Steed will be somewhat stronger than a Nightmare in melee combat. They also have a powerful Fire Breath attack that is similar to Dragon's.

Updates & Bug Fixes

• An opportunistic Variety Dealer and a Healer have set up shop down in the depths of Hythloth Dungeon to tend to the dead, for a price...

• The loot available from some monsters has been adjusted.

• The price of certain items available from NPC vendors has been adjusted.

• Characters now require a rank of 2 with their Faction before they can buy from Town Stones.

• Pets will now refuse to attack mounted Faction guards.

• A major bug that was causing NPC AI to glitch has been resolved.

Publish 03/07/20

• Explosion Potions are no longer stackable.

• Lockdowns inside houses are now counted correctly.

• Improvements to NPC AI, particularly Mage AI.

• The damage output of a few spells has been adjusted slightly. The largest change was to Mind Blast, which was previously capable of doing far too much damage and has been scaled back to a more reasonable level.

• Further balancing of Faction Guards, AI Arena opponents, and human NPCs.

• The Wrestling special moves now consume Mana instead of Stamina. Stun = 25 | Disarm = 20

• Added sound effects for Wrestling hits/punches.

• Fixed various Cliloc errors.

• Characters can no longer recall or gate into the area immediately surrounding Faction Town Monoliths.

• Known Issue: The points on Faction Donation Boxes are not decaying as they should and the garrisons in the bases are not spawning or despawning. As a result we will manually add a garrison to each base some time after the publish goes live. The garrison function of the Donations Box has been disabled for now, however players may still donate to the box and claim rewards from it as normal.

• Characters will now be awarded 250 Silver for capturing a Faction Town. This reward is not affected by the Faction's tithe rate and goes directly to the thief who returns the Sigil to the town after it has been corrupted.

• The loot available from Shadow, White, and Ancient Wyrms has been improved.

• Misc bug fixes.

Publish 01/07/20

• Explosion Potions can no longer be thrown while frozen/para/casting.

• Complete re-write of the Stamina loss on damage algorithm.

• Fixed a bug that caused a character's Stamina to fall to 0 for no reason.

• Fixed a bug that was preventing some human mage NPCs from being able to be interrupted.

• Players will now earn Silver for defeating human NPCs which are members of rival factions.

• More balancing of Faction Guards and AI Arena NPCs.

• Faction Traps now spawn around Town Monoliths to protect the Sigil. These traps may be removed/disarmed with a Faction Trap Removal Kit and the Detect Hidden and Remove Trap skills. Removing/disarming traps will reward the player with Silver. See the Factions page on the Wiki for more info.

• The Faction Stability system has been enabled. The largest Faction may not grow more than 3 times larger than the smallest Faction.

• Reward Gladiator Candles, Lanterns and Torches have had the formatting of their item names fixed.

• Players who have equal to 100.0 skill in Stealth may now take an extra 2 steps before needing to reuse the Stealth skill. This raises the max steps from 10 to 12.

• Items bought from Faction Town Stones will now be put in the character's bank box if they are unable to carry the item(s) in their backpack. This should also make buying in bulk from the Stones much easier.

• Wood bought from Town Stones may now be used for crafting.

• Characters should no longer be flagged as in the heat of battle when they are attacked by Faction Guards in situations where the character is not the aggressor.

• Plus many other misc. bug fixes and balance changes.

Early Updates

The large number of updates that took place prior to 01/07/20 are not documented here.