Alter Aeon Recent Changes and Additions

Recent code and server updates can be found in this changelog.  Only the
last 20 changes are listed.  For a complete list, click here.

For new area additions and area updates, click here.

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---- Apr 21, 18 [2491]
Fix better-at bug in ancient oak. (Gate)

From Shadowfax:
The swear filter will now catch capitalized curse words.
Angelic crusaders should now be more willing to fight the forces of evil.

From Draak:
New wood: holly
New wood type: bitter
Tweaks to fishing to make actions more consistent and meaningful.  This also
adds new fish types.
Spell failure strings will now almost always include the name of the spell
that fails. (Adara)

Corpse-eating mobs under the effects of mesmerize animal, hold undead,
confusion, or a bad poisoning of vexed visions will no longer eat
corpses.  (Gate) These conditions will also keep mobs from scavenging
equipment off the ground and autowearing eq (under most circumstances).

---- Apr 15, 18 [2489]
From Draak:
You can see kinds of items shopkeepers (might) buy by typing 'buy list'.
Shopkeepers are still all kinds of stingy/poor.
Small changes to metallurgy exp handling and a few corner cases with strings.
Enchant analyze will now stop shaming I mean spamming you if you don't know
all of the enchantments.
Fished a pair of minor bugs out of enchant essence, that combined were
causing some major issues.
Dispelling spells from objects should now have more consistent
strings. (Gate)
Harvest venom should now give exp normally. (Gate)

Arrowheads now contribute to the speed of ammo. Adding a mithril arrowhead
to an arrow or bolt may make it faster, while an adamantine one will make
it slower.

'Spell/skills all' now accepts the args 'known' and 'unknown' to
see lists of all spells or skills you know or all those you do
not know, respectively. (Runner)

You can pluck feathers from bird corpses, and use the tailoring command to
add them to hats (if you know hatmaking of course).  Plucked feathers can
also be used to fletch arrows, which can improve their damage and accuracy.
They are also brewable spell components.

---- Apr 07, 18 [2487]
From Shadowfax:
You can now evade spells even after the caster has died.

From Draak:
Cosmetic change to ancient oak. (Gate)
Obscure spell 'find object' changed to 'pinpoint object', so it doesn't
conflict with 'spell find'.
When using the review command on a corpse, it will also give the information
you would have gleaned from consider.
If you use poisonous ingredients while cooking, your dish will
be poisoned! Be cautious when foraging, especially untrained.
Withdraw should no longer lag you if it fails to execute due to you not
being in battle. (Runner)
New hats for hatmaking: toque (chef's hat), mitre
The level of a bonecrafted item  is now dependent on your necromancer level,
and most will have a necromancer flag.

Changes to the consider command to make the distinction between
saving spell and magic resistance more clear. Magic resistance
is rare and thus will only be displayed if the creature has it.

Some druid earth spells have chance to add to or remove mineral resources
from a room. If is room is mined out, an earthquake or unnatural spring
spell *might* help.

Enchant essence will now work on two additional wear slots for
each class, except druids. Druids can essence enchant totems
and fetishes.

Crafting skill synergy: if you know hatmaking and leathercraft, you can use
leathercraft to fashion hats from skins. The hats are functionally identical
to leathercrafted caps, and can made with fur or dragon scale if you know
furrier or dragonscale armor, respectively.

---- Apr 01, 18 [2486]
From Shadowfax:
Fix for chain lightning crash bug when the target died before
the lightning quit bouncing.

---- Mar 31, 18 [2484]
From Shadowfax:
'Cone of cold' no longer sends a message to the room when it strikes
an ally, like how firefield works.

'Chain lightning' now avoids attempting to damage allies (thus avoiding
a bunch of "You can't harm so-and-so" spam) and is subject to evasion.
The 'ground' spell helps players engaged in melee avoid chain lightning.

From Draak:
Bladed weapons are now slightly better for parrying. Slightly.
Dragonfang quartz added to the lapidary table. (Morpheus)
Patched bug with blood sacrifice. (Runner)
Strings for cooking recipes can now be more awesome.
Butchering now recognizes more types of distinct meat.
A few minor changes to low-level trainers and skills.
Preparing corpse to become undead  will now check if a corpse
is usable before checking for a preservation spell. (Lokar)
Fixed minor bug with resisting being stunned and look.
Tweaks to enchant essence to make analysis more accurate.
Added 'set alarm' to set an alarm for in-game hours. (Rukia)
Type 'set alarm help' for more information.

---- Mar 24, 18 [2483]
From Draak:
Fixed weird little bug with new dragonscale armor ac calcs and
two-handed shields.
Carve fetish should now improve upon use. (Smyth)
Increase to chill touch's initial damage to make it more effective
at low levels.
Improvements to skin insult strings.

New obscure skill 'kiltmaking'! Happy St. Patrick's Day!
...since noone cares about St. Andrew's Day :(

Saving throws on dragonscale eq now have a slightly random
range. Shields and tower shields are more stable.
Scales from acidic or toxin-resistant dragons may yield
poisonsave. Scales from crystal or gem dragons will give
spellsave instead of breathsave.

Lapidary split added. Lapidary stones can now be split into
smaller pieces, but be careful: the harder the stone, the
more difficult it is to split.

Improvements to newbie hint code. This includes reminders for
low-level characters to wear equipment they pick up, if
they can use it and have the appropriate empty wear slot.

---- Mar 20, 18 [2482]
From Shadowfax:
A couple minor consecrate fixes.

From Draak:
Misc typo corrections and adjustments with crafting.
Fishing "cycles"  made a bit slower.

---- Mar 19, 18 [2481]
Make shadow blades show dieroll on identify.
Fix bug caused by C++ initialization catastrophe.  The c++ standards
committee really dropped the ball on this one - even a shitty hack would
have been worth adding to handle cases like this one.

---- Mar 18, 18 [2479]
From Draak:
Auto inventory searching for leathercraft, woodcraft and bonecraft disabled.
Forging costs lowered slightly.

You can now craft with metal, wood, bone, stone and leather for other
players - when you specify another player, you will craft an object of
their level, assuming you are higher or equal in level. (Knapping is
intentionally not included in this).

Dragonscale armor is now warrior flagged. Dragonscale armor you create will
be at your warrior level or the warrior level of the player you make it for,
whichever is lower.  Dragonscale armor will also generally have higher ac
than before.  This is heavily dependent on how well-crafted it is and any
effects it has beyond saving breath.

---- Mar 10, 18 [2476]
From Draak:
New leathercrafted item: headband
Knock can longer be cast in combat. (Indigo)
Misc typo clean-up. Please don't log food with missing taste in the typo
log. Instead, report it directly to Draak. He added it, he'll fix it.
Improved output for the class-specific 'check' command when you are
level 0 in the class.
You cannot drink from potions/liquid containers on the ground
if they are being guarded. (Theman)
Knapped weapons now have more formidable dierolls.

Ores now have prices based on their composition, weight and purity.
Object pricing has been adjusted - the base cost should generally be lower,
but objects made from rarer materials will be more expensive. For example,
silver and gold will cost more than iron or copper, while seafood and meat
cost more than roots and seeds.

Improvements to metallurgy weapon head and blade insult strings.
Forge weapon finish has been changed - in addition to the weapon name,
you must designate the weapon parts you wish to assemble.  Use
'forge list <weapon name>' to see what parts each weapon requires.

From Shadowfax:
Prevent the consecrating of armor that would end up with all three
anti-alignment flags and therefore be unusable.

---- Mar 01, 18 [2474]
From Draak:
Tweaks and fixes to hunger and food.
Flexible weapons get more strikes than other weapons when wielded
for whirlwind attacks.
Misc code typo corrections from the typo logs.
You can no longer bundle together hides that have been partially
crafted into the leather items. (Mai)
Changes to breath damage strings.
You can now look at the ceiling, floor, ground, water, sky and a
few other keywords instead of just up or down, depending on your 
environment.
You can no longer carve while performing other tasks.

---- Feb 25, 18 [2473]
From Draak:
Minor cleanup and fixes to fishing. And a couple more fish.
Custom foraged items are automatically unhidden when foraged.
You can now call swarms of rats in sewers, and swarms of bats in catacombs.
Spellbooks will now warn players that memorizing them will cost a practice
when identified. (Fullgore)
The "heavy" weapon damage types are now officialy called "impact", since
impact was being used in all the help pages anyway.
Second half of cooking skill, allowing the cooking of recipes.

---- Feb 20, 18 [2472]
Initial changes to begin the switch away from top4 to total levels.

---- Feb 19, 18 [2470]
From Draak:
Improvements to smelling cooked meat.
Fixed bug in knapping that prevented objects from finishing.
New leathercrafted item: sandals.
Misc typo fixes and additions to the help pages.

Experimental enchant updates:
New level 24 skill 'enchant essence', which allows you to attempt to add cast
or skill level to certain items. It is currently restricted to rings and
weapons, but will be expanded to a few other slots on a class-by-class basis.

New level 24 obscure mage skill 'enchant fire'.
New level 27 obscure mage skill 'enchant lightning'.
New level 30 obscure mage skill 'enchant ice'.

---- Feb 18, 18 [2467]
From Draak:
Minor crafting tweaks and fixes.

---- Feb 17, 18 [2465]
From Shadowfax:
Fixes to crusaders.

From Draak:
Cleanup of cooking strings.
Tweaks to crafting prices for more consistent selling of crafted objects.
Butchered birds will yield tenders and fillets instead of steaks.
A small number of new fish have been added.
Rebalanced speed for some forged weapons so there are more fast options
of different damage types.
Fishing for players has been gamified, with a small number of fishing-only
commands for attracting and catching fish.

---- Feb 13, 18 [2464]
Allow list search on unlearnable spells.

---- Feb 11, 18 [2463]
Fix bug that was making broken fishing poles. (Lexie)

From Draak:
Fixed minor omission that was interfering with cooking.
New leathercrafted armor: skirts, bustiers (Lexie)

---- Feb 10, 18 [2461]
The maximum cost per practice has been raised from 60 exp caps to 80.  This
is necessary to offset the large increase in exp over the last few months.

From Draak:
When looking at a character, you will now see certain actions they
are doing, such as fishing or turning undead.
Show which skill improves when improving combat tactics. (Lokar)
Cleaned up sunder strings and tactics better-ats. (Lokar)
Added the 'appraise' command, to get a general idea of how much
composite margin a given item might have. (Jonathon)

Butchered meat, caught fish and a few forageable edibles can now be
cooked over fires. This will be the untrained portion of cooking.
Infrastructure for cooking skill, including hooks for smell and taste.

Mastercraft forged and leathercrafted armor can end up with a higher AC now.
'Forge list metal' will show what metals can be used to make, based on your
knowledge of metallurgy skills. (Lexie)
'Forge list weapons' will show a weapon's base speed, because Runner doesn't
like looking them up one by one.

---- Feb 09, 18 [2458]
Make it easier to retrain fountained grandfathered spells and skills.
Exclude unlearnable spells and skills from most mortal lookup commands.

From Draak:
Gathered wood no longer has the keyword 'firewood', as it makes it
very difficult to look at and tend to a fire. Fwood remains the 
universal keyword for gathered wood.
Fixed elusive leathercraft finish bug. (Sirand)
Shored up crafting events so Lexie doesn't drop things, leave the
room and end up with finished items, among other loopholes.
Made sure every single stinking fishable fish now has a long 
description, and added a few more for good measure.
The game should handle pricing for crafted objects better now. 
Please report any weirdness to Draak.

From Shadowfax:
Ban immortals from using clan advertise.
Fix cosmetic error that displayed 'nonexistent god' as the god of a
pantheist priest.
Make the auto command accept spaces between 'auto' and the option, such
as 'auto sac' working as well as 'autosac'.
You can use the list and help options for 'gather' and 'gather
lightcatcher' while resting. (Boa)
You cannot attempt to legendary enchant if you are below max level. (Sirand)
Allow consecration of equipment with a float flag since there
is no real way of removing it. (Jonathon/Rhorae)
Make account ignore cover channel replay when target is logged off.

Changes to 'cloak of fear':
'Cloak of fear' now only affects living creatures.
'Cloak of fear' should be vastly more effective against lower
level enemies. (Lokar)
Morale is now taken into account in the defense against 'cloak
of fear'.

Changes to 'ward evil' and 'ward good':
'Ward good' has been replaced with 'ward alignment' and allows you to cast
either good or evil wards. 
'Ward evil' has been replaced with the obscure 'petition crusader' skill.
'Ward alignment' can used to create unguents of 'ward good' or 'ward evil'.
'Bind alignment' is no longer obscure and is now dependent on 'ward
alignment'.