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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---- Mar 29, 20 [2741]
From Draak:
The Arkug (plant/tree), Plat (earth), Stal (stone) and Rava (blood) runes
can now be channel cast.
Changes in how Stis (intelligence) channel casting works.
Added an 'all -force' option to bank deposit and bank withdrawl.
Shellcrafter armor can be twice as heavy as leathercrafter armor.
Dragonscale armor can be three times as heavy (up from 2.5x).
New wickercraft item: dreamcatcher (wand of featherfall)
Leathercrafted items will no longer have adjectives by default.
The special adjectives can still show up in restrings.
Tweaks to how exp from boons is handled.
Fix meele targeting bug.
Critical abilities can be practiced without a teacher. (Lokar)

Terrain, combined with knowledge of orienteering skills, now has a minor
effect on hiding effectiveness. For example, if you know forest
navigation, you are now slightly better at hiding in places with trees.

---- Mar 22, 20 [2739]
Minor fixes to combat patterns / tactics.
Fixed arena mob bug with area attacks.
Fixed bug with bloom and minions.
Survey is no longer dependent on searching.

---- Mar 21, 20 [2738]
From Draak:
Create water is now useless underwater, as it should be. (Rafa)
Fished out an odd bug with inlay runes making forged weapon pieces
unusable for finished weapons. (Shadowpates)
The survey skill is now classless and the foundation of the newly
formed Orienteering skillgroup.

New level 38 mage spell - blaze, a fast-casting, low cost fire spell
that works in concert with fireweb.

The level 17 druid skill 'know territory' is now the level 17 druid
spell 'bloom'. This spell uses gathered seeds and nuts to speed the
regeneration of plant-based creatures. The functionality of know
territory is largely folded into animal lore, in conjunction with
survey.

From Shadowfax:
News is now available on the live game info webpage.
Allow certain general and system-generated sends to be replayed on user
channels such as auction, arena and event. (Lexie)
Remove double send of event announcements.

---- Mar 16, 20 [2737]
From Draak:
Fixed conflict with cleave/whirlwind targeting and shadow decoy.
Fixed PK bug with cleave.
Fixed leathercraft weapon weight issue. (Taurus)
Woodcrafted objects will no longer have an adjective. Crafting
adjectives will still appear on restring sometimes.

---- Mar 15, 20 [2734]
From Draak:
You can now designate a target with cleave. (Clogger)
Whirlwind does not make sense to have a target and will not be changed.
Fix bug with crafting overweight leather weapons. (Barons)

Credit buy famehint should no longer show mobs from OFFLINE status areas.
You can no longer direct your minions to consume corpses of mobs recently
killed by someone else. (Ciella)

Leathercraft, woodcraft and lapidary now have a 'custom' option. This
is used on specific items that builders have defined. You may see custom
craftable items using the check option for the various crafts and with
identify.  (Morpheus)

From Shadowfax:
Broadcast later stages of fishing derby to the event channel instead of
using system sends.  Also send updates about the current derby frontrunner.

---- Mar 08, 20 [2732]
From Draak:
Channel casting mana increase lowered very slightly.
New leathercrafted weapon: quirt (a short, fast whip)
Bug with metallurgy weapons not setting special metal qualities fixed.
Fix PK bug in static blast.
Survey now notes the presence of trails, roads and the elevation of exits.

The landmark option has been taken out of survey and made its own command.
Use 'set landmark' to set up landmarks.  They last a bit longer, but the
number you can have at once is still linked to your intelligence.

Know territory has been deprecated and will soon be replaced with
something more useful.  The functionality of know territory has been
subsumed into animal lore.

Metallurgy, leathercraft and woodcraft now use a unified routine for
determining the weight of finished weapons.  It should be quite difficult
to make weapons too heavy for you to wield, and the range of weapon
weights should be wider.

From Shadowfax:
Make jobgivers recognize forged and crafted items with names that match
exactly what they're looking for. (Runner)
You should be able to switch skirmish targets with impunity so long as
you remain hidden. (Ciella)
Your maximum carried reduced antidotes is now based on your thief level
and skill knowledge. (Ivey)
Revised and added rules to sections 4 and 5.
The efficacy of reduced antidotes now scales with thief level.

Mobs that are under attack and cannot see a player tank because that
player is hidden or otherwise can't be seen by the mob will use special
attacks against that target the tank less often, with the expection of
any mob specifically designed to circumvent the inability to see the
target. (Onunku)

---- Feb 23, 20 [2730]
From Draak:
Hopefully fixed an issue with pk arena mobs. (Morpheus)
The quest command should now recognize Gianasi as a valid target, as
well as accept more arguments for continent names. (Kliro)

---- Feb 22, 20 [2728]
From Draak:
Fiddling with skirmish again. It should be less reluctant to relinquish
targeting when you or the target are not in the same room. (Ciella)

Changes to fame calculations, to exclude fame from unopened areas. We
have gone through many old zones and grandfathered them to open status,
but players may still lose a few fame.  We are trying to keep this to
the absolute minimum, so if you lose more than a few dozen fame, please
let us know.

---- Feb 15, 20 [2727]
From Draak:
Adding silver or sky iron-based spikes or studs to leathercrafted weapons
should now add the special properties of those metals. (Onunku)
Leathercrafted weapons now have a broader range of weights.
Total global fame now shows up in some places, such as 'show fame'.
New channel moderator command: moderate channelwarn, for when you need to
tell an entire channel to stop acting like twinks.
Credit buy famehint, for helping find those last few fame mobs you're
having trouble hunting down. (A bunch of people)

The undead scourge, devil ill and angel ravage unguents can now be applied
to weapons or ammunition of equal or lesser level.  This gives the item a
short-term bane specp against undead, demons and angels, respectively.

---- Feb 10, 20 [2725]
From Draak:
Recast no longer functions for magical imprisoned characters. (Theo)

Changes to warrior combos:
Shield slam and knife throwing will not be put in the same combo.
Bloodletting stab and shadow strike will no longer be put in the same
combo as groundstrike. (Aaken)

---- Feb 01, 20 [2723]
From Draak:
Participating in special weekly events such as humpday and fishing derbies
can grant limited unique boons.
Obscure skill 'forge nihonto' raised from level 33 to level 35.
Keep-flagged objects can no longer be thrown. (Barons)
Tweaks to social reactions from mobs, including fixing false positives and
setting a slight delay on their reactions.

---- Jan 26, 20 [2721]
From Draak:
Belt buckles should properly add capacity to worn containters.
You can powder ores up to 20 pounds instead of 10.
Reagent lore is now a classless skill with bottling as a prerequisite.
Supply crates now cost 50 credits, down from 100, and should yield
better results.
Fixed bug with inlay rune that allowed inlaying runes on magic, shadow and
other inappropriate compositions.

Mob socials reactions going online. Animals will react to certain socials
that are hostile or annoying. Intelligent humanoids will briefly remember
people who annoy them but also respond to friendly gestures.
Socials will NOT trigger mob aggressiveness, but they may not want to talk
or socialize with you for a short time.  You can see if a mob is annoyed
with you by looking at them.
FYI Draak is setting flags on all socials so they will trigger appropriate
behavior. This will also include setting off touch dprocs, so careful
caressing and licking stuff.

Inlaying metal has been folded into jewelrysmithing.
The non-classed level 17 skill 'inlay metal' is now the level 24 druid
skill 'inlay rune', which allows runes to be added to metal objects at
forges for a small fee.

---- Jan 11, 20 [2719]
From Draak:
Additional granularity added to appraising weapon. (Onunku)
Nomelee will be toggled off when restarting from now on. (Mavrik)
Some brewing colors have been changed to prevent grammar issues such as:
'Your brew turns to a orange liquid, and is complete'. (Dizzy)
Improvements to fish tournament data tracking.
The effects of being feinted will now last a little longer.
Flourish should do somewhat more damage when an enemy is not heavily
demoralized.
Various steal skills restricted on newbie islands for high levels.

Added a lower level limit to areas from which object fetch quests draw
from, to prevent newbie starter equipment from showing up on Sloe
quest givers. (Avilyn)

Certain shopkeepers will be given the ability to improve weapons and ammo
with the 'buy service <object> damage' command.  Purchasing this will add
damroll (or sometimes hitroll) for a modest fee. This cannot push weapons
over composite and can only be used a limited number of times per object.

---- Jan 02, 20 [2717]
We've added real-life object timers to deal with server lag due to item
hoarding.  Right now there's about a dozen items on the 'extreme hoarding'
list, and when those are logged in they'll get a six month timer in which
they must be used.  When the timer expires, the item becomes nosave.
It'll take a few months for this to work its way through the system and
clean things up, but it's better than just deleting everything up front.
We'll be hitting other objects over time as we notice problems, but this
should take care of the worst of it.

From Draak:
Fixed weird dazing bug in color spray. (Sirand)
Shored up tailoring parser.
You can now catch bigger fish in rivers.
Inoxium is now faster than sky iron, paralleling starmetal, which is slower.
The 'forge list metal' command now shows relative speeds of metals.
The keyword 'smetal' added to forged ingots.
Fixed some logical inconsistencies with certain crafted weapons and guards.
Use unified targeting routines for most thief and warrior skills for
more consistent behavior. (Onunku)
Feint no longer works on creatures that can't see you or are mortally
wounded. (Lokar)
Sea encounters should no longer happen in ports.
The bribe skill is now obscure.

Added more diversity to the compositions of corpses from different types
of mobs. Corpse eaters will be more discerning and only eat fleshly
objects. (Morpheus)

Creatures of the ICE type are no longer immune to the necromancer spells
Tarrant's spectral hand and spectral claw. They take half damage instead.
This should help low and mid-level necromancers be more effective against
ice mobs. (Morpheus)

---- Dec 14, 19 [2714]
From Draak:
Sifted through the brew code to isolate a probable bug that was causing
lightning flash to be brewable. (Onunku)
Amounts needed for gather food jobs lowered, and a cap placed on ammo jobs.
If you know demon lore and corpsecutter, the bodies of demons and angels
can yield unique spell components.
Bane specps should now be effective on equipment worn on hands, feet and
as shields with appropriate attacks.

Demon lore has been moved to level 13 and made critical.
Demonic tutor is now dependent on demon lore.
These two changes resolve our final exigency conflict, where
an important or critical spell was dependent upon a skill of
lesser exigency. It also makes demonic tutor far more accessible
for necromancers that don't wish to focus heavily on demonology.

---- Dec 07, 19 [2712]
From Draak:
Tweaks to fishing derbies, including a cooldown for winners to give
others a chance to win.
Fixed issue with giving food to called druidic animals.
Brag/Show object will now show spell/skills on consumables such potions,
scrolls, spell books, staffs and wands.

---- Dec 01, 19 [2710]
From Draak:
Fixed bug with metallurgy armor and woodcrafted tower shields not beingi
given ac properly. (Onunku)
Tweaked stat distribution when adding spikes and studs to armor.
You can now designate an amount you want to split metal ingots
into via 'forge divide <metal> [weight]'. (Shryth)

The forged mastercraft achievement has been changed so that all crafting
skills that can produce mastecrafts are eligible. It also is on a slight
delay now to reduce spam.

Added 'credit buy metalcrate' and 'credit buy brewcrate', for buying metal
supply crates and brewing supply crates, respectively.  A metal supply
crate contains a modest amount of metal bars and ingots for forging,
while a brewing supply crate contains a batch of spellcomps and/or herbs
appropriate for your level.  Each crate costs 100 credits, but there is
also a low chance for them to be daily gifts.

---- Nov 24, 19 [2708]
From Shadowfax:
Using the 'jobs find' category parameter will reveal the exactly job type
the jobgiver offers, namely, 'jobs find retrieval', 'jobs find hunter',
'jobs find delivery' and 'jobs find gatherer'. (Runner)
Some job titles have been updated to be more specific.

From Draak:
A fishing derby will attempt to crown a runner-up if the winner
leaves the game (thus forfeiting the derby).
Resolved conflict with shellcraft that was preventing dragonscale armor
from working.
If you know shellcraft, you can craft certain antlers, horns, ivory and
tusks into weapon grips.

You can now label consumable items such as ammo, potions and
scrolls without using a profession point.
Added more keywords to craft label.

Fished a bug out of fishing that inverted the relationship between
reeling in fish and nibbler interest. To compensate, fishing is now
slightly faster.

---- Nov 17, 19 [2707]
From Shadowfax:
Prevent 'lethal when undressed' achievements in pk arenas.
Fix job info when trying to display a job that you don't currently have.
More job efficiency updates to speed up job construction and reduce lag.

From Draak:
Fishing while untrained made more effective, but not that much.
New heraldry types:
patridge, hen, calling bird, milkmaid, lady, lord, piper, drummer
New leathercrafted item: armbands
Checking an ore will give an approximate yield, and also let you know if
there is not enough to smelt.
New brew only spells: harden leather and seal leather.

Shellcraft split off from leathercraft skill. Harvested shells will have
heavier AC than the current version, and different saving throws than
dragonscale armor.

Fishing derby testing code is in place for some dry runs. Draak will
announce when they are ahead of time. Expect automatic fishing derbies
on Fridays in the near future.

---- Nov 12, 19 [2706]
Try to fix up lag issues caused by jobs.

From Shadowfax:
Cut back the chance of receiving an almoner job.  Note that almoner is the
default priest job.  If you're randomly selected for another kind of job
that you don't qualify for, you'll likely be assigned an almoner job.


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