Server side only update Thursday November 20th 2003
Two bug fixes
- A client crash bug related to reloading has been corrected.
- A bug preventing promotions in organization has been fixed.
Update Wednesday November 19th 2003
Items
- The key to Orcra's sanctuary will no longer be deleted if attempted used on the Ocra statue.
- Hold Hell at Bay now applies its bonuses when worn.
World
- Added some missing Geosurvey Dogs to Pandemonium.
- The activation button on the portal to Pandemonium has been placed correctly.
- We've done some playfield tweaking on Pandemonium.
Sound
- Additional sound added, mainly to Pandemonium.
Technical
- Fixed two bugs that could crash the servers.
- Fixed a bug that could crash the client.
Update Wednesday November 12th 2003
Game Mechanics
- The trivial loot message will no longer be displayed. It used to be displayed every time you killed a mob that was much lower level than yourself (grey-coloured life bar), whether the system removed anything or not.
- A bug with teaming and gaining faction has been fixed. All team members should now get the correct amount of faction from a kill, as a result of the difference between their own and the enemy's faction rating.
- We have added a bonus to the Experience (XP) and Shadowknowledge (SK) rewards for killing creatures in the Shadowlands. This applies only to outdoor areas, and the limit of how much XP / SK you can get per kill is still in effect. Expect tweaks to this bonus later.
Quests
- Ergo has adjusted his requirements for letting people through to the next realm without passing the trials. If you're level 50 or above he will let you pass into Elysium without a trial. The same goes for Scheol when you're level 81 or above (will be adjusted to 80 later). The limits for Adonis and Penumbra are 130 and 160, respectively.
- Ocra's Sanctuary quest: Giving the Defiled Pattern to Ecclesiast Ocra Lux will now spawn Ocra and update the quest properly.
- Roch's Sanctuary quest: Giving the Blessed Pattern to Prophet Eckel Roch will now spawn Roch and update the quest properly.
Technical
- The "mouse syrup" fix that was introduced in the previous update is now off by default. If you noticed better performance with this turned on, note that you must turn it on each time you start the client.
- Two client crash bugs have been fixed.
Thursday November 6th 2003
Corrections and tweaks, mostly connected with Shadowlands.
Game Mechanics
- When you're about to drop an item on the ground, you'll get a pop-up box asking you whether you really want to do this. This pop-up box can be turned off in the Options menu.
- Charmed creatures should now properly hate their former enslaver when freed.
- If you were in walk mode before zoning, you will now be in walk mode, not run mode, after zoning too.
- A bug with increasing temporarily changed skills has been fixed.
- Geometry interaction has been smoothed a bit. As an example, running into 90-degree corners should no longer make you shake like a rattle.
- Fall damage has been turned off, due to the bug where you'd get fall damage while flying in a Yalmaha. When the bug has been solved, fall damage will be turned back on, so don't get too used to jumping off cliffs unharmed.
- Nano programs that were blocked due to innate resist ability will now use its recharge timer correctly. This is done to make innate resist something more than a nano pool drain for the attacker.
- A bug concerning team alpha loot mode has been fixed.
- Items and perks with Resist Nano bonus will now show correctly what kind of nano programs they give resist against.
- Lost Experience (XP) and Shadowknowledge (SK) from dying to environment damage or trap damage now go into the lost XP/SK pool.
- We have added a reload action. You'll find it in the Normal Actions menu. If you wield two firearms, using this action will reload the one with the emptiest clip percentage-wise.
- Automatic reloading now goes faster. There was a bug making the character try to attack with the weapon before recharge started.
- Kiss animations now show properly on clients without Shadowlands installed.
- Killing creatures of much lower level than yourself (grey health bar) will no longer reward you with a single point of XP or SK. It now gives nothing.
- Fixed a bug where team-mates executing team nano programs would kick you out of sneak mode.
- Updated some title level 7 title names.
Nano Programs
- Fixed some errors in the Shadowlands Bureaucrat roots. The defensive skill was meant to be 90% nano resist, not 80% nano resist + 20% of the target's level. Also fixed a situation where these roots would not actually root.
- Shadowlands Bureaucrat roots above Puissant Restrict Movement have been changed to be area of effect roots, not single target.
- Fixed a problem with the Fixer's Tap Notum Vein nano programs. They should work correctly now.
- The engineer start-up crystal Feeble Automaton can now be uploaded without raising any skills.
- Fixed a problem with Fixer Shadowland run speed buffs. They now correctly buff run speed, and provide the Fixer (and only the Fixer) with evade benefits.
Non-Player Characters (NPCs) and monsters
- We have done some changes to which nano programs are available to NPCs. This may be further tweaked later.
- Vendors in the Shadowlands have taken a course in self-control and can no longer be charmed. They have also turned pacifist and completely refuse to fight anyone.
- Some of the lower level boss mobs in the Shadowlands have found a stash of a very sought after super-implants.
- Unredeemed Celeth-El in Nascence Training Ground may improve the Bracer of Jobe that Drake Rodriguez gives to new arrivals in Jobe.
- A lot of monsters in the Shadowlands are no longer completely pulverized but some salvageable remnants of their bodies may be left on the corpses.
- Panicking no longer gives creatures the ability to vanish by running into walls.
- Creatures that haven't seen action in a while and are bored will not liven up a bit faster when attacked.
Quests
- A bug where quests requiring you to return an item to an NPC might not resolve properly has been fixed. This should help with getting the Brink quest from Professor Drake Rodriques, and the sanctuary quests.
- Some quests with outdoor locations will now have a guiding destination point.
- The Bracer of Jobe is no longer required to start the quests in Nascense.
- The Scheol Sanctuary quest should be working as intended now. The device you were supposed to find in one of the sub quests is now placed in Scheol.
- Prophet Man Dal now returns the "note" as part of the Adonis Unredeemed Garden quest.
- Cama and Vanya now hand out QL 210 blueprints instead of QL 220. They also require a different item from you to do so.
World Design
- Several new entry and exit points for gardens and sanctuaries have been added to the lower-level playfields in Shadowlands.
- Characters above level 50 are now denied entrance to the training and testing facilities in Jobe Research.
- Due to an exploit, Beacon Warping into the Temple of Three Winds has been disabled.
- Forced scanning when you enter gardens or sanctuaries has been removed. You will now be teleported to a spot beside the scan location instead of on top of it.
Pets
- Pets now report when they take damage from the environment.
Interaction
- We have made a new chat channel called "Tower Battle Outcome". This is for information only, not talking, and will report the result of land control battles.
Items
- Backpacks and other containers in your inventory should now be more cooperative when it comes to opening them.
- A bug where some armour types would look different on other clients after zoning has been corrected.
- You'll now find some more weapons using the "Sharp Objects" skill (Throwing weapons).
- Notum Threaded Backpack now has a proper icon.
- The containers with application forms now exist to quality level 201, making it possible for level 200 characters to fond some they can actually use.
- If you were dependant on other equipped items to meet the requirements, Gunner's Cap would stop working after zoning. This has now been fixed.
- Jumping just when equipping your Yalmaha will no longer render you unable to fly.
- Some pistols were given lower multi-wield requirements some time back. This was not intended, and those that got too low requirements have had this corrected now.
- The Pads of Dedication now show the correct requirements again.
- Clan and Omni application forms have been removed from Omni and Clan start-up shops - as a step to prevent new players from accidentally switching sides. Sided guards don't usually salute players changing sides in front of their eyes.
- Fixed a bug with the Poliziotto pistol that caused its bonus to appear as gone after zoning.
- You will now be able to use the Aban garden key on Shining Redeemed Statue of Transit to get transported to the Garden of Aban.
Trade skills
- Numerous gems found in the Shadowlands can now be cut and polished and set into filigree gems. These will not only sell for a nice amount of cash, but also give minor stat bonuses if worn.
- Traders now have an extra use for screwdrivers.
- Fixed a problem where some Arul Saba bracelets had a level requirement of 300. These specific types of bracers are the weak version of the Arul Saba bracelets, and do not increase in power past the Arbiter Gem. Although it is possible to make bracelet with all 5 gems in these lines, they do not increase in power, so using a single gem bracer is best for these gems (using other blueprints is just a waste of money). The following Arul Saba gems are the weak variety and don't increase in power: Insidious Killer, Decayed Glory, Scarlet Sky, Craggy Landscape, Icy Tundra, Empty Desert, Fiery Plasma, Novice Brawler, Broken Moebius and Frail Juggernaut.
- We have lowered the requirements on all blueprint trade skill processes slightly.
Perks
- Perk specials that are recharging will now stay greyed out after zoning.
- Enhanced Nano Damage perk line now correctly increases your max nano pool.
- The Soothing Spirit perk line now contains 2 specials: Spirit of Blessing and Spirit of Purity. Spirit of Blessing is a team heal, while Spirit of Purity is a team nano pool recharge. They get more powerful the more perks in the line you have trained.
- The Limber and Dance of Fools specials now stack, rather than overwriting each other, as intended. Limber and Dance of fools now buff all evades as was intended.
- The Heal special ability in the First Aid perk line has been increased in power.
- Several perks specials have had their description updated to reflect their correct recharge timer.
- The execution bar for perk specials should no longer get stuck on the screen.
- Perk specials that can only be used on yourself should no longer require you to target yourself.
- Fixed an error in the Outdoorsman perk line. The Stoneworks special ability was supposed to be enabled from the third perk in the line, not the second. This is why the Stoneworks ability had the requirement that you need the third perk trained to be able to use. The Stoneworks special ability will not correctly be given from the third perk and not the second.
- Battle Group Heals now have 10 minute recharge, as they were supposed to.
Sound
- Some of the Shadowlands districts were supposed to play no music. This caused the previously played music to continue to play there. This is fixed now.
- Shadowlands combat music should no longer be played on Rubi-Ka.
Technical
- The profession of Keeper and Shade characters is now shown in the launcher.
- An error with feedback when attempting to equip items not usable by Shades has been removed.
- We've done some tweaks to the client's memory management.
- Rumour has it that we've actually fixed the age-old visual bug with male Opifex cloaks. Wearing a cloak will no longer misalign your head.
- WaitForVerticalSync option is default off.
- A new fix for mouse syrup (slow moving mouse) has been added. The previous fix we took out had a hardcoded 0 frames pre-rendering limit. This lowered framerate more than it really needed to. This new fix will set a 1 frame pre-rendering limit. The result is that mouse syrup problems should be history. The impact this have on framerate should be small. This problem happens on a lot of hardware and is thus hard to test internally. We have added an option you can use to turn off the fix if you believe that the fix ruins your framerate. You do this by pressing SHIFT + ALT + W at the same time. Your chat view will then display a message that says whether the fix is turned off or on. The hotkey state is not saved when you log out so the fix will be active next time you log in.
- Not really part of the build, but we changed the setup on a switch on the Atlantean dimension to hopefully stop the "Player already logged in" error when going through character generation.