Game Updates October 16,2007

1. Ksaravi Gulch

The low to high teens adventuring area of Ksaravi Gulch in Qalia has been revamped. It now features new group and solo content, with many quest lines for either type of player as well as an enhanced storyline, additional items and the chance to fly into battle on an elite back wyvern mount.
3 all new solo quest lines offering 20 new quests
12 group quests in an exciting new group quest line
Fly into battle on an elite black wyvern
All-new rewards, like Coronarian Gloves and Ice Ember poison

2. Guild Hall Trophies

The Guild Hall Trophy item can now be placed in a house or any Guild Headquarters. The buff from the trophy will be shared by all guild members that are online. There will be three trophies to choose from (one for each of Vanguard’s icon characters).
The Guild Hall Trophy can only be picked up by the person who placed it.

3. Player Housing / Guild Housing

All player housing areas should have a crafting center within one chunk's distance. You will find crafting trainers, vendors, taskmasters, and stations. In addition, a few select areas (including all of the islands) have had flying mount renters added.

In addition to that, Guildhall adventuring drops should now be much easier to obtain. Mnalus Fungus will now rarely drop off most mobs in Lair of the Mnalus. Mummy Dust will now rarely drop off most mobs in Nusibe. Fiend Blood will now rarely drop off most mobs in Rhaz Inkur.

4. Optimizations / Bug Fixes

Fixing bugs and optimizing the game have been a big priority for us. We’ve put in fixes for over a dozen high-profile client crash fixes as well as hundreds of bugs. We’ve fixed a major memory leak and even made some sound optimizations. On the whole, a lot of players’ performance should improve with this patch.

With this patch, we’re also laying the groundwork to start implementing optimized NPC models. You should see them start showing up in the near future (likely in Qalia first).

5. Spam Filter

Ask, and you shall receive! It's been in the works for quite some time, but Game Update 3 unleashes the code that should help eliminate a lot of the spam you may receive in-game. The code works similarly to those featured in other SOE games, in that it automatically filters messages flagged as spam, and reports them to Customer Service.

6. Patch Notes

GAMEPLAY
GENERAL
- You can now request that your character be copied (not moved, just copied) to the test server by using the new /copycharacter command. This command toggles your request to be copied on and off. Please type, "/help copycharacter" for more info.
- You may no longer hit yourself with targeted AEs.
- The LFG flag will now default to off if not found in the settings file.
- Brokers - The maximum items that a player may have on the broker has been increased to 15. This change was made due to player feedback. Rejoice!
- To avoid conflict with a diplomacy title, the Squire title given by the Title Commissioner has been replaced with Attendant.
-You can now swap items in your bank, even if the bank is full.
- Players' Locations for Renton Keep are now categorized correctly.
- Items that are not stacks no longer bring up the stack "Split" window, they just get dragged as if you didn't hold down a key to try to split them.
- Holding down the CTRL key and dragging on a stacked item will now pull one off the stack instead of bringing up the "Split" window. You can still bring up the "Split" window to split a stack of items, but you now hold down the SHIFT key while dragging the item instead of CTRL like you used to. This was changed to make it a bit more consistent with how other games work, so it is a bit less confusing to new players.
- Hobgoblin eyes, claws, and belts are no longer considered valuable on Telon. However, hobgoblin trinkets, pants, and chests can be sold for a decent price.
- The edit box for the various "Split" windows should now work properly.
- Right-clicking and holding (dragging) in the main/text area of the chat window will no longer drag the chat window, it will allow mouselook instead. This should greatly reduce accidentally dragging the chat window when you really just wanted to start mouselooking.
- You should now get a feather fall type buff applied to you anytime you get dismounted from a flying mount, unless you are only a few meters from the ground when you get dismounted. This includes crashing while on a flying mount, so the days of falling to your death because you lost your flying mount should be over.
- All player housing areas should have a crafting center within one chunk's distance. You will find crafting trainers, vendors, taskmasters, and stations. In addition, a few select areas (including all of the islands) have had flying mount renters added.
- Some NPCs have learned how to see through stealth, beware! Please also note that this change does not affect stalking.
- Guildhall adventuring drops should now be much easier to obtain. Mnalus Fungus will now rarely drop off most mobs in Lair of the Mnalus. Mummy Dust will now rarely drop off most mobs in Nusibe. Fiend Blood will now rarely drop off most mobs in Rhaz Inkur.

ADVENTURING

- Detaunts - Increased flat detaunts across the board by 100%.
- Healers - Healing Dispersion has been adjusted. The base heal has been reduced significantly bringing it more in line with its intended values.
- Bard - Fix for Bard songs remaining on all players even after the Bard leaves the group
- Bard - Fasant's Segue of Sundering now reduced target strength by 13.
- Bard - Fasant's Hymn of Frailty now reduces target strength by 6-8.
- Bard - Cirel's Healing Harmony now costs 6 energy per second and caps out at 7 points of healing.
- Bard - Cirel's Tranquil Tune now cost 5 energy per second and restores 25-28 hit points and 15-18 energy.
- Bard - Cirel's Rhythm of Renewal now costs 5 energy per second and caps out at 40 points of healing.
- Bard – Cirel’s Phrase of Renewal now costs 8 energy per second and caps out at 10 points of healing.
- Bard - Lowered the refresh of Lightning Kisses the Ground to 30 seconds, to better match the rest of the attack chain
- Bard - Shatter the Mountain now only causes critical vulnerability for 1 second.
- Bard - Bards may no longer start a song while invulnerable.
- Bard - Bard songs will now only display the effects that are active on a given target.
- Bard - Fix for bards being able to DoT players who had the 30 second PvP immunity upon death.
- Bard - AE components, such as Cirel's Tranquil Tune, will now affect only nearby raid members. This change greatly improves performance for everyone.
- Blood Mage - Increased the energy cost of Entwining Vein
- Blood Mage - Increased the range of Cerebral Graft to 25m.
- Blood Mage - Mental Transmutation is no longer % based. It now has flat costs and returns
- Disciple - Lowered the END drain portion of the Gift of Vitae bond
- Disciple - Bonds are no longer toggled
- Disciple - Bonds no longer have a limit per target
- Disciple - Removed overall bond limit
- Disciple - Increased all Bond costs to 3 Jin.
- Disciple - Increased the detaunt portion of Soul Cutter.
- Disciple - Increased the taunt portion of the Baiting Strike line.
- Druid – Fireseeds now display damage in the ability tooltip.
- Druid – Increased the damage of Fireseeds.
- Druid – Lowered the cost of Roseberries.
- Druid – Increased the stack size of Mottleberries, Roseberries and Fireseeds to 10.
- Monk - Harmonious Body form now works as intended.
- Monk - Significantly increased the damage on Palm Explodes the Heart and added a damage over time component.
- Monk - Significantly increased the damage on Hammer Fist and added an stun component.
- Monk - Significantly increased the damage on Three Finger Strike and added an avoidance debuff component.
- Necromancer - Added new grafts to graft necropsy tables
- Necromancer – Increased chances of getting grafts when Necropsy is used.
- Necromancer - Increased minion hit points.
- Necromancer - The Skin of Xakrin now works correctly and has had its description
- Necromancer - Your Well and Font spells have been renamed. The new name more closely matches what is created by the spell.
- Necromancer - Dragging an equipped pet graft onto another item in your inventory now gives an error message instead of overwriting the item (which made that item appear to be lost).
- Paladin - Made your "Foeman" abilities now usable outside of combat, similar to the way the Dread Knights Bleak Foeman functions.
- Paladin - The block % of your "Foeman" abilities have been increased to the level of the Dread Knights.
- Psionicist - The higher levels of Simulacrum should now be more capable of keeping your opponents attention.
- Psionicist - Temporal Shift no longer stops your auto attack.
- Ranger - Added text feedback and cast phase animation to Nature's Remedy.
- Ranger - Increased the range of Nature's Remedy to 25m.
- Ranger - Feral Strike now lasts for 5 hits instead of 5 attacks
- Ranger - Your default style is now offensive. Whenever you log in you will automatically use this style.
- Rogue - Lethal Strikes has been added to trainers starting at level 6
- Rogue - Flee has been added to trainers at level 20.
- Rogue - Reduced the refresh timer of Escape to 5 minutes.
- Rogue - Refresh timer on Quickblade has been reduced to 4 minutes.
- Rogue - Refresh timer on Relentless has been reduced to 5 minutes.
- Rogue - Elusive Mark now increases parry chance instead of evasion. This results in the same amount of total evasion ability with the added bonus of increased counter attacks. Also reduced the refresh time to 60 seconds.
- Shaman - The buffs gained from your patron forms will no longer stop working after being in the form for an hour.
- Shaman - Fiery Quills now does the correct amount of damage at all levels.
- Shaman - Wings of Hayatet III will now stack properly when bonded to Nag-Suul.
- Shaman - Attendant of Rakurr now attacks every 2 seconds instead of every 1 second. Damage and aggro generation have been increased to match the new, slower attack speed.
- Shaman - Scent of Blood is now instant cast. This should alleviate any activation issues.
- Shaman - Tearing Claw, Vicious Bite and Hamstring will now open Fist of the Earth on a critical hit.
- Shaman - Maim will now deal double damage against an opponent suffering from the flesh rend weakness.
- Shaman - Avatar of the Phoenix now displays the correct healing amount.
- Shaman - Bloody Fang now removes the Bitten weakness to maintain consistency with the Weakness System.
- Shaman - Purging Flames should now function correctly
- Warrior - Made your "Foeman" abilities now usable outside of combat, similar to the way the Dread Knights Bleak Foeman functions.
- Warrior - The block % of your "Foeman" abilities have been increased to the level of the Dread Knights.

CRAFTING

- A few obsolete items have been removed from the outpost crafting merchant list.
- The outpost in Varryn Dunes should now give rest experience.
- Mortar and mortar components are now set to Grade A. This should solve any assembly issues.
- Qalian and Thestran guild house windows are now available for purchase on merchants.
- The tutorial quest rewards "improved tools" have had their levels lowered so they can be equipped by crafters at Level 2.
- Fixed lots of typos in crafting actions, recipes and crafting quests.
- Actions that say "Treatment" now actually use treatment.
- A bug with the Dawn's Sign quest recipes for artificers has been fixed.
- Many merchants in housing plot areas now offer banking services.
- All community crafting areas near house plots will grant faction bonuses upon successful work order completion much like other outposts.
- An error with faction gain bonuses for work orders at Grade C has been corrected.
- You can now properly turn in the finished products for the gilded coffers work order.
- Focusing Crystals of Countering descriptions have been fixed. Stone Support was actually supposed to say metal grip

DIPLOMACY

- The Civic Diplomacy radius of Leth Nurae has been expanded to encompass a number of NPCs that were available for Civic parleys but not able to manipulate the levers. These NPCs are: Celestial Lion Orilana, Votary Unalu, Starseer Darniel, Silver Crescent Belaris, Adept Tiyun, Apprentice Anderion, Adept Theric, Adept Silareth, Adept Eldamar, Adept Sulhin.
- The Informant loot tables for tier 1 Blackmail (all types) and tier 2 Blackmail hearsay have been improved to drop multiples of the same loot item rather than 1.
- All four tiers of Informants and all 3 types of Information now have at least some chance of dropping one or more baubles of appropriate tier to the tier of the information (tier 1 information = prestigious baubles, tier 2 = prestigious and shiny prestigious baubles, tier 3 = shiny and radiant prestigious baubles, tier 4 = radiant prestigious baubles). Drop rates vary based on type of information, continent, and the quality of the information.
- It is now possible to purchase House Thistle Fencing Gloves. Jam will no longer withhold his goods!
- Bartenders across Telon now have the four new newbie line comments in their loot tables. Only tier 1 and 2 parleys will yield these comments, with tier 1 having the highest drop rate. Unlike the cards in the newbie line, these cards are not soulbound and thus tradable.
- Diplomacy expendables (kini verse, phlactery of maroj, Macken's Wisdom, etc.) are no longer BOE.
- A number of Hai Fang Su Li's rare tier 4 Diplomacy clothing are now correctly named after that aspect of Gloriann from the incorrect name of Beiganan.
- A number of Sihari's rare tier 4 Diplomacy clothing are now correctly named after the storm goddess. Boy was she mad that the trade god Beiganan had his name on her stuff!
- Newbie lines have new comment cards placed on them so you will no longer be able to select a comment card you cannot use. These are identical clones of existing newbie comments you receive based on your Adventuring class.
- Bartenders now give out a variety of baubles depending on tier, including the new Radiant and Exquisite Prestigious baubles.
- In the Ca'ial Brael writ "Cut Down the Ra'Jin" you should no longer be able to use the Yukionna Rod on the Yukionna until the proper time, and you cannot talk to Governor Jalixfin or General Zewg until you have used the rod on the Yukionna.
- Bartender parleys have had their prereqs altered to make them display more logically and to prevent overlap.
- Diplomacy "Land" objects (acquired from Noble Houses in New Targonor) now fit in Diplomacy containers.
- All Diplomacy Neck items now will fit in Diplomacy containers (like the valise or hold-all).
- Drop rates for Evidence in high in-tier Civic parleys have been increased by 40% above it's original drop rate.
- NPCs in Civic Diplomacy should no longer belong to overlapping loot tables for Information, especially NPCs of levels 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50.
- Tier 4 Diplomacy Information turn-ins now can give "Radiant Prestigious Baubles." These baubles, when right-clicked, give 10 Prestige faction for the area and devolve into a Shiny Prestigious Bauble.
- Some New Targonor Diplomacy House quests have had their rewards altered to account for the new Bursars for each House.
- The shiny prestigious bauble requirement in all 3 Diplomacy guild hall quests has been reduced from 75 to 50.
- House Bursars will no longer attempt to hawk titles to players, which they have already purchased.
- Rank Dealings in Veskal's Exchange no longer requires Merchant Presence to complete. Ramoak the vendor has taken holy vows and is now a Clergy.
- The missing nine NPC race-specific Diplomacy cards have been found and stuck to the proper NPCs. Let the hunt continue!
- Diplomacy cards now drop from appropriate NPCs up to NPC level 60.
- Diplomacy cards will no longer drop from level 1-4 NPCs throughout Telon.
- Bartender parleys across Telon now have a small chance of dropping Adventuring loot, including rare Adventuring items. These items are drawn from the common World Loot tables.
- Tier 2 Diplomacy valises (28 slot) are now available from Chancellor Dagnol Granitefist in Bordinar's Cleft, Chancellor Cirfalin Onios in Leth Nurae, and His Elegance, Raoul in New Targonor for 250 of the appropriate type of Prestige faction.
- NPC racial cards attached to sentient mobs now drop at a rate dependent on the number of dots on the mob.
- By overwhelming popular request, level 50 Bartender Parleys have been added to all Bartenders.
- Level 30 Bartender parleys are now correctly set to level 30 again.
- Level 20 Qalian Bartender parleys are now correctly set to level 20 again.
- Bartender loot tables have been corrected to prevent overlap (and the giving of rewards below your tier!)
- Kojani Bartender parleys now will correctly give out Prestige Faction again.
- Level 5-60 Ghosts and Cartheon Zombies (upright zombies) no longer drop "Words of the Dead" - they drop a new card instead.
- NPCs of the zombie race from levels 35-60 drop Words of the Dead - lower level zombies no longer do. This does not apply to upright zombies from Cartheon.

ITEMS

- Eye of Zukayr is no longer deconstructable.
- Mask of the Feral Warrior is now Bind on Equip and no longer Sellable
- The Sun Strike of Vol Anari and the Moon Strike of Vol Tuniel have had their statistics increased. The ultra rare version has received a minor upgrade while the legendary versions have received a larger upgrade. All of these items may now stack up to 200 per lot.

WORLD POPULATION

- Flordiel - Issues with various armor quest drops in Flordiel have been addressed.
- Ichtaka - Issues with various armor quest drops in Ichtaka have been addressed.
- Mekalia - The Saddlebag and horseshoe vendors in Skyside Bunker sold their wares to Olinard, who now sells all Horse Accessories in Mekalia. The Constables have been informed of the update.
- Mekalia - The Regular, Expert, and Master horse vendors have moved from Skyside Bunker into Mekalia to escape General Ulaben's agent. The Constables have been updated with their new locations.
- NPCs - High Justice Sadantel Seniaqo has returned to the Lucent Outpost and is once again recruiting high level adventurers to fight against the Tehatamani Empire.
- Quest: Controlling the Situation - The amount of dusts required has been increased, and the drop rate has been increased as well.
- Vsurog Moor - Tishra should now reset properly after being killed.
- Vsurog Moor - Issues with various armor quest drops in Vsurog Moor have been addressed.
- Ksaravi Gulch - In the war between Khal and the Ksaravi, it has become apparent to both sides that force of arms is not enough. To this end, the Ksaravi have turned to the creation of vile magical toxins and diseases with which they plan to afflict the good people of Khal. In the aftermath, they intend to claim the city as their own. In order to put an end to the Ksaravi taint, you will need the aid of Curate Sabha and Brumdul Svat, priests of the White Coronaria, a sect that worships Sahari Jeddai, the Qaliathari aspect of Gloriann. Fighting into the gulch is not an easy affair, even with the magic of the White Coronaria, and time is of the essence. Yet, hope rides on black wings, and Captain Venir Isthir of the elite Black Wyvern Riders offers an answer. By working with the Black Wyvern Riders, you can gain access to a temporary wyvern mount that will allow you to conduct your swift raids in the Ksaravi Gulch and put the Ksaravi back on the defensive.
- 3 all new solo quest lines offering 20 new quests
- 12 group quests in an exciting new group quest line
- Fly into battle on an elite black wyvern
- All-new rewards, like Coronarian Gloves and Ice Ember poison

CODING

GENERAL

- Fix for a memory leak that had been affecting many players
- Guilds are now able to mark themselves as recruiting new members, add a description of their guild, and mark members as guild recruiters. Players that want to find a guild to join can look through the list of guilds that are recruiting in the new "Guilds LFM" tab within the "Guild" tab of the social window. Clicking on a guild in the list to the left of this new tab will show the selected guild's description and a list of recruiters from that guild which can be contacted for more info about the guild.
- PVP: New resist system for detrimental utility spells (Roots, stuns, snares, mezzes, debuffs)! Resistances matter much more now, and utility spells will be resisted more frequently, especially against players with high resists. Damaging spells still use the old resist formulas.
- Fix for a bug that enabled some players to level to 51
- Fix for another crash issue
- Several performance enhancements have been added to increase frame rate in crowded areas
- Fixed an issue where you could go over the 30plat cap when trading if you had money in the bank resulting in losing money the next time you looted something.
- Fixed an issue with the Last Online time being incorrect on the friends window.
- You can no longer receive group or brotherhood invites from someone on your ignore list.
- You will now see loot links when you loot an item, and when a loot master gives loot to another player.
- You will now always see when a group member loots an item even if they are far away.
- Fixed some issues with NPC hate lists that would cause a person who had lower health to generate large amounts of hate.
- Made it so for every meter a player is away from a target, they will now generate ½% less hate up to 20% for all damage done.
- You will no longer be able to /giveplayerloot someone an item from a raid NPC who wasn’t part of the raid battle.
- You can now swap equipped items with items in your inventory (or bags) even if your inventory and bags are full, provided it is a one for one swap and doesn't require removing two equipped items (such as swapping out sword and shield for a two handed weapon).
- Diplomacy cards should no longer always show as unusable when in your inventory.
- Made further adjustments to help with the display of invisible items in guild halls and the houses near guild halls.
- You can now right click on a stack of items that have charges without expending the charges of the entire stack, so items like “Imperial Darkbrew” can now be safely used while stacked.
- Thrown items now display class requirements/restrictions in the item info tooltip.
- Quests that require less than a full stack of items to complete will now only take the exact number they need, instead of taking an entire stack. So a quest that needed 35 of a certain item, will no longer take 40 if you have two stacks of 20.
- While testing raid functionality on the test server, several optimization issues were discovered and corrected for both the servers and client. From UI optimizations on the client to server processing of large groups of combatants, there should be a noticeable performance improvement in all aspects of the game

CLIENT

- When placing a crafting or harvesting tool in a toolbelt it will now bring up the Bind of Equip confirm when necessary.

ENGINE

- There is a new setting in the Audio tab called Distance. This value is used to calculate how far away a sound will play. If you have a single-core CPU you may see some performance increase from lowering this value. If you desire to hear sounds from further away, you can raise this value, though it may effect performance.

GRAPHICS

- Added a new slider bar to toggle the scale of the scrolling combat text.
- The particle throttle sliders in the Settings panel will now properly throttle the particle effects correctly by type. Sliding these down will process fewer particles, and yield some performance gains, especially in combat - and even more so in raids where you have 12-18 players playing particle effects.

SERVER

- Guild Trophy buffs are now in. The guild trophy buff will only be applied to the character if the items is placed in a guild headquarters.
- NPCs will no longer open locked doors. This fixes an exploit where you could get an aggro NPC on the far side of a locked door to open the door for you when it moved to attack you.
- NPC / Resource / Corpse interaction ranges should now be more correct and scale-independent (so it's no longer difficult to be within the ability range of giants)!