March 8th, 2013 -- A New Wipe, Same Slaughter

[Aristox]

Welcome Everyone,

I usually end these start of wipe posts with the thank you portion, but I
am going to start with it this time.

The number of people that put work into this game has dwindled pretty
steadily over the years, so the few of us left have to work harder to keep
things afloat.  The majority of the work during the wipe down time and
every other time has been done by Hoss (creation, the iron fist of justice,
keeping my stupid ideas in check), Sanjuro (creation) and Scrappinak (sys
admin).  Without those 3 we would either be shutdown completely or I
would be running the game off one of my old cell phones.  Thanks guys,
you make any effort I put in appear worthwhile.

A few people contribute in minor ways from the immortal side, but without
them things would only get worse.  Flook fills our get-crap-done role, if
there is an annoying task he is the one to carry the water.  Starmis is our
de-facto webmaster.  Flair tries to assist where he can, but we mock him
more often than not.  There are lots of other people over the years, too
many to name, so I am just listing the people that have been recently
helping out.

Next I want to thank YOU, the players.  Without people using the game,
posting ideas, posting bug reports, shouting stupid stuff and killing
everything in sight, this game would be a pointless waste of space. If you
keep coming back, we will keep trying to improve the game and at a
minimum keep it up and running.  Thanks.

Specifically I want to thank all of the people who donated money to the
game.  We are no longer running on free servers, and the cloud is definitely
not free.  We have enough money on-hand at the moment to continue
running the game for another 3 to 4 years.  Fully 50% of the donated
amount was given by one person.  Another 25% was given by another
person.  Those 2 people are keeping the game up for you. If you know who
they are,  help them gain some ranks or something because they are
awesome.

This new wipe is hopefully a transition for the game.  We are still working
on Project Lube and hope to make the next wipe start on that codebase,
but it is a large project and we have other things going on in our lives, so
do not be upset if lube slips again (pun intended).

With all the formalities out of the way, here is what you really wanted out
of this post; the changes list.  Enjoy,


General Changes:

• All new characters will start with 2 allowed domains.
• Position added to the prompt options (type: prompt position). Will show
  your current position (sittings, resting, standing, sleeping).
• Reserve command added to inns (type: reserve).  Allows a player to
  reset their rent location without leaving the game.
• LFG option added (type: opt lfg).  Will flag the player in the who list as
  looking for a group.
• Who lfg  or who looking will list the players currently looking for a
  group.
• Dynamic rank experience will regenerate faster and should cap out
   higher on mobs that give it.
• Dynamic rank experience will be offered on some lower level mobs.
• Experience required to level for all levels increased, sometimes
  significantly.
• Experience decay from killing the same thing over and over has been
  made more lenient.
• Inspect command will now give a durability % at the end, indicating
  how good condition is of the item.
• Pklog command added.  This will list all player kills that have happened
  over the course of the entire wipe. Glory!
• Affects command added.  This will list the 'You are affected by the
   following:' portion of the score command only.
• All new characters will start with a wrist lantern equipped.
• Skills that are ready for training with a guildmaster will be indicated in
  the skills command with a ** next to them.
• The group command will list the guild abbreviation of each player
  (CL = cleric, DA = dark knight, etc) at the start of the line. Quick, update
  your heal scripts!
• Brew and Scribe skills will now fail if the user is feebleminded.
• Clanlist rank will show clans that have no rank experience (at the
  bottom, obviously).
• Clan who will show the ranks of the characters.
• A message will be sent to your clan when you gain a level, gain a rank
  or lose a level.
• The bandage skill was redone and should be slightly easier to train.
• A giant pile of small bugs and typos fixed. Thanks to everyone that
  reported these, keep them coming.
• Lots of little additions, too many to name. Figure them out as you go.

Changes Detailed Elsewhere:

• Races were changed across the board. For more details look here:
  http://arcticmud.org/forums/index.php/topic,137.0.html
• Item sets were refactored.  For more details look here:
  http://arcticmud.org/forums/index.php/topic,157.0.html

Class Changes:

Barbarians:

• Gore skill added.  Obtained at level 1.  A simple damage skill.

Black Robes:

• Acid Mist damage reduced.
• Comeuppance nerfed. Duration and affect reduced.  Cooldown
  increased.
• Flesh Shield hp amount reduced.
• Nightmare nerfed.  Damage reduced. Targets will save against
  the stun more often.

Clerics:

• Gate spell completely refactored.  Most casters must now summon
  the demon they want by name (cast 'gate' xia, cast 'gate' chi). You
  can only summon demons of your align.  Neutral Chaotic clerics can
  not specify a demon, they will randomly get one from any of the
  alignments. See the helpfile for more details, including the list of
  demon names.
• Mobs summoned by the gate spell have been redone to be more
  useful (hopefully?).

Dark Knights:

• Legendary Thrust will respect mobs that are immune to silence.
• Sheathed Claws pet rank is fixed.

Druids:

• Healing Cloud healing reduce a little.
• Healing Cloud not-healing bug should be fixed. Please report any
  problems with it.

Magic Users (and all robed mages):

• Repose can be refreshed before it wears off now.

Paladins:

• Slam skill is now easier to land.
• Sheathed Claws pet rank is fixed.

Red Robes:

• Hardened Mirror Images should re-appear less often.
• Blastwave normal damage reduced.
• Blastwave component casting affects added.
• Clairvoyance will work without Astral Beacon again.
• Astral Beacon rewritten. See the helpfile for more details.
• Plated Fists pet rank is fixed.

Scouts:
No changes.

Shamans:

• The bug causing dragons to sometimes beat up shamans at
  random has been fixed. They will only beat them up specifically now.
• Heal Boost made into a divine spell.
• Regenerate made into a divine spell.

Thieves:
No changes.

Warriors:

• Bash damage increased.
• Vigor skill added at level 1.  Should help some of the downtime.

White Robes:

• Hardened Fold Space regeneration chance lowered.
• Hardened Arcane Shell regeneration chance lowered.
• Prismatic Spray damage lowered.
• Color spray damage lowered.

That is all there is, there is no more.

Thanks for playing,
--Aristox

[Dagda]

You guys put so much into this, thank you for keeping it up and running and keeping it fun.

[Jorquin]

mountain scouts still op?

[Mick]

Cool changes.

Wrist Lantern on lvl 1 is nice.

[Bakr]

Cool changes, thanks for the work.

[Gnua]

Thanks for all the work. By the way will the stat deficiencies of the various races be published? The news post about races only posted advantages.

[Ezio]

Fun stuff. Thanks for the hard work, and the not so hard work!

[Bryton]

looks great, but shamans needed to be nerfed.

Druids para needs to be buffed because its 1000x worse then hold person and hold person isn't even a book spell..

oh and lightning storm sucks might as well remove it from the game.

and one last thing! warriors will being doing 200dam now with punch bash?

[Rinad]

what is the start eta?

[Tajs]

Thanks! I'm sure all us players appreciate that you guys (imms) actually notice us :)

[RaVaN]

Would like to say thanks myself.  This game has always been in my opinion one of the best games ever made and is the only game I do play.  So thanks to all for giving me an awesome game to while away the long cold winter!

[muddeer]

Would like to say thanks myself.  This game has always been in my opinion one of the best games ever made and is the only game I do play.  So thanks to all for giving me an awesome game to while away the long cold winter!

ditto

[octan]

After the first 12 hours of grinding and still stuck at 22 and looking at the xp thats required to even reach 28.  I think this is a sentiment shared by the majority.  This current XP system is ridiculously hard.  You have to consider that the player base is aged with jobs and families.
A better option would have been old xp tables removing the group bonus at like 25.

Anyway I hope this feeling is only felt by me and not the majority or the player base will probably dwindle if it's the latter.

[octan]

Oh, I'd like to thank you guys for putting your time into this awesome game that has kept us addicted for nearing 2 decades already! :)

[Willoe]

OC - yes, it is much more difficult to level now...Perhaps this will make less trash characters as well as make the game more fun for a longer period of time. I'm sorry you aren't enjoying leveling but I personally think that having it be more challenging is a great idea.