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* Training mission fixes (from beginning of the game through Elizabeth's Defend and Explore paths). This is part 1 of the fixes that will be coming in over the next week or so.
* Leadership migration now occurs properly within Crews. If your leader quits or goes off-line, then someone else in the Crew will become leader instead.
* Removed the Christmas tree, restored the Fountain Game, and moved everthing back to its pre-Christmas position.
* Loading times have been reduced when loading into the game. Some players may notice no improvement at all, while others will see more marked improvements.
Update Notes (12/23/08 )
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* New task chains branch from Elizabeth after training. There is an "exploration" chain that takes you to all the various NPCs in Barton to help them with their tasks, and a "defend the town" chain that takes you back into the Sewers on several new quests. Both of these task chains result in nice rewards that include the *choice of a new ring*, so you can really advance your character by doing these tasks early on. NOTE: These tasks are intended for new characters only. They are not intended as "revisit" tasks. If you're already past this point in the life of your character, these new quests will not be available to you.
* Several new "teach tasks" are available from NPCs throughout Barton. These are informational and mostly centered around letting new players find out more about the features of the game. Heck...a lot of this stuff was never explained to you, so even you oldbies might benefit from some of these. smile
* The down-leveling feature ("suppression" wink is now available to you. If you want to lower your max ring CL, just go to the Null Chamber and speak with Trixie. She gives you an opportunity to down-level yourself. Just follow her instructions and you'll find that it's easy to do. NOTE: Suppression only "caps" your max ring CL. It does not directly affect your overall CL. Your overall CL is calculated based on the effective CL of all your currently equipped rings, just like normal. It's just that some of your rings may be artificially suppressed after you down-level and that affects your overall CL.
* The chat "send" buttons got text added to them to make them more easily understood by new players.
* The PDA Map icons were fixed so that active flags now show, even when a "?" icon is available for an NPC. (The active task flag was being hidden in the previous version.)
* You can now click and drag the Map around without having to unclick the "Center on Self" button. (To recenter the Map on yourself after dragging it, just click the "Center on Self" button.)
* Gustav's repeatable quest should work now.
* NOTE: We caught a really bad bug in our database stuff last night. It occasionally caused quest flags and mini-map flags to get restored (incorrectly) after they had been deleted. This *may* be the source of why quests were getting "flaky" for some people randomly. Our fingers are crossed that quests will be more stable in the future due to this fix.
Update Notes ( 12/18/08 )
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* The Barton Christmas Tree appears in the town square. It starts kind of Charlie-Brown-ish, but will grow as the holidays approach. Gifts are present also (more of them as the tree gets bigger) and they can be clicked for goodies. Some gifts are Naughty, and some are Nice. (And yes, there's a badge. smile
* A minor fix was made to the new Training scripts to prevent a rare, unusual glitch that trapped a few people in the Mumbler room.
* Gold rewards were doubled.
* Orb drop rate was fixed.
* Powerups are soulbound now. (They can still be gifted at time of purchase.)
* The crew invite bug that was plaguing some people is now fixed.
Update Notes( 12/10/08 )
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* Training (all of it) is completely redone. It's shorter, snappier, lots more pictures, less text, and less prone to breakage. Any players still within the Train, Old Station, or the Sewers will have their quests and flags reset to a newbie state and will be placed at the start of the Train again. For those of you stuck within the Sewers...this is the fix you've been waiting for. (And the "Do a Lap!" quest is gone, gone, gone.)
* The Map feature now shows ALL quest givers, so if you're looking for something to do, you can pull up your map and see where to go to get a quest. (Active tasks are still shown with the red flag, whereas potential tasks are shown as a "?" icon.)
* The chests have had their Total Charge checks removed. The chests now check overall CL only.
Update Notes( 12/2/08 )
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* The values in the new "feast or famine" loot mechanism have been adjusted to provide better drop rates.
* The Hive has been rebalanced so that the dynamic scaling works better with it now.
* The Gauntlet is dynamically scaled (and gameplay changed signficantly from the original, depending on the crew size in the encounter).
* The Throne Room is dynamically scaled (and also plays differently).
* Three new repeatable quests added to Zen Gardens (Katsumi, Arnold, and Trip).
* Katsumi's quest chain has been shuffled around. Her quests are now in the following order: Wish Tree, Uncle Kin, Kat's Doll. This puts the "boss fight" at the end of her chain, which is better gameplay. NOTE: If you are currently doing these quests at the time that we update, your quests will be reset the next time you enter the Shrine room. You might have to redo a quest, but this will prevent you from getting messed-up data from the rearrangement.
* Combat regen removed from the chapter-end boss. Health for the arms and body were increased.
* New repeatable quest added to Bass'ken Lake (received from Ryan).
* There is now a "GO" command. (The "G" key.) When you have a target selected, you can hit "G" to move to where that target was located at the time of the key press. NOTE: This is not a finalized feature, but it *does* make it a lot easier to close to within range of a monster if you are using melee rings.
* There is now a "/invite" command you use in your Chat Pane that lets you invite people elsewhere on your same world server into your Crew. (Useful when trying to invite folks outside of your zone that don't appear on the crew list.) Format is: /invite
* Music volume no longer resets when you zone.
* Clan chat works again!
* The screen elements have been resized now so that monitor resolutions of 1024x768 can keep chat and PDA open while playing. NOTE: This change results in the save config for your window positions being invalid. So the first time you play after this change, you'll need to reposition your windows the way you like them, but the game will remember those settings from then on.
* If you are Dazed, you won't be able to use switches. (Switches are things like chests, the Goof Tee, the sewer valves, etc.)
* You shouldn't get any more "?" icon rings that don't function. (Mentioning this because it's annoyed some of you.)
* The "/r" (reply) functionality is fixed.
Game Balance Changes
* Cherry Fluffs have been offensively nerfed a bit.
* Rings that do statistic buffs got increased durations under the theory that if the effect lasts longer, more people will be interested in using them. They're a lot more useful now with 2-4 times the duration they used to have.
* Defensive abilities also got increased durations so that it's more feasible to have a crewmember buffing crewmates...but still able to do something *else* than buffing once in a while.
* Exhaustion costs for rings were reduced slightly. Monster healths were increased slightly. Monster damage was reduced slightly. The end result is that combats take a little longer to complete (only a tiny bit longer), but it gives a bit more breathing room to consider other tactics besides smash-smash-smash and it makes crowd control abilities more useful.
* Divinity and Healing Halo were improved significantly. Longer durations and better effect.
* Loot drop rings (rings found as part of monster loot or in chests), as well as rings granted as quest rewards, are now attuned to the user (cannot be traded or sold).
