Game updates/2016-01-03

Contents

=Jan 3 Update

Let's try something different this time: if you spot a bug that's new in this update, please report it on the forums, in the "Jan 3 Update Bugs" thread. That way we don't get a ton of duplicates reported in-game. Thanks! (You can log into the forums with your game account/password at http://projectgorgon.com )

Happy New Year!

To help you celebrate the new year (and to test our new item-delivery system), all accounts made before today are eligible to receive party supplies. Type "/redeem Happy2016" in the chat window to get yours! (Limit one per account.)

In addition, most NPCs like to give small gifts to their Friends at this time. Just talk to NPCs that you're Friends with to receive this gift.

Animal Town

A new town exists in Sun Vale, a ways down the beach. This area is for animal players, and most NPCs won't talk to you unless you're an animal -- and have BEEN an animal for at least three hours of gameplay. (There are some exceptions, though.) There are also hostile guardian monsters that will attack non-animal/non-druid players on sight.

It's not exactly a pretty town -- it will need unique artwork in the future, but I wanted to get some of the NPCs in-game sooner than that.

Old-Timer Gifts

If your account was made in 2014 or earlier, we'd like to send you a little extra present as thanks for sticking with us through thick and thin. Your gift pack includes various items that can help you out when you get in a jam. Use "/redeem IAmSoOld" to get this bundle. (Limit one per account.)

If you aren't sure whether your account is old enough, use "/redeem" by itself to see whether it's listed as an available bundle for you.

Help Test Item Dispensers/Rafflers

The upcoming city of Rahu has many wonders ... some of which we need to test out a bit before the city goes live. This time around we'd like help testing the item-dispensers and item-rafflers. These are wooden contraptions that can sell your items or dispense raffle tickets for your items.

If you have an account made prior to today and you have Carpentry skill of 25 or higher, use /redeem Dispensers and /redeem Rafflers to get a bunch of these new items to experiment with. Please remember to report any bugs!

(If you don't have Carpentry level 25, but your account was made prior to today, you can just earn the Carpentry levels and then the /redeem commands above will work for you.)

Legacy Item Expiration

Legacy items will now expire after 30 days, becoming permanently "broken" and unwearable. You will still be able to break the item down for phlogiston (or whatever) at that point, but you won't be able to wear it ever again.

Newbie Island Cheat

We fixed some bugs in the newbie island in this update, but there's still a way for newbies to accidentally burn up both of their amethysts and get stuck on the island. This will be fixed with an NPC script soon, but it didn't make it into this update, so I've temporarily reinstated the "/leavetut" test command, which you can type into chat to get off the island. It's really only if you're completely stuck, though.

Cheap meat going away!

We are phasing out the "cheap meat" item and replacing it with new specialized meats. The old "cheap meat" item can no longer be obtained and pre-existing cheap meat is now labeled "Cheap Meat (Legacy)". Monsters that used to drop cheap meat now drop more specialized meat.

But here's the catch: we haven't gotten around to adding new recipes for the new meats yet. So the old recipes still call for cheap meat. We've made those recipes into drag-and-drop ones, so you can drag in any of the new meats into a cheap meat slot, or drag in old "Cheap Meat (Legacy)".

I know it's annoying having to drag and drop a bunch of meat in order to cook, but this is just temporary. There will be new recipes for each kind of meat in the future, and you won't have to drag and drop anything.

The "Cheap Meat (Legacy)" items will only remain in game for another update or two. After that, that item entry will be reused for another new kind of cheap meat. So you can either use it now or wait until it transforms into a specialized cheap meat... whichever you like.

All Other Changes [that I remembered to write down for the patch notes]

- The "Alt" key can now be used in keyboard shortcuts, along with Shift and Ctrl. (Experimental! Not sure how well this will work in windowed mode, but should work well in full screen.)

- Helena Veilmoor's trade options were not showing up. They now show up (assuming your favor level is at least Comfortable)

- Spider Carapaces drop more often from high-level spiders now that there's an in-game use for them. Omegaspider has a chance to drop them, but none of the other spiders in the Serbule Crypt can – they're too low-level. So you're best off searching for higher-level spiders. The common Reaper Spider drops them, for instance

- Improved rarity of items given out as quest rewards. (Should now always be at least Rare, and often Exceptional or better)

- Fixed some bugs that had crept into ability power costs. Most notably, Fish Gut now has a small Power cost (again) and Moo of Calm's power costs are much lower, back in the range they were 4+ months ago

- Cow's "Graze" can now be placed on the side bar

- Some stat changes to Cow abilities, fixed some weirdnesses in Power costs and tweaked damage numbers

- There is a new Cow ability, "Tough Hooves", available from Raul in Sun Vale

- New Cow treasure effects were added

- Cow can now be raised to level 60. See Raul in Sun Vale

- Added a few more Deer equipment effects

- Reorganized some deer equipment effects so that main hand and off hand slots are reasonably well-covered. (This means some effects are no longer available on the slots they were on before. Items with these effects will be automatically marked as legacy items.)

- Deer skill can now be raised to level 60. See Jumper in Sun Vale

- Added "/age" command that tells you how old your character is. Just for fun

- Fixed a bug in XP spreadsheets. The result is that levels 36-50 of many craft skills now take more XP to level. (In total, about 20% more XP to reach 50.) Affected skills include Carpentry, Blacksmithing, Surveying, Textiles, and others in the same vein. This isn't a balance change, it's just a bug-fix so that balancing can proceed. (The formulas have to be bug-free before we can meaningfully balance anything.)

- Added some more synergy levels for Toolcrafting skill

- There are some new Toolcrafting recipes that are needed for animal-town armors; these recipes are supposed to be in the upcoming town of Rahu, but for now they can be learned from Falkrin Overstrike in Amulna

- Similarly there are new Blacksmithing recipes; these can be learned from Tadion in Serbule for now.

- There is a new maximizing recipe that can be learned from Fazzi in the Winter Nexus (the same place as the other maximizing recipes)

- Spider's Incubate can now be put on the sidebar

- Spider skill can now be raised to 60. See Legs in Sun Vale

- Slowed down respawns in the deep parts of the "dark chapel" dungeon

- Yogzi now has the missing Maximized versions of the cow barding armor recipes

- Reduced the frequency that Asterion's Curse effect goes off. (New cursees only; already-cursed individuals remain unchanged)