A small team of adventurers has followed a trail of clues seeking a treasure of antiquity - the Blood Opal of Banderios. It is said that the opal was stolen many eons ago by the vampire king, Rauko’ra the Thirsty and is hidden somewhere in his ancient fortress, the Citadel of Lost Souls. Of the three, the oldest and wisest has traveled the longest continents, following clues to this; the end of his journey. Too old to fight the evil within, he has sent his companions Darien and Ungold to find the gem and bring it out. But they are only two against an army of fiends! How will they succeed?

Level Range         : 125 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal recommended at : Level 170
Goal Min Level      : Level 115
Goal Authors        : Lumina*
Goal Converter      : Domain

*Original layout and descriptions by Galadriel and Vesse.

Note: This area replaces ‘The Fortress of Angband’.

New Area Conversion - The Sanguine Tavern:

There are many rumours about the mysterious tavern in the alley behind Ivar’s house. There are stories of strange disappearances, evil monsters, strange cults, human sacrifice and many other stories. Who knows what’s true and what’s not. You have to wonder is it worth the risk to find out the truth?

Level Range         : 120 to 140
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 140
Goal Converter      : Raistlin & Laren
Area Author         : Raistlin & Laren

Note: This area replaces Casino.

Other Changes in this Reboot

• Not ready to pull the trigger on making shopkeepers have endless gold as it only takes one buggy item to break the game that way. However, they will now restore their full repop amount every tick … it was previously 20% of their repop amount per tick.
• Fixed a bug in shoot always showing the arrow direction as North when more than one room away.
• With no ‘auction sethigh’ value assigned, auction would only show items up to 15 levels above the level of items you could save under the old rules. Now that everyone has ‘keepall’ this behavior makes no sense and is inconsistent with the command output. The default is now no upper limit on which auctions you see unless you set on auction ‘auction sethigh’.
• Instinct with no arguments shows the number of trains “available for instinct” at the end. This message now shows how much of that is actual trains on hand and how much is already deposited.
• Showskill will now show an extra line when you have a skill or spell as a racial ability.
• Adding the optional parameter ’silent’ to the spellup command will suppress the ‘Queueing spell…’ messages.
• When you rescue someone and switch to fight whoever was attacking them, for the purposes of PK and revenge the game will act as if you attacked them. This is in reference to bugs note #12681. I’m still wondering if attacking someone in a group should mean that everyone in the group in the same room gets revenge on you anyway which would make this moot, but at least it is consistent for now.
• Fixed single class tiers not being able to vote in a ‘remort only’ vote. Also extended the max length of vote options from 40 to 60 characters.

The ability to set a buyout price when listing an item. To set a buyout amount on an item, use the syntax:

     'market sell [item] [type] buyout [buyout amount]'

For example:

    market sell sword gold buyout 5000000

If anyone bids that amount, the item will be instantly sold to them.

Some other changes related to the buyouts:

• Any buyout amount on an item will be shown when using ‘lbid #’ to view the stats.
• An asterisk next to the auction type on an item in ‘market list’ means that the item has a buyout amount.
• The new option ‘lbid amounts’ (or ‘lbid buyouts’) will show a slightly different output with the buyout amounts shown.
• The market info when an item is first put up for sale will include an extra line showing the buyout amount.

Proxy Bidding:

Proxy bidding is a way to state the most you are prepared to pay for something but only if the bids reach that level. For example, if you set a proxy bid of 10,000 gold on an item and someone else bids 5,000 gold, you will automatically outbid them at the next bid increment of 5,750. If nobody else bids, you will get the item for 5,750.

To place a proxy bid use the syntax:

market bid [auction#] [amount] proxy confirm

There are some fairly complex rules with how proxy bids are handled, but the most important detail are:

• When you place a proxy bid, the full amount of that proxy bid is taken from your character. If it is later outbid, or you win the item for a lower amount, the difference is refunded.
• You can increase your proxy bid or lower your proxy bid as long as the new amount is still at least the next bid increment higher than the current bid using the same syntax as above.
• You cannot set a proxy bid equal to a buy-out price as it would be a no-lose way to tie up the auction and still guarantee a win. If you want to guarantee a win, take the buyout. If you want to proxy bid 100 gold below the buyout? Take the risk that someone else is prepared to pay it.
• If someone places a proxy bid for an amount someone already has, the earlier bid will take precedence and appear to “outbid” for the same amount. However, if someone places a non-proxy bid for an amount that someone already has a proxy, that fully committed bid will win. The general rule is that the ‘interactive’ bid wins if all else is equal. When a proxy bid is very first placed (no automation yet, player just entered the command) it is considered ‘interactive’.
• A higher proxy will always beat a lower one even if it is only 1 gold higher. When nobody has any idea what someone else’s max proxy bid is, it didn’t seem right to have a system where the lowest proxy bid can actually win because the next highest proxy didn’t meet the 5% increase requirement.
• You will not receive a note every time a proxy bid is updated - only when your total proxy amount is outbid. If you placce a regular bid and are instantly outbid by a proxy, you won’t receive a note then either.

Intense magical energy destroys your sense of night and day as the warm glow of the sun heats your body yet no source of light exists in the sky. This is Nebulous Horizon - a former refuge for all creatures who put aside their differences and make ends meet with no regard for their former adversaries that coexist alongside them.

What draws them here, where their senses are thrown asunder with a horizon that is controlling every nuance in their heads? A familiar yet daunting blast of energy emits from a structure underneath the ground, away from the hazy horizon above. The answer surely lies below.

Sidur, the blood oracle is awaiting your rebellion from the horizon into the cube he calls home. Countless years have passed where Sidur accumulated more and more creatures to do his bidding. Do you have what it takes to survive, or have you already succumbed to his Nebulous Horizon?

Level Range         : 200 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 201
Goal Min Level      : Level 200
Goal Max Level      : Level 201
Goal Converter      : Yowza
Area Author         : Yowza

Other Changes in this Reboot

• I have increased (almost doubled) the average trains rewarded for completing Cracks of Terra and added a little extra ‘perk’ to the arcane source when used with 600 int. You won’t see it every time, but more than 50%.
• No intention of bringing back mobs assisting other mobs unless via special custom mobprogs, so the mobshield and taunt skills have been effectively removed from the game.
  
  I have attempted to refund a fair amount of practices for these. How many practices it takes you to train up a skill depends on your stats at the time so the game doesn’t actually know what you paid. For these two skills, one practice has been refunded for each 10% in the skill, including the part that would have been naturally gained through usage.
• A failed ’stun’ will now correctly start combat.
• When using ‘affects bad’, skill bonuses will now only show up if they are negative. No change to ’saffects’ command because skills do not show there anyway.
• The ’sacrifice life’ spell will now correctly trigger revenge when used to help a character engaged in PVP.
• The ‘{invitem}’ tag sent when you buy items from a shop will now correctly show the keep flag (and stolen flag) where appopriate.
• Increased the time in warfare preparation stage a little to give people more time to spell up.

One otherwise uneventful night, a deafening crack resounded across the land, and the earth itself shuddered. The next day, wild rumors started spreading, of an undersea mountain surfacing. It was an unnatural, crystalline mountain, brilliant as the morning sun. It was also, a mountain split asunder. An enormous crack runs along its side, and leads into its depths. Speculation as to what may lie within has gone rife.

At the back of taverns, and the quiet alleyways, old story has resurfaced. A myth, of an ancient struggle between the Elder Gods and Demon Lords, when Andolor first formed. It speaks of an attempt by the Demons to invade this plane. The Demon King created a cataclysmic rift through which wild hordes of demons poured forth. The Elder Gods moved swiftly however, responding in force. However, the magics in the rift were too different, and powerful. The Gods knew not how to undo it. After much deliberation, it was decided that the portal would be sealed beneath a mountain, and the God Terra would bide there, holding any new forays at bay.

Few took the story seriously, but some remember the great Cataclysm, when the Demon Lord Valkur came forth with his army. It took the combined armies of Men to weaken him, and banish his physical manifestation. The heroes were lauded for their courage and bravery, and the land rejoiced. Yet the doomsayers whispered, in the back of taverns and inn: “It took our combined powers and efforts to weaken him. But what if Valkur was but a scout?”

Sceptical adventurers are already heading towards the mountain to plunder it for rare minerals from the sea, ignoring the warnings. Will you do likewise?

Level range         : 201
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal recommended at : 201 Pupped
Goal Converter      : Redryn
Area Author         : Redryn

Note: There is a limit on the number of players that can attempt the goal at any one time, based on tiers.

Many and many years of war have turned the Bountiful hills into the Scarred Lands. Dragons, miners, Dragon riders, undead miners all fight for survival and prosperity. Can you make a difference? Can you be the one to help the Scarred Lands?

Level Range      : 90 - 110
Goal Diff        : Medium
Recommended      : 110
Author           : Jardin
Goal             : Laren

If a global quest is completed before 5 minutes have passed, and there is someone else still in the global quest, it will be extended by 3 more minutes to give people a chance to get a few extra qp mobs. Gquest info will show that the global quest is in extra time and start to show how long it has been in extra time for. It will actually finish on the first tick after exactly 3 minutes have passed.

Finishing all the mobs in the gquest in extended time does not give you the gquest “win” rewards - just the gp from the mob kills. If all the remaining people in the GQ kill all the targets it will end immediately.

A note is also posted to the gquest board with the status of the gquest at the time it was originally completed and, if there was extended time, the status at the true end. The number of each mob killed in the gquest is also included just for a little extra info.

Example of Aardwolf Global Quest Note.

• ‘Gquest hist’ and ‘gq info’ after the gquest have finished will both now show the time to finish / expire in real time rather than rounded up to minutes.
• The regular time between global quests has been reduced by 2 minutes. Should all even out overall, if not we’ll adjust as necessary.
• Prompt variable %E will show your current level. No spaces or colors around it, so add your own as necessary.
• Ability to create socials is re-enabled. Social editor was the cause for our crash last week so I kept it disabled pending fix.
• Renamed the runto keyword for the arena in Aylor from ‘thearena’ to ‘aylorarena’. Reason being that ‘run the [whatever]‘ was taking new players to the area and getting them stuck in the quicksand.
• GMCP group status will now be reset when you first log in and after an ice age.
• Fixed the ‘missing syntax’ message when giving invalid options to the ‘goals’ command.
• Fixed a buggy message with a failed stun - the target now does actually sneak in an extra weak attack against the player.
• Using tempering on arrows was not using the extended ore duration for higher quality ore. Now fixed.

The “volley” skill gives hunters a brief period of rapid-fire archery. The concentration required to volley is such that a hunter can only do this every few minutes, although that recovery period can be reduced slightly by increasing constitution and wisdom.

Because of the very short duration, you should only use volley when you are ready to shoot at something. The volley command does check that you have a bow wielded, arrows readied, and a valid target in the game. It checks that you are *ready* to shoot, not that you actually *can* shoot right now, that part is up to you.

The best way to use volley is:

• Target your mob in the next room.
• Move a couple of rooms in the opposite direction (so it takes longer to track you).
• Make sure your quiver has at least 10 rounds left
• Type volley then immediately spam ’shoot’ a bunch of times.
• You may want to make an alias such as:
  
  alias vshoot volley;shoot;shoot;shoot;shoot;shoot;shoot;shoot

Volley does not automatically shoot for you because you might want to target multiple mobs, or move around while you volley, but for most uses the alias mentioned above will work the best.

A few other changes that made it into today’s update:

• The cost to change weapon type using the ‘wtype’ command has been reduced from 3 trivia points to 1 trivia point.
• Increased the average number of hits on shoot just a little.
• The restriction on ranged combat not being able to shoot through a ‘no mob’ room has been lifted. The original idea behind this was to reduce the number of opportunites to sit there shooting at a mob without it being able to track you. Other than while volleying, this isn’t an effective way to level anyway and has restricted to many opportunites to use ranged combat.
• Blacksmiths can now temper arrows. As there is no point adding stats to arrows the amount of damage added has been increased a little. Also, to make it a little more worth bothering to temper arrows, the number of uses left on a quiver will increase significantly when arrows are tempered.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/22/archery-addition-volley-skill-wtype-cost-reduction/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/16/ranged-combat-archery-skill/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/16/ranged-combat-archery-skill/#comments Sun, 16 Sep 2012 22:39:21 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=598 Ranged Combat - Archery

Archery is the first skill to use ranged combat on Aardwolf. The full details on each of the commands are below. We are very excited about the possibilities with this, including traps, bombs, spells that damage across multiple rooms, etc. But for now, let’s get this in and fully settled live:

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Help Archery:

Archery is the skill that allows hunters to shoot using a bow and arrow. The full mechanics are explained below, but the short version is:

• Acquire a bow (several are for sale in the Rangers guild).
• Acquire some arrows (also for sale in the Rangers guild).
• Identify a target; for example, ‘target north bear’.
• Ready your arrows; for example, ‘ready quivver’.
• Type ’shoot’.

Using ‘Archery’ simulates a round of combat from another room. Your skill in ‘archery’ is combined with your ‘bow’ weapon skill to determine the overall weapon skill in that round of combat.

There are several ways that archery can be used effectively - be sure to read ‘help ranged-tactics’ for some useful tips.

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Help Shoot:

Syntax:  shoot [item]    : Shoot an item in inventory
         shoot           : Shoot a readied item.

Shoot is used by archers to attack a target from a distance using their bow and arrow. Once a target has been acquired (see ‘help target’), the shoot command is used to fire at them from a distance.

You cannot shoot through a safe room or a room that monsters are unable to travel through. Once you shoot a monster they will not just sit there and take the damage - they will start to track you down.

In order to use shoot, a bow must be wielded in either the primary or secondary wield position and the item being fired must be of type ‘weapon- projectile’. There is a selection of arrows for sale in the Rangers Guild. Each of these items can be worn in the new ‘readied’ position - see ‘help ready’.

To better understand how shoot works in combination with the bow and the arrow, it helps to think of a single ’shoot’ as a round of combat from another room.

In this round of combat, the number of hits is determined by the attackers constitution, wisdom and dexterity. The ‘average damage’ is the combined average of the bow and the arrow used. The ‘weapon skill’ equivalent is the level of skill in archery. Shoot has no lag, but does have a small recovery time based on constitution and wisdom.

Whether or not a ranged attack can be dodged depends on the type of attack. Arrows fired from a bow can only be dodged by the ‘dodge’ and ’shield block’ skills.

See ‘help ranged-tactics’ for some further notes on ranged combat and how it can be used.

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Help Target:

Syntax:  target                : Display current target.
         target [name]         : Target a character.
         target [dir] [name]   : Target in direction <dir>
         target clear          : Clear current target.

The ‘target’ command allows you to acquire a target for the purposes of ranged combat. You can only target a character that is directly in a straight line from you. You cannot target outside of your current area and all regular combat restrictions apply.

You cannot target a character in the same room as you, but if there is a path back to the same room (for example, if 2N in a maze leads back to the same room) then there is a path for a projectile to follow and targeting will work.

Once you have a target acquired, you can ’shoot’ and use other ranged commands without having to specify the target again. Your target will also show in the room and in ’scan’ with a [TARGET] flag.

See ‘help ranged-tactics’ for some further notes on ranged combat and how it can be used.

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Help Ready:

Syntax: ready [item]          : Equip an item in the 'ready' position.
        ready remove          : Remove a readied item.

The ‘ready’ command is used to equip an item in the ‘readied’ position for use with ranged combat.

Once an item is in the ready position you can use ’shoot’ with no arguments to default to shooting whatever is in the readied position.

Note: Additional stats are not allowed on ‘readied’ items as this is a convenience wear location only.

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Help Ranged-Tactics:

Ranged combat (currently Archery) can be used in a number of ways:

• There is no lag on shoot, so shooting a mob from the next room then instantly running in to backstab the mob is a great way to kill.
• Because the backstab is entered from outside the room, this technically runs against the letter of the rules in “help stacking”. This is an allowed exception and part of the way ’shoot’ was designed. See ‘help stacked’ for more information.
• Many mobs will track you down when you shoot at them. This can often be used to help reduce the number of aggro mobs in a room.
• Mobs will usually not track as quickly as you can move. A great way to finish them off in a pinch is to flee/retreat and immediately shoot.
• It is completely ok to find one way exits that mobs cannot track you through and sit there and shoot them, although in most cases on a regular mob just killing them will be faster.

Some other relevant details about ranged combat:

• Ranged combat works fine in PK, but does not work in clan halls.
• If you shoot from outside a room and kill the mob while grouped, you will still get experience and anyone in your group in the same room as the mob will also get experience. If you are out of the room and someone else in the group kills it, you will not get experience.
• When you kill a mob with ranged combat, any death mobprog on it will still run, but there may be errors with you not being in the same room if the mob tries to transfer you on death. We have identified most of these and flagged them up front but some are likely to have been missed, please post them to the bugs board.
• If a mob is wandering through an area trying to find you or you are fighting it from several rooms away, there is a much higher chance of someone engaging that mob in combat via charge or area spells. It is going to happen and is part of the down side of using ranged combat.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/16/ranged-combat-archery-skill/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/07/archer-hunter-subclass-merge/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/07/archer-hunter-subclass-merge/#comments Fri, 07 Sep 2012 20:50:08 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=595 Archer / Hunter Subclass Merge:

The Archer subclass has been merged with the Hunter subclass. If someone logs in with the Archer subclass they will be set to Hunter and receive a personal note from “the Ranger Guildmaster” with more information.

The ‘archery’ skill (ranged combat) is still in progress and will be given to the hunters. It is very close to ready btw and testing is going well, just not quite ready for live yet. If anyone wants to help test it, see ‘help tester’. If you want to test archery then have your flag removed afterwards, that is fine too.

A few other details with this change:

• If someone logs in with a subclass change recovery and has their subclass automatically changed, that recovery will be removed.
• It is not possible to select ‘archer’ during creation and Archer is no longer displayed in the subclass screen shown during creation.
• You can’t subclass change to archer, or view it as an option in ‘allskills’,'allspells’, etc.
• It is no longer considered a valid option in ‘who’ and does not show in gamestat 10.
• The commands ’subclass [guild]‘ and ’subclass [all]‘ do not recognize archer.
• No longer available as a subclass in mob edit. Mobs that already had the archer subclass set should load as hunters

For those who don’t already know this, we are removing 1 subclass from most of the primary classes. This will allow us to better balance the subclasses and push towards making sure each subclass has some unique and useful abilities.

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Other changes in this reboot:
• The flag you see in the room on your quest mob is no longer [TARGET] - it has been changed to [QUEST]. The target flah is being used for something else.
• There is code in place to not scramble mob names shorter than 7 characters. I have extended this to allow for mob names that begin with ‘an’ ‘a’ and ‘the’ in campaigns (only for now). For example, the mob name “the bat” would not longer be a candidate for scrambling.
• Slist was incorrectly showing Napalm as a spell. Now fixed.
• ‘Instinct total’ now works the same way as ‘Instinct totals’.
• There is a new rare daily blessing item. Word will get around what it is no doubt. Thank Redryn for the idea.
• After using the daily blessing double you will be unable to quit for 10 minutes. Note that having more than one character in the game is illegal even if one of them is link dead. A regular player is only going to use the double when they expect to be around to use it so this only prevents ‘farming’ double and switching characters. If you have to leave unexpectedly, just idle in a safe room (east of recall is a good example) and let yourself time out normally.
• Fixed a bug with the parsing of ‘instinct rebuild [skill] confirm’.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/09/07/archer-hunter-subclass-merge/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/08/24/instinct-rebuild-note-reset/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/08/24/instinct-rebuild-note-reset/#comments Fri, 24 Aug 2012 16:11:45 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=587 Instinct Rebuild Option:

There is now a mechanism in place to rebuild instinct in either a single skill or all at once. The cost is 2% of the trains / gold put into the skill but there is a max charge of 5000 trains / 50m gold when using the ‘all’ option. The gold and trains that are returned are considered ‘deposited’ for instinct and not available for anything else.

New instinct options that go with this change are:

instinct totals           : Shows a list of skills and totals spent.
instinct check            : Shows overall total trains / gold spent and
                            rebuild costs for all skills.
instinct check [skill]    : Shows total trains / gold spent for a single
                            skill.
instinct rebuild all      : Redo instinct in all skills at once.
instinct rebuild [skill]  : Redo instinct in a single skill.

Note that the last 2 options also require the ‘confirm’ option to be used.





Example of Instinct check for a single skill or spell



Example of Instinct check for all skills and spells.

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Other changes in this reboot:
• Using ‘note reset’ with no argument will reset to the last note you read. At that point the “last note you read” is the one before it so using ‘note reset’ repeatedly will move your note pointer back one note each time. The note reset pointer is unique to each forum.
• You will now receive a message if you are online when someone adds or removes you from their ignore list.
• There is a new wear location called ‘readied’ that will be used as a convenience location with ranged combat. Stats on items in this wear location are not allowed and they cannot be enchanted. If you find other ways to get stats on the items, the wear code will not apply the stats anyway. Nothing you can actually do with this yet, but when you do see it you’ll know what it is.
• Capitalized the ‘is using’ line when you look at a mob.
• The ‘charges into the room in a frenzy!’ message from the ‘charge’ skill will now show through ‘groupspam’.
• Removed the invalid ‘not enough movement points’ error on Quickstab. As the skill does not cost any moves this should not have been there.
• ‘Buy tickets’ will now be considered the same as ‘buy ticket’ in the lottery room. This means the technically incorrect ‘buy tickets’ when you only want one does work. I am not coding a special case just to fix that minor issue.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/08/24/instinct-rebuild-note-reset/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/31/tier-stat-experienceperlevel-reductions/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/31/tier-stat-experienceperlevel-reductions/#comments Wed, 01 Aug 2012 00:01:28 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=581 The purpose of the changes below is to reduce some of the ‘gap’ between the tiers while still leaving a good incentive to progress. The real meat of the tier bonus, the +10 level to equipment and skills, has not been touched.

Some people will hate any change to tier power of any kind (relative or absolute) and others will feel like these changes don’t go far enough. I think we’ve found a good balance of keeping tiering a fun feature that is still worth doing while making it more possible for lower tiers to compete. Their lack of tier stat costs and slower level speed will mean they have to work harder to do it, but it is more possible now.

In most other cases, the total power has not changed but the relative difference per tier has changed by moving lower tiers up. The biggest exception to this is the dodge removal. Here’s the list of changes:

• Everyone has at least one free rebuild to be able to redo stats as necessary based on these changes.
• The total max trainable stats is now 1725 + 25 per tier. This means there is no change in max stats for a t9, everyone else moved up some, and the difference between tiers is smaller.
• There was an unlisted (at least in ‘help tier’) bonus of increasing the max trainable in a single stat by 5 per tier. This has been reduced to 2 per tier and the max trainable in a single stat has been increased by 25 in the earlier levels - up to 130 or so. There will be some levels where your max is lower than before and some where it is higher, but overall max at SH is the same as before. ‘Help maxstats’.
• To go in hand with the change to allow roll over of all hp, mana and moves, the max HP is now the previous T9 max for everyone. Max hp in the level 100-200 range is higher across the board with a smaller jump from 200 to 201. Overall max is the same as before.
• The max exp per level you can have at t0 is now 3000 and the max you can have at t1 is 4000. T2 is still 6000 and increases normally after that. I decided against drastically reducing the ‘time to t9′ as I do like the fact that Aard has a long lifespan but the first couple of tiers are painful so hopefully this will help. Because of the EXP calculation change some players will have logged in only 10 exp away from their next level - this is either a gift or something to be careful of if you use noexp.
• The tier bonuses to dodges are gone. The +10 level per tier to equipment and skills along with the cheaper stats and still higher stat maxxes is more than enough advantage in combat imho. We split the difference on this one because, wherever tier bonus would have previously applied, a 5% increase in the base chance was added - so everyone effectively has T5 dodges. Turns out the old helpfile was wrong btw, it was 1% per tier.

We’ll monitor these changes over the next few weeks and see how it all turns out. Meanwhile, moving on to subclasses..

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/31/tier-stat-experienceperlevel-reductions/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/27/nyne-woods-tier-hp-carryover/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/27/nyne-woods-tier-hp-carryover/#comments Fri, 27 Jul 2012 16:36:57 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=577 New Area - The Nyne Woods:

The island prison of The Nyne Woods has only been opened briefly, yet the rumors are circulating about its inhabitants. They say the most heinous of criminals have been magically sealed here ever since the escape of the vile Damian. Now a mysterious man has appeared again and The Thieves Guild has regrouped. This is the final showdown. Will you be able to reunite the Cult of Dark Lotus? Will you be able to regrow the sacred Dark Lotus? Will you be able to put an end to Damian once and for all?

Level Range         : 200 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Very Hard
Goal Recommended at : 201
Goal Converter      : Madrox/Myrkul
Area Author         : Madrox/Rapscallia

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Tier carryover for Hp, Mana and Moves

The way that hp, mana and moves carry over at tier 0 to tier 9 has been redone. The old way is that half of any amount over 8,000 is stored and added back to your hp when you reach 7*201 in the next tier.

The new way is that your hp, mana and moves are stored at the time you tier when you reach 7*201 in the next tier, if that value is higher than your current hp, your current hp will be what they were last tier - just set to that value, not added.

For example, at tier 2 you get your hp up to 20,000 then retier. When you reach 7*201 in the next tier, you have 7000 hp.

Old method: Hp = 13,000    : 7000 + 6000 (half of the amount over
                                          8000 from last tier)
New method: Hp = 20,000    : The old saved value.

This value is set at the time you retier so this will only apply to people who retier after this reboot. The purpose of the change is to allow you to spend some time ’sitting’ without losing all the trains put into these stats. I let the amount kept be 100% because you’re still losing out on trains put into regular stats. This change does not apply to t9 redos because *all* stats including trained and gained values are restored when you hit 201*7 on a redo. It also does not cover stats, just hp/mana/moves.



---

Other Changes:

Other changes in todays update.

• There is a new config option called ‘strictsocials‘. When set, you will only do socials when you explicitly use the ‘*’ prefix. This does not affect channels or the random command.
• ‘Unequip‘ is now a global alias for remove. Not that useful to anyone already here but new players try it quite often.
• Using ‘consider’ with no arguments will now be treated the same as ‘consider all’
• You will no longer see portal arrive, home and recall messages in rooms flagged as ‘quiet’. Note that this is not the same thing as “silent spell” rooms - these are the same rooms you already don’t see people walk in/out of and mostly affects a few rooms in the Academy and Aylor.
• If you reconnect and someone in the room is attacking you or a group member, and you have auto-assist on, you will immediately be put back into combat. The lag after you reconnect will now be much shorter if you are not in combat. There has to still be a little lag to protect us from reconnect spam when someone’s client goes crazy.
• Brief 1 (show desc for new room only) was not working with ‘enter’ because the explored bit was getting set before the look. Now fixed.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/27/nyne-woods-tier-hp-carryover/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/14/gnolls-quarry-relinquished-tombs/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/14/gnolls-quarry-relinquished-tombs/#comments Sat, 14 Jul 2012 22:45:05 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=572 New Area - Gnoll’s Quarry:

For generations, the lords and kings of Mesolar have sought out the stone cut from the Mesolarian Quarry. Known for its superior stone, master craftsmen and fair prices, this quarry has provided the rock that built many of the towns and castles of Mesolar. Run by dwarves, the quarry was always bustling with activity and visitors and had even built up a small town to house all of the workers and their families. That is until a few years ago when the Ark’Garoo Gnoll pack violently came to destroy and loot the village. It was only after the gnolls has completely decimated everything that they realized the profit potential of the quarry. What dwarves were left were enslaved to work the quarry.

A encampment has been erected over the ruins of the old village and the gnolls have quickly taken to pressing the dwarves into cutting stone deeper in the quarry than they ever dared go in the past. The gnoll pack leader Grak’ou has appointed himself as the Overseer of all operations and has moved his wife Arrssa and daughter Urloo into the only remaining stone building left from the attack. For awhile, everything was running to the Overseers likings until the dwarven slaves started disappearing.

Rumors of strange noises started to be whispered amongst the dwarves. When word of this reached the Overseers ears he laughed it off and pressed the slaves to work even harder to make up for the lost labor.

However, with the disappearances continuing and production slowing down, the Overseer has no option but to investigate and eliminate the cause of the slave disappearances.

Level Range         : 105-125
Goal Difficulty     : Hard
Goal Recommended at : 125
Goal Converter      : Stutz & Xadyen
Area Author         : Stutz & Xadyen

---

New Area - The Relinquished Tombs

It’s been so long since the tombs have seen any visitors! The keepers of the Relinquished Tombs have developed tasks for daring mortals to complete. Drydel, the tomb keeper, has lost all of his treasured jewelry and needs help locating them. Dinymos needs help banishing intangible beings from the tombs. What is the final task Kimrodcer has in store? Visit Rilnyi to start your adventure and find out!

Level Range         : 70 to 100
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : 90
Goal Converter      : Rhuli
Area Author         : Rhuli & Leonassan

Note: This area replaces Stonekeep.

---

Other Changes:

A few other changes and bug fixes made it into this reboot:

• Added a message to ‘gq info’ and ‘gq check’ to say that some mob names might be scrambled. Hopefully this will cut down on the bug reports.
• The ‘gquest ranges’ command has been tidied up a little. It is now color codes based on whether or not the gquest has already been run and will respect pagesize settings. You can also use ‘gquest ranges [level]‘ to show only ranges that include that level. When used without a level filter, the command will show the total percentage complete on the current gquest cycle.
• There is a new config option called ‘clantags’. When using ‘who’ with this set, instead of seeing the colored clan logo you will just see the clan name inside yellow brackets. For example: [wolf]. Same applies to gquest chat, but gquest history still shows the full logo.
• Items bought from questor or bought using ‘tpspend’ will now come with the ‘keep’ flag (the free one) already set.
• A primary class paladin using ‘awareness’ will no longer get the negative HR/DR affects.
• The time between a war being declared and moving into the ‘preparation’ stage has been reduced from 4 minutes to 2 minutes.
• ‘Consider’ will now capitalize correctly where mobs have real names.
• Fixed various places in ‘train’ where it would show ‘1 trains’.
• Fixed an issue with hide and invis sometimes being ’stacked’ with race effects and removed twice at start of combat.
• When you enter remort mode you will automatically stop following. This is to prevent someone from being able to pull you out of the remort room leaving you stuck in remort mode.
• When using the ‘recall’ command (or /), any text after the command itself will cause the command to fail.
• The ‘@’ sign at the end of a line would cause the ‘newline’ character to be skipped and the next line to either not be displayed or to be displayed as one long line. Now fixed.
• You will now see a GMCP message when your spouse leaves the game.
• Fixed a bug with ‘rank 17 yearly’ not sorting correctly.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/07/14/gnolls-quarry-relinquished-tombs/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/05/05/invsort-command-trivia-aura/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/05/05/invsort-command-trivia-aura/#comments Sun, 06 May 2012 02:18:29 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=568 A few changes that came in with the reboot today:

Invsort Command:

There is a new command called ‘invsort’ that lets you display you inventory list sorted in a number of ways. Just typing ‘invsort [sortby]‘ will sort your main inventory. Typing ‘invsort [container] [sortby]‘ will show items in a container. The ’sortby’ options are:

level, wear (wear location), type, name

You can also add the ‘nolines’ argument to remove the line breaks. You can’t remove the section headings when sorting by type or wear flags though.

Sorting by level will show items levels even if you have noobjlevels on - not much point sorting by level if you can’t see it. When you are sorting by wear location or type, the secondary sort is by level not name.

Lots of enhancements we can make to this, just a basic version for now to get the sorting in.

Aura of Trivia - New Stats:

The aura of trivia now costs 6 trivia points instead of 5, will have some random stats added when purchased, and can be sold back to Ravi for 2 trivia points. Existing auras in the game can also be sold back, but only by their owner. The syntax to sell an aura back is ‘tpspend sell aura’.

Other Changes This Reboot:

• The ‘timeshifting’ navigator effect has been significantly increased to be almost twice as effective as it was. All lag reduction is close to 30%. Note that timeshifting also affects all game “lag”, not just from spells, so all actions with timeshifting up are approx 30% faster. If this has to be toned down later, remember that 15->30->25 is not a “massive nerf”.
• Using ‘p data’ will no longer add an extra @w at the end of the rawcolor version of each prompt.
• If you get teleported or change room via any other means while using brandish, you will no longer continue to cast the object spell against the remaining targets in the old room.
• Mobs attempting to use spiral will now work correctly regardless of whether or not they are using a weapon, but they do far less damage when they don’t have a weapon.
• When someone tries to use an owned item in a way that would trigger a ‘xxx has your yyy’ message to the owner, it will no longer find a partial match on the owner name. See bugs note #11652 for more info.
• It should no longer be necessary to use a light to take part in Lasertag - brightness has been set higher on all rooms.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/05/05/invsort-command-trivia-aura/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/03/18/tairayden-peninsula-blood-sanctum-areas/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/03/18/tairayden-peninsula-blood-sanctum-areas/#comments Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:55:12 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=557 New Area - Tairayden Peninsula:

Imagine a lush rainforest, full of tropical animals and exotic plants, combined with a picturesque beach with white sand and crystal blue water.

Welcome to Tairayden Peninsula. Whether you’re looking for a place to kick back, relax and enjoy the sunset, or venture into the depths of the forest, Tairayden is the perfect place for you! Do be cautious though, as rumors have been spread of a deadly tribe that has made the peninsula their home. They don’t appreciate visitors encroaching upon their land. There have even been numerous reports of sudden attacks on unsuspecting vacationers, taking them hostage and demanding large amounts of gold for their release. Are you the hero able to rescue these poor prisoners and serve justice to the Tairayden tribe?

Level Range         : 110 to 130
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 120
Goal Min Level      : 110
Goal Converter      : Rhuli
Area Author         : Rhuli

---

New Area - The Blood Sanctum

Recently, after Crynn’s rise, a new threat has come up as well. A new being has come into ultimate power, also forsaken by her deity, Ayla. Having been corrupted in life and now in her new “divine” life, she will try to succeed where Crynn has failed, and more. The angels of Andolor thought Meirin’davel could be saved, her soul preserved, but she turned her wrath upon the forces of heaven first. Enslaving these creatures of the light, Meirin has taken in the strongest and twisted them to her will.

Calling herself the Blood, she and her new angel-like creatures called the Breed are rumoured to be building an army, and oracles start to whisper among themselves. Aylor may be in danger…

Level Range            : 180 to 201
Goal Difficulty        : Easy
Goal Recommended at    : Level 200
Goal Min Level         : Level 195
Goal Max Level         : Level 201
Goal Converter         : Sammael
Area Author            : Sammael

Second Goal:

After Meirin’davel’s defeat, it was thought that life would return to normal, but a witch has come forward to warn everyone that they do not see what is really being done. Many take her for a crazy old hag, others truely believe that she may be right.

Level Range            : 180 to 201
Goal Difficulty        : Easy
Goal Recommended at    : Level 200
Goal Min Level         : Level 195
Goal Max Level         : Level 201
Goal Converter         : Sammael
Area Author            : Sammael

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/03/18/tairayden-peninsula-blood-sanctum-areas/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/03/18/navigator-skill-bypass-multiple/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/03/18/navigator-skill-bypass-multiple/#comments Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:55:08 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=560 New Navigator Skill - Bypass:


There is a new Navigator ability called ‘bypass’. A navigator can use the command ‘bypass [area]‘ - the matching used is the same as that use in ‘runto’.

When an area is bypassed it will not be selected for quests or campaigns. You can bypass 2 areas and at 600 int/wis can bypass 3. Once the areas are actually set you don’t have to maintain that 600 int/wis.

There is no limit no how often you can change your bypassed areas. Whenever you request a quest or campaign and a target on your bypass list is selected, the chance to skill it will be based on your practiced in the skill. At 100% you should not see your bypass list in quests or campaigns unless no other targets can be found.

Other Game Changes:

• Increased (just a little) a little the minimum number of ‘next quest is double qp’ rewards you can get from daily blessings.
• Charge damage has been upped, the extra stats that mobs get when they are charged has been reduced and the movement cost is now 100 moves isntead of 250. Primary stat for charge is now int (number of hits and damage) and con (also affects damage).
• Modified the display of custom exits to always use the longer form. More consistent / easier to read that way. See bugs #11892.
• Limit on max side/dice usable with the ‘dice’ command in room is now 5,000 to be consistent with using dice over a channel.
• If a Venomist is using a damage type other than physical and poison, the Necrotic Touch affect will now use that damage type in addition to poison and physical.
• The code that flags someone as able to gquest will now work if you are link dead. Please don’t abuse this - it is illegal to have multiple characters in the game even if one of them is linkdead. This happens accidentally sometimes, but when it happens ‘accidentally’ people aren’t giving items to their other char or joining gquests etc.
• GMCP Base now includes number of t9 redos.
• Using ‘p data’ will now show your regular prompt and battle prompt with and without rawcolors on, unless you already have rawcolors on which will override that.
• Reduced the recovery on the ‘Safeguard’ skill and halved the lag on ‘rescue’ when used by a Guardian.
• Tidied up the prompt ‘max length’ code so you get a warning instead of just a truncated prompt. Max length is 80 characters excluding color codes - you can have up to 20 color codes.

Bug Fixes in this reboot:

• Weapon ’special’ flags (such a poisoned, flaming, etc) were firing on backstab hits which is not suppose to happen. This was causing some buggy backstab messages for Venomist amongst other things.
• Fixed vampiric touch causing you to ‘aim’ the character the missed the cast.
• Fixed in-combat backstab message - it was buggy all along, out of combat backstab should have always given the regular message based on weapon type but didn’t.
• Fixed gq info display to remove that extra period from it.
• Info powerups should respect the ‘clanonly’ setting now.
• Fixed a negative tickets message using ‘lottery buy’ when daily blessing tickets took you over max.
• Fixed say and whisper showing an invisibile character’s name in the GMCP version.
• Fixed a bug with spells continuing onto a PK target if you have autoassist on, autopk off, and your group leader is fighting another player.
• Note list will now display the correct amount of text when a note subject has color codes in it.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/03/18/navigator-skill-bypass-multiple/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/02/21/free-global-class-change-hedgehogs-paradise/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/02/21/free-global-class-change-hedgehogs-paradise/#comments Tue, 21 Feb 2012 15:31:15 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=551 New Area and Goal - Hedgehog’s Paradise:

The life of a hedgehog is one of contentment; they get to sleep all day AND all night, eat their fill of the juiciest bugs, grubs and roots, and they have someone to pick up after them! There is nothing that the hedgehogs are left wanting for; this is their paradise. Kept safe from harm by magic, there are no predators inside the garden they call home and they have no desire to leave their elf-made paradise.

Their paradise is a small garden maze, made from well placed hedges, and is set in an idyllic countryside. There is a gardener to care for the plants and animals which inhabit the garden, pruning the hedges and raking up the leaves. The grass is green, the sun is shining and the birds are singing.

The gardener, an elven female of the woods, tends to the gardens that has become home to the hedgehogs. She says the hedgehogs are always stealing apples from the orchard to the east and eating, hiding or playing with them. They mess with the leaves too, taking them from her carefully raked up pile under the large tree in the centre of the garden. She needs some help to clean up and she won’t mind paying for the helping hand.

Level Range         : 60 to 80
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 70
Goal Converter      : Rumour & Stokes
Area Author         : Rumour

---

Code upgrades in this reboot:

• Backstab used in combat has been capped at 2 backstab hits.
• The ‘charge’ skill is now Knight subclass only.
• It has been a long time since there was a global free classchange, so now everyone has one. A classchange is given to provide a change to change their class, it is not a ’stat’ you get to keep so if you classchange via some other means (retier), then you no longer need it. Players that already have their first free classchange also no longer need it - you don’t now have two.
• Only other thing worth noting here is that using a free classchange won’t reset your existing timer - if you’re down to 20 days you will still be down to 20 days after using it.
• If you’re not particularly unhappy in your current class then hang on to this for a few as new subclass stuff is on the way.
• The level range of mobs seen in 191-199 gquests will now be lower.
• The toprank, myrank and ranking commands now support the options -d, -w, -m and -y for daily, weekly, monthly and yearly.
• There is a new ‘info powerups’ option to separate regular levels and powerups on the info channel. It defaults to off, so turn on ‘info powerups’ if you still want to see these messages.
• The duration of the Serenity spell has been increased and now also includes some bonus wisdom and hitroll.

Bug fixes in this reboot:

• The max damage a venomist can get with the special hit on an envenomed weapon is now capped based on level. Shouldn’t affect people envenoming their own weapons and still worthwhile to get a higher level to do it, but no more level 1 ‘NUKES’ because a superhero envenomed the weapon.
• A failed vampiric touch will now start combat.
• Fixed a bug with the changing flag not kicking in when a mob is immume to its current damage type.
• Fixed a bug with color codes in ‘where’ sometimes causing a color bleed.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/02/21/free-global-class-change-hedgehogs-paradise/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/01/31/humility-spell-classchange-cost-reductions/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/01/31/humility-spell-classchange-cost-reductions/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:12:59 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=546 Code changes and enhancements in the Jan 31st 2012 reboot:
• There is a new Martyr ability called ‘humility‘. This spell allows a Martyr to humble themselves before the gods, appearing weaker than they really are. The outcome is that monsters killed while a Martyr is affected by humility will reward experience as if the Martyr were several levels lower. The recovery time on this is fixed and the duration increases with additional luck/wisdom. The spell is up 100% of the time at 600/600 stats.
• The cost of a classchange will now drop by 80qp per day rather than 60 and will reach a new minimum cost of 2,000qps. The duration to reach lowest cost is still 100 days as I don’t see a whole lot of value in making people wait even long.
• Whenever you can’t enter a room because you are too low level, or it is a helper only room or similar reasons you will now see a message telling you why rather than ‘Alas, you cannot go that way’.
• Made some changes/fixes to Envenom from bugs reported by Kojiro:
  • A venomist (only) can now envenom a weapon even if it already has the poison flag. The weapon will ‘remember’ it had the flag already and still have the regular version of the flag after the spell expires.
  • The special damage from a venomist using an envenomed weapon is now impossible to parry and restricted to venomist only.
• It is no longer possible to push a mob into a safe room. When trying to do so you will get a slightly different message.
• When using runto, a match on a full word in an area name will override a partial match. One obvious example of this is ‘runto aerie’ which will now go straight to Hatchling Aerie instead of picking up ‘faerie’ tales. There might some of your own runto aliases that need cleaning up because of this change.
• When using ‘board [whatever]‘ the [whatever] part can now be a partial match on the start of the board name, so ‘board per’ would work.
• Object flags in ‘invdata’ will now be in the same orders as in ‘inventory’.
• Lowered the timeout on assassinate some.
• Clandonate will no longer announce to the clan for amounts less than 100k.

Bug fixes in the Jan 31st 2012 reboot:

• Once you have completed a goal you will see it in the ‘goals’ command even if it is hidden.
• Visibility checks have been removed from both the ‘clients’ and the ‘domains’ commands.
• The ‘remorts’ amount in gmcp.base will now update correctly after remorting.
• Daily blessing will no longer try to give you stats in which you’re already at the max.
• Fixed a buggy message using daily blessing area reset.
• After remorting and being moved to recall, the room is now shown and GMCP updates correctly.
• It is no longer possible to superero loud using a free superhero when double is already on.
• Using ‘clanqpdonate’ should now update gmcp worth.
• The daily ranking note for campaigns completed will now correctly show quest points earned in the period rather than quests completed.
• Using ’superhero silent’ when you have a free sh will no longer interrupt any double exp already running.
• In almost all situations, a mob that is impossible to damage will now also be considered immune to each different damage type for the purposes of ’saves’. This fixes vampiric touch still giving hp boost / align change against immune mobs and probably clears up a few other minor issues that are technically bugs too.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/01/31/humility-spell-classchange-cost-reductions/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/01/31/wayward-alehouse-area-goals-hades-hodgepodge/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/01/31/wayward-alehouse-area-goals-hades-hodgepodge/#comments Wed, 01 Feb 2012 01:12:52 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=544 New Area - The Wayward Alehouse:

Situated in the middle of the Desolate Pridelands of the Dark Continent, Abend, a lonely structure stands out, clashing against the drab grey and brown background. An oasis of sorts, the Wayward Alehouse exists as the sole sign of civilization as far as the eye can see. Though the Pridelands are desolate, as their name would suggest, the land immediately surrounding the Alehouse seems to have failed to notice, as grass sprouts and trees grow.

Even from outside, one can easily hear the chatter of dozens of conversations, the roar of merry drinking songs, the boom of the house band directing patrons to dance, and the occasional clinking together of mugs as someone toasts to good health. Truly, the Wayward Alehouse is party central of the Desolate Pridelands.

Level Range           : 70 to 90
Goal Difficulty       : Medium
Goal Recommended at   : 90
Goal Converter        : Accora
Area Author           : Accora

---

Entrance to Hades - New Goal:

The Underworld is the kingdom of the dead, ruled by Hades, the Lord of the Underworld. Life in the underworld is not pleasant. Like a miserable dream, it is a place of shadows with little hope or joy.

From the entrance of Hade’s domain , you may cross the river Archeron, but the only way to cross is to pay Cheron, the ferryman, to ferry you. Once across the river, the gates are guarded by Cereberus, a three-headed beast who prevents anyone from escaping.

You find yourself standing at an entrance to Hades, but you are unable to enter. It would take your death or the will of a god to grant you entrance into Hades, and you are unprepared for either option. Suddenly you hear a moan nearby, and upon investigating find a wounded warrior. He beseeches you for help. Will you be daunted by his request or will you journey into the depths of the Underworld?

Level Range         : 190 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Converter      : Domain
Area Author         : Drakus

---

A Magical Hodgepodge - New Goal:

Many moons ago, there was a power. It roams the roads, wanders through town after town, exploring the skies, until it feels itself pulled towards a path. As the power finally reaches the path, it splits in two. Each one choosing a separate fork in the road, but suddenly the two independent powers find themselves drawn back to each other with increasing force. They collide…and suddenly nothing is the same anymore.

Where what was magical is now mundane…what was nice is now mean…what welcomed you before is now telling you to go away. You’ll see a hermit with many friends. A hero trying to slay the princess and rescue the dragon…a dilapidated mansion and an elegant shack. The rich will be poor and the poor will be richer than they ever dreamed. And the animals are even more mixed-up a cow that barks? A horse that oinks? You might see these or none at all. The magical mix-up has caused creatures to be invented that have never existed before, and caused others to change… disturbingly so.

Are you the savior of the Hodgepodge, that restores the magic before the Hodgepodge disappears?

Level Range         : 5 to 35
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 20
Goal Converter      : Phalae
Area Author         : Nalani & Ronnie

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2012/01/31/wayward-alehouse-area-goals-hades-hodgepodge/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/10/16/daily-weekly-monthly-yearly-rankings-game/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/10/16/daily-weekly-monthly-yearly-rankings-game/#comments Sun, 16 Oct 2011 19:26:49 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=534 Daily, Weekly, Monthly and Yearly Rankings

There are several new sets of rankings on Aardwolf: daily, weekly, monthly and yearly. There is also a new ‘rankings’ board and at the end of each period the winner in each category will be posted to that board.

Several new commands and/or options to existing commands come with these rankings:

drank [rank] : show the detailed daily rankings.
wrank [rank] : show the detailed weekly rankings.
mrank [rank] : show the detailed monthly rankings.
yrank [rank] : show the detailed yearly rankings.

You can also use the ‘daily’, ‘weekly’, ‘monthly’ and ‘yearly’ options to the regular rankings command. Only one of these arguments at a time makes sense and they are checked in the order listed.

Several other new rank options exist:

myrank all      : Show your ranking position in all periods. Does not
                  show the total - not enough room for all of them.

myrank [period] : Period can be daily, weekly, monthly or yearly.

myrank [ranktype] [period] : Show the next few players above and below
                  you in a specific daily, weekly, monthly or yearly
                  ranking.

rank times      : Show the time that each ranking last reset. This has
                  been in test a while now so only yearly does not
                  start at a full calendar year.

There is another new commad called ‘toprank’ that will show a summary of the top rankings for any of the new time based rankings. For example, ‘toprank 10 weekly’ will show the top 3 in each of the weekly rankings.



A screenshot showing an example of the ‘toprank’ output is above.

---

Other Game Changes:

Several other game changes in this reboot including an increase in remort auction items and practice percentages:

• The max you can practice a skill to has been increased to 85%. The scholar wish now takes that up to 95%.
• Primary class mage, cleric and psi will now gain a few extra points of mana per level up to SH.
• Max rauction items has been increased from 3 to 10.
• The duration of the flag when envenoming weapons has been increased a little and is based on dex more than level now.
• When a venomist is using a weapon with a poison flag, they will get an extra hit added to their backstab and that hit will be poison damage. The flag can be from envenom or can be permanent, either works.
• An assassin using strangle will have no lag on success and will instead have a 3 second recovery time.
• The 19x-201 gquest ranges have been separated. Level 200 and 201 now have their own gquest range with potentially higher level mobs.
• The mafia game now has its own board. ‘Board mafia’.

---

Bug Fixes:

An the usual assortment of bug fixes, thanks to everyone who takes the time to report these:

• The Envenom affect on a weapon should now last for the full duration it was cast. There was a bug in the poison flag code making this not the case.
• Cleaned up the output on ‘wish costs’ so it will fit within a standard 80 character terminal.
• Myrank [ranking number] using the regular rankings is now working again.
• Gaining stats from daily blessings now sends appropriate GMCP message.
• Single class casters are supposed to gain an extra hit from haste. This wasn’t working 100% and should have been.
• Campaign check will now also show whether or not you are able to take a new campaign at the current level.
• An item in the room with the name just ‘@@w’ will no longer show as a blank line when displaying the room and will no longer show when you do a ‘get all’.
• Eqdata tags will now open correctly when you are not actually wearing any equipment.
• Using ‘glance’ will now show the GMCP room info.
• You can no longer reunion into a pclass room you would not otherwise be able to enter.
• The ‘You have XXX trains available for instinct’ displayed after instinct buy will now show the real amount available including deposited trains rather than just trains on hand.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/10/16/daily-weekly-monthly-yearly-rankings-game/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/09/12/potsearch-command-kobaloi-shouggoth-goals/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/09/12/potsearch-command-kobaloi-shouggoth-goals/#comments Mon, 12 Sep 2011 15:33:41 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=530 Potsearch (potion search):

There is a new feature called ‘potsearch’ to help players find potions, scrolls, wands, pills or staves containing a specific spell. As with eqsearch, it does not cover all items in the game, but does cover all open clan equipment, the potions in Aylor, and a few more easily acquired items.



The syntax is:

Potsearch [spell name] [object type] 'details'

Type will filter the output to only items of that type and can be any of:

   pill, potion, staff, stave, wand.

The optional 'details' argument will list all of the spells on each items
returned rather than just a list of the items themselves.

---

Venomist Update

A few changes to the venomist subclass skills:

• When a venomist uses the envenom skill, it will cause the flag to do some damage when it fires during combat. This only works for a venomist in combat regardless of who actually added the flag.
• When a venomist uses the envenom skill, it will also add a small amount of average damage to the item. The amount is based on dex but is also capped based on the item level (ie, no level 1 items with +20 avg dam).
• The benefits of the venomist skill ‘cell potential’ will now increase slightly with level as well as stats. The amount that dex affects the bonus has also been increased.
• When an item has been envenomed, using the full identify spell will now show the duration of the spell remaining.
• The lag on a failed ‘necrotic’ is now just a single round of combat. The recovery timer on success has not changed.

---

Temple of Shouggoth - New Goal:

The god Shouggoth is known throughout Andolor as the god of decay, ruin, and unlife. Years ago, he paid a visit to a temple tucked away in the Demon’s Halo Mountains of Alagh. At the time, the temple was dedicated to a now-unknown god. Shouggoth took it over, murdering the clergy and turning them into zombies. He cursed the temple with decay and through his powers of unlife he maintained the unholy life of the zombies. Thus the Temple of Shouggoth was born.

However, the temple did not keep Shouggoth’s interest for long. Soon he became distracted by Yurgach. Yet he desired to maintain a foothold in the temple and so left a statue containing some of his presence in the temple so the curse of decay would continue. This statue was intended to work in conjunction with a vile beast, however, for for some reason, the curse is weakening…

Level Range         : 10 to 50
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Reccomended At : Level 40
Goal Converters     : Phalae and Raistlin
Area Author         : Kali

---

Keep of the Kobaloi - New Area and Goal:

Who are the Kobaloi? They are an odd little race that many take for unusually intelligent kobolds. However, the Kobaloi would be insulted by such an assumption. They are, rather, akin to Ratlings, and are on very friendly terms with that race.

The Kobaloi tend to be shy, and rarely leave the confines of their mountain home known as The Keep of the Kobaloi. The Kobaloi live in a fairly rigid social structure, organized into four factions. Those who tend to the Royal Family (the Keepers of the Palace); those who tend to the Kobaloi Gods (the Keepers of the Temple); those who farm the subterranean ponds within the mountain depths (the Keepers of the Ponds) and those who guard all of the above (the Keepers of the Peace).

The Kobaloi are suspicious of strangers, but will, on occasion, accept an outsider as one of their own. Perhaps, with a little effort, you might gain their trust and become an Honorary Keeper of the Kobaloi.

Level Range         : 10 to 80
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 25
Goal Converter      : Ariel
Area Author         : Lumina

This area replaces The Dwarven Kingdom.

---

Other bug fixes:
A handful of minor bug fixes and updates also went live today:
• Using ‘$’ in says will no longer cause to appear in GMCP ’say’ messages.
• Dtrack can now track Balefire correctly.
• Initiating PK with ‘charge’ should now correctly add the revenge flag.
• Necrotic Touch should now improve with use.
• The incomplete healing spell cast from the daily blessing potion (only) can now be used by anyone.
• An area that has no speedwalk and no speedwalk message listed will now be ignored when using ‘runto’.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/09/12/potsearch-command-kobaloi-shouggoth-goals/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/21/daily-blessing-feature-area-goals/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/21/daily-blessing-feature-area-goals/#comments Sun, 21 Aug 2011 18:37:53 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=525 Daily Blessing:

There is a new feature called ‘daily blessing’. Every 23 hours, you can enter daily prayer’ to get some form of bonus. The most common bonuses will be action oriented (next 50 kills are double exp, etc) but there are also some nice random bonuses that will occur less often and a handful of very rare and valueable bonuses. To see your current timers and any existing daily blessings, just type ‘daily’.

We are very excited about this feature because of what we can add to it, rare chances to get some really nice and unique rewards along with the more common daily stuff. I will also be quite likely to add new things in here without announcing them.



A note on the double exp part of daily blessing - double exp adds not multiplies. This means that If you kill a mob for 100xp and double is running, you get another 100. If you also have the daily blessing double you get another 100 for 300 exp total, not another 200.

---

A completely new area and new goals in two existing areas were also added today:

Tanra’vea - New area and goal:

The forest of Tanra’vea is filled with a wondrous beauty, majestic waterfalls, quiet glades and rolling hills. It is also filled with an ancient, twisted evil that dwells deep in the ruins of an old city. Centuries ago, a large meteorite crashed to the earth, creating a cloud of toxic dust that killed or mutated most of the population. The Tanra’veans, guardians of the forest, were wiped out and their city fell to ruin. When the dust settled, the Skreans were born, a bi-pedal race of scavengers who live in a simple village in the forest. A dark and evil presence took up residency deep in the forest, slowly killing the trees and spreading its evil throughout the area. Life bloomed and flourished in the crater left by the meteor, the torn landscape now a flourishing ecosystem separate from that of the nearby forest.

The good that the Tanra’veans did over their life span has been erased and forgotten. Once they lived in harmony with the forest in which they made their home, now they are mere shadows of themselves, turned evil. One ghostly girl remains behind, with enough of her spiritual essence present in the now that she almost seems like she stepped out of time. She needs your help to try and set things right in the forest once again. Her intentions are goodly and pure, and through your actions, she may finally find her peace and depart from this world.

Level Range             : 180 to 201
Goal Difficulty         : Medium
Goal Recommended at     : Level 200
Goal Converters         : Rumour & Paramore
Area Author             : Rumour

---

Fort Terramire - New goals:

A rabbit hole, in itself surprising in width and depth, leads to a highly complex and militaristic society of giant hares. These are the bunnies of Fort Terramire, feared for their random and vicious raids on bipeds and quadrapeds alike, taking them as slaves to do their bidding. However, all is not necessarily well within the walls of the Fort, as rumors of treason, rebellion, and dark magic reach the ears of those in command.

Level Range         : 10 to 35
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : 25
Goal Converter      : Halo & Lumina
Area Author         : Vladia

---

Artificers Mayhem - New goal:

The castle of Fal’Shara was a quiet and happy place. The suddenly artifacts began stirring. Filled with a life of their own, they overran the castle and filled the residents with fear for their lives. Then the princess disappeared, further creating panic. Now the King and Queen are searching for a champion, but so far the champions have been lacking. Will you be that champion?

Level Range             : 180 to 201
Goal Difficulty         : Easy
Goal Recommended Level  : 200
Goal Converter          : Domain
Area Author             : Korridel

---

Other changes in this reboot:

• The duration of web when cast on a player by a mob has been lowered. No change to PVP web.
• Skills and spells will now improve on average around 30% faster.
• Using ‘to’ in give should work correctly, both for giving items and gold as they use slightly different code. (Fiendish/Khroxas). Using Fiendish’s note from ideas:

  > give x to -> gives x to “to”
  > give x to y -> gives x to y
  > give to y -> gives “to” to y
  > give to to y -> gives “to” to y

• The mud currently does not send map or GMCP information in a clan PK room. We considered sending it in non-maze rooms but I think it should be down to each clan whether or not they want their main hall to be mappable. There is now an ‘allowmap’ flag. Clans can add it to their hall rooms free of charge for the time being, please post to ‘upgrades’ as usual. Imms, this flag is ‘allowmap’.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/21/daily-blessing-feature-area-goals/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/11/mastery-redo-combat-skill-enhancements/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/11/mastery-redo-combat-skill-enhancements/#comments Thu, 11 Aug 2011 20:15:01 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=521 Some other changes made in today’s reboot. The most important are the redo for masteries and the skills modified to continue unused hits on the next target.
• Skills converted to that subsequent hits roll over to the next target:

  Hammer, Sweep, Spiral, Circle, Bodycheck, Headbutt, Kick, Flay, Lash,
  Warcry, Bash

• There is now a way to redo masteries to put them into other damage types. There is a 2% cost involved but this cost cannot be higher than 4000qp and 50m gold. When you redo masteries, the total cost spent on them goes into new ‘deposited’ values and your masteries are reset to zero. The following new options have been added:

  mastery totals - shows total spent so far for each mastery type.
  mastery check - shows tax amount and totals before/after rebuild.
  mastery rebuild - does the actual rebuild of masteries. Requires a ‘confirm’ option.

  Using mastery with no arguments will now also show any amounts deposited and when you buy masteries, deposited amounts will be used before onhand qp or gold.

• To help with rebuilding masteries, there is a new ‘mbuy’ option which allowed you to buy up to 100 points of mastery at a time. Syntax is:

  mastery mbuy [amount] [damage type]

• Modified the combat carry over a little. The way combat finds the next target is:
  • Is there another mob in the room hitting me?
  • Is there another mob in the room fighting my group leader?
  • Is there another mob in the room fighting another group member?

  These last two will now only be checked if you have autoassist on. I believe
  this is more consistent with what ‘autoassist’ is meant to be.

• It is now possible to idle out while fighting. No more newbies fighting Barney for a week while linkdead.
• Fixed the ‘fail’ tags on Ironfist.
• Socials that have no messages set for others/self will now also give a message when used on channels.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/11/mastery-redo-combat-skill-enhancements/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/11/stormhaven-glimmerdim-dhalgora-outlands-areas/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/11/stormhaven-glimmerdim-dhalgora-outlands-areas/#comments Thu, 11 Aug 2011 19:01:27 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=517 Three new areas were added this reboot. Each of them also includes a new goal:

Ruins of Stormhaven:

Stormhaven was once a prosperous town. Ruled entirely by the mage’s guild, there was no control of them. To have a child who was a mage was considered the greatest blessing one could have. Trisaldi and Keln were blessed with three such children. As the children grew, their power was evident. However, each was very different from the other. The youngest, Krichel, loved helping others and learned many healing spells along with potent combat spells. He desired to protect everyone. Ozwalt, the middle child, often hid in the background. Trouble always circled around him, but rarely was connected to him as he pulled the strings from the shadows. Sakelth, the eldest, delighted in torturing animals just to see what he could do. He was constantly in trouble with his parents and teachers. The teachers privately told each other that he didn’t have a single decent bone in his body. The brothers fought often, and their fights were terrible.

The three brothers became full mages on the same day, and they were inducted into the guild. Soon after, people went missing. It started with beggars and urchins, and then began moving up the social ladder. Then Sakelth led an army of the undead against the city, destroying the city and reducing it to ruins. Krichel gathered as many of the living as he could and retreated to the castle. He cast powerful spells of protection and warding to protect his people. Ozwalt retreated to the south, and brought forth his army of shadow creatures. He sent them to do battle with his brother’s forces, while he prepared for attack. Sakelth continued to try to consolidate his power, using his undead to create a castle. Each is unable to gain an advantage over the other so they continue to search the ruins for magic artifacts to use to gain that advantage. Will you be the advantage they can use?

Level range         : 150-201
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal recommended at : 200
Goal Converter      : Domain
Area Author         : Domain

Note: This area replaces Arboria.

---

Brightsea and Glimmerdim:

On the surface, Brightsea appears to be a peaceful seaside tourist town with little of interest to offer the average adventurer. But within the town’s underbelly, certain nefarious individuals are recruiting for organized crime. Ambitious thieves may wish to pay a visit to Brightsea, but only if they have the skills and the stomach for it.

Level Range         : 5 to 35
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : 25
Goal Converter      : Lumina & Ikyu
Area Author         : Lumina 

Note: This area replaces The Port. The quest is open to any evil-aligned thief, full time (pclass) or part-time (remort).

---

Dhal’Gora Outlands:

The Dhal’Gora outlands are ringed by a range of mountains known as Razor Spine Ridge, and are divided by the feared Forest of Teeth. The forest is full of deadly traps and creatures that will devour the flesh from your bones. On the eastern side of the forest are the plains of Dhal’Gora, barren and empty. Across the plains are the High Elves, their capital beset upon by a foe who cannot breach their walls. To the west of the forest are the humans, who enjoy a vibrant trade with the other denizens of the land. Tales of terror are told about the Swamp of Blood and Tears, which lies far to the south of the outlands, brave adventurers and travellers from far lands often disappear in the swamps, and those who do manage to survive lose a part of themselves forever, or so rumours would have it.

In the High-Elven city of Eyllsineldth, Ruarail has a terminally ill patient and he needs some rare ingredients to finish making his remedy to cure the horrible disease that is ravaging his patient’s body. As the city is under a constant attack, no one can be spared to begin the long and difficult search. Are you up to the challenge? It would mean a harrowing trip into the mountains of Razor Spine Ridge, surviving the dangers of the Forest of Teeth, and wallowing in the mud that is the Swamp of Blood and Tears. You are his best chance to find a cure for this disease, will you be able to help him or will you die trying?

Level Range         : 10 to 50
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 35
Goal Converters     : Rumour & Paramore
Area Author         : Rumour

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/08/11/stormhaven-glimmerdim-dhalgora-outlands-areas/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/30/skillspell-improvements/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/30/skillspell-improvements/#comments Sun, 31 Jul 2011 01:00:59 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=512 Some fairly large changes to core skills and spells in the game were also made today:
• The version of enhanced damage used by pclass psi, mage, thief and cleric has been buffed and the difference between the two is now half of what it was.
• The impact of ‘desecration’ during PVP has been turned down by roughly the same amount so that it will be around the same overall. It hasn’t been changed vs mobs so the enhanced damage boost is an indirect boost to desecration vs mobs also.
• The experience modifier used when grouping has been increased slightly for groups larger than 2. It stops increasing at 5 people in the group.
• The base duration of power projection has been increased, which will help with the percentage of time this affect can be up vs down. At max stats it is now very close to 100%.
• The number of hits you get on average from test of faith has been increased slightly, and the chances of getting the additional hit based on the moon for you alignment being up has been increased. All of these do still depend on align difference between and target and int/con, although the amount of align difference required for faith to kick in at all has also been lowered.
• Test of Faith and Gaias Revenge will cause unused hits to continue on to the next target as if they were regular melee attacks (see previous post).
• Instinct with no arguments will now show how many trains you have available for instinct.
• You can now use ‘help [something]‘ while at class selection and subclass selection in character creation. This already existed at race selection, not sure there’s much value in it anywhere else.

Bug Fixes:

• When you try to ‘pick [direction]‘ in a room without a door in that direction you will be told, rather than simply getting ‘you failed’.
• The ‘indoor’ check on unlawful entry was not checking all the flags that can define a room as indoors. Now fixed.
• Trying to use socials against others or on self that have no messages defined for those lines will now give a message rather than just a blank line.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/30/skillspell-improvements/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/30/combat-grouping/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/30/combat-grouping/#comments Sun, 31 Jul 2011 00:48:57 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=509 Some fairly major enhancements made to how combat works both in groups and when attacking multiple targets. Combat should be much smoother now, unused hits roll over to the next target and assisting is pretty much instant. Full details below.

Regular Combat Change:

There is a fairly large change to combat in how hits are used when you have multiple mobs attacking you or your group. None of this affects fighting one mob at a time.

Under the old system, let’s say you normally get 7 attempted hits per round of combat. If you killed your target in the first 2, the remaining 5 might be wasted until the next time the mud updates all combat (every 3 seconds), or you might get a whole full round against the next mob in the line. This was purely random based on where you happened to be in a linked list.

Under the new system, if you kill the mob in the first two hits the next 5 hits will automatically go to the next mob in line. However, you will only get one round of combat, one full round of combat, for each time the mud does a combat update.

Autoassist/Group Change:

This change also required autoassist to be rewritten. The biggest change is how the next mob to kill is selected. Imagine that Razor, Lasher and Testchar are in a group (in that order) and Razor killed the mob before Lasher and Testchar had a chance to hit.

Under the old system a number of things could happen here. Either Lasher and Testchar miss their round of combat completely for this mud-wide combat update, they hit the next mob in line as expected, or they hit the next mob inline and manage to pull Razor back into combat so Razor gets an extra round of combat. There was also a more obscure case where the group, or just some of the group, could now be out of combat completely.

Under the new system, Lasher and Testchar should automatically move on to the next target in line and get their full round of combat, but again, only their full round of combat. Ideas note #15349 (live port) gives an example of some of this.

One other advantage to come out of this is that autoassist can be made much more effective. To start with, as soon as you ‘kill’ something your groupies will autoassist. They won’t actually _hit_ the mob until the next combat update (up to 3 seconds depending on timing), but will immediately be in combat and able to cast their spells etc.

Another change is when mobs are killed out melee combat by skills or spells - groupies would be out of combat until the next mud combat update, which also meant that skills/spells would not work for a round unless the mob name was actually given. They should now switch the mob they are targeting as soon as the tank does.

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/30/combat-grouping/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/24/aardwolf-dying/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/24/aardwolf-dying/#comments Mon, 25 Jul 2011 00:36:20 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=505 Quite often I read notes and see comments about “the dwindling player base”. We’ve been hearing that for years, so long that it is just accepted. I decided it was time to find out if this is actually true.

As some of you know, the ‘online 2′ command will show the average players online for each 24 hour period, going back just over a year. I went through old backups and managed to piece together a full set of data since September 2001 and put it into a quick Excel chart. Click the image below for a larger and easier to read version.



So what does this show? There’s many ways you can read a chart, but trying to be objective:

• Without a doubt, the peak years were 2004-2006. I have seen this time period referred to as the “golden age” for MUDs by other MUD owners. The internet was mainstream but MMOs weren’t mainstream yet. They were out there, but not mainstream.
• 2008 through 2011 have been very seasonal, but remarkably similar. The MUD isn’t really growing, but this chart doesn’t spell “dying” to me either.
• I really wish we had the data prior to 2001. 1997 to 2001 was a very fun time, hitting our first 50 onilne, then our first 100. Almost every week the MUD grew. We had less people online then than we do now, but the trend was definitely up. Interesting with hindsight that the direction is more motivating than the absolute number.
• This chart says nothing about player ‘engagement level’. My perception is that people multitask more now and do other things while they play Aardwolf. Purely anecdotal, no evidence to back it up.
• That big white line in the middle of 2004 is the 2 week period we were down after 3 back to back hurricanes back when the MUD was hosted on a T1 in Orlando.

So anyway, my conclusion is we’re not dying. I’m not painting a rosy picture here either. It’s frustrating to have put so much work into playability and other areas over the last 3-4 years just to effectively stand still. We’ve had multiple iterations of the client, the mapper was added, the world was redesigned, the academy, level limits on saving were removed, in-game features such as spellup, runto and eqsearch. These are just the main items aimed at making it easier for new players to get started, not even remotely a full list.

Admittedly, we have effectively stood still while a number of other MUDs have seen numbers decrease significantly but that’s not really any comfort either, I’d prefer to see all muds thriving and growing as a genre.

The other thing I don’t know is how this graph would compare to the same graph for other MUDs. We’ve had our share of mistakes, we’ve made unpopular decisions, could we have done more things to keep some people around for longer relative to other MUDs? Probably, but I’d imagine this applies to most MUDs too … we all have our list of “could have, should have” …

What I do know is we still have a large and active community that is very passionate about their game and we’re not planning to go anywhere anytime soon.

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/24/aardwolf-dying/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/09/bandit-ninja-mindflayey-abilities-combat-spell-upgrades/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/09/bandit-ninja-mindflayey-abilities-combat-spell-upgrades/#comments Sat, 09 Jul 2011 20:14:37 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=502 Amnesia - New Mindflayer Spell:

There is a new mindflayer ability called ‘amnesia’ that allows the mindflayer to target a single ability on the victim and make the target forget, or partly forget, that skill/spell. The syntax is:

cast amnesia [skill or spell] target.

Target is optional if you are already fighting someone (which is why it comes after the skill name). There is no lag on failure but there is a small recovery time. When used against mobs, there is no additional recovery time. There is a longer recovery time when successful against other players.

With this skill who you are fighting is going to play a large factor in what skill you target. If you land the skill with a 50% reduction in (for example) second attack, and the target has 40 instinct in second attack, the outcome will be that they use second attack as if they just had it practiced to 90% and no instinct. Because of this, it is possible to have the affect land over 100%.

---

Quickstab - New Bandit Skill:

The Assassin subclass has a skill called ‘quickstab’. This skill sets an affect and has a recovery - both based on a combination dexterity and luck. While this affect is up, the assassin will have a chance to backstab without lag.

---

Ninja Backstab Upgrade:

The Ninja subclass now has the ability to backstab while in combat. You can still only backstab a mob once and cannot backstab a mob other than the one you are fighting. The timer that gets set on a target so they can’t be backstabbed again has been reduced to be between 90 and 00 seconds. Was previously 6 to 12 minutes.

---

Combat Spell Enhancements:

We have made a change to how combat spells work that should help casters etc in groups. If you have more than one mob attacking you and cast immolate then kill the mob with the first immolate hit, assuming you would have gotten 3 casts, the next 2 will hit the next mob inline so that you get a ‘full’ cast of the spell. This also applies to extra hits from projection. Some of the older spells that do multiple hits but all within a single cast within (balefire, pyromania, etc) and not covered by this ‘rollover’ of hits, and it only applies to spells *for now*. Want to get the code will tested before expanding it to other areas of the MUD.

---

Slow spell rewritten - Pscionicist:

The mindflayer ’slow’ spell has been overhauled. As a reminder, this spell causes the victim to fight without the benefit of any attacks from haste or lightspeed. Most mobs have at least one of these, both at higher levels so, it is well worth landing. There are several changes in the new version:

• The affect is now a percentage based on the new saves routine (see ‘help newsaves’). If you are affected with 50% slow you will lose 50% of your haste hits. This means it is easier to land than before, but how well it lands can vary based on stats.
• There is no lag on casting - it has been replaced with a few seconds recovery time. This means that, as with zombify, you don’t have to lose a round of combat trying to land it.
• The recovery time when used against mobs is gone (other than the few seconds lag replacement mentioned above). The recovery time when used against players is unchanged.
• The amount of dexterity that ’slow’ takes away has been increased.
• Haste is no longer a cure for ’slow’. At the time of writing this, there isn’t a cure.

---

Other changes in this reboot:
• Fixed a bug with necrotic touch/poultice not returning resists correctly when used on a third party.
• Shoplifting will now improve on buying. No need to buy items 1 at a time to force this - if you buy 100 items you will get 100 chances to improve (it improves slowly).
• Ironfist now has a chance to improve while in use in addition to when first cast.
• ‘Gq-h’ now does the same thing as ‘gq history’
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/07/09/bandit-ninja-mindflayey-abilities-combat-spell-upgrades/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/24/shoplifting-bandit-skill-necrotic-touch-venomist-skill/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/24/shoplifting-bandit-skill-necrotic-touch-venomist-skill/#comments Fri, 24 Jun 2011 18:58:31 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=496 Necrotic Touch - New Venomist Skill:

Highly trained venomists can learn the dark art of necrotic poisons. These poisons spread require only light contact with the skin to infect a victim. Necrotic Poison will gradually eat away at the victims cell structure, making them more vulnerable to physical attacks and further poison based damage. Using Necrotic Touch has no lag, but does have a small recovery time on failure, with a longer recovery time when the poison is successfully injected.

There is no direct cure for necrotic poison, but a skilled venomist using poultice may be able to reduce the strength of the poison until it is weak enough to be rendered harmless and considered ‘cured’.

Primary Stats:
Attacker - Strength, Dexterity and Luck.
Victim - Dexterity, Constitution and Luck.

Note: This skill uses a new type of affect in which both the degree of the affect (how much it hurts) and the strength of the affect (how hard it is to remove) will vary based on the stats of the attacker and the victim. See ‘help newsaves’ for more information on this.

---

Shoplifting - New Bandit Skill:

Shoplifting is the bandit ability to steal items away from a shopkeeper right before their eyes. Shoplifting is a passive ability - when buying items you will automatically have a chance to steal them.

Stolen items cannot be sold back to shopkeepers, but can still be auctioned or fenced on the black market.

Primary Stats:
Dexterity and Luck.

---

Other changes and fixes:

Several other changes and bug fixes this reboot include:

• When you have multiple mobs attacking you, the rate at which they will continue to fight from one to the next within a single round of combat has been reduced. Getting 10+ full rounds of combat within a single regular round of combat is just too much.
• When using charge, not all mobs will be directly in the line of your charge and will not be attacked - chance of that happening is based on their luck. When this happens it is not considered an attack so means that there is no longer a guarantee of charge hitting every mob in the room.
• Fixed a bug with ‘clients’ command - some players were not having their client type set correctly when using autologin.
• The ’saffects’ command can now use the same filters as ‘affects’. More info can be seen in ‘help affects’ and the actual options are listed in ‘help spells’.
• Viewing a character that is AFK in the room and has no other flags (such as sanctuary etc) would show an extra space before the name. Now fixed.
• If you challenge someone, or are challenged by someone, and the challenge expires - the timers are only updated when someone uses the challenge command. This meant that you could quit hours later and if the other person were still online they would get a ‘challenge cancelled’ message. Now fixed.
• You can now use ‘info goals’ and ‘info quest’ interchangeably.
• In most marketplace (lauction) operations, the item was being transferred to the player/seller before the ‘kept’ flag is set. All within a single command this wouldn’t normally matter, but was causing the ‘k’ flag to be missing from {invitem} tags. Now fixed.
• It was possible at very low level/stats with 1% refresh to technically succeed in the spell but still refresh 0 moves. Minimum is now 1. Same for rejuvenate.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/24/shoplifting-bandit-skill-necrotic-touch-venomist-skill/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/15/aardwolf-mushclient-r1040-released/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/15/aardwolf-mushclient-r1040-released/#comments Wed, 15 Jun 2011 22:32:29 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=488 A new version of the Aardwolf version of Mushclient managed by Fiendish has been uploaded to Aardwolf.com.

There are many enhancements in this upgrade. We recommend reading the Aardwolf Mud client release notes for full details. A summary of the most important changes is below:

• A revamped bigmap plugin that will cause a graphical representation of the continents to appear in the mapper window.
• A new update checker plugin that will automatically check for new releases and give you the option to upgrade.
• A new ‘checkversion’ command for quickly checking if you have the latest version. Useful if you choose not to enable automatic updating.
• A new ‘z order’ system for including plugins that let the user choose which windows are on top of others.
• Right-clickable hyperlinks on URLs in the communication log.
• The input bar now resizes automatically when you type more than one line.
• Gmcp mapper backups are now uncompressed by default so should be much faster.
• Dozens of bugs fixed.

A screenshot of the new bigmap plugin. This appears in the GMCP mapper window when you move into a continent:


]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/15/aardwolf-mushclient-r1040-released/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/06/witches-omen-tor-black-rose-goals/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/06/witches-omen-tor-black-rose-goals/#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 17:09:23 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=486 The Witches of Omen Tor:
Four witches rule the land of Omen Tor. They are sisters, born of the same omnipotent mother, Aethel, who released them upon the world at the beginning of time. Omen Tor is a land of many facets, influenced by each of the witches in ways that go far deeper than anyone can imagine.

When threatened by the outside world, the witches bond together in allegiance to their land and people. But when outside threats diminish, the sisters resume their constant squabbling over their lands, their children and their men. Family dysfunction in Omen Tor is on a grand, magical scale!

Level Range         : 160 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Converter      : Lumina
Area Author         : Lumina (original layout by Darlatan)

Note: This are replaces Dune.

---

Black Rose - New Goal:

The village of mists is rumored to be a cursed village. The mists that surround the village are rumored to have something living in them. Villagers have gone missing, causing whispers and driving fear into the hearts of the living. Is the mist responsible or is there something beyond the mist?

Kyra is a young woman from the village who recently found out the secret of her village. Now her life is in danger. She went looking for a hero to save the village, but she was attacked before she could escape. What is this secret she holds? Who wants to silence her? Will you be the one to help her?

Level Range         : 175-201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 180
Goal Converter      : Domain
Area Author         : Sylvain

---

Bug fixes in this reboot:

• Fixed a bug with color where if you had color off, xterm codes would still get sent.
• If you turn off colors, color codes should no longer be sent via GMCP in either regular ANSI color or GMCP rawcolor. CMUD users will typically have the actual ANSI for color sent while the Aard Mushclient uses rawcolors, meaning the color codes are sent rather than being translated to ANSI/Xterm.
• Fixed a bug with the in-game ascii mapper where some rooms would draw using the wrong color if a color set on a specific room to make the map that color was different from the overall area color.
• Fixed a bug with flank setting the direction affect when the skill failed.
• GMCP char.base is now sent when you reach level 200 and level 201 for the first time that mort.
• Your title will no longer be reset after retiering.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/06/witches-omen-tor-black-rose-goals/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/06/thief-barbarian-skills-hearfriends-command-gq-change/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/06/thief-barbarian-skills-hearfriends-command-gq-change/#comments Mon, 06 Jun 2011 16:59:18 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=482 Blind Fighting - New Ninja Ability:

A significant part of Ninja training involves practicing the art of ‘blind fighting’ - covering their eyes during combat training and learning to fight with their other senses.

Whenever a ninja is blinded in combat their blind fighting ability will take over; preserving their ability to dodge incoming attacks and hit their opponent with their weapons. Other skills may still be affected, but the core combat ability of a ninja is unhindered by blindness once their blindfighting ability is at 100%.

There is no instinct available for blind fighting - it does not make sense within the context of this skill.

---

Ironfist - New Barbarian Ability:

Skilled Barbarians reign down their blows as if their fists were literally made of iron.

While affected by this skill the damage inflicted by Barbarian unarmed attacks will increase based on their ironfist skill and their strength plus dexterity.

Primary stat: Strength, Dexterity.

---

Resistance Bars:

There is a new ‘resist bars’ option that will show your resistances, but using the bars from ’score’. Also added ‘resist magic’ and ‘resist physical’ option to filter just those types. The ‘physical’ and ‘magic’ options exclude the other so they can’t be used together.



---

Affects Filters:

There are a couple of new options with the ‘affects’ command:

  aff [options]   : Filters affects based on 'spells' options. See
                    'help spells' for a list.
  aff [filter]    : Filter is a phrase. The skill name or recovery
                    name must match that phrase to be displayed. Useful
                    to see if a specific skill or recovery is up.

---

Global Quest Change:

When a mob repops that is part of a gquest, and there is a non-afk player in the room who is on the gquest and has not already killed the mob and the player is not already fighting, the mob will automatically attack that player. If there is more than one player in the room who meets these conditions, the first one in the room will be attacked. If there is more than one player in the room that meets these conditions and more than one instance of the mob repops, the ‘not already fighting’ check should ensure that the mobs attack the players in order. If the mob is ambushed, ambush takes priority over this check.

There is no special allowance for if the mob is also a quest or cp target, you can wait for the 2 minutes it will take to repop. This is to address a growing trend to kill a GQ mob then have a friend who is not in the gquest tie up that mob indefinitely. This also gives the ‘ambush’ skill a little bonus. It is still ok to use setwanted / PK to get someone out of a room so that the ‘first person in the room’ order changes. If you gq join while in the room, your ‘order’ in the room is changed to act as if you were the last one in.

---

Other changes in this reboot:
• When using look, the phrase “at” will be ignored so that phrases such as “look at blackboard” will work. It is parsed as an option so technically “look blackboard at at at” would work, which is wrong. I don’t plan on fixing that, it’s harmless and not worth reparsing ‘look’ for.
• Using ‘identify’ on a portal will show the area it leads to, which means it will also show on auction etc. For lore and those versions of identify that use it, ‘found at’ is not necessarily the same as ‘leads to’ - in some cases portals in one area lead to a different area.
• The amount healed by incomplete healing is now slightly lower while the amount healed by regeneration is higher. As the highest cleric heal spell in the game, regeneration should do more.
• Whenever you kill something that doesn’t exist, you will get half a second lag. The intent is to make spam killing less worthwhile, and then remove that rule - if spamming is ok with a half second lag, someone spamming “kill lasher” would have a 25% chance of catching Lasher running through the room.
• The bonus unarmed combat hit that barbarians and ninjas get is intended as a partial replacement for dual wield. Other classes get dual wield earlier each tier because of tier bonus, so I have made the bonus unarmed combat hits work the same way.
• To help a little with kill speed, the lag on ‘zombify’ has been removed completely and replaced with a 4 second recovery. This means that using zombify to convert a mob to undead will not cost you that first round of combat. The spell has no lag on failure so if you want to spam it 3 times at the start of each fight to make sure it works feel free, but it’s going to be wasteful in mana terms. Keep in mind that when used against undead, necrocide is the most powerful attack spell in the game.
• There is a new commands called ‘hearfriends’. When you turn this on, you can go into ‘deaf’ mode but will still receive tells from friends. It also shows in ‘config’.
• Using ‘wish list’ will now show your actual cost for the wish if you don’t already have it.
• You will now receive a note when you are outbid on a marketplace item. You will always receive the note if it happens while you are offline. The default is to also receive a note if you are outbid while online. You can turn off receiving a note when you are online by using ‘marketplace notes’. The current setting of ‘market notes’ can be seen in ‘config all’.
• Quite often I will receive an email from someone who doesn’t know how to get started on Aardwolf and wonders why the game is asking them for a password. To us it is obvious, but someone completely new does not always realize it just means that someone already has the name. There is now a “new” option at the login screen that takes you into character creation. The old way still works, but this will help newbies a little.
• There is a new ‘Better hurry’ warning message that appears when you are down to 10 minutes quest time remaining. The other messages are unchanged.
• When using ‘finger’ on a t9 with redos, you will now see, for example, (Tier 9+2). For offline characters you will only start to see this after they login as offline finger data is cached and t9 info was not stored in it prior to this change.
• Have reduced the recovery time on assassinate by about a third.
• The ‘allspells’ command will now show your current percent practiced in a skill or spell.
• You can no longer ambush a room that is already being ambushed by someone else.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/06/06/thief-barbarian-skills-hearfriends-command-gq-change/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/05/14/knife-fighting-clan-guard-secondthird-attack/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/05/14/knife-fighting-clan-guard-secondthird-attack/#comments Sat, 14 May 2011 23:47:26 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=480 Knife Fighting - New Thief Ability:

Over time, thieves can become so skilled with their daggers that they are able to execute two attacks in the time it would take others to strike a single time.

There is no syntax to this skill - it happens automatically. The primary weapon must be a dagger for knife fighting to work and the rate at which the extra attack will occur is determined by dexterity. Increasing instinct in knife fighting adds the potential for a second bonus attack.

There is no output message when knife fighting kicks in, but you can see the total so far in ‘dtrack hits’.

Other changes in this reboot:

A number of other bug fixes and changes were installed today:

• It now takes slightly more dex to get the same number of third attack hits as you had before this update. There is no longer a (reachable) cap on how much dex will aid third attack, so players with very high dex will see third attack fire more often. The second part of this change, the increased max effect dex can have, has also been made to fourth attack.
• There is a new ‘page’ option for bigmap. Using ‘bigmap page’ will page bigmap based on existing page settings. If you want to make this your default just use ‘alias bigmap bigmap page’.
• When using random on a channel that has curse enabled, such as your private channels, you will now only select a ‘curse’ social if you also have nocurse off on your config.
• The $ variables for ‘him’,'her’, possessive version of player ‘$o’ etc can now be used in all clan messages. If you have a ‘their’ in your clan message where it makes more sense to be his/hers or him/her, we will change these for you automatically free of charge.
• The timestamp has been removed from tell info sent via GMCP. This makes it more consistent with other channels and will remove the duplicate timestamps when viewed in the Aard Mushclient.
• Clanguard stats have been increased - hp by around 40% plus a slight boost in hitroll and damroll.
• GMCP base data now includes remorts.
• GMCP quest message sent at quest complete will now also include the time until the next quest.
• The ‘count’ command will now only show people actually playing the game (not linkdead), making it more consistent with the login page and the numbers in ‘online’.
• Made an improvement to ’sharp’ flag. It’s not a huge bonus, was never meant to be, but should be more noticeable now.
• A single point of instinct in second attack and third attack was not working correctly, now fixed.
• Pray no longer has a visibility check.
• ‘lbid filter showcase’ should now be working correctly.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/05/14/knife-fighting-clan-guard-secondthird-attack/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/05/14/goals-lemdagor-prosper-island-diatz-tournament-camps/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/05/14/goals-lemdagor-prosper-island-diatz-tournament-camps/#comments Sat, 14 May 2011 23:39:13 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=475 Several new goals added this reboot:

The Storm Ships of Dem-Lagor:
Long ago, a series of volcanic eruptions created a tiny group of islands in the sea of Lem-Dagor. In time, these islands became rich and fertile, and finally, home to a race of sailing folk. In response to the frequent raids and pillaging attacks of Wave runners and pirates, the island states formed a co-operative known as the Federated Islands of Lem-Dagor (F.I.L.). Protecting their land and interests are the storm cruisers, massive ships powered by the sea wind itself.

The most famous of storm cruisers is The Tempest, commanded by Captain Rory Prosper, an adept sea shaman capable of commanding his ship, the winds and the waves upon which it rides.

Now, The Tempest is facing unprecedented danger from all sides. A concerted attack has taken place, and the ship is overrun with spies, Wave runners and pirates. Worst of all, the sea witch Sycorax, apparently in collusion with the attackers, has sent a pack of possessed dogs and hounds to kill Prosper. Should you find yourself aboard the ship, no doubt you will want to face the challenge of ridding the ship of the intruders and save Captain Prosper and his crew from the enemies they face.

Level Range         : 60 - 100
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 85
Goal Converter      : Phraeaxes
Area Author         : Lumina (original concept by Maerchyng)

This area replaces ST:TNG.

---

Prosper’s Island - New Goal:

The ship of the witch Sycorax, brimming full of hapless people enslaved by her evil spells, has cast anchor near Prosper’s Island. Plans are underfoot to invade the island, for who knows what purpose? And yet, there is one aboard the evil witch’s ship, who has emerged from the witch’s control, and seeks help to vanquish her. His name is Humbert, and he needs your help.

Level Range         : 100-125
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 100
Goal Converter      : Phraeaxes and Lumina
Area Author         : Lumina (original by Maerchyng)

This area replaces New Vertigo.

---

The Three Pillars of Diatz - New Goal:

Nestled on a plateau in the grassy plains of Mesolar, the magical Pillars of Diatz were once home to a thriving populace. But over the years something dark crept into the heart of their once-kind Lord Diatz, and now the citizenry lives in constant fear. His looming shadow stretches long and dark over their misery, for none have had the courage or fortitude to dare and face his terrible might.

Level Range         : 60 to 80
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level 80
Goal Max Level      : Level 80
Goal Converter      : Paramore
Area Authors        : Dirtworm

---

The Tournament Camps - New Goal:

An old warrior sulks in the corner, and, as if in reply to your questioning stare, he says: “Why aren’t you at the preparation grounds? Haven’t you heard of the coming tournament? Why, a messenger from the southern lands arrived just yesterday! They set up the preparation grounds. Where, you ask? I wish I was a little younger, my memory fails me once too often lately… He talked of a castle built on a small piece of land, surrounded by a river from all sides…”

He opens his mouth, but before he can say anything, he turns transparent, and disappears. If only you knew where he was taken, or why talks about the Tournament are prohibited…

Level Range         : 1 to 10
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 10
Goal Converter      : Myrkul & Rumour

Area added Mar 14, 2004.

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/05/14/goals-lemdagor-prosper-island-diatz-tournament-camps/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/17/256-xterm-color-mode/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/17/256-xterm-color-mode/#comments Mon, 18 Apr 2011 02:45:04 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=463 Syntax : xterm - Turn 256 color mode on/off. color 256 - See a table of the colors. color raw256 - See table of colors with no mud parsing.

Aardwolf now supports Xterm 256 color mode. Whether or not you can see Xterm 256 color depends on your client. See the bottom of this helpfile for a brief list of clients known to work with 256 colors. A sample of the colors is below:



Every xterm color has a corresponding “closest match” in ANSI so that players without xterm support are not affected.

To use xterm colors use @x[color] where [color] is any number 0 - 255. The first 16 colors corresponding to their ANSI equivalents and colors 232 to 255 are varying levels of gray. An online chart of all 256 colors can be found at:

Wikipedia 256 color chart

It is possible to use either @x020 or @x20 but the 3 character version is recommended to avoid conflicts with color codes followed by numbers that are part of the actual message.

All codes from 0 to 255 can be used with @x but some colors considered too dark to display on the average screen will be automatically brightened. To see this, compare ‘color 256′ to ‘color raw256′ noting the difference (for example) in colors 0, 52, 53 and 232.

Clients:

Clients known to work with 256 color include Mushclient, Mudlet, CMud 3.x, Tintin++, Tinyfugue, Atlantis and the Blowtorch Android clients. Note that Zmud does not work with Xterm 256 colors. To see if you have 256 color support, type ‘xterm’, if you see Orange then you have it.

Known Issues:

• Kind of obscure, but if you have GMCP rawcolor mode on but do NOT have xterm, the GMCP data is still going to show @x123. There is an overhead involved in fixing this that may make it not worth it. If you’re using rawcolors via GMCP then you have a means to process color locally even if you can’t actually display 256 colors.
• Whoname cannot currently use 256 color mode.
• You can use these colors in strings in the editor (object names etc) but not in editor fields specifically requiring a color name such as the default map color for an area or in sector editing.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/17/256-xterm-color-mode/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/08/instinct-feature-mud-damage-tracker-multicommand-aliases/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/08/instinct-feature-mud-damage-tracker-multicommand-aliases/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:13:33 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=442 Instinct - Enhanced Training Levels in Skills/Spells:

Several new features added in this latest update, the main feature being ‘instinct’. The short version is that instinct allows you to invest gold and trains into an ability to improve it beyond the normal 100% practiced. The full help file is at the end of this post. This is a very high level feature not really intended for (and not good value for) lower levels.



---

MUD damage tracker:

The damage tracker previewed on here a couple of weeks ago is now live. You can use this to report your hit accuracy and average damage per hit broken out by primary/secondary weapon. You can also see a more detailed breakdown of hits, damage from special attacks and monitor damage from a specific skill or spell. A sample screenshot is below. For more screen shots see the earlier damage tracker preview post.





---

Multi-command aliases:

We now have support for multiple commands in aliases separate by a semi-colon. There are a couple of restrictions when an alias has multiple commands:

• Each command within the alias will be executed only as a MUD command, you cannot have an alias with multiple commands calling other aliases.
• Any arguments after the alias when it used will be ignored.




---

Instinct helpfile:

Highly experienced veterans of Aardwolf can train a skill or spell so intensively that it becomes more like an instinct than an acquired skill. The knowledge is so ingrained that it is remembered across mortal incarnations and can enhance the power of an ability beyond that usually available to a fully trained character.

Instinct is a fairly complex feature, please make sure that you have read and understood the notes below before using it. Refunds will not be given. Ask on the Question channel if you need help.

The basic premise is that you ‘buy’ instinct in a skill that has had instinct enabled. Any instinct you buy is permanently remembered. Important points to note are:

• Instinct is only useful in a skill (or spell) that you can actually use, it is not a way to have access to skills usually unavailable. If you lose access to a skill because you tiered or changed class, your instinct amount is still remembered and will become active whenever you have that spell available again.
• The max instinct you can gain in a single ability is 200.
• Instinct is remembered across tiers and remorts; you only ever have to buy it once.
• If you have less than 100% in a skill but have instinct in it, your instinct points are used first. For example, if you have 75% in a skill and 25 points of instinct, the game will act as if you have 100% in the skill but no instinct.
• Instinct in a skill that you already have at 100% will add some bonus. In almost all cases, the bonus is not a direct percentage. It is also on a curve with diminishing returns. For example, 100 points of instinct might add a 20% bonus to a skill while 200 points adds 30% total.
• Instinct is not used on spells cast from objects - only when cast naturally.
• Not all trains can be spent on instinct - only new trains gained after your last rebuild. For a full explanation of this see, ‘help instinct-trains’.
• When a spell that sets an affect has instinct, other spells or equipment that sets the same affect will benefit from instinct. For example, if you are wearing the Aardwolf Boots of Speed or cast ‘Accelerate’, both of these will benefit from instinct in ‘Haste’ as they both set the Haste affect. The same applies to sanctuary, dual wield (Aard gloves) and protection good/evil.

WARNING: This is a very very expensive ’sink’ for high-level tiers. It is not recommended to invest your trains and/or gold into instinct unless your stats are maxxed and you have plenty to spare.

Instinct Syntax:

instinct              : Show skills you have in which it is possible to gain instinct.
instinct learned      : Show skills in which you have already gained some instinct.
instinct buy [skill]  : Buy a point of instinct in the specified skill/spell.
instinct deposit      : Deposit trains for later use on instinct. See 'help
                        instinct-trains' for an explanation of why you would want to.
instinct costs        : Display a table of instinct costs.
allspells instinct all: Shows the full list of skills/spells that can be used with
                        instinct.

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/08/instinct-feature-mud-damage-tracker-multicommand-aliases/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/08/palace-song-temple-shalindrael-silver-volcano/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/08/palace-song-temple-shalindrael-silver-volcano/#comments Fri, 08 Apr 2011 17:47:36 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=438 Three new goals and a completely new area were added in this update. Details below:

The Palace of Song - New Area and Goal:

In an ancient grove in Mesolar, a set of ruins exists. Explorers who have accidentally stumbled across these ruins claim that if one is perfectly still and silent, the faint traces of trained voices, grand orchestrations, and even applause can be heard echoing through the area.

Odder yet, a few passersby have seen men, women, dwarves, eldar, and other creatures enter this grove in full evening wear, sometimes even with children in tow. These observers have sworn that one minute you see these individuals, and the next they are gone.

These stories coincide with unearthed scrolls which tell stories of a Palace of Song, severed from land and time for the pure purpose of the enjoyment of song. These stories tell of the ruler of the Palace, a mirthful and elegant Queen who welcomes all who can join their song in harmony with the resonant melody of the ages.

Level Range         : 60 to 85
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 75
Goal Converter      : Dreamfyre
Area Author         : Dreamfyre

---

Temple of Shal’indrael - New Goal:

In between the glorious vaults of heaven and the difficulty-wrought paths of the earth the goddess Mercy placed the Temple of Shal’indrael. She and her consort, Grace, created a purification ground for those who wished to find fulfillment in all things. Seekers of balance are ever after its cloudy portal, but few can master the secrets within.

Area Level Range    : 180 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : 201
Goal Minimum Level  : 160
Goal Converter      : Paramore
Area Author         : Dominian

---

The Silver Volcano - New Goal:

Long ago, an ancient evil was sealed deep with the volcano. but that has all changed. The Balrog has been released from his ancient slumber, and woe be to any who cross his path. But with his reawakening, also comes opportunity.

Now there is a chance for you to claim his power for your own. Will you be able to brave the heat of the volcano, and claim this power? Or will you burn like all before. But be warned, those who seek the Balrog’s power with evil in their hearts shall never succeed.

Level range         : 30 to 100
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 85
Goal Converter      : Raistlin
Area Author         : Gack

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/08/palace-song-temple-shalindrael-silver-volcano/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/03/aardwolf-mushclient-r397/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/03/aardwolf-mushclient-r397/#comments Sun, 03 Apr 2011 21:36:01 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=432 A new release of the Aardwolf Mushclient package has been uploaded to the website. Major changes in this release are:
• Xterm 256 color support.
• Players can now reliably replace movement between connected rooms (like opening doors) with custom exits in the gmcp mapper.
• Cleaned up gmcp mapper help.
• Added some new commands to the gmcp mapper.
• Mapper purgezone shouldn’t require quitting and restarting mushclient anymore.
• Mapper pathfinding status message now indicates the progress of the search better.
• Added the ability to not capture mob speech to the channel capture window.
• Added tick marks at good/neutral/evil alignment boundaries in the health bars plugin.
• You can now select arbitrary text inside the channel capture window and then copy with the right-click menu, instead of clicking on whole individual messages.
• Purging all custom exits and portal exits from the gmcp mapper now requires confirmation.
• Fixed a bug in channel capture that missed lines with hidden garbage or fake color codes.
• Fixed a bug in the gmcp mapper preventing finding rooms with oddly colored names.
• Fixed a bug in the gmcp mapper that blocked sending two identical custom
  exit commands in a row.
• Fixed an error on saving rooms when using the gmcp mapper without a pre-initialized database.
• Added manual mapper database backup command with zip compressed rotating backup storage.
• Added rolling automatic backups of the gmcp mapper database files. If left
  on and running forever, the rollover schedule approximately follows the
  pattern: today, yesterday, last week, last month, 3 months ago.
• Various other bug fixes and changes.

The entire list of changes is available on the Aardwolf Mushclient Code Page.

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/04/03/aardwolf-mushclient-r397/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/03/21/mud-damage-tracker-preview/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/03/21/mud-damage-tracker-preview/#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 20:52:18 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=429 Here’s a preview of a new ‘damage tracker’ feature we have been working on. It is currently on the Aardwolf test port:

The basic feature will show rounds of combat, hits, misses, damage and relevant averages:



If you are wielding two weapons, the stats are broken down by primary and secondary weapon:



Test of Faith and Gaias Revenge hits are counted as ’special’ hits. You can also designate a specific spell to track damage for. In the example below, dtrack was set to monitor immolate:



Finally, using ‘dtrack hits’ you can see a more detailed breakdown of each hit type:


]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/03/21/mud-damage-tracker-preview/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/03/14/illoria-infestation-cougarian-goals/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/03/14/illoria-infestation-cougarian-goals/#comments Tue, 15 Mar 2011 02:13:24 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=424 Three new quests (goals) where added to Aardwolf this evening:

New Goal - Cougarian Queendom:

The Cougarian Queendom, tucked in the depths of the Jungle of Verume, has prospered for hundreds of years undiscovered by the outside world. Now that has all changed as the Bengaleen Empire threatens from the North.

Cowlina, Cougarian Queen must juggle the threats of the Bengaleen while trying to keep the magic-barren pridelands at peace as well. Outsiders have threatened the resolve of her ban on the use of magic.

Can magic find its place in Cougaria once again? It may be the only thing that will save it.

Level Range         : 140 to 160
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 160
Goal Converter      : Whitdjinn
Area Author         : Whitdjinn

Please Note: New visitors to Cougaria are not trusted enough to gain the needed access to save the land. The queen’s trust must first be gained.

---

New Goal - The Infestation:

To the north of Aylor lies a small, quaint section of land teeming with wildlife. Many travelers make their way through this small, peaceful area; enjoying their brief time, always making a mental note to come back when they have some spare time to relax. So long as you don’t mind the large insects that have decided to call this little section their home. The ants and the wasps dislike one another with a passion, but they’ve yet to declare war on one another. An amicable agreement, unspoken, resides between the two: Stay away from us, and we’ll stay away from you.

However, not all is that peaceful here, for there is an infestation growing in strength that, if left unchecked, could bring about the ruin of such a peaceful plot of land. To one, there are pests overtaking the area, making it their own and killing the populace off. Find the one who needs help and take care of the infestation before it’s too late.

Level Range         : 5 to 35
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 25
Goal Converters     : Escobar & Paramore
Area Authors        : Rundvelt

---

New Goal - The Tournament of Illoria:

The sun rises over the quiet west.
The beginning and start of a brand new day,
The crowds come to here from all around,
for the Tournament of Illoria is underway.

Oh, what sights to see and to behold!
The battling of knights so strong and brave,
is sure to be a spectacle indeed,
So, who’s a champion and who is a knave?

And yet, not all is happy and merry,
For there are rumors one may hear,
The notion of some knights going bad
and making mischief has reached my ear.

But fret not child, ’tis not to worry,
Don’t think on it, don’t look down!
Surely nothing bad will happen…
For you see, they hired troll guards from a nearby town.

So, venture you forth to the grandest of fairs,
Watch the knights battle for all the glory!
In my heart of hearts, I hope to see you there.
Come, play your part in this story.

Level Range         : 70 to 90
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level 90
Goal Min Level      : Level 60
Goal Converter      : Elvendar
Area Author         : Rayna

---

Other changes in this reboot:

A few other changes did make it in this reboot:

• Translocate now has a message when you use it, displayed just before the room name. (Macbeth). So does Prob Travel/Teleport.
• You can now use autoassist in warfare. I reserve the right to change it back if I ever remember a good reason for having the restriction in the first place.
• If a venomist uses spiral on a target that is immune to the damtype, but not immune to poison, the damage done will be substituted for poison. I know this is pretty low impact, I just like it for effect.
• If you have ‘nospellupspam’ set, you will no longer see other people cancelling their spells unless you are in combat with them.
• The bug with GMCP and ‘$’ on the trivia channel is now fixed - this should no longer mess up GMCP.
• Alias keywords can no longer be more than 20 characters long. This only applies to mud-side aliases of course.
• Fixed a buggy message from cell adjustment when affected by a type of poison it cannot cure.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/03/14/illoria-infestation-cougarian-goals/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/20/channels-resist-bars-redone/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/20/channels-resist-bars-redone/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:08:54 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=417 List of changes made to Aardwolf MUD on Feb 20th 2011:

Game Enhancements:

• Shield Punch with 1000 weight shield would always daze the target regardless of stats. This has been changed and chances of a shield dazing is now partly based on victim con. The max effective weight that will count towards daze is 4000.
• ‘Quit Check’ will now show items in containers along with the container id:

     [  9] (Nosave)   - Aylorian Sword (inside Vladia's Shopping Bag/639441811)
     [  1] (Nosave)   - Aylorian Sword (Worn)

• The resist bars on ’score’ have been redone. They are no longer linear and they now max out just under 2500.

• Light now a damage type that can be set on weapons.
• Changed the format of ‘wangrp’ channel slightly - align is now shown rather than the text, and compressed the other info.
• There is a new ’sports’ channel, should be pretty obvious what it’s for. Cursing is allowed on sports channel, other rules still apply.
• There is a new channel called ‘mxit’. The intent is that you can use ‘txt speak’ on this channel without being told “use full sentences!” etc. IF u dnt lk ths sentnce u shld nt trn it on!?!!!!!11111!!11. As ‘mxit’ is also a command for imms, the ‘txt’ command is an alias for it.



Bug Fixes in this reboot:

• Using ‘pick lock’ when you don’t have the skill will now give a message saying so rather than just ‘you failed’.
• Failed Bodycheck could sometimes give an invalid ‘… is immume’ messsage, now fixed.
• Quit check will now show both worn and carried items at the same time. It would previously only show one or the other.
• Quest actions such as qreset, complete, fail, etc should now flag a group as needing GMCP update.
• The ‘rainbow will only work outside’ message will now only show once even if, behind the scenes, rainbow multicasts.
• Casting cure disease on someone else in a silent spell room did not show a success message, now fixed.
• Fixed a bug with GMCP group causing additional prompts to be sent during combat.
• Roster 10 will now sort by total level rather than just by tier and classes. Redos are not included in this, that part is intentional.
• Mobs names with a quote in them were causing problems in GMCP says. They are now correctly escaped.
• Seeing the experience other group members gain will now be based on your own ‘exprate’ setting rather than theirs.
• The ‘xxx feels abandoned and leaves’ pet message will only echo to the room when a player quits if the pet is in the same room.
• If a player in a group renames, the group leader name, group member name or from/to side of a group invite should now rename correctly.
• Party Harmoney, Party Shield and Party Sanctuary will now return an already affected spellup tag when the affect is not added to anyone.
• Suicide was leaving mana/moves unchanged if the clan had a custom suicide message. Now fixed.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/20/channels-resist-bars-redone/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/20/area-replacements-goal/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/20/area-replacements-goal/#comments Mon, 21 Feb 2011 01:08:39 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=414 New Area and Goal - Wildwood:

Long ago and far away in the outer reaches of Gelidus a nation of centaurs settled within the cold forest of Koloma. Hidden within a dense forest, the noble creatures strive to maintain their customs and traditions behind a wall of secrecy and illusion. Although serene temperaments prevail, within each citizen lies the heart of the warrior. Trained from an early age, the centaurs guard their home jealously, particularly from Human intruders. Elves, sprites, dryads and others of mythic origins are always welcome, however Humans have ever been the enemy, bringing death and destruction to the forest. Trolls and giants might be tolerated, but proof of peaceful intent will probably be demanded.



Note: This area replaces Antharia.

---

New Area - Adventures in Sendhia:

A nexus created by the three moons of Andolor opens a gate upon a world you have never before visited. Upon entering, your adventure begins with a mysterious shipwreck in the Sendhian Sea. From there, you island hop and meet with a variety of strange characters and creatures. You will need to use all your wiles in order to escape the perils you face in Sendhia!

Level Range         : 5 to 50
Area Author         : Lumina

Note: This area replaces Ultima and currently has no goal.

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/20/area-replacements-goal/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/08/aardwolf-mud-client-release/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/08/aardwolf-mud-client-release/#comments Tue, 08 Feb 2011 22:09:28 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=403 We released a newer version of the Aardwolf custom Mushclient today. The main differences between this release (R336) and the original release (R226) are:
• Group monitor plugin using GMCP group info.
• Multiple mapper enhancements including the ability to store custom exits/portals and a command to find all exits leading to unexplored rooms. Check ‘mapper help’ with the client loaded for full info.
  - Client is updated to Mushclient version 4.72
• The Aardwolf MUD Client Download Page has a new section to help you figure out what files to copy over if you are using an older version of the client.

Click the image for a larger screenshot

Check out the Aardwolf Mushclient History page for full release notes. Thanks to everyone who has helped with contributing code and suggestions to the client. Special thanks to Spartacus for many of the mapper updates and other fixes and, of course, to Fiendish for starting and maintaining the whole thing.

 
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/08/aardwolf-mud-client-release/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/05/clan-raiding-change-dice-channels-updates/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/05/clan-raiding-change-dice-channels-updates/#comments Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:36:56 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=395 List of changes made to Aardwolf MUD on Feb 5th 2011:
• The way in which defenders are checked on entering a clanhall has been changed. Note 276, 277 and 286 on the raiding board have more info, but basically the change is that the number of defender timeout slots in use plus the number of defenders already in the area has to be lower than the number of defender timer slots to be allowed to enter.
• There is a new channel option ‘*dice’. For example, using ‘gte *dice 5 7′ will roll 5 dice with 7 sides each and report the results to the channel. Useful for lots of things. One idea in groups is to dice for who gets first pick of the best loot etc. The message will appear with (Dice) before it so that it is impossible to emote.
• When using ‘heal mana’, you will now see a message when your mana is fully refreshed.
• The ‘wangrp’ channel will now show the Remorts/Class/Tiers of others next to their align.
• If you have a %c as the last character in your prompt and have promptflags on, the promptflags info will now show inline with your prompt rather than on another line.
• Fixed a bug with GMCP group info getting truncated on larger groups of 20+ people. As a reminder, this is the Mushclient group plugin:



]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/05/clan-raiding-change-dice-channels-updates/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/05/goals-kingdom-ahner-halls-damned/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/05/goals-kingdom-ahner-halls-damned/#comments Sat, 05 Feb 2011 21:26:07 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=393 New Goal - Kingdom of Ahner:

The Kingdom of Ahner has fallen; through deceit and treachery, King Ahner himself has been betrayed and, with his queen, cast down and imprisoned within the jails of the castle. The King’s army, known as the Oreh, have been forced out of the kingdom. A new army, known as the Dullurds, have taken control, led by the Dullurd King and Cyrus Dirroh.

As the Oreh prepared to make a counterstrike against the Dullurds, two other armies have joined the fray; the Gorlab and the Nilbog. War has ravaged the once lovely Kingdom, leaving it a bloody and horrific sight.

The Oreh are strategizing one final strike, to wipe out the hostile armies of the Gorlab, the Nilbog and Dullurds, defeat Cyrus and restore order back to their homeland. The Oreh leader, Michael the Hare, is looking for someone to help him in his endeavors. Will that be you, adventurer?

Level Range         : 20 to 50
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 45
Goal Converters     : Escobar & Paramore
Area Authors        : Zendalonii

---

New Goal - Halls of the Damned:

Up ahead you hear some hammering and see the city’s official employment advisor busy hanging a new poster. Noticing the lint in your pockets you rush up to see what’s available.

Hear ye, hear ye!

Mayor Darkon Stills humbly requests the aid of any and all persons daring enough to undertake a semi-heroic and definitely life-threatening task for paltry rewards. His village is in dire straits, and wishes you to know that he has issued a decree enforcing house arrest on all its citizenry until the threat has been tended to.

Though not wishing to engage in blackmailing, or any other such underhanded tactics, he kindly wishes for you to consider how long you think his village’s citizens can survive without fresh food and water.

Level Range         : 95 to 115
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 115
Goal Converter      : Paramore
Area Author         : Calabus

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/02/05/goals-kingdom-ahner-halls-damned/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/01/15/friend-list-quit-check-updates/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/01/15/friend-list-quit-check-updates/#comments Sat, 15 Jan 2011 23:07:27 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=389 New Friend List Options:
• There is a new ‘nofriend‘ command that will prevent others from friending you. This does not apply if they are already on your friend list and are just adding you back.
• New Syntax ‘friend reject [person] [reason]‘ will remove someone from your friend wannabe list and give them a reason. The reason why is optional. Nothing to prevent them just re-adding you but if that becomes a problem you can ‘ignore’ them.

---

Other Game Updates:

• Using ‘quit check’ will now show all items that you cannot save with and the reason why. For example (Fake test items):

     [200] (Clanonly) - Rune Stone of Athenas' Might
     [  0] (Key)      - an important-looking key
     [ 15] (Raided)   - Icequake
     [  1] (Nosave)   - an Aylorian Sword

  Just using ‘quit’ will also warn, as it used to do with items too high level.

• There is a new ‘attack’ filter for skills - it lists skills/spells that cause you to have an additional attack compared to if you didn’t have the skill/spells. This includes the obvious ‘attack’ skills plus haste and lightspeed. Did not add enhanced damage/scorpion sting - they don’t cause attacks, they just increase them. Same with weapon skills.
• There is a new ‘passive’ filter for skills - it lists skills/spells that work automatically.
• There is a new object flag called ‘iskey’ that flags an item as a key even if it is not type key. The only affect of this flag is that the item will be picked up by keyloot, it does not affect loading/saving etc. Will leave it up to builders whether or not they want to add this to their own areas, but recommending that special imm items such as scrabble pieces start to include it.
• If you try to invite someone into a group who is already in a different group, they will now receive a message like ‘Lasher tried to invite you to join group: kill all mortals!’
• Potential buy will show the cost of the next point after each buy.
• Runto ‘ft2′ will now also work for ftii (Salvanas). Using ‘Runto Deaths’ (no apostrophe) will also work for Deaths Manor. I basically added the ability for an area to have a second keyword used for ‘runto’ only, so if there are others that could really use this please post them.

---

GMCP Changes:

• GMCP Channels will now show player name for most chats. It generally will not show it for information about the player rather than their actual communication - for example, login/logoff, auction messages etc are not tagged with player name.
• When a player is no longer in a group a slightly different GMCP message will now be sent - the group name will be empty and a “reason” field will show why (Mrykul). For example:

     group { "groupname": "", "reason": "quit" }

  If you have been using the test version of the plugin Fiendish made for monitoring a group, this will crash it until a fix is made.

• GMCP base info now includes tier.

---

Bug Fixes:

• Earthquake and Lightning Strike messages will no longer appear while in note write. (Escobar). As a reminder, nospam also turns off these messages completely.
• The ‘learned’ command is supposed to show skills you have practiced as much as you can with their percentage in red. This had been adjusted to 85 percent even for people without the new wish. Should be fixed now.
• Level 200s were getting the ‘can take another campaign’ message even though they can’t - this doesn’t kick in until level 201.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/01/15/friend-list-quit-check-updates/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/01/15/areas-goals-empyrean-marshlands-agroth-path-believer/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/01/15/areas-goals-empyrean-marshlands-agroth-path-believer/#comments Sat, 15 Jan 2011 21:18:15 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=386 New Area and Goal - Empyrean, Streets of Downfall:

In Sarcoph’s empire, all roads eventually lead to the imperial city. Those who survive the journey through the Great Eastern Desert and the foothills of the Demon’s Halo range will lay eyes on the seat of Sarcoph’s power. But the city itself is no safer than the path to it. No, it is the residence of Ignorance, Treason, Voracity, Might, and Delusion. It is Empyrean, and its alleys are the streets of downfall.

Level Range         : 170 to 200
Goal Difficulty     : Difficult
Goal Recommended at : Level 199
Goal Converters     : Paramore & Dras
Area Authors        : Paramore & Falkon

---

Area Replacement and Goal - The Path of the Believer:

The Path of the Believer is where a believer will begin the first steps of prayer, fasting, and meditation. They will visit the temples along the path and commune with the gods. However one of the temples has been subverted. The priest there is preparing to summon hordes of evil unto the inhabitants, and they are in grave danger. Will you find a way to save the them, or will you leave the inhabitants to their fate?

Level Range         : 1 to 10
Goal Difficulty     : Easy
Goal Recommended at : Level 5
Goal Converter      : Ageha
Area Author         : Domain

---

New Goal - Marshlands of Agroth:

Baya, the marsh witch has a problem. Her former maid servant, Siskriya has stolen her book of ancient flesh magic, and without it, she cannot balance the cycle of death in the marsh. Siskriya has gone deep into hiding and is being protected by several marsh inhabitants, enemies of Baya, or just convenient idiots.

The maid who wants to become the new marsh witch has used her powers of persuasion, and her pale innocent looking face to beguile and convert many of the more powerful people in the marsh, you’ll need to seek them out, and stop their protection at any cost.

To succeed, you’ll need to be as wise as a serpent, and as gentle as a small posse of axe wielding, magic throwing enraged barbarians. Hold on tight, because this will only end in blood.

Level range         : 105 to 125
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 125
Goal Conversion     : Ayon
Area Author         : Pursia & Falkon

]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2011/01/15/areas-goals-empyrean-marshlands-agroth-path-believer/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/23/crynns-church-superhero-campaigns/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/23/crynns-church-superhero-campaigns/#comments Fri, 24 Dec 2010 01:12:18 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=383 New Superhero Area - Crynn’s Church:

Not too long ago, Crynn, a priest of Ayla, lost his faith after being cursed and left to die within Inferno. He was granted a second chance, a chance to redeem himself and start a new era, a better era of a better deity. He would not be granted the power of a God, but he became one himself.

“I found a strange parchment within one of the continents standing upon a small altar with candles burning upon it. As I read this strange language, I felt the world shift, and heard the gods scream in agony. It was a pleasurable experience, so I continued to read….” - Extracted from Crynn’s Diary during the Year of the Snake.

Crynn was granted the power of a god, so he no longer needed one to use his spells in the name of others. Demons from the underworld found this piece of information and tried to get Crynn to sell his soul to them, but the tides turned as Crynn used his new devastating powers to enslave them. Not long after this, rangers from Ranger Heaven started wailing at their brothers being taken prisoner as well, and sent for the rangers still walking with us to go investigate. No feedback has been given yet, which means they must not have made it past the church doors that Crynn had brought up, the church where all these demons are bound to the mortal world to work as slaves for the mad priest.

Level Range         : 195 to 201
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 200
Goal Min Level      : Level 195
Goal Max Level      : Level 201

---

Game Changes this reboot:

Several changes were included in this reboot:

• Graffiti that is over a year old can no longer be removed. If it’s been around for that long it is considered part of our history and should be preserved. This does not apply in clanhalls using the ‘clanpays’ option and imms can still manually remove graffiti if you feel there is a special exception.
• Superhero campaigns are now every 4 hours rather than 23 hours. This is not going to change again … if you’re stuck at t9 and want faster campaigns, use redo. You will now receive a notification on tick when your timer has expired and you can do another campaign.
• It used to be impossible to follow someone who wasn’t the group leader so the prompt variables for leader hp always made sense. With it now being possible to follow someone in the group other than the leader, there are two new prompt options:

       %o   : HP of person you are following.
       %O   : HP percent of person you are following.

These only work if you are in the same group, otherwise you could just follow anyone to get their stats. This should also fix the bug with %l/%L not working after following someone other than the leader.

• Using ‘group promote’ does the same thing as leader, and using ‘group reject’ does the same thing as ‘group kick’.
• Skill gain messages will now show the percentage in the skill.
• This isnt implemented yet, but if you start to see refences to ‘rebuild trains’ appear, this is explained at the bottom of ‘help instinct’.

---

Bug fixes:
And the usual batch of fixes:

• Suicides will now go to info pk rather than info deaths.
• Fixed (again) an issue with using socials targeting another person on channels - GMCP was getting the names confused.
• GMCP.maxstats will now be sent when gaining a bonus stat on level or powerup increases.
• Enrage will now increase a little more regularly.
• The wear/hold/shield change made last reboot was not working correctly with the portal wish. Now fixed.
• Color codes in the group name will no longer throw the heading of ‘group’ out of line.
• Visibility should no longer affect gamestat, with invis imms being the only exception.
• ‘List inv’ and ‘list ‘ will now show the correct item number to buy the item rather than always starting at 1.
• Summon life / summon death messages should no longer appear with repop tags.
• Potential ‘cost’ works in addition to ‘potential costs’, and the option is now shown with the syntax.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/23/crynns-church-superhero-campaigns/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/10/wishes-spellup3-scholar-changesfixes/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/10/wishes-spellup3-scholar-changesfixes/#comments Sat, 11 Dec 2010 02:24:17 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=376 Several other changes went live in today’s reboot, including new wishes:
• There is a new ‘spellup3‘ wish that has two main affects:
  • Halves the lag on “spellup” skills, when not used in combat.
  • This applies to both success and failure.
  • Halves again the lag on failed casts of spells.
    You have to have the spellup2 wish before you can buy spellup3.
• There is a new ‘scholar‘ wish that allows you to practice skills to 85% instead of 75%.
• There is a ‘potential costs’ option that will show you cost and accumulative cost from 0 through 450. Not adding ‘pot costs ‘ because the time is better spent elsewhere.
• Have changed the way ‘wear’ (and hold) work when trying to wear or hold a portal/shield. No change to ‘wear all’, but if you specify the exact item using ‘wear portal’ and ‘wear shield’ then a dual wielded weapon @Rwill@w be removed and replaced. Note this applies with portals only if you don’t already have the portal wish.
• The ‘Zombify’ spell will now give a different message when it fails because the mob is immune to shadow damage type.
• The duration of the ‘fireproof’ flag cast on objects is now fixed rather than random.
• There is a new ‘repop’ tag option - now GMCP, just plain old text tags. It has no closing tag, just a 1 line {repop} prefix. It can also be toggled using telnet option 21 (help telopts) for anyone still using that.
• New who option ‘who consented’ will show people that have given you permission to loot their corpse. Mostly useful for helpers/advisors and people doing CRs.

---

Bug Fixes in this update:
• Group accept will now work regardless of visibility. You’ll still see “someone” in the message, but will be part of the group.
• The 25 character limit on group names no longer includes color codes.
• GMCP will now send ‘worth’ after selling an item back to the store.
• Recon will no longer fail when it is at 100%.
• Frenzy and Berserk will now update GMCP Stats. Replacing a weapon with only hr/dr will also do the same.
• The ‘Cobra Bane’ skill was doing energy damage type instead of poison. Now fixed.
]]> http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/10/wishes-spellup3-scholar-changesfixes/feed/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/10/masteries-feature-rebellion-nix-area/ http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/2010/12/10/masteries-feature-rebellion-nix-area/#comments Sat, 11 Dec 2010 02:24:11 +0000 Lasher http://www.aardwolf.com/blog/?p=372 Area Replacement and Goal - Rebellion of the Nix:

The Nixie, spirits of the water, forever jealous of land-dwellers, have for generations summoned men, women and children to their deaths by drowning. Now, random attacks on ships and beachcombers are not enough. A rebellious group of Nix have declared war upon the land, seeking to submerge and drown entire cities. The beleaguered city of Rhodus is the last bastion of hope for the Molyneuxans. They alone understand the power of the Wyverns, and how to awaken them to do battle against the Nixie and their music-driven devilment. An old adventurer, known to frequent the Chequered Owl, has plenty of tales to tell, having lately escaped the Nixie invasion, barely with his life.

Area Level Range    : 150 to 190
Goal Difficulty     : Medium
Goal Recommended at : Level 190
Goal Converter      : Lumina (original by Jernau)
Area Author         : Lumina (original by Jernau)

---

Masteries - New enhancement feature for higher levels

Aardwolf adventurers can become so practiced in the art of a particular physical damage type or magical focus that any damage they inflict of that type gains an automatic increase.

Masteries are earned by spending quest points and gold at a suitable trainer.

Syntax:   masteries         : See current mastery levels:
          mastery buy type  : See cost of next point in a specific type.
          mastery costs     : Table of costs up to 250.

Important Notes:

• Mastery points are not percentages. There is no max to how high a mastery can be trained but the affect of each additional point of mastery decreases the higher it gets.

  For example, a permanent 5% increase in a damage type requires 17 points of mastery, 10% requires 38 points, 20% requires 104 points and 30% requires 260. 30% is the practical max, the theoretical max is 40% at 1000 points but would require 10 million qps to reach.

• Masteries save over tiers, once they are bought they are kept forever. There is currently no way to reassign them.
• This is a very expensive damage bonus intended for higher levels. If you do not yet have a good collection of quest equipment or wishes, your quest points are almost definitely better spent in those areas. It might be worth getting a few percent in your favorite damtype, but otherwise save these until later.
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