Old News: March 1999

The Tome of Reagents has been updated with the latest knowledge about Necromantic reagents. Slowly but surely these reagents are appearing in Britannia. So far the following reagents have been found in the wild:

• Blackmoor - Liche Lords
• Bone - Bone Magi
• Daemon's Bone - Daemons
• Dead Wood - Reapers
• Executioner's Cap - Corpsers
• Fertile Dirt - Earth Elementals
• Vial of Blood - Blood Elemental
• Wyrm's Heart - Ancient Wyrm

Other than that, I have a request. We love to receive information gathered by players, and sometimes a picture can say more than a thousand words, but *please* stop sending us huge screenshots. First of all make sure you compress the picture to JPG format, and second crop the picture so that only the interesting bits show. If you have pictures that are larger than 100kb then please ask first if we would like to see them.

Thank you for your cooperation.

- Xena Dragon

 

Coming soon to a shard near you! (probably 3-16-99). Only the highlights of the changes currently on the test center are shown below. The actual list is huge, and may be viewed at owo's "In Testing" page.

 

• Blue PK changes
  We are slowly phasing in changes to the reputation system to reduce antisocial behavior. In this update, we have some changes that will push blue PKs to being red.
  • A new long-term counter will be added that tracks murder counts.
    • This counter will go up when you are reported for murder, like the current murder count.
    • This counter will decay at the rate of 1 every 40 hours (the current counter goes down 1 every 8 hours).
    • While this counter is five or more, you will highlight red, and will be vulnerable to attack.
    • Stat loss will still depend on the standard murder counter.
  • Another new counter we term "pingpong" will be added.
    • This counter increases each time you go red.
    • If this counter reaches five, you will be permanently red (meaning, you will be attackable. You will not suffer stat loss unless your murder count is also high).
    • This counter does not decay.
  • Murder will seriously affect your karma.

 

Skills

• Hiding
  • You can no longer hide while casting a spell.
• Alchemy
  A research system has been added to alchemy. This not only adds numerous potions (with more to come in the future) but also means that players will have to research & discover the correct combinations to make the new potions.
• Necromancy
  This is a new skill that offers new magic spells. It is also based on the research system.
  • This will not appear as a usable skill on the skills window until a client patch is done.
  • The professional title is "Necromancer."
  • To learn or use the skill you will be required to have at least 80 in Magery and 40 in Spirit Speak.
• Magery
  • Elemental summoning in towns will be disabled.
  • The average damage of flamestrike has been raised. The maximum damage remains the same.

 

Murmurs have been heard throughout the land regarding the blue-pk changes. Notable among these is one overheard on the Trinsic North Bank roof.

 

WC: "With the new 40 hour murder decay rate, how are we to protect ourselves from monster looters? They remain blue! What about Treasure Chest looters? They remain blue too! Are we to just stand idly by as they take whatever they please? Monster looters, at the minimum, need to turn gray if they did not damage that monster. Anyone that doesn't have possession of the treasure map, should turn gray if they take anything from the chest. We need THOSE changes to make this blue-pk thing workable."