News from Sir Tristan
Posted 09-06-2010 02:35 by Vassago

Adventurers,

As you know, all of Alyria is beset by the Kapek's plague of creations. We have been under an onslaught for over 36 hours, and defenses are barely holding. Since the invasion started, I have been in council with the Archwizard Glacius, considering our options. We believe we have finally found a way to bring this invasion to a close.

I, Tristan, have selected the finest recruit on the Runic armies, and fitted him with the best armor and weapons available. Glacius has provided him with extensive psionic training. Now, with this training, we are sending this vanguard forth, to telepathically sense Kapek's location and disrupt his mind. This mental shroud should be enough to reduce the invasion's duration by a significant amount. We will find Kapek, and bring him to justice.

You may hear Kapek offering rewards for the death of this Vanguard. I beg of you, ignore his petty attempts at bribery, and help your fellow Alyrians.

Yours,
Sir Tristan

A Courier Message to the Warfront
Posted 09-06-2010 01:50 by Vassago

Combatants and citizens alike,

Couriers of my court bring me news, ill and good alike. That dastardly Kapek and his automaton army are being repulsed, and they are strong. Many adventurers have been seduced by his seditious lies, and have turned in enough cores to turn this into a long war of attrition. My strategists estimate that the battles will drag out past the weekend, if not longer. It is possible, even, that further adventurers turning in more cores to power the defeated robots would cause the global struggle to last even longer.

Morbid as it may seem, I am pleased to announce that the following developments have occurred: since the start of this bloody and oily invasion, over 18000 robots have been slain, and adventurers have gained over 94000 buildpoints, over 37,000,000 gold, over 7800 practices, and over 103,000 quest points.

My wizard Balthazar reports that the Powers are so impressed with the battle prowess on display, They have taken to Marking all adventurers who manage to slay 300 automatons. However, in a frankly stunning display of the potential avarice of the elements, the Powers are also Marking all adventurers who retrieve for Kapek's henchman each of the 7 power cores spread around the world.

To end on a bit of good news, Sir Tristan is enacting a plan, currently top secret, that hopefully willy cut this invasion short. More news shall be forthcoming.

Yours in battle,
Lord Agrippa

An Offer From Phineas Kapek
Posted 09-06-2010 01:49 by Vassago

Minions,

The invasion has gone worse than I expected, even with your help.

Meddling Adventurers have slain an unexpected and unacceptable level of my creations. Rest assured, I will continue sending them until every last of my enemies is under an iron boot. However, my core supply is running low. I will need not only delivery services, but also collection services. I have scattered the seven key parts to my ingenious devices in seven areas across Alyria: Rune, Rune Forest, Vospire, Diocletian, Lowangen, Mandrake Woods, and Arcane Isle. If you manage to find a complete set, please, take them to my henchman in Rune. He will reward you accordingly.

Your Master,
Phineas Kapek

Kapek's Automaton Invasion!
Posted 09-02-2010 01:18 by Duende

Adventurers,
Phineas Kapek has begun his invasion of Alyrian towns, and it is an opportunity for danger and reward for every player. His mechanical golems are wreaking havoc, and both the Council of Seven and Kapek himself are doing all they can to win this battle. To reiterate, here is where each adventurer should go:

Archons: Decara
Levels 180-240: Templeton
Levels 120-179: Pirate’s Cove
Levels 60-119: Xaventry
Levels 35-59: Sigil
Levels 1-34: New Rigel

The Council of Seven is rewarding players who manage to slay the robots with practices, quest points, gold, and building points. Further, the Council will provide additional rewards at certain benchmarks, such as slaying 100 of Kapek’s automated creations. Each player can extend the global by turning in one of Kapek’s cores to his henchman at Rune Temple. It is currently set to last four days, through the weekend, so bring your friends and help eliminate the menace!

A Warning from Lord Agrippa
Posted 08-29-2010 10:55 by Vassago

Dear Adventurers,

I must admit a great mistake. Several months ago, every Lord and Lady on the Council of Seven received a threat. It made preposterous demands for gold, and stated that if each and every one of us did not comply, there would be grave consequences. It was signed Phineas Kapek, a name unfamiliar to most, but known to the Council of the Arcane. Kapek was famous, decades ago, as one of the most promising gnomish inventor in Alyrian history, rivaling the talent of Vandemaar himself. After a personal tragedy and a psychotic break, he left the council and has not been seen since.

We did not take this threat seriously, and discarded it with the other numerous threats we receive. Now, our scouts have found the unthinkable: Kapek lives, and is following through with his threat. He is sending an army - automatons, golems, and even unholy hybrids of life and metal - against us. Tristan has informed me that while Rune has adequate defenses, our fellow towns do not. The Council of Seven requires assistance, and our scouts have provided us with accurate information on the varied force Kapek marshals against us. For those joining in the effort, our war council recommends the following assignments:

• Archons: The Towne of Decara
• Level 180-240: The Towne of Templeton
• Level 120-179: The Towne of Pirate's Cove
• Level 60-119: The Towne of Xaventry
• Level 35-59: The Towne of Sigil
• Level 1-34: The Towne of New Rigel

At this rate, Kapek's armies are expected to reach our towns by Wednesday night. Unfortunately, we cannot say when the invasion will end. Our spies tell us that Kapek is attempting to enlist adventurers to covertly power his creations. The more adventurers that help him, the longer his awful attacks will last. We hope that, with perseverance and fortitude, we can defeat this menace once and for all.

Yours,
Lord Cornelius Agrippa

Changelog for the 8/11/2010 **REBOOT**
Posted 08-11-2010 02:14 by Vassago

RELIGION/QUESTS

• Fixed/changed the behavior when requesting a new religion - if you type RELIGION INFO it will display the religion that is accepting free members, which will be the lowest popularity religion. If there's more than one it will choose one of these.
• Fixed a bug in the "Placate Bajang" quest.
• Added item identify information to quests that grant item rewards (the items will now be identified in quest info, beyond their short descriptions), if you do not have BRIEF environment setting ON.
• Added a new quest item, the sceptre of songs.
• Added "reagents" and "reagents" keywords to reagent bags from Lord Vashir.
• Fixed a typo in golden-spurred boots that would cause the target to see duplicate messages.

• Added new BP-enabled housing in PC, Tellerium and Xaventry. Maps of this housing are available on "help map of housing"; only the NE quadrant is enabled now. Portals to these sections are each realty's entrance.
• Added a new invasion type: automatons!
• Added clan and alliance announcement info to clan/alliance info for members of that clan or alliance.
• Added information to WHERE indicating which alliance calls the area their hometown.
• Added an alternative (and shorter) method of getting to Abacax.
• Made new build-enabled house keys work on home containers (like chests and trophy cases). These keys (which everyone should be using to unlock their homes now) are now required to open the chests.
• Added a few missing clan log additions for alliance war/peace declarations, and alliance kick.
• Changed door passphrases so they will open non-spell magic-locked doors.
• Clan 'transfer' permission was set automatically for the top two ranks in clans, when the ranks are assigned. Removed it from the second-to-top rank, so it's only set automatically for the top rank.
• Fixed a bug with passproof doors, once set on build homes, not having the door setting reset until reboot.

• After years of renovation, reopened The Rusty Blade weapon shop on Irda.
• Added the wandering Airship Inconvenience.
• Added "The Southwest Passage" to the Oceanus Decarus, linking The Chattering Skull Tavern and the back entrance to Three-Bearded Jake's.
• Revamped hint system. Added more hints, and separated hints into Local (area) and Global. Random hints will select from both of these.
• Shifting into a castle janitor will fool Templeton's castle guards into letting adventurers by as well as a janitor's patch does.
• Changed level-adjusted items so they will adjust on pick up and drop, as well as equip and unequip, and removed antimagic room restrictions on the initial adjustment.
• Added a method to temporarily destroy the magic-suppressing obelisks in Tellerium.
• Fixed a bug that rendered Mr. Simes spookable.
• Fixed the bug with A lost bit of the Wizard's knowledge that prevented it from working as intended.
• Made the way out of the deep forest in Chanctonbury more obvious. Make sure to read room descriptions.
• Fixed issue with 'Kessler' NPC so he will now properly offer TRAINing services along with practicing.
• Added special weapon properties (flaming, dispelling, etc.) so they will also be activated by the "throw" command, when throwing a weapon.
• Enabled asking Death who the best pkers are.
• Fixed sturdy boots of balance always triggering.

• Made Thadus Trax only accept properly-bound weapons.
• Readded the (very rewarding) mark of Battle to Raymatus.
• Buffed Raymatus' ring of the hegemon and Raymatus' battle lantern.
• Removed timers from in-Arbaces items (removes the need to force a repop if those npcs haven't been killed in a few weeks)
• Expanded the functionality of the mask of a sorceror of infamy and ill repute.
• Increased the timers on Super Yourban's eq by 8-12x.
• Added survey strings to Hydra's Den and made itdoable by players of all levels.
• Added survey points for The Black Lodge, the Stronghold of the Garbool Tribe and The Coventry of Kalywak. Added survey points to The Sacred Temple of the Tentacle Cult of Metonychoseuthis, with Swiveling Hooks and Dr. Gnekow's lair.
• Made Archon Hunter Masters count as bosses, with loot.
• Added a method to make Megalith Peulvan a bit easier.
• Added additional, very significant rewards if everyone fighting Megafather, from full health to death, is affected by Malice.
• Doubled the rewards for the orc pursuer.

• Removed level restrictions on the marks of conformity, transience, pride, lamentation, alchemy, friendship and discovery. Note that any applicable current-class restrictions remain for non-archons.
• Disambiguated all redundant marks; credit from duplicate marks is granted towards the easiest method of acquisition. For example, the 5 methods of gaining the mark of Fire are now 4 other marks and the standard 'Kill Vyst'. Credit & hard work are Basselu.
• Fixed the mark of Abjuration so it would work.
• Increased the odds of getting the mark of Dignity from Old Armageddon from 40%->100%.
• Removed level limits for quest # marks: Adventure, Exploration, Chance, and Traveler.
• Fixed the Oil Well mark.

• Accelerated the palpitating items' timetable a bit: their third and fourth phases will last one week each, and reach their final phase at noon, Tues, Aug 31st.
• Fixed the price of ankh of Sir Adroit and Cunning..

• Added death insurance vouchers and Mercantile guild vouchers, redeemable for credit at shops within the Bazaar.
• Fixed daily rewards not binding..
• Removed blackjack vouchers worth 500 gold from Daily Rewards, and added chipped orbs of Vandemaar.
• 'a fragment of an orb of Vandemaar' is now redundant to 'a shard of an Orb of Vandemaar', and the former can be placed in 'a chipped orb of Vandemaar' just like the latter. BUGS & SYSTEM STUFF
• Fixed an issue with portals not registering quests and certain other entry events.
• Doing "use fnargh score show room" while playing Fnargh will no longer reset your score.
• Moved "MXP vX ENABLED" and "MCCP 2 ENABLED" messages so they come after you enter the game.
• 'Martial arts' proficiency accuracy bonus will now show up on 'equipment' command information.
• Changed 'chess cancel' so games cannot be cancelled before the first move, unless you are the one who initiated the game.
• Added information to HELP TRADE about what items cannot be traded.
• Fixed a bug with "put in" messages sometimes displaying twice.

• Update to silence change #3210: It's set so if the player casting the spell has 1 second or less left on the cast, they won't have the spell interrupted, to make room for the "two spells finishing at the same time" issue.
• 'Silence' spell, on a successful land, now stops spells on the target that are in the process of being cast.
• Fixed an issue with "sleep" affect not stopping special actions.
• Made 'chain lightning', 'ice whip' and 'water evocation' all drop 'elemental shield'.
• Fixed some issues with 'waterspout' in relation to certain rooms and exits.
• Fixed a bug in quicksand-ed rooms that was causing it to fail 100% of the time, regardless of agility score.
• Significantly increased the non-lethal damage dealt by 'kill'.
• Fixed an issue with familiars (such as shadow golems) not realizing you are dead and autoforming with you.
• Fixed a bug with buffet and its exit blocking effect.
• Ferrymen Uther and Gallow should be yelling when they dock now.
• Fixed issues with tremor and thunderclap that was causing them not to work in combat.
• Added a descriptive message to the player upon successful cast of 'blink'.
• Fixed a bug in mount ordering/formation NPC ordering (wasn't working unless the NPC was in your formation).
• Reduced class-specific complexities for numerous proficiencies to 10%; for more information, see post.
• Fixed an issue with mounts/transport items not being subject to the same checks from quicksanded rooms.

As always, to discuss these changes, any upcoming ones, or anything else, join the community in the Message Board.

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