Change Log: June 2013

[Tobias]

Aaand we start off June with a bunch of fixes. ;P


Bug Fixes

- Players are no longer respawned to Elyssia Ridge in certain circumstances after the battleground ended.
- Placing monsters outside of platforms in the map editor is now handled .. more gracefully.


PvP

- The relic is now light 1, as the damage disparity between the various elements made it very easily for certain classes to break it. (Reported by Pike)


General Changes

- The upper snow plains have expanded slightly again, getting high enough to reach into an area with permanent snow storms.
- The health of the Twigmoss Caretakers is now updated much more quickly while they are channeling leech life.
- Improved the encounter code to allow the client keeping track of multiple encounters.
- The preloader did not correctly pass any parameters (such as https) on to the actual game client.
- - A bug which caused the preloader to not show a proper error message has been fixed as well, and it's performance was improved.
- Minor quest title typos were corrected. (Reported by Caydence)
- The server is now able to suspend (and continue) encounters.
- Added preliminary support for script accounting.
- For those who have already gotten one of the pets for rescuing Timothy from Sakkara in the Battle for Ashaya, Benjamin is selling the other pet for 45 Tokens of Heroism.
- Ice Skates have been added to the drop table of Ektar. (Suggested and design by Willow, drawn by Goldy)
- Also, Bizz now has her own spirit bottle! (Drawn by Scarpath)


Hunters

- Several hunter skills have been redesigned, and all hunters have received a skill reset.
- Bow Mastery is now of a more central importance, determining what kind of ranged skills you unlock.
- Hunters can now learn Charge Arrow, which lets them push back their targets with a powerful shot.
- They can also learn Touch of the Phoenix, which quickly revives their last summoned pet (or gives it a substantial heal in case it is not knocked out).
- In addition, Ragefang can now drop a Tribal Medal.
- The endurance cost of Arrow Shower has been reduced slightly.


Map Editing

- Added a preliminary dashboard for map editing, which lets you manage and edit your map from this website.
- In addition, players can now configure their map to allow permanent access codes, which do not change unless specifically disabled.
- The dashboard also allows creating a game client, which loads just their own map.
- - The game client that is generated is hosted here, but it players can also download it to their own websites if they so wish.
- - Accessing the map using this special game client signs visitors into guest accounts.
- - Hidden guests that are observing can no longer attack or cast skills while in that status. (Reported by Libra)

[Tobias]

A bunch of new stuff, and I'm probably forgetting half of it.

General Changes

- Adventurers can now reply to ticket responses they received from staff, even if they're not near a mailbox. It's pure magic, and it just works.
- Regular mana and healing potions can now be distilled into greater mana and healing potions.
- New adventurers that level up are now gently nudged towards their skillbook with a huge red box.
- - The skill help ( /help skills ) no longer suggests that a newly gotten passive skill can be dragged into the hotkey bar.
- When rolling in the loot pool, players now see what everyone rolled.
- - In addition, you now see what everyone selects (want / take / pass) even when you're not on the same map as they are.


PvP

- TvT ends at 100 reinforcements (not 110). Any team getting 95 reinforcements gets a damage buff, so it's definitely a good idea to keep their reinforcements down.


Dungeons

- It is now possible to delay resets of any dungeon you are bound to, by typing /dungeons and then clicking on the dungeon you want to extend.
- - Essentially, this delays the reset for 12 hours, and you can delay the reset up to 24 hours in advance.
- - Every player has to extend individually, so if you extend your dungeon, it'll still expire for anyone else bound to it (unless they extend it as well, of course).

[Tobias]

General Changes

- Monsters from some factions now assist each other, no matter what type of monster they are. For example, an Exile Hunter will assist an Exile Warrior, because they are both exiles.
- - In addition, the assist range of the exiles has been reduced - so getting spotted by one exile does not pull just about the entire map with the new change.
- Added a Steel Pot Still (rigged and rendered by Pike!), which is sold by an exile miner. Of course, if the price he wants for it isn't what you imagine, there might be another way of getting at it.
- - The Steel Pot Still is more efficient than the Brass Pot Still, only requiring four potions to distil.
- Gorath can now drop a pair of Lucky Dice in its hard mode encounter.
- Since it seems to be common to no longer even try fighting Ragefang normally, he will now instantly go berserk when lured towards the top.
- Hunters obtain ranged attack from their dexterity stat only if they have bow and arrows equipped.
- The raw "damage per swing" is no longer shown in the stats window (it still shows up in the tooltip); this only caused confusion ("which is the correct value to tell others?"). Instead, it lists the damage-per-second value.
- Hunters now see their ranged attack in the stats window (Suggested by Hippo).
- Myrow Warriorbane now wanders the cave to midnight mountain, letting all warriors take a nap that don't find their smite button in time. :3
- Several combat mechanics were refined.
- - Formless monsters (such as spirits) have a reduced time of being rooted, since they can just squeeze their way through.
- - Plant type monsters receive a small healing bonus from revitalize.
- - Airborne monsters do not trigger any traps.
- - Curse of Roots no longer works on high-flying monsters.


Protocol Changes

- Added support for TLS.
- - At the moment, even though the password exchange was always secure, the actual game protocol (position and battle updates, but also chat) isn't encrypted, which means that technically someone could eavesdrop on your line. If you are worried, or if your ISP uses a filter that false-positives when Sakkara yells that the spirits should "heed their master's call", you can go to http://www.pawdgame.com/play/?secure=tls .
- - If you log in to the game from that link, the entire game protocol is wrapped in a TLS tunnel, meaning everything from positioning to chat is encrypted. And that's that.
- - Added a 'Secure Connection' option to the login screen that enables TLS, as well.


Dungeons

- Certain snakes sneaking around in the lair of Ragefang have gotten used to his poison, and are no longer affected by it. (Reported by Pike)
- More trophy icons have been added to the dungeon trophies.


Bug Fixes

- Fixed a glitch that, under certain circumstances, could cause players to enter maps at a different position than usual. (Reported by Dazz)
- In addition, players are able to reply to tickets once more, without having to open a new one. (Also reported by Dazz)
- Graceful reconnection upon reboot did not work if a secure connection was used. This has been fixed.


Moonlight Monastery

- The Moonlight Monastery is now complete, and all trophies are available.
- - With that, brave adventurers now have five weeks (until July 31) to obtain the Argan Dungeon Master trophy, in order to also receive a feat for beating the monastery trophies at its intended level, before the level cap is risen. Good luck!
- Terechia now has a spirit bottle!
- The Orb at the Monastery Entrance now includes all relevant locations within the dungeon.