Rollout Article
posted on 11-May-2004
The sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh filled the small cavern. Okret had volunteered for this assignment because he knew that Muldaveus and Niarltah would look favorably on him should he perform the task well. As he stood in the entrance of this fetid cave, he began to think this had been an error in judgment. Cautiously he hoisted the great stone chest onto his shoulder and proceeded deeper into the grotto. Wails filled his ears and grew louder, serving as a beacon and guiding him deeper into the living cave.
The ground was moist, spongy and covered in a thin film of yellow slime. The place reeked of the swamp and something even fouler than decay. He paused to look at the peculiar sight of a phyntos wasp firmly stuck onto a small pike. He placed the stone chest on the ground and knelt to study the craft of the pike.
A set of yellow eyes blinked in the darkness of a nearby tunnel. The burun hunkered low, revealing two other sets of eyes. They moved just into the light of the wide cavern where Okret knelt and gnashed their rows of jagged teeth. In unison, the three let out a growl and screech like nothing Okret had ever heard.
Many of this month's changes have already been described in detail in the Letter to the Players. There are a few other topics that we'd like to discuss in detail.
Defender and Lure Blade
We recently discovered a bug with the spells Defender I, III and V; and Lure Blade I, III and V. The amount of the bonus or penalty that these spells granted did not match the amount listed in the spells' descriptions.
To resolve this issue, we made the numbers match and we always used the greater value. For example, if the description listed a greater change than the spell actually granted, the spell was changed. If the spell caused a change greater than the listed description, the description was changed.
The table below shows the spells with their new values.
Defender / Lure Blade I ± 3%
Defender / Lure Blade III ± 7.5%
Defender / Lure Blade V ± 13%
Imbue Underlays
There is now a visible difference between imbued and unimbued weapons. Imbued weapons have a colored background, with the color representing the specific type of imbue.
The following chart shows the different colors for imbues:
Unopened Corpse Keys
From the Configure Keyboard option, you can now bind keys to two new commands: Closest Unopened Corpse and Next Unopened Corpse. These keys target unopened corpses in a manner similar to that used by the Next Monster and Closest Monster commands.
These new commands will not only select the unopened corpse, they will also attempt to open the corpse, just as if you'd double-clicked it. This will make your character walk to the corpse if you are not within usable distance of it.
Please note that these new keyboard commands do not currently track whether or not you have permission to open the corpse or whether or not the corpse is currently being looted by another player. For example, if you hit the key bound to Next Unopened Corpse and you may not loot the corpse for some reason, the game will behave just as if you had double-clicked on the corpse. You will walk over to the corpse, if necessary, and then receive an error message in the upper left-hand corner of your screen.
Configurable Timestamping
There is a new option in the Character Options panel: Display Timestamps. The option is followed by some symbols and text in green.
When this option is checked, the text in green will be displayed before each new entry in your chat box. The symbols represent various replacement filters so you can customize the timestamp display.
For more information on configuring this option, as well as examples, visit the Timestamp Options page in Asheron's Handbook.
Stackable Gems
The following types of Portal Gems are now stackable to a maximum of 25: Town Portal Gems, Archmage Portal Gems, and Tusker Island Portal Gems.
Some players use these gems - particularly the Archmage Portal Gems - as death items, so it's important to note how stackable items work with the death system. When you die, a stack is considered to be one item for the purposes of death items. However if that stack is selected, only one item off the stack will drop.
For example, let's say you can currently cover all of your items with five Portal Gems. After the event, if you do not stack these gems there will be no change. However, if you combine the five gems into a single stack, you would drop one gem and four other items on death.
