posted on 28-Oct-2004
Welcome to the November Letter to the Players!

Last month in Dereth, Isparians discovered yet another ancient Falatacot temple. Initially, the temple appeared to be secure... but then a Burun Guruk named Mgrauleshk led a raid into the temple depths.

When the rally cry went out across Dereth, Isparians had difficult choices to make. The barrier could not be reached without forfeiting Asheron's protection. Some felt that Asheron's protection was more important than pursuing the Burun. Some chose to hang back, waiting to see what would happen next. Others dove ahead, attacking both Mgrauleshk and the barrier. Some chose to defend the barrier from Mgrauleshk and their fellow Isparians. A few decided to use this as an opportunity to settle old grudges and cause mayhem.

The barrier fell, and an enormous and mighty threat emerged. King Reeshan. One of the mighty Burun Kukurr. None could stand before him.

Now let's take a look at some of the changes coming in the November event and beyond.

But before we look at the future, let's talk about a recent development that we're fairly proud of.

Turbine Billing
On Thursday, October 14, Turbine's new billing and authentication system launched. Since then we've had many new sign-ups on our system, and these players are using Turbine's new launcher to log into Asheron's Call.

We're very excited about this, and we hope you are too. This is a major milestone for Asheron's Call, and for Turbine as a company! In addition, we are one step closer to migrating all of our existing players onto our new billing and authentication system. Keep watching the Asheron's Call website for more info on the migration!

Coming Soon
(These are items that we plan to implement in the November event. Many of these items were mentioned in prior articles. These changes are in addition to the new quests, dungeons, and items that we'll be introducing in the November event.)

Asheron's Call's 5th Anniversary
As you may know, November marks five years of Asheron's Call. As the game started ten years after the defeat of the Olthoi Queen, this marks 15 years of Isparian freedom on Dereth.

In celebration of this anniversary, the Council of Sages will be providing all players with a small gift in the November event.

Please make sure that you leave one slot open in your main pack before logging off for the last time prior to the November event. Also make sure that your character is not at 300% burden. If you are at 300% burden or have no available slots in your main pack at first login after the event, you will not receive your gift.

For scheduling purposes, the November event is tentatively planned for Wednesday November 10.

Rapid-Fire Bow Bug Fix
Since the early days of Asheron's Call, there has been a bug with the projectile attack system and the animation system that could allow a character to fire arrows or bolts very rapidly. Recently there's been a surge in the number of players using this bug, particularly on Darktide.

For the November event, we are implementing a fix to this bug. It will not be possible to fire any missile weapon faster than its fastest speed, under any circumstances.

Unfortunately it is not possible to directly apply this fix to other animation-breaking bugs that we are continuing to work on.

Salvaging Spells
Last month we introduced the new skill of Salvaging, but not the Creature Magic spells to allow you to enhance this skill. In November, you will be able to acquire spells to increase the Salvaging skill. You'll be able to purchase the level 1 through 6 versions from vendors, and there may be other ways to acquire them as well.

PvP Weapon Changes
In June of this year, we made a number of changes to the Weeping, Hollow and Phantom weapons. After watching the feedback on these changes and more internal testing, we determined that the tools and data we had used to justify the changes were flawed. For November we will be making additional changes in order to meet our goals.

The goal is to make all three PvP weapon suites effective in combat, depending on the situation. A Weeping Weapon used against a target that has been both Imperil'd and Vuln'd should be the most effective. Next should be a Phantom Weapon against a target that has been Vuln'd. Third should be the Hollow Weapons, as they ignore all Life and Item Magic protection.

Within each suite, the most powerful weapons should be those that cost the most skill points. However the cheapest weapons should not be useless in PvP combat. In addition, there should be some flavor among the weapons. For example, Mace and Axe cost the same amount in terms of skill credits. Traditionally, Axes have higher maximum damage and thus higher critical hits, while Maces have a tighter variance and thus better damage over time. This was not true of the Weeping Axe and Weeping Mace - the weapons were identical. In November, the weapons will be changed to better match their traditional flavor.

In general, the damage on all Melee weapons is being increased by some amount. Some of the Weeping Weapons will have a lower damage statistic in November, but the Human Slayer quality is being increased. The Weeping Sword, at the top of the stack, will not have the critical hit damage that it had prior to the June changes, but its damage over time will go up thanks to an improved variance.

The Atlatls and Crossbows are also having their damage increased. Unfortunately it was necessary to tweak the Bows down very slightly in order to meet our goals. Bows will do smaller critical hits than Swords in the same class, but have a higher average damage over time.

The Phantom Katar is a special case. As most players know, Unarmed Combat weapons receive a damage bonus based on the Unarmed Combat skill of the wielder. These weapons receive a smaller damage bonus from Strength than other weapons, but at high levels the total damage bonus is still quite considerable.

This causes the Phantom Katar, even with a base damage of 0, do to extremely high amounts of damage at very high levels of skill. When the Phantom Katar was first introduced in August 2002, a special exception was made for the Katar's skill damage bonus. The skill damage bonus for the Phantom Katar is currently one-half the bonus of any other Unarmed Combat weapon.

However, in our analysis this still leaves the Phantom Katar overpowered. Its critical hits at high levels are more powerful than any other PvP weapon at the same character level. Thus we have decided to change the multiplier to the skill damage bonus on the Katar from one-half to one-third. This brings it in line with the other Phantom Weapons.