Five on Friday - May 23, 2008
Since most of the questions this week have focused on the upcoming Publish 53, I've gone ahead and made a small preview for everyone! Here are some of the things you can look forward to seeing on Test Center next week:
Bug Fixes:
- Added a 15 minute timer for a guild to accept an alliance invite. This means guilds will no longer get stuck in "invite pending" mode. (For guilds in this situation now, once the publish goes live, GMs will be able to resolve the issue.)
- Updated vanguard controllers, spawn and locations to stop mobs from spawning underground and unreachable places
- Players are able to resize instead of demolish houses by saying "I wish to resize my house".
- Greater Dragons and Dread Warhorses will display properly in trade window
- Sand and Granite will have double resources in Fel now
- Added a statuette engraving tool
- Creatures will no longer teleport into private houses
- Snake Skin Boots will no longer say Oak
- Blood Oath can now be removed by eating an enchanted Apple or using Remove Curse spell
- Added a Priest of Mondain to Felucca Prism of Light area
- Zoo Collection points will now decay more slowly
- Lady Sylvanis will no longer chase people quite so far
- Repair Service Deeds now work for a Long Sword, orc, bear and tribal masks, Right facing Black staffs, Left Facing Crooks, and Left facing Clubs
- Player vendors can no longer hold a shield and a two handed weapon
- Moonglow blacksmith regions have been updated to use repair deeds
- Player vendors should now recognize the increased bank storage
- The spelling of Velocity has been corrected when a player is hit by an arrow with velocity
- Taming Text will now appear over the head when pet is tamed.
Spring Cleaning Updates: The full list with point values will be posted with the Test Center notes next week, but here are some of the things you will now be able to turn in for points:
- Holiday and Valentine's gifts
- SoS and MiBs
- Power and stat scrolls (all kinds)
- Treasure maps
- Artifacts (various kinds - minor, Doom, etc)
- Grobu's Fur
- Fishing Nets
And here are some of the house decorations and other items you'll be able to collect as rewards:
- A special Luck bracelet and ring
- Virtue tiles (to see what these look like, visit the Chamber of the Virtues in central Britain.)
- A beehive
- An archery butte
- A firepit
- A nest with eggs
- A yucca tree, a stand of bamboo, or a potted cactus
- A mounted Dragon head, for hanging on the wall
- Horse Barding (for decoration only!)
And, of course, the war rages on...
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"Why does it seem like IDOCs aren't happening much at all anymore?"
I don't have a concrete answer for this one yet, but I wanted to acknowledge it and let you know that we do have engineers looking into it. (It's not a deliberate change.)
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What's To Come:
Our hardware issues delayed Publish 53 a bit (obviously) but we appear to be on track to get it to Test Center early next week. As soon as that's out the door, we'll be hard at work on 54!
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Town Hall News:
Look at our schedule to find out when we'll be near you! The next Town Hall is in San Diego at the end of July - if you're in southern California, now's not too early to RSVP!
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Have a great weekend, and a nice long one, for those of you celebrating Memorial Day. It's a holiday for the dev team, so you probably won't see us on your local forum, but the CS team is chained to their desks as usual!
- Jeremy