Publish 56

Deployment History

• September 5, 2008 - expected late September or early October 2008.
• September 19, 2008 - Ever so slightly delayed, now expected early October 2008.
• September 26, 2008 - Based on a FoF update, expected late October 2008.
• October 21, 2008 - Published to Test Center shard.
• October 27, 2008 - Published to Origin shard.
• October 29, 2008 - Published to all other shards.

New Content

War of Shadows

• Factions cities will come under attack in Trammel by the forces of the Shadowlords
• Capturing a town sigil in Felucca allows the Trammel city to be invaded
  • Sigil must be captured by Chaos (Shadowlords or Minax)
  • Up to three towns can be invaded at a time
  • Additional sigil captures will queue those cities for attack, but will not occur until another city’s invasion ends
• A city’s guard zones will disappear in Trammel when invaded, becoming a warzone
• All Felucca faction cities will have their guard zones will be removed, becoming warzones
• Affected cities for the invasion:
  • Britain
  • Skara Brae
  • Magincia
  • Minoc
  • Moonglow
  • Trinsic
  • Vesper
  • Yew
• Players logging into a town under invasion will be relocated to Jhelom
  • Teleportation attempts into danger zones will be rerouted to Jhelom when possible
• Invading forces comprised of three types
  • Shadowlord allied monsters (new alliances, beyond just daemons)
    • Britain: Dragons
    • Skara Brae: Elementals
    • Magincia: Undead
    • Minoc: Plague
    • Moonglow: Void
    • Trinsic: Orcs
    • Vesper: Rogue Ophidians
    • Yew: Daemons
  • Army of Shadows (Humans and Elves)
    • Ranking and promotion system similar to the Ophidian Invasion
    • Four basic types
      • Warrior
      • Ranger
      • Mage
      • Healer
    • Ranks
      • Recruit
      • Scout
      • Corporal
      • Lieutenant
      • Captain
      • General
  • Corrupted townspeople
    • Hatred
      • NPCs aggressively attack players and other NPCs
    • Falsehood
      • NPCs attempt to steal from players
      • Each NPC can only steal one item, normal theft checks apply
      • Item is returned to the player if the NPC dies or is purified when the invasion ends (player must be in the city)
    • Cowardice
      • NPCs flee from players
• Invasion of a town ends when the sigil is recaptured by Order (TB or CoM), or the local invasion is completely defeated
• Loot
  • All invasion monsters and army members drop faction silver
    • 1 to 5 normally, up to 25 for special mobs like the Shadow Knight
    • Silver is multiplied by rank within the army
    • Rare bonuses possible
  • All invasion monsters have at least double the normal loot
  • Army members drop special weapons and spellbooks with properties based on their rank
  • Army members drop exceptional loot at higher ranks
• Crimson Dragons introduced as allies to the Shadowlords, appear as the final stage in the invasion. Shares similar loot to “The Six,” such as Myxkion
• Platinum Dragons introduced as allies to Britannia, enemies of the Crimsons
  • Both dragon races are intelligent, and cause all dragons to go wild in their presence
• Siege Perilous and Mugen will have all the content available, but will have the invasion proceed in Felucca

Factions

• Added new equippables and consumables
• Added a community collection chest inside each stronghold to collect silver, and give faction equippables and consumables as rewards
• Donated silver will be tied to the faction system at a later date
• Sigil corruption time dropped to 2 hours
• Faction Thieves will now receive 100 silver and 10 kill points for successfully capturing a town sigil
  • Sigil must complete full circuit of corruption: from town pedestal, to stronghold, back to town pedestal
  • Interruptions will not count against the original thief, as long as the original thief’s faction finishes the corruption process
  • Thieves must be online to receive their reward
• Killing faction enemies inside warzones results in bonus kill-points and silver

Halloween

• New quest starting in the Yew Courthouse: talk to Jasper and read the book on the table
  • Can be done completely in either Felucca or Trammel
  • Every step required in the chain, skipping steps will keep you from completing the event
  • Event can be done once per character
  • Participating characters must be 15 days old (except for Test Center)
  • Khaldun temporarily available in Trammel for the duration of the event
    • Shadowfiends now perfom the life drain attack
    • General increases to HP and stats for Khaldun creatures
    • Slightly increased the spawn rate of Shadowfiends, Spectral Armors, and Zealots
    • Note: Shadowfiends and Spectral Armor drop loot onto the ground instead of leaving a body
    • Note: Players cannot resurrect inside Khaldun
  • New Trick or Treating rewards
    • GM Beggars also have a new reward

Old Magincia

• Three new quests to help heal the land by releasing the spirits trapped in Magincia’s ruins
  • The quest giver is a mage near the Magincia moongate
  • Quest rewards are three types of rubble, one for each quest (total of 12 pieces)
    • Trees
    • Broken furniture
    • Building pieces
  • Rubble rewards are all unique - they do not overlap craftables or Magincia Invasion rubble. You can see the possible rewards in the quest gump.
  • Quests are non-repeatable
• Three types of ghosts now reside in Magincia
  • Restless Souls
    • Invulnerable, unmoving
    • Notices player movements
    • Can be released by using Spirit Speak nearby
      • Drops Threads of Life
  • Forsaken Souls
    • Constantly wanders the streets of Magincia
    • Can be released by casting Exorcism nearby
      • Drops Threads of Thought
  • Corrupted Souls
    • Red, aggressive
    • Calls other Corrupted Souls nearby for help when attacking
    • Can only be released by being killed
      • Drops Threads of Fate

Fixes/Changes

Combat

• Disarm will no longer affect shields
• Hiryus will only use the dismount special attack on mounted players
• Killing Solens with a pet will properly remove friendship with the nes
• Ranged attacks on slimes will no longer cause acid damage to your weapon
• Successfully taming an aggressive animal will stop its attack
• Tamers can no longer aggro with their pets and stay hidden
• Mounts under the effect of Nerve Strike will not be able to be mounted
• Wandering healers will no longer attack players who drink a refresh potion
• Wraith Form will not lose pass-through ability when crossing server boundaries

Blessing/Insurance

• Blackrock of all sizes can now be insured
• Blessed items will remain blessed after being traded
• Public trash cans will no longer accept blessed items. This does not affect personal trash cans in your home.

Crafting

• Crafting with dull copper will no longer exceed the 255 durability cap
• Skullcaps can now be crafted with a higher durability than 12

Display Issues

• Granite will now display the color of the granite on mouse-over, rather than just saying “granite.”
• Guild tags can no longer be made to imitate Faction abbreviations (Min, CoM, TB, SL)
• Player crafted Parasitic Poison will display its name correctly, instead of “Deadly Poison”
• Pet summoning ball will no longer give an error message when crossing subserver boundaries
• Plants will no longer mystically say “I’m here” when they reach a specific stage of growth
• Savage paint effect will remain visible even after logging out and back in
• Quivers will no longer lose their color on server startup

Factions

• Faction members in the Hero/Evil system on Siege Perilous and Mugen will no longer be able to grief their teammates by causing them to lose kill-points when auto-defending
• Faction vendors from the losing faction will now disappear from a conquered city
• Non-faction players cannot block the entrances to the Shadowlord and Minax strongholds
  • Shadowlord entrance area can no longer be teleported into, repels non-factioners
  • Minax stronghold boundaries have been extended to the entire mountain pass, and the recruiting stone placed outside the mountain
• The bridge and outer entrance to the True Britannian stronghold can no longer be trapped

Housing/House-Addons

• Secured bags can no longer be dyed by anyone in a public house
• Spinning wheels will no longer be lost if re-deeded while in use

Resources

• Blank scrolls can be added to commodity deeds
• Empty bottles can now be added to commodity deeds
• Gargoyle pickaxe will now dig up dull copper ore

Spawning

• Healer added to Nujel’m
• Horde Minions summoned by Young players will decay properly
• Interred Grizzles will no longer spawn in Paroxysmus’s Lair
• NPCs in Heartwood will no longer spawn without clothes
• Orders of Minax will no longer spawn outside of players’ reach

Stacking

• New stackables:
  • Granite
  • Sand
  • Dough/sweet dough
  • Sushi platters
  • Savage kin paint
  • Pan of cookies
  • Baked quiche
  • Pristine dreadhorn
  • Smoke Bombs
  • Egg Bombs
  • Arcane Gems

• Fixed:
  • Lesser poison potions will now stack with player crafted lesser poison potions

Test Center

• Test Center welcome window reflects Publish 56
• New test center command: “give seeds”
  • Gives the player a bag of fertile dirt and various seeds

Quests

• Abandoned quests should no longer cause the quest to fail in the player’s log
• Chance to get three new colors of seeds in the Naturalist quest for the Flowery Cactus: fire, white, and black
• Cooking quests will now accept all types of flour
• Escort NPCs will now properly handle following players onto boats
• Ocllo has been removed from the Escort Quest list
  • This will not interfere with escort quests in New Haven

Vendors

• Instituted a new Vending Penalty for players who attempt to circumvent the daily vendor charge for their items
  • Vending Penalty is the same as the daily charge for the item
  • Penalty is applied if the item is removed by the owner before 24 hours has passed since it was added to the vendor
  • Penalty is noted on the object as an item property
  • If the item is added to a vendor again, the vending penalty is automatically deducted from that vendor’s account, or given back to the player if funds are insufficient
  • There is a 30 minute grace period after adding an item to a vendor to prevent accidents: any item removed before 30 minutes passes will not have a vending penalty
  • Once 24 hours pass, the item may be removed at any time by the owner without penalty. Re-adding it to the vendor starts the process over again, however
• Added commas to vendor prices

Misc

• A tamed sheep can only be shorn by the owner
• A tamed cow can only be milked by the owner
• All bows can now be used on archery buttes
• Animal Lore can now be used on morphed Imprisoned Dogs
• Begging will properly give the player gold when the message states they should have received some
• Books should now copy properly from one size (in pages) to another
• Casting a spell on an invalid location will no longer consume reagents or cause skillgain
• Cows will replenish their milk supply 24 hours after being exhausted
• Fire Beetles will no longer work as a forge when ghosts
• Fixed a macro to equip last weapon while meditating
• Full suits of Virtue Armor no longer lose Self Repair on server startup
• Gems from the Gem Cart can no longer be used to recharge a communication crystal
• Ghosts can no longer remove runes from runebooks
• Left-facing War Forks can now be sold to vendors
• Morphed forms will now check for the correct skill and skill amount
• Banking skill in a Soulstone will check your resultant skill level, and return you to normal if you can no longer maintain your morphed form
• Casting from a scroll will return you to normal in three minutes
• Plants can have resources added to them after the seventh stage, without having to unlock and relock them
• Players may now join the Thieves’ guild one week after character creation, and be removed one week after requesting to quit
• This was previously tied to one week (each way) of actual gameplay
• Public trash cans are no longer magically locked
• Players will no longer be able to move while using the “Help/Stuck” option as a ghost
• Weapon Switch macro will work properly with spellbooks
• Young players will now get the proper warning when entering Ilshenar dungeons

Updates

The following updates to Publish 56 were announced October 29, 2008 to be applied during each shard's next scheduled maintenance period:

• Forsaken Souls in Magencia will now die when the exorcism spell is used on them.
• Fixed an issue with Inscription, being able to copy the books in Khaldun
• The Dark Guardian will not call guards when players try to talk to him
• The Skeletal Lich will now only move in a limited area
• Halloween candy will not make you full
• Fixed the “Blessed” faction equippables Can only be equipped by owner but can now be looted.
• Fixed an issue with being able to recall into war zones in Felucca
• The Halloween event will end on Nov. 17th
• Trick or Treating will end also on the 17th of Nov.
• Fixed the issue with the Elwood Collectors Quest NPC disappearing on Siege.
• Fixed an issue with where the skeletal lich was spawning in bad locations
• Siege cost for faction items will cost 5 times as much
• Fixed bug with flax plant not able to be tended when locked down

See Also

• Publishes
• Factions
• Halloween 2008
  • Halloween 2008 Quest
• Magincia
• Shadowlords
• Warriors of Destiny