Five on Friday - April 25, 2008

"How do the turn-ins actually work?"

It's a point system. Each item that can be turned in is worth a certain number of points, and you can then spend those points to get the reward items. And, speaking of the reward items...

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"I noticed that "Threads of Fate/Life" and "Cloaks of Corruption" weren't on the list of turn-ins. I wonder if that was an oversight, or do they have an as yet unrevealed purpose?"

Draconi has confirmed that the Threads and the Cloaks will have a future use unrelated to the turn-in system - so hang on to them!

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"So... what does the Cloak of Corruption do, anyway?"

Current abilities of the Cloak of Corruption:

Attempts to aggro a large area around the player
- Doesn’t work in towns/guard zones
- Cannot aggro players, pets, summons, or benign creatures
- Cannot aggro anything that is currently in battle
- Increases speed of aggro’d mob for several minutes
- Boosts Fame obtained from aggro’d mobs
- Can draw attacks up to 30 tiles away
Rapidly decays Karma
- -500 karma every 30 seconds equipped
Rapidly decays HP, Mana, Stamina in the normal world
Rapidly restores HP, Mana, Stamina in the Ethereal Void

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"Punctuation is cool and all, but where are all the exploit fixes?"

Exploit fixes are a tricky thing to talk about - it's terribly demoralizing for players when a well-known exploit seems to go ignored, and we'd love to be able to reassure you that it's getting fixed. However, we don't want to spread knowledge of a given exploit before the fix goes live, so we end up having to make vague statements ("We're fixing house placement exploits!") without giving any real detail. That's the situation we're in with publish 52 - when I was putting together that preview list, I cut out at least half a dozen exploit fixes, not including the house placement exploit stuff. Sometimes, we just want to be able to savor the image of all the exploiters suddenly discovering their favorite tricks don't work...

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"Is the event going to advance at all before this publish?"

No, and the unavoidable delay occasioned quite a bit of salty language around the office, because we're really excited about the next phase and want to get it out to you as soon as possible. It's too big to get out without the full publish process, though. Sharpen your swords, send your loved ones to safety, and prepare yourselves...

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Playguide Updates:

Caught up with Publish 51 in time for Publish 52:

Animal Taming - updated with the Publish 51 command changes.
Vendors - updated with the change to insured items no longer allowed on player vendors.

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What's To Come:

So the whole "ready for its debut" bit from last week turned out to be a wee bit premature, as Murphy's Law apparently decided to exercise veto power. Look for a client patch and Test Center publish early next week!

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Town Hall News:

Two weeks left til the Rockville Town Hall - if you haven't RSVP'd, please do so!

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Happy Friday!

- Jeremy

Five on Friday - April 25, 2008

See Also