Publish - May 25, 1999

Skills

Tinkering will have a new menu with tabbed pages. We are testing out this menu style with this skill before adopting its use for all skills.
"Make Last Item" is now an option on the tinkering menu. Choosing this will simply try to make the last tinker item you made.
Tinker-crafted tools will now have durability based on the skill of the tinker who made the tool. In other words, a hammer made by a tinker with only 5 skill will last much less time than a hammer made by a grandmaster tinker.
Scales for weighing items are now a craftable item. You can double-click the scales and target an item to get its weight. (We know this isn't real useful, but thought shops might like this item for decorative purposes).
A new piece of art for tinkering tools will exist (and be craftable). It works exactly like the older piece of art, but is a lot easier to click on. The old piece of art will still be in use.
Traps will no longer work on ballot boxes.
Tinkered lockpicks will now stack correctly.
Both sorts of tinker tools will become craftable.
Tinkering is now difficulty-based. This means that some items will require a higher skill than others. Items you cannot make at all will not show up on your menus, and difficult items will fail more often than items that are easy for your skill level. You will get greater skill gains from making difficult items than easy ones.

Pet "nerfing" when crossing server boundaries will be fixed. This actually affected all creatures throughout the game, so you may find some creatures being tougher than previously. All creatures have been fixed retroactively.
"Death taming" is fixed. Dying while taming a creature will abort the taming process.
Pet follow speed has been increased.
You can now give all your pets orders by prefacing your order with "all." For example, saying, "all follow me" will make all your pets follow you. The list of commands this works with is:
- all follow me
- all guard me
- all come
- all stay
- all guard me
- all stop
"Breath nerfing" (dragons and other firebeathing creatures losing their fire breath) should be fixed. This fix is retroactive for all existing creatures.
Loyalty checks are now done for all pet commands (previously, certain commands did not check the pet's loyalty).
Transfer and friending actually do two loyalty checks--one for the old owner and one for the new. Both must succeed for the order to be obeyed.
Pet "orneriness" is now a much larger factor. The tougher an animal was to originally tame, the tougher it will be to control in general. The higher your taming skill and animal lore skills, the better able to control the animal you will be. Animal taming is more significant for this than animal lore is.
The professional title for Animal Taming is now "Tamer" instead of "Ranger."
The professional title for Animal Lore is now "Ranger" instead of "Scholar."

The chance of pulling up messages in bottles will be increased somewhat.

Cutting a stack of fish will now cut the entire stack at once.

Healing delays have been adjusted:
- Healing someone else now takes 5 seconds. Healing yourself still takes 15 seconds.
- Curing poison on someone else now takes 6 seconds. Curing it on yourself still takes 18 seconds.
- The delay for resurrecting with the healing skill is now ten seconds.

The range for snooping will now be 1 tile.

Bandages will now automatically stack when you make them. There will also only be one type created (instead of two types that do not stack together, like now).
Using scissors on hides will make cut up leather which is lighter.

The following beneficial spells will no longer be reflectable, and will not remove magic reflect if the target has it:
- Agility
- Strength
- Cunning
- Protection
- Bless
Using the paralyze spell on an innocent will now make you eligible to receive a murder count.
You will no longer be able to transfer ownership of summoned creatures.

The armslore skill will be revised so that its messages will better match the current damage ranges of weapons.

Carpenters will be able to craft boards out of logs.

Line of sight checks will be added to the following skills, preventing their use through walls:
- Fishing
- Mining
- Provocation
Spam and overlong delays are being removed from the following skills:
- Alchemy
- Lumberjacking
- Mining
- Tailoring
- Blacksmithing

Monster camps will no longer spawn partially in houses.
Ghosts will be able to use gates by double-clicking on them.
A problem with hues updating on objects is fixed. This manifested when you dyed clothing and it wouldn't change color until you moved it.
You will now be able to get different types of meat by carving corpses (eg, plucked birds or hams).
House bans of players will now be by account instead of by character. All current players you have in your ban lists will still be banned, but it will not automatically convert them to account bans--you will need to reban them for their whole account to be banned.
All house deeds (redeeded, bought, existing, new, whatever) will remain with the ghost when you die, and will not be stealable.
Attackers will now receive a message when their poisoned weapon poisons a victim.
NPC shopkeepers will now buy the following items:
- Warforks
- Sashes
- Hatchets
- Surcoats
The duration of strength and agility potions will increase to 2 minutes.
Interior lockable doors will exist. Use of a house key on a door will allow you to rekey that door and will generate a new key for it.
The chance of monsters poisoning you when they hit has been tweaked down.
You will be able to dock your boat anywhere as long as the hold is empty. It will turn into a miniature boat when you do so. To do this, simply double-click the tillerman while you are not standing on the boat.

On June 4, 1999, the following was published: