Game updates/20061130

Update - Thursday November 30

 * Made preparations for the Domain of Anguish event.
 * Added 2 new quests in Istan and 6 new quests in the Realm of Torment.
 * Modified monster behavior so that they now prefer targets within their guard ranges.
 * Fixed several reported bugs with follower NPCs in order to improve their combat performance.
 * Removed the "kiting" behavior of henchmen in the first round of basic training in order to give new players an easier introduction to PvP.

Skill Updates:

 * Aria of Zeal: Increased casting time to 2 seconds.
 * Cyclone Axe: Modified so that it now requires an enemy target.
 * Energizing Finale: Increased the Energy cost to 10 and reduced the amount of energy gained per shout or chant to 1.
 * "Incoming!": Increased Energy cost to 10 and decreased duration to 1..5 seconds.
 * Jagged Bones: Modified so that it may now be used on allied minions.
 * Restful Breeze: Modified so that its behavior more accurately matches its description.
 * "Stand Your Ground!": Increased energy cost to 10.
 * "Watch Yourself!": Changed armor gain to 5..25, based on the Tactics attribute.

GuildWiki notes

 * The new quests are:
 * Istan:
 * Sunspear Great Hall:
 * Rising Suns, Re-enlist Rojis
 * Realm of Torment (1 missing):
 * Gate of Torment:
 * The Missing Patrol, The Oddbodies, Good Demon Hunting
 * Gate of Fear / Gate of Pain: (Forgotten Keeper gives the quests in either outpost)
 * Into the Fire, The Last Patrol


 * Razah is now available for unlocking at the Priests of Balthazar, for 50,000 faction. (According to Gaile Gray, Razah's cost will be reduced to around 6,000 faction in an update on December 1st.)
 * The Miniature Varesh is now bigger and wields a scythe.
 * The Xunlai Tournament Agents are now walking around Kamadan, Lion's Arch and Kaineng Center telling world about the Winterfest 2006 Tournament.
 * When an NPC has a quest reward to offer, or is part of a quest and you need to talk to them to move on, they now display a downward-pointing green arrow instead of the green exclamation point.
 * Torment creatures created by Call to the Torment no longer award Lightbringer points. It is also suspected that this is the update which prevented resurrected monsters from counting multiple times for bounties.
 * Freezing Gust now correctly causes damage instead of the slow effect when the target is affected by any Water Magic hex. Previously, some hexes, such as Shard Storm and Shatterstone were not recognized and caused the slow effect instead.
 * Archivist Zisthus and Commander Thurnis in the Gate of Torment now have dialogue, and Churrazek has been re-added there.
 * Keeper Millzesh has been added to Abaddon's Gate.
 * The And a Hero Shall Lead Them quest was changed. Only Elonian born characters now require the rank of Sunspear General in order to complete it, whereas foreign characters may continue without this requirement.
 * The following bugs were introduced
 * The ghosts spawned by Ghost in the Box's remain in a town permanently. (This was fixed in a subsequent build the same day.)
 * During the Feeding Frenzy quest, Toma will not use the Feeding Frenzy skill, making the quest impossible to complete. This was fixed in a subsequent update.
 * It appears that international districts may have a bug which prevents characters from some regions accessing the same instance. This is demonstrated by the lesser number of people in Droknar's Forge International and Ascalon City International.
 * Description of Razah in a language other than English reads only "Ritualist of unknown origin."
 * Good Demon Hunting is now fixed and can be completed.