Game updates/20050511

Update - Wednesday, May 11th, 2005

 * Major changes to PvP Arenas! Previously, each Arena had a separate outpost. When you joined an Arena, you continued playing on that map repeatedly until you lost. Now, the various high-level Arena maps all share a common outpost. When you enter the high-level Arena, you'll play on many different maps with many different victory conditions, and you'll need to master all the maps to keep on winning.
 * After each consecutive PvP victory, the game now displays the number of consecutive wins.
 * A new screen at the end of PvP character creation allows you to choose the starting location of your PvP character.
 * We retired the old "Dazed," "Shock Sniper," "Divine Healer," and "Trapper" PvP-only character templates, and rotated in some new templates, including three new templates created by guilds that won our April ladder contest. Additionally, we tweaked the skills of many other PvP character templates. These changes only affect the creation of new characters; existing characters created with an old template may continue to use that old template.
 * You can now store gold in your account storage vault! The vault can store up to 1000 platinum pieces, and individual characters can now hold a maximum of 100 platinum pieces.
 * PvP-only characters can now access the account storage vault for free.
 * Entering "The Underworld" now costs 1 platinum piece, the same as entering "The Fissure of Woe." Rewards in both maps have been significantly improved.
 * New quests! In Post-Searing Ascalon: "The Weaver of Nebo" and "Iron Horse War Machine." In "The Fissure of Woe:" "Tower of Courage," "The Wailing Lord," "A Gift of Griffons," "Army of Darkness," "The Eternal Forgemaster," "Defend the Temple of War," and "Restore the Temple of War."
 * Primary quests in Pre-Searing Ascalon now chain together, making it more straightforward for new players to complete Pre-Searing Ascalon and gain entrance to the Academy.
 * Increased drop rates for Uncommon and Rare items in Explorable Areas.
 * Implemented various minor fixes and clarifications to existing quests.
 * Implemented various tweaks to monster difficulty and loot balance.
 * Added new boss monster encounters in the "Ring of Fire" area.
 * Added new bonuses on certain collector and quest items.
 * Instituted skill changes: "Watch Yourself!" correctly affects characters who were already affected by another instance of the skill. "Firestorm" now continues to cast even if the target enemy dies during spellcasting. We'll revise other area-effect spells to work this way in future updates.
 * The party window and account storage windows now correctly remember their position and size.
 * There are many new hints displayed in Pre-Searing Ascalon, and a new option to disable the display of hints.
 * When you gain a level, a button now appears prompting you to spend your newly acquired attribute points.
 * Quest destination points now appear on both the Map Area and Map Travel windows.
 * Most NPC text is now logged to the chat window, as well as being displayed in game.
 * Implemented various minor fixes to UI.
 * Fixed crafters recognizing high-level crafting items.
 * Fixed problems which caused excessive scarcity of Fur Squares, Linen, and Silk.
 * Implemented fixes for incorrect behavior when a player or party disconnects before the beginning of a competitive game.
 * Implemented fixes for miscellaneous rare crash bugs.
 * Added the ability to change postal mailing address on account.
 * Improved hardware compatibility.