Game updates/2006 June

Update - Friday, June 30 2006

• Fixed a bug that prevented Festival Tickets from being sold to merchants.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Enduring Toxin to be reapplied at an exceptional rate.

Update - Thursday, June 29 2006

The Dragon Festival has begun! Characters who wish to receive their Dragon Helm must collect 250 Jade Wind Orbs, which can be earned by undertaking quests, competing in the Dragon Arena, or taking part in the festival games. Emperor Kisu will honor us by appearing at the Shing Jea Monastery every 2 hours on the final day of the festival to reward those who have gathered 250 orbs. If you cannot attend the final day of the festival, take heart! The emperor has stationed an Imperial Supplymaster at the monastery, who will stay for a few days after the festival’s end to give Dragon Helms to those who have gathered their 250 orbs.

OTHER UPDATES

• Improved the channeling abilities of the boss Quansong Spiritspeak.
• Fixed a bug introduced in yesterday's update that prevented Skill and Item Unlock dialogs from appearing.
• Fixed bugs that prevented the bosses Ilidus of the Empty Palm and Milodestus the Wrangler from appearing.

GuildWiki notes

See Dragon Festival 2006 for additional information on the event, including quests and mini-games.

Update - Wednesday, June 28 2006

Attention fellow citizens of Cantha,

On behalf of Emperor Kisu, it is my pleasure to announce this year's Dragon Festival, a five-day celebration of games, dance, drink, and revelry, where we commemorate the dawning of the Age of the Dragon and all those who helped to rebuild our great lands after the Jade Wind. Throughout the duration of the festival, citizens of our great empire convene at Shing Jea Monastery to socialize with others, partake in carnival activities, and amass collections of Jade Wind Orbs to be redeemed for special prizes. Fans of sport can flex their muscles in the Dragon Arena, where battle prowess and longevity are recognized and rewarded.

There will be no shortage of engaging entertainment, so we hope you make the journey to our lush island and join us in revelry.

OTHER UPDATES

• Added two new quests for characters created in Cantha: Minister's Test and Capturing the Orrian Tome.
• Increased the minimum level restriction for alliance battles to 20.
• Modified Gatekeepers and Master Architect Gunther so that they no longer leave their posts in the Fort Aspenwood competitive mission.
• Made improvements to the following quest: Refuse to Drink.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused monsters to appear without any Health.
• Fixed a bug that prevented cinematics from playing if one player in the party failed to load.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes caused guild thieves to die immediately after resurrecting at their base.
• Fixed a bug that allowed the Retreat skill to activate in response to dead Spirits.
• Fixed a bug that sometimes prevented mission goals from appearing properly.

GuildWiki notes

• Shing Jea Monastery and Kaineng Center have been decorated for the upcoming event.
• The oft-farmed chests in the Eternal Grove mission appear to have been removed.
• Quests Crush the Luxons!, Destroy the Kurzicks!, Can't We Get Along? (Luxon) and Can't We Get Along? (Kurzick) have been removed from Quest Log.
• Monsters in Cantha started dropping Jade Wind Orbs.

Update - Saturday, June 17 2006

• Fixed a bug that occasionally prevented the victory chest in the Hall of Heroes from dropping items.

Update - Friday, June 16 2006

• Added Priests of Balthazar to all Alliance Battle outposts.
• Added 4 new maps to the Random Arena and the Team Arena.
• Fixed a bug that caused the caravan to stop moving in Gyala Hatchery.
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quest: The Shadow Blades.
• Fixed the descriptions of several Ranger skills, which were displaying incorrect values after the last update.
• Fixed a bug that caused henchmen to drop gold when they died.
• Fixed a bug that caused monsters to drop loot even if your party had no part in killing them.
• Fixed a bug in PvP that caused dead players to receive morale boosts for the deaths of opposing team members.

GuildWiki notes

• After this update, some players saw the following line repeatedly in their chat window: "Reattempting connection to the server (Code 50)." The game client refused to load new areas most of the time when map-travelling or walking through area portals. This problem seems to have been transient and/or has been resolved.
• After this update, it seems you can no longer farm for rewards for The Captured Son quest.

Update - Thursday, June 15th 2006

• Added the winning items from a recent community contest to the game. (See The Scribe for more information.)
• Added faction bonuses for individual kills in alliance battles and competitive missions. Each kill awards the team's members with 1 Luxon or Kurzick faction point and 3 Balthazar faction points.
• Improved faction bonuses awarded at the end of an alliance battle. Both the winning and losing teams' members earn 2 Luxon or Kurzick faction points for each point scored during battle. The winning team's members receive an additional 250 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
• Improved faction bonuses awarded at the end of the Jade Quarry competitive mission. For each jade slab brought to a team's base, the team's members receive 40 Luxon or Kurzick faction points. The winning team's members receive an additional 250 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
• Improved faction bonuses awarded at the end of the Fort Aspenwood competitive mission. For each gate that was knocked down at least once, the Luxon team's members receive 80 Luxon faction points. For each percentage point of progress toward Gods' Vengeance, the Kurzick team's members receive 4 Kurzick faction points. The winning team's members receive an additional 250 Luxon or Kurzick faction points.
• Added a confirmation dialog when attempting to sell an equipped or hot-keyed inventory item.
• Corrected the levels of several NPCs in The Divine Path.
• Updated the location of the dye trader in Kaineng Center.

Item Upgrades

Updates over the past several months have improved a number of weapons and armors; these updates applied only to newly generated items, not to items already in player inventories. This update applies past improvements to the following inventory items:

• Victo's Battle Axe
• Drago's Flatbow
• Stoneherder's Flatbow,
• Tarnok's Recurve Bow
• The Bludgeoner
• Flint's Wand
• Korvald's Cane
• Ivor's Smiting Rod
• Brimstone Wand
• Gordac's Needle
• Bortak's Bone Claw
• Ritualist Shaman's Obsidian Armor
• Elementalist Aeromancer's Armor
• Elementalist Geomancer's Armor
• Elementalist Hydromancer's Armor
• Elementalist Pyromancer's Armor
• Warrior Knight's Armor
• Warrior Ascalon Armor
• Warrior Dragon Armor
• Warrior Platemail Armor
• Monk Censor's Armor
• Monk Judge's Armor
• Monk Wanderer's Armor
• Monk Sacred Armor
• Monk Saintly Armor
• Mesmer Rogue's Armor

GuildWiki notes

Bugs

• Several Nature Rituals were affected by a bug that swapped the level of the spirit and its associated effect. For example, Edge of Extinction at 9 Beast Mastery claimed to make a level 36 spirit that does 6 damage, when it should say a level 6 spirit that deals 36 damage. This was only a display bug; the spirit was still the appropriate level when summoned.
• This update introduced a bug in the drop system. Creatures killed near the party but not by party members (i.e. mobs fighting each other) would drop loot for the party. Henchmen who died after gold started dropping for the party would also drop gold when they died.
• The chest for the winning team in the Hall of Heroes will not drop items most of the time. About 1 in 5 chests will actually drop the items.
• Creatures no longer gain experience for killing you as they used to.

New Unique Items

• Rotscale in Majesty's Rest now drops the Rotwing Recurve Bow.
• Root Behemoths in The Falls now drop Totem Axes.
• Wind Riders in The Falls now drop Forgotten Fans.
• Newly added Mighty Grawls and Barbed Grawls in Talus Chute now drop the Ice Breaker and Frozen Fans.
• Jade Brotherhood in Wajjun Bazaar now drop Tattered Fans.
• Oni in Rhea's Crater now drop Ungues of the Oni.

Bestiary Updates

• Rotscale was updated to a powerful Necromancer.
• New foes have been added around Rotscale, they include:
  • Rotting Dragons
  • Wraiths
• The Bone Dragon Ranger boss in Sanctum Cay was renamed from Rotscale to Bone Dragon.
• Mighty Grawl and Barbed Grawl now occupy the northern area of Talus Chute along with the Grawl and Grawl Crones.

Item Changes

• Armor Penetration 10%(Chance: 10%) ⇒ Armor Penetration 20%(Chance: 20%)
• Energy +3 (condition) ⇒ Energy +5 (condition)

Update – Friday, June 9th, 2006

• Improved the way henchmen choose to use resurrection skills.
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quests: Cash Crops, A New Escort, Death with Honor, The Egg Hunter, The Drunken Master, In the Army Now [Kurzick], and In the Army Now [Luxon].
• Fixed the merchants and Avatar of Grenth in Pongmei Valley so that they respond to players.
• Allowed foreign visitors in Shing Jea Monastery to enter the Shing Jea Arena Outpost.
• Added visible resurrection countdown timers to the Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood competitive missions. The Unyielding Aura and Vengeance skills now work properly in these missions.
• Fixed a bug with resurrection timers in alliance battles.
• Fixed a crash bug related to the use of several miniature creatures.
• Fixed a bug that caused Vizunah Square to appear as though it had been completed with a Master's Reward when, in fact, it had only been completed with a Standard or Expert's Reward. This caused some players to believe incorrectly that they had completed the Protector of Cantha title.
• Fixed a bug that prevented some players from correctly unlocking the Random Arena outpost.
• Fixed an exploit related to the use of seeds in the Druid's Isle guild battle map.

GuildWiki notes

• Spirits, Henchmen, Pets, Minions, the Ghostly Hero and other PvP NPCs now have auras once again. The auras had been missing for several weeks.
• Henchmen in PvE will now use their Resurrection Signets in mid-battle to resurrect fallen team members. Prior to this update, henchmen with signets (not reusable resurrection skills) did not resurrect fallen party members unless the healers/monks were down.
• The ghosts of the legendary Canthan heroes in Tahnnakai Temple (explorable) now match the sex of the lore on their stone pedestals.

Update – Friday, June 2, 2006

• Opened alliance chat to all members of the alliance, not just guild officers.
• Fixed a bug that prevented players from sending alliance chat messages while observing a game.
• Fixed a bug that prevented ignored players from being ignored in guild and alliance chat.

Update – Thursday, June 1, 2006

• Decreased the Health penalty on attribute-boosting major runes from 50 to 35. Existing runes are unaffected.
• Improved chat in alliance battles so that players can see party messages from all members of their team.
• Updated the Zin Ku Corridor outpost so that it shows who currently has the Favor of the Gods.
• Added a Xunlai Agent to Zos Shivros Channel.
• Moved the Xunlai Agent in Jade Quarry [Luxon] to a more accessible location.
• Removed the Thief from the Imperial Isle guild battle.
• Updated the inventory of the weaponsmith in Maatu Keep.
• Updated art on the following creatures: Naga Wizard, Naga Raincaller, Naga Spellblade, Naga Witch, Naga Bone Collector, and Naga Sibyl.
• Fixed bugs and made improvements to the following quests: Stolen Eggs, Protect the Halcyon, Outcasts in the Quarry, Luxon Supply Lines, Song and Stone, Lambs to the Slaughter, Defend Denravi, Noble Intentions, and Hammer and Anvil.
• Fixed bugs in the following missions and explorable areas: Silent Surf and Riverside Province.
• Fixed a bug that occasionally caused quest markers and arrows to update incorrectly.
• Fixed some incorrect cinematic voiceovers.
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to drop items inadvertently while cinematics were playing.
• Fixed a bug that caused some players to disconnect with error 019.
• Added weapons to the Shiro and Jade Armor miniatures.

SKILL BALANCE CHANGES

All

• Shadow stepping no longer moves you farther than the radius of the radar.
• Soul Reaping now only gives half Energy from Spirits.
• Updated the Victory of Death [sic] path for all NPCs on all guild halls so that the NPCs now spread out at the flag stand.
• Adjusted the flag spawn locations on all guild halls to be equal distance from the flag stand.

Assassin

• Way of the Empty Palm: reduced cast time to .25 seconds; reduced recharge time to 25 seconds.
• Locust's Fury: reduced cast time to 1 second.
• Siphon Strength: increased the damage reduction your target deals to 5..50.
• Palm Strike: reduced recharge time to 10 seconds; increased damage to 10..85.
• Enduring Toxin: reduced cast time to .25 seconds; increased health degeneration to 1..5.
• Crippling Dagger: reduced recharge time to 5 seconds.
• Heart of Shadow: increased healing amount to 10..115 Health.
• Mirrored Stance: reduced recharge time to 15 seconds.
• Unseen Fury: increased duration to 15..60 seconds.
• Golden Phoenix Strike: increased Energy cost to 10.
• Aura of Displacement: increased recharge time to 20 seconds.

Mesmer

• Stolen Speed: reduced casting time to 1 second; reduced recharge time to 3 seconds; corrected the wording on this skill.
• Arcane Languor: increased duration to 1..8 seconds.

Elementalist

• Glyph of Sacrifice: reduced the amount of time it recharges your next spell to 30 seconds.
• Ward against Harm: changed skill type to Ward Spell.

Monk

• Vigorous Spirit: increased heal per skill or attack to 5..20.
• Dwayna's Kiss: increased conditional heal to 10..35 Health.

Warrior

• Furious Axe: increased adrenaline gained when blocked to 3.
• Auspicious Parry: increased recharge time to 2 seconds; decreased adrenaline gained to 1..4.
• Signet of Strength: the number of attacks now update when reapplying this skill.

Ranger

• Archer Signet: the number of attacks now update when reapplying this skill.

Ritualist

• Doom: reduced recharge time to 8 seconds.
• Channeled Strike: reduced recharge time to 8 seconds.
• Essence Strike: increased the amount of Energy gained when in range of a Spirit to 1..8.
• Lamentation: reduced Energy cost to 5.
• Gaze from Beyond: fixed a bug that caused this skill to ignore armor.
• Ancestors' Rage: reduced casting time to .75 seconds.
• Splinter Weapon: reduced Energy cost to 5.
• Resilient Weapon: reduced casting time to 1 second.
• Vengeful Weapon: increased the amount of Health stolen when this skill is triggered to 15..60 Health.
• Soul Twisting: increased the recharge time to 15 seconds.

GuildWiki notes

• Rune Traders are reluctant to purchase the old style of major runes with -50 health penalty. You can still sell them to the Merchants.
• Animate Flesh Golem had a hidden update, changing the manner in which the 1 Flesh Golem limit is checked - you can no longer exceed the limit by using Verata's Aura or Verata's Gaze.

• Faction points gained now show up as a number above characters heads (like experience points), Luxon Faction in red, Kurzick Faction in blue.
• The names of Mission NPCs and Quest NPCs who speak are now in a darker blue shade than those who speak in team chat.