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- :Monarchs can also use @allegiance officer clear to remove both allegiance officers at once.
:Any member of an allegiance can use @allegiance officer list to see the list of their allegiance's officers.
- Just as an example, here's how the changes would affect the types of items you could find in wealth rating 5 treasure, intended for level 80+ characters.
- This category covers all the "other" things found in loot – spell components, mana stones, healing kits, lockpicks, and potions. These categories of items have not changed much since the early days of Asheron's Call, and the treasure revisions have only highlighted this.
- :* @allegiance boot –account [character]: This command will boot all characters on the same account from an allegiance. The player running this command will be informed of the number of characters booted, but not their names.
:* @allegiance ban add/remove [character]: This command will add or remove an allegiance account ban. When a monarch or allegiance officer places an allegiance account ban on a character, that character and any other characters on the same account will not be permitted to swear into the allegiance. There is a maximum of 32 allegiance account bans at one time.
- After reading your feedback on our forums regarding this idea, we have decided not to place any restrictions on which monarchs may use the Bindstone. They can be used by an allegiance whether or not the monarch owns a mansion or villa.
- (posted on 07-May-2004)
"There's trouble," Antius said, leading Hendac into the room.
"When is there not?" Elysa responded, motioning to a set of chairs and flashing him a meager smile. She had been looking out her window, running her fingers over the scar in the center of her chest. Even though it had healed it burned still. Often she thought that the burning was all in her mind, knowing that out there somewhere, someone had wanted her dead. She put the thought from her mind and turned toward the table and chairs where Antius and Hendac now waited.
"What is it?" she asked, sitting in a chair beside Antius.
Hendac pushed a small leather scrollcase toward the High Queen. She reached across and took the case up. It was too large to be made by Isparians and the leather was tanned to be softer. It bore a resemblance to the hunting bags carried by the Tonk of Marae Lassel. Elysa recalled seeing the bags only recently; hunters from Marae Lassel had asked to hunt on Dereth and issue challenges to the Ispar tribe. They had set up a few camps across Osteth, and even near Ayan Baqur.
She undid the clasp, a stone buckle. The buckle was heavy and shaped squarely, Lugian-made. Lord Kresovus had expressed some anger over the continued slaughter of his warriors by some Isparians, but there had been fewer skirmishes in recent weeks and the matter seemed to be at rest. The only other group that could have made this was the renegade force that had splintered away from the Virindi.
"Renegades," she read the first few lines. "They mean to join with these new creatures?"
"Apparently," Antius said. Beside him Hendac bobbed his head, the furrow of his brow displaying his displeasure. "There's more."
Elysa finished reading and Hendac produced a folded scrap of parchment from within the folds of his leathers. He rose and walked to Elysa's other side and placed the parchment on the table. He pointed two fingers to his eyes and then tapped the parchment. Elysa knew what he meant.
"How did they build this?" Elysa asked as she stared at the drawing. It was done in Hendac's hand and showed a fortress of some kind. It was set against the side of a plateau with two mammoth stone sentinels towering on the forward edges of the flat land above.
"It's unclear, but Hendac has assured me that the structures appear to be identical to those at Candeth Keep. We visited the keep and found that one of the guards had gone missing recently. A Lugian, Okret." Antius paused. "He'd been stationed there since the work was first started on the outpost. His departure, and the discovery of this fortress well, they seem to be more than coincidence."
Elysa nodded.
"The Blackmire Swamp is being overrun by the Burun, Elysa. This new race has already driven most of the Mosswarts from there. I've no love for the Mosswarts, but they're being slaughtered." He paused. "That missive is from the fort in the Direlands. Muldaveus and Niarltah want to join forces with this new race, and if they do who knows which race they'll displace next."
"I know, Antius. We need to stop them. I'll speak with Kresovus." She paused and folded the parchment before handing it back to Hendac. "Perhaps he'll be willing to send agents of his own into the Renegade camp." It sickened her to say those words. She had prided herself on being honest and forthright throughout her life, now she was resorting to deceit. "We'll do what we can to keep the Renegades and Burun apart."
Elysa stood and walked back to her window, rubbing the wound on her chest.
- :* @allegiance ban list: This command will list all characters that have been banned from the allegiance.
:* @allegiance chat kick [character] : This command will temporarily remove a character from the allegiance chat room. If a reason is given, it will be displayed, otherwise the default reason is "No reason given."
- "Mundane" Items
- :Please note that it is possible for an officer to boot a character that is above them in the allegiance tree, either through @allegiance boot, @allegiance boot –account, or @allegiance ban. If this occurs, the officer will lose his or her powers as they were granted for the old allegiance, not the new one.
:Allegiances will be able to have two allegiance officers. The allegiance officer position replaces the existing allegiance speaker position. For the sake of security, existing allegiance speakers will be removed during the May event.
- Healing kits will also now provide more information regarding their effects. Healing kits can provide a bonus to your skill check, or a bonus to the amount you heal, or both. Now you'll be able to see which is which just by ID'ing the kit.
- (posted on 27-Apr-2004)
Welcome to the May Letter to the Players!
- When determining which towns should receive Bindstones, we made the decision to give a Bindstone to any town that currently has a Meeting Hall. These towns are: Al-Arqas, Al-Jalima, Arwic, Baishi, Cragstone, Eastham, Glenden Wood, Hebian-to, Holtburg, Khayyaban, Lin, Lytlethorpe, Mayoi, Nanto, Qalaba'r, Rithwic, Sawato, Shoushi, Tou-Tou, Tufa, Uziz, Yanshi, Yaraq, and Zaikhal.
- Allegiance Bindstones
- Allegiance Improvements
- Art Items and Casters
- (posted on 11-May-2004)
The sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh filled the small cavern. Okret had volunteered for this assignment because he knew that Muldaveus and Niarltah would look favorably on him should he perform the task well. As he stood in the entrance of this fetid cave, he began to think this had been an error in judgment. Cautiously he hoisted the great stone chest onto his shoulder and proceeded deeper into the grotto. Wails filled his ears and grew louder, serving as a beacon and guiding him deeper into the living cave.
The ground was moist, spongy and covered in a thin film of yellow slime. The place reeked of the swamp and something even fouler than decay. He paused to look at the peculiar sight of a phyntos wasp firmly stuck onto a small pike. He placed the stone chest on the ground and knelt to study the craft of the pike.
A set of yellow eyes blinked in the darkness of a nearby tunnel. The burun hunkered low, revealing two other sets of eyes. They moved just into the light of the wide cavern where Okret knelt and gnashed their rows of jagged teeth. In unison, the three let out a growl and screech like nothing Okret had ever heard.
Many of this month's changes have already been described in detail in the Letter to the Players. There are a few other topics that we'd like to discuss in detail.
Defender and Lure Blade
We recently discovered a bug with the spells Defender I, III and V; and Lure Blade I, III and V. The amount of the bonus or penalty that these spells granted did not match the amount listed in the spells' descriptions.
To resolve this issue, we made the numbers match and we always used the greater value. For example, if the description listed a greater change than the spell actually granted, the spell was changed. If the spell caused a change greater than the listed description, the description was changed.
The table below shows the spells with their new values.
{{{!
- :We're working on expanded functionality and multiple levels of allegiance officers; see the In Development section for more details.
:* @house storage add_allegiance: This gives your entire allegiance access to your house storage. To remove this access, use @house storage remove_allegiance. Please note that this is for your own personal house storage. To give full allegiance access to the storage in an allegiance mansion or villa, this command must be run by the allegiance monarch.
- Yet the question remains: With Burun now entering Dereth from two locations, what can be done about them?
- In the April Letter to the Players, we stated that the Treasure work for May would be back-end and not visible to players. This is no longer true – we've found ourselves with the opportunity to improve treasure selection in several places.
- (posted on 10-May-2004)
New Functionality and Content
* We've added a number of new allegiance tools such as allegiance officers and allegiance account bans.
* We've introduced part four of our ongoing treasure revisions.
* The ranged attack slider now has a 40% penalty at maximum speed.
* The Palenqual's Living Weapons quest has been revised.
* We've revised the following features of a number of towns: Lifestone locations, portal drop locations, Meeting Hall locations, the spells sold by Scriveners, and mundane items sold by vendors.
* Allegiance bindstones can be found in towns, but are not yet active.
Miscellaneous Changes and Improvements
* Artwork for the sixth character slot has been added.
* The paperdoll in the Inventory Panel has two new slots for your character's pants and shirt.
* The icons of imbued weapons now have unique backgrounds.
* The durations of most negative spells have been changed.
* The Heal and Revitalize spells have been improved.
* The Defender and Lure Blade spells have been tweaked to resolve a discrepancy between their effects and their descriptions.
* Two new commands can be mapped to keys: Closest Unopened Corpse and Next Unopened Corpse.
* Several types of Portal Gems are now stackable.
* The Spring Cleaner title is now granted by Arcanum agents instead of Town Criers. If you have any of these tokens and wish to receive the title, do not hand it to a Town Crier! The Crier will keep the token and you will not receive the title.
* You can now map Toggle Crafting Confirmation to a key.
* Crafting chance of success no longer displays if there is no skill check involved.
* The Target Next/Closest Monster command will no longer select PK/L players who are in your fellowship.
* We've added a new option to the Character Options panel: Display Timestamp.
* Your trade window will no longer automatically close if your trading partner recalls away or walks out of range.
* The /r command is no longer case-sensitive.
* You can now use @allegiance broadcast [text] instead of @allegiance, [text] for allegiance broadcast messages.
* Two bugs with emotes have been fixed you can now use instead of * * for emotes, and colons display properly in emotes again.
* Items that can be dyed or tinkered with Ivory now explicitly state this when they are examined.
* We've resolved an issue that could cause Zone ticket timeout errors when trying to log in to the game.
* Always Drop on Death items would not drop on death for characters under level 10. This has been fixed.
* We've fixed a bug that could cause a character's number of deaths to display incorrectly if that character had never died.
* Bowyers will now buy back wrapped fletching supplies.
* Some landscape spawns that were too near settlements or on the sides of mountains have been moved.
* Some landscape locations that were inescapable have been fixed.
* All of the melee and missile weapons from the Ixir Zi and Liazk Itzi temple quests have been improved, with the exception of the Lance of the Bloodletter.
* Many other quest weapons have been improved to increase their average damage over time.
* The Slithis hallways in the Liazk Itzi temple are now more difficult to run through.
* Fadsahil no longer advises characters that are under level 40 to start the Liazk Itzi quest.
* The Ward of Rebirth spells no longer surpass Indomitability.
* The range on Infected Blood, Infirmed Mana, and Enervation has been increased.
* Ulgrim's robe no longer covers your feet. If you are wearing one when you first log in to the game after this event, you will need to take it off and put it back on.
* The value and burden of the Realaidain Raiment has been reduced.
* It is no longer possible to perch on the kilns in the Knorr Forge.
* Some graphics and physics issues with lava pits and statues in the Tusker Holding and Tusker Abode have been resolved.
Minor Details
* The non-magic Buadren is now giveable and hookable. Its description has also been clarified.
* The updated Sleeves of Inexhaustibility can now be dyed.
* Thimrin Woodsetter's maximum buy value has been increased to one million pyreals.
* A few lines of text still referred back to the Fire Shreth Hide as being a Fire Auroch Hide. These have been fixed.
* Players can no longer identify some Burun-wielded weapons.
* The Ancient Armored Bracer is now correctly called the Ancient Armored Bracers.
* A small typo in the Liazk Itzi temple guardian speech has been corrected, as have some typos in tells sent by the Sarcophagus.
* The name of the Inferior Scythe Aegis spell now displays correctly.
* The titles of the beggars in Dryreach are now spelled correctly.
* Typos in the Fishing Master speech and Fishing Note have been corrected.
- Treasure Changes, Part IV
- Allegiances will be getting a number of new tools in May. Most of these are intended to make it easier to manage an allegiance.
- To improve the situation, we will be adding new types of mana stones and potions, and low-level healing kits are being improved and renamed. Then we'll be redistributing all mundane items across different levels of treasure.
- Despite the new threat, Spring in Dereth continues. Young creatures romp across the landscape. The Lugians of Linvak Tukal have made improvements to their home to make it more welcome for travelers. New forms of armor have been found along with weapons bearing new enhancements.
- :* @allegiance officer add/remove [character]: This command will add or remove an allegiance officer. Allegiance officers have the power to run any existing monarch command, except for the ability to add or remove other officers. This ability was removed based on player feedback.
:Officers will be able to use all of the broadcast and message of the day commands, @allegiance info, and all of the boot, ban, and kick commands. They will not have the ability to change allegiance mansion or villa guest or storage lists. Allegiance officers also will not be able to boot the monarch.
- Last month in Dereth, the Burun continued to pour through the newly-opened portal in the Blackmire Swamp. They've begun to set up camps, driving out several of the other inhabitants. In addition, another Falatacot temple was discovered in the A'mun Desert beneath the stone structure previously inhabited by Archmage Fadsahil al-Tashbi.
- :This command will also boot any character on this account.
:Please note that it is still technically possible for a character on a banned account to enter an allegiance. This can occur if the monarch of a banned character swears into the allegiance. For example, let's say that I am banned from Zyrca's allegiance. My monarch, Srand, swears to Zyrca. In this situation I would be in Zyrca's allegiance until the next time I log in to the game. The next time I log in, I will be automatically booted.
- For example: if Zyrca were my monarch, and she typed @allegiance kick Ibn, Talks too much, I would be temporarily removed from the allegiance chat channel and I would receive the following message:
- :You have been booted from your allegiance chat room. Use "@allegiance chat on" to rejoin.
:We are currently working on general improvements to chat which, when implemented, will allow for better controls on the allegiance chat system. This is intended to provide some of that functionality until the larger changes go in.
- We're moving "art items" and casters into several loot tables where they previously did not exist. This will result in both being found in places where you could not find them before – for example, in May you'll be able to find casters in the casino golden chests. This will make casting items – as well as certain types of salvage – easier to find. You will also be able to find art items with spells on them, such as a bowl with Alchemy Mastery for example.
- As we mentioned was possible, we were not able to complete the code for Bindstone functionality in May. After the May event, you will find Bindstones in towns, but using them will have no effect. This will give Allegiances the opportunity to plan where they wish to bind when the Bindstones become active, currently planned for the June event.
- We will be providing more information on how Allegiance Bindstones will work in the June Letter to the Players, but we'd like to take this time to address two questions that were brought up after the In Development Follow-Up article was posted.
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