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| 10/20/2001 | Sorcerers Learn Sacrifice! |
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The previously unknown necromantic discipline of Sacrifice is being learned by
sorcerers throughout the lands! First taught to others by an ancient Sorceress,
the methods of this dark art can be learned by finding another sorcerer already
versed in the discipline to teach you.
Discussion about Sacrifice is taking place in the Sorcery Discussion Folder, Sorcerers Category of the GemStone Message Boards. |
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| 10/16/2001 | Jurisdiction of law expands in towns |
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In order to better preserve law and order in all towns, the various laws will be
applied to all House areas and private rooms within town. The additional safety
provided will also ensure that any travelers resting in such havens will be able to
continue studying their craft in relative peace and quiet, without interruptions to
slow their studies.
NOTE: This means the laws of each town will now be applied to private rooms and to the areas belonging to the Greater Houses of Elanthia. So if it was against the law to endanger the public safety with hazardous spells in a town before, it will also be against the law to do so in the private rooms in that town, as well as any House, or House Annex, in those towns. Yes, this will usually include the spell Elemental Wave, so please be careful. |
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| 10/12/2001 | Platinum price change |
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Are you tired of the hustle and bustle of large crowds? Do you long for the old days when you knew everyone's
name (and everyone knew yours?) Are you tired of the long merchant lines, and endless screen scroll during
events? More importantly, have you longed for the special experience that a Platinum Subscription has to offer,
but just haven't been able to justify the cost?
We are happy to announce that we've heard your prayers and we hope we can make all your dreams come true! Starting October 22, 2001, you can join GemStone Platinum and become part of a warm community where the gameplay is thrilling and roleplay is key for only $39.95 each month (GemStone Standard and Premium subscriptions included). Yes, it's true! We are dropping the rates in GemStone Platinum and would like to invite YOU to join in the fun. Find more information on how you can join GemStone Platinum via our website! |
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| 10/8/2001 | Breakage returns! |
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It's time to get friendly with the weapon merchants! Weapon and armor degradation and breakage is returning on
October 26th.
In an unprecedented act of good will, the weapon and armor merchants of Elanthia have elected to offer all weapon and armor repair services for free! They will be extending this offer to the citizens of Elanthia for the week of October 26th through November 1st. WHAT IS BREAKAGE? Breakage is system by which weapons and armor deteriorate or break. The mechanics that determine breakage are based loosely on normal kinetic physics. Items deteriorate with every contact with another item, which occurs most often in combat, but may occur in other situations as well. Most situations involve two items clashing. The mechanics of breakage involve comparing the difference of item strengths (STR) modified by their integrity. Both items incur degradation, with the weaker item suffering a larger magnitude of degradation. Degradation affects item integrity, and in turn, item integrity affects strength and durability (DU). In addition, the item with a lower strength also undergoes a catastrophic failure roll. CATASTROPHIC FAILURE Catastrophic failure (CF) is where an item suffers irreparable harm and is rendered totally useless. The CF roll is an open die 100. (An open die 100 roll involves a random roll of a number between 1 and 100. If that number is above 95, then another random number between 1 and 100 is generated and added to the previous number. If the second roll is above 95, another random number between 1 and 100 is generated and added to the total. And so on. The sequence comes to an end when a number of less than 95 is rolled.) The sum total of the open die 100 roll must exceed the effective durability value of the item in order for catastrophic failure to occur. The effective durability of an item is the Durability of that item modified by the item integrity. Some items that undergo catastrophic failure may be repairable. WEAPON AND ARMOR MAINTENANCE Weapon and armor deterioration will be repairable using repair kits that will be made widely available in all towns. Profession and skills will be taken into account when determining the success of any repair. Professional maintenance services will also be available in most major towns for a fee. Some broken items that have undergone CF will also be repairable in the same locations. However, only special merchants will be able to repair advanced or special weapons and armor that have been broken. QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS Q - Will clashing not effect weapons and shields if the defensive strength is much higher then the attacking strength? A - AS/DS does not affect breakage. As long as the hands are clear and the attacker cannot damage you, there is no breakage occurrence. The AS/DS model is independent and exclusive of the breakage system. Q - Are we going to continue to have the numbers showing? A - We're discussing that topic in development. We may replace the actual valuation with an adjective equivalent that is less precise. Q - About clashes, you said nothing a player does will affect the random roll between whether it'll be hitting the shield, weapon or just pure avoidance. Will we see a skill or a stance in the future that will allow players greater control on which items clash? A - No. Our combat system currently does not have that degree of flexibility. Q - Do greaves or aventails only add to the weight of full coverage armor? And if so, does breakage affect the covering part or the armor? A- Whole armor coverage supercedes component coverage. Where the main armor worn does not offer coverage, if there is a component armor worn, the component armor will take the damage. Armor components worn over existing main armor coverage iare considered cosmetic and do not affect combat determinations. Q -Will any "artifact" items in game be exempt? A - There will be no exemptions from breakage. Q - Are combat maneuvers involved in this process? A- If a weapon makes contact, breakage occurs. Maneuvers are not involved once contact is made. Q - Sword swingers are at a huge disadvantage as they have to hit to kill something. Have you considered the possibility of adding training into the equation? A - No. The mechanic does not allow exemptions. All hits are determined with the same kinetic physics. Q - There have been questions about engravings not allowing people to see the integrity of their shields. Is that being worked on as well? A - We're working on those scripts that disallow the LOOK. Q - What about STR and DU numbers on weapons that have been altered by merchants (like strengthening / lightening) but still have STR/DU values comparable to weapons that weren't altered? A - Item weight affects the magnitude of the degradation, lightening affects weight, strengthening affects STR or DU values. Some merchants take away from one to give to the other. Q - Will there be a maintanence system? A- Yes, field repair kits will be made available. There are only 3 possible states for an item: undamaged, degraded, or CF. When an item is degraded, it may be repaired to a certain extent from field repair kits. Skill in weapons, armor, guild and profession bonuses apply to the magnitude of the 'fix'. A fix may or may not be beneficial. Merchants and shops will be available to make repairs (for a fee) as well. Items that undergo catastrophic failure (CF) items will not be removed from the game. Merchants may repair some items that undergo CF. (It is safe to assume that weapons that are not scripted, do not have any additional abilities and have an enchantment bonus less than 25 can be repaired.) Special live merchants may be able to repair more advanced broken weapons. Q - Will items that are easier to break be easier to repair? A - The ease of repair involves a number of factors, including the material type. Q - Is there any plan to reconsider the DU of leathers? A- Yes. Q- You had mentioned catastrophic failure coming down to 2 D100 rolls vs. the items durability, 1 95+ leading to another open?? Can I (not a math major) read that to mean that an item with over 200 DU and at newly FIXed or high integrity would have 0 chance of CF? A- No the roll is an open d100. A 100 sided die is rolled, a value greater than 95 results in a subsequent d100 roll. All rolls are summed to give the new result, repeat the process ad infinitum. Q - Any allowance being planned merchant weapons that don't seem to coordinate with similar weapons of other merchants? A- No. The weapons STR and DU are as is, unless it's < 1. Q - You mentioned strengthening and lightening of items, but will padding play any part in either its strength or durability? A - Padding does not affect any breakage component. Q - Items will be able to be repaired by anyone, but will any profession be better at repairing an item or will it be a skill that gets built up as time goes on and some professions will gain skill in it quicker than others? A - Repair is not profession specific, though some professions will gain bonuses. Q - Will the percent chance of CF be reduced? Seems to me that despite the quoted percentage that there is an unusually high amount of breakage right now. This might be attributed to the number of players currently in the game compared to the past. A- Anecdotal reports will present a higher occurrence than what is true. Q - You will not be adjusting any STR or DUs on any weapon unless it's less than 1? A - That is correct. When the dwarf said annealed weapons were weak, he meant it Q - If an item is altered at a merchant, is the new alteration taken into consideration on the breakage system? For example, if he has a normal vultite falchion altered into a veil iron falchion. Or is the original metal still what will be used? A - Unless the merchant specified otherwise, the change was likely only cosmetic in nature. As a rule, alterations do NOT alter material properties into another material type. Q - Does age/training factor into the breakage equation at all? A - No. Neither age nor training factors into breakage. Q - Does AS/DS factor into the breakage equation? A - No AS/DS is independent from breakage. Q - If alterations for items were cosmetic, would we be able to get them changed to meet the integrity of what they should be made of in the alterations now? A - No. Q - Why do bows break? A - A bow counts as a staff weapon for determinations of melee. Q - Will DB items break? A - When breakage is initially released, DB items will not be affected at all. However, in the future some DB items (for instance, DB items that are worn in armor slots) may be affected. We do not currently have any specifics. Q - Will physical damaging spells such as bolts, Mana D, etc effect armor and weapons during breakage? A - Not at this time. Q - If a weapon has an edge from one of the merchants, for example: A golvern edged vultite longsword, would the golvern edge add to the strength of the item at all? A - No. That change is cosmetic. Q - Bashing and breakage. Will bashing boxes using the warrior bash system effect breakage? A - Not at this time. Q - Will degradation of a weapon lower the STR/DU at any time? A - Yes. Take the integrity value and multiply it by the STR/DU to get their respective effective STR/DU. Q - There are some concerns that faenor, the metal that was touted as elven unbreakable, needs to be looked at. It seems a bit low. A - The material is set to its proper designated parameters. Q - Items that were strengthened by merchants or lightened don't seem to be a factor in the items ST/DU, will this change? Also does crit weighting and padding currently have any factor in the ST/DU of items? A - Strengthening is a modification to the item's STR/DU. Lightening affects the item's encumbrance values. Both aspects are criteria for breakage assessment. Crit weighting and padding is not considered by the breakage system. Q - How can I determine the STR/DU of my weapon or armor? A - LOOK is the designated verb to determine item integrity. Q - Are the metals listed in game under shift metals and shift woods the only true metals? Metals like titanium and adamantite are they only cosmetic? A - Yes and Yes. Q - What does it exactly mean when it states after an attack. "Not even close."? A - This indicates that the miss was sufficient enough to not even involve the defending weapon or shield. Physical contact between the two items was avoided. Q - What do I do if I'm sure that my weapon has incorrect breakage numbers? A - If your breakage numbers are clearly exceptionally wrong (for instance, 0/0, 1/1, 2/900) then please assist to have a GameMaster help you. However, GameMasters will only manually adjust bizarrely inaccurate weapons. Do not assist simply because you believe your weapon should be stronger. A GM will not help you. Q - How soon should we expect the reintroduction of padders, weighters, enchanters, etc? A - A month or so, minimum. Q: Will the repair shops be new or will they be in existing armor/weapon shops? A: The shops will be new shops with locations separate from the existing armor and weapon shops in towns. Q: Wil shops be available in all towns. A: All major towns will include repair shops. At this time those towns include River's Rest, Zul Logoth, IceMule Trace, Teras Isle, Wehnimer's Landing, Solhaven, Ta'Illistim, and Ta'Vaalor. Not all shops may be available immediately. Shops merchants may have greater and lesser degrees of skill. Q: Will it be necessary to repair all items prior to breakage going live, or will everything be reset to 100%? A: The system should be restoring all items right now. Q: Will an item always be able to be repaired to its fullest, original strength and durability stats? A: The answer depends on the success of the attempt at repair. A successful repair wcan restore an item to it's full integrity. However, a failure may degrade the item. Q: How will repair kits work? A: The command to use a repair kit will be: repair <object> with <kit> Q: What is the cost of the repair kit? A: There will be a wide range of kits available for a wide range of prices. More valuable kits will likely have higher success modifiers. Q: What is the cost of the automerchant? A: The cost of the repair will depend on the damage done as well as the item. Q: What is the planned cost for special merchant repair? A: Fixing broken high level items will be very expensive. Q: What skills will affect repair? A: Particular weapon skills affect repair attempts on weapons. Armor use/shield use affect armor and shield repair. There are aggregate bonuses for multiple skills. Q: Will repair have a possibility of catastrophic failure that could further damage the object? A: Repair does not have CF determination. It can degrade an item's integrity, but not its STR/DU values. Q: Will repair have a short RT, or be a several hour process? A: It will be a short RT. Q: Will the autorepairer be instantaneous, or will it be like the current lockpick repair process? A: Depending on the item being repaired, the repair should either be instantaneous, or be up to an hour long. (This is an estimate.) Q: How can a person determine whether a catastrophically broken object can be repaired at a shop? A: Ask the repairer to appraise the item. Q: Will the STR/DU numbers be turned on again before breakage goes live? A: No. Players can determine an item STR/DU values with LOOK now. |
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| 10/4/2001 | New verbs for married couples! |
| As new verbs are rolled in over the next few weeks, couples married under the Plan C Wedding option will notice an expansion of the intimate ways to interact with their spouse. Have fun experimenting with each other as you discover each new verb! | |
| 10/4/2001 | New more expressive verbs released! |
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Today we introduce a new style of verb with a richer level than ever before. TREMBLE has been added to your
list of verbs and with this new one you can also add in a few emotions at the end! Since this is a new style
and unfamiliar to most, Weasley took tonight to instruct a few people on its use. Weasley said, "Well, you can
now TREMBLE WEASLEY FEAR as you all should and you will tremble at me with fear."
Weasley then informed everyone that he will be also adding BEG tomorrow. With BEG he says you can actually beg for healing. More important than that, you can actually beg for your specific healing location by doing BEG HEALING ARM! Weasley also informed everyone that through the next few days he would be releasing more verbs for everyone to play with, but he wouldn't let the cat out of the bag at this time. He is a sneaky one, that Weasley. |
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| 10/2/2001 | How do you express yourself? |
| When you're feeling lazy, or bored, or stubborn, or haughty, or angry, or impatient ... don't you just wish you could FOLD your arms to more fully reflect how you're feeling at the time? And when you're feeling possessive, don't you wish you could ACT on it? Keep in mind that POSTURE is really important when you're trying to express your feelings, but if you lose at ROSHAMBO, try not to FRET about it much. | |
| 10/1/2001 | New Character Manager |
| We are pleased to announce that our new and improved character manager is now live. Any bugs which you find should be noted via the BUG verb. | |
| 10/1/2001 | New Website Goes Live |
| After many months of work we are pleased to announce that our new website is now live. Thank you to everyone who contributed by beta testing and reporting bugs. | |