Dark Sect Revived

The Dark Sect has taken on new life as Lord Malstefas Thorne takes the helm of leadership. Dark Sect is a clan devoted to the arcane magicks of Lord Zyrar and his dominion.

Tmote; Autoremove; Chat; Mounting

Let's see... a few new things today:

- A new roleplaying command, "tmote" (talk emote). This command essentially
replaces the standard speaking verbs with the verb of your choice. The
syntax is "tmote ". So, for example, "tmote screams Get your
butts in gear!" Would look like "Aelius screams 'Get your butts in gear!" ,
With the proper colour and such so that you don't have to go to all the work
with emotes putting it in yourselves.

- The "autoremove" command (see 'config' and 'help autoremove') actually
works now. If your autoremove preference is disabled, you won't be able to
wear an item if you're already wearing something in that slot.

- You will now be able to see invisible players in the chat *who listing.

- You can hide chat channels with the "chat *hide" command. A hidden
channel will be invisible to all non-staff characters who are not in the
channel.

- Finally, you should not be able to sneak and mount at the same time. If
you still can, then... Let me know.


Ael.

Assorted Bug Fixes

- Casting sleep on a mob no longer initiates combat, and mobs will wake up when attacked.

- Players you can't normally see (for example, if invisible) no longer show up as "someone" with the 'scan' command - they just won't show up.

- 'Remove all' takes away style effects if a weapon is removed.

- You can no longer use the 'target' command during combat to switch to a mob that is immune to aggression.

- You can now access help files while flying.


Ael.

Camp; Sneaking and Mounting; Warp

Some updates for today:

- Both the cost of executing the 'camp' skill, and the formula that governs its bonus, have changed.

- You can no longer sneak while mounted.

- You can now use the 'warp distance' command to judge the distance of players who have the nowarp/nosummon flag on.


Ael.

Mount Changes

Big(ish) update today:

The mount code has been entirely re-written. With any luck, however, the 'player-end' experience should not be much different than it is now.

That being said, there ARE some differences, mostly to do with called flymounts:

- Using a whistle to call a mount no longer ties you to that mount. In other words, the mount doesn't belong to you. You can call 5 at once if you want. Removing the whistle will not make the mount disappear. BUT...

- Flying mounts WILL disappear immediately when you dismount. This means no tethering, keeping track of where you left your mount, saving the mount when you quit, etc. You use it, and when you dismount, it vanishes.

- Additionally, any fly mount called but not mounted will disappear in two ticks (unless mounted).

- You might find that the stamina of certain fly mounts has been changed - this was necessary to accomodate the new code (and is for the better, believe me).

- Non-flying land mounts will not disappear when dismounted, and, if you quit while mounted, the mob will remain in the room in which you quit (unless mounted by someone else, killed, etc. - just like a normal mob).

Other than that, flying mounts should act as they always have. Any whistles or other callmount items you have will continue to work. Problems such as mounts with negative stamina, mounts that duplicate after a copyover, etc. should not happen now - if they do, please, bugreport it.


Ael.

[This is huge, folks - Fern]

Ignore; Nowarp; Roll

Updates for today:

- The 'ignore ' command will now cause you to ignore that player's global communication (OOC, QA, etc.) In addition to tells. Note that 'ignore' does not prevent against seeing in-room communication. Type "ignore" without an argument to get a list of people you're ignoring.

- The "nowarp" command will prevent players from warping to your location.

- On a lighter note, the "roll" command has been fixed and cleaned up. So, let's get gamblin'!


Ael.

Random Rare Drops

Random rares have been re-enabled on a temporary, testing basis. Potential instability may occur as we put the system through its paces and hammer out all of the problems. So, thanks for your patience.

In the meantime, have fun and collect some cool stuff.

Ael.

Inventory Item Limit

You'll find now that the maximum number of items you may carry in your inventory has changed, in some cases rather drastically. While we can't give you the exact formulas used to derive this number, it would serve you well to invest some hours in carry strength if you want to increase this number.

Ael.

PS - this was not done lightly. The previous formula was pretty out of control... Rukh, at level 1000, was able to carry over 1000 items. Don't worry, you'll still have plenty of space. ;) And remember - containers are your friend!

[Thanks to Aelius]

Webstore: New Shirt Design

By suggestion, we have added two new dragon shirts to the Karinthian Dragon Hoards store. Both are found in the Game 'Tudes section:

http://www.cafepress.com/karinth.102591221
http://www.cafepress.com/karinth.102590671

Tuning the Systems

Today's tuning includes :

1 - vault prices are lowered for startup fees and monthly rentals are lowered as well. The previous rentals were being charged every 8.7 days (a Karinthian year), and were much too high. These applied only to the higher vaults - the basic vault was and is still free.

2 - vault capacities are raised dramatically. The previous basic vault held 10 items and now holds 25. The king's vault (the most expensive) used to hold 100 items, and now holds 250. (The same restrictions on stored items still apply.)

3 - spell scribing is now controlled with greater clarity. When you scribe a spell, you will see only the allowed target choice for that spellcraft. No more worries about casting Journalstone on an area!

4 - society members - you can now choose to show or hide your affiliation with a society to which you belong. Society Leaders - you can now request your society to be completely hidden. This will not be allowed for kingdoms.

Our deepest gratitude goes to Aelius, who has recently joined the coding side of the team and who is making major dents in our to-do list on a daily basis.

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Upheaval, Panic, Crisis, Chocolate

No doubt about it.. this new year has brought some rocky starts to our doorstep, many changes (some welcomed, a few not so much), and a burst of activity that we hope to see continue for quite some time.

We got serious about the economy and have taken steps to balance it before we even crack the pages on the trading and crafts design docs. Some of these changes were met with open arms - and some with open ridicule. Not to be flippant about the condition, folks, but before the economy is balanced, no further modules can be brought in. Period.

We got serious about balancing the game world. A maximum level, formerly a topic that was discussed only in hushed tones and worried looks, was established at 1000. We can now make some definite progress on level coverage, both in terms of experience and in terms of gear.

We got serious about developing a smooth player experience, with particular focus on the entry levels of game play. To this end, we have established a ramped up experience reward for combat, so that the first few levels should fly by, presenting more training hours for the new player to use to develop his (or her!) strategy.

We got serious about societies. Their own economic states begin to take on a more realistic form, and we're still looking at options to fund kingdoms from either taxes or guild hall fees, or both.

It has been our policy not to discuss future developments. We're not going to break with that policy, but we are going to update the Big Picture at a finer grain of detail. To this end, we'll post a few doodads here and in forums where we will welcome player feedback as things develop.

Welcome to Karinth

Welcome to Legends of Karinth, traveler. May your stay be.. interesting.

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