Update 19 (milestone 1.0.9.0) Patch Notes

It has been just over a month since the last major update (http://openmeridian.org/forums/index.php/topic,416.0.html) which was quite heavy on the infrastructure changes with the promise of future new content. This update makes good on that promise with some long-awaited changes and also a brand new game mode for building and challenging players.

General Changes

Players under 50 HP can now cast Reflection. Their reflections will have no effect on other players.

Players can opt-out of group building via an option in the Preferences menu, or using the text commands “grouping on” and “grouping off”. Opting out will allow the player to always obtain the solo builder bonus, but no group EXP bonuses.

Training points are now awarded every day regardless of previous log-in time. The overall amount of training points a player receives will be the same as if they logged in every day currently.

Added a stat bar for “bulk”. Player carrying capacity is governed by two factors: the weight of an item (previous stat bar) and the size/bulk of it (this bar). Showing both bars will allow players to better calculate how much they can carry, and determine which limit they are hitting.

Frogmen can now take players to 85 HP (up from 75 HP), and the frogman graphics are now smaller.

Vigor drain caused by narthyl worm hits was far too high with safe spots removed and the possibility of multiple aggro. Lowered the vigor loss min bound from 3 to 0, and the max from 7 to 3. In testing vigor still noticeably drops, but no longer requires the player to rest or be constantly too full to eat.

Second Wind and Crystalize Mana will now show the time until the effect wears off if the player clicks on the icon in their enchantment bar.

Clicking on the Phase icon will also tell the player how long they can remain phased before taking penalties, and clicking on the spell description will let them know how long they can phase for.

Attack Range and Height

Attack range calculations have always been made by determining the distance between the combatants as if they were standing on the same level. This causes monsters to be able to attack players even if a large vertical distance separates them (and vice versa).

This update introduces height into the attack range calculations which will prevent this from occurring. Both players and monsters will no longer be able to attack over a large vertical distance. Some monsters have had their attack range lowered slightly to better match their attack animations.

Herald Shields

Herald shields obtained from the Underbasement of Castle Victoria crate can now spawn with new color combinations involving black, dark green and grey. There are 13 new color combinations available. These new shield combinations are not available via the guild shield interface.

Survival Arena

NOTE: the Grand Opening of the Survival Arenas will be on Saturday 28th February, at 3pm CST.

The survival arena is a new instanced challenge where players can work together (or alone) to battle waves of monsters for experience, prizes and to challenge themselves. There are three types of survival arena available: solo, guild and public. These can be accessed from any safe location using the following commands:

“start solo survival” which will begin a solo survival arena challenge;

“start guild survival” which will begin a guild survival arena that can be joined by other guild members;

“start public survival” which begins a survival arena that can be joined by any player online;

“join guild survival” which attempts to join an arena recently started by one of the player’s guild members;

“join public survival” which attempts to join a public survival arena started recently by any player.

Each guild can have one guild survival arena active, and only one public survival arena can be active at one time. Solo arenas can be started at any time.

On starting or joining an arena, the player is teleported to a random room for a short waiting period before the round begins. Each round or wave consists of a number of ordinary monsters, and occasionally a miniboss or boss. Players progress by meeting the objectives stated at the beginning of the round – killing a certain number of monsters, or defeating bosses.

Players start with three lives, and lose one each time they are killed by a monster. Extra lives can be gained occasionally through objectives stated at the start of a round. Death has no ill effects in the survival arena, however being killed by another player will cause the victim to be ejected from the arena.

Players can improve their spells and skills, and also gain toughers in the survival arena, which at first glance might seem like ‘building for free’ however the waves can be very difficult, and building a character in the arena would be far harder than doing so in the game world.

Loot, Training Points, XP and shillings drops start off equivalent to normal levels and raise as the waves become more difficult:

1 additional item in all loot per 4 rounds

+50 shillings per kill per 1 round

1 additional XP per kill per 5 rounds

1 additional TP per kill per 1 round

Rewards are given at the following rounds:

Level 10: Ant Mask

Level 15: Rat Mask

Level 20: Mummy Mask

Level 25: Skull Mask

Level 30: Troll Mask

Level 35: Shrunken Head Mask

Level 40: Daemon Skeleton mask

Level 45: Fey Mask

Level 50: Xeo Mask

Level 55: Kriipa Mask

Level 75: Cow Mask

Level 100: Steel Torc

These rewards will appear at a random spawn point at completion of that round. Only one reward item is given per reward level, so players in the guild or public survival arena will need to share rewards or repeat the arena to obtain more.

Stat Reset

The stat reset system is a long-awaited method for players to alter their character’s statistics and to remove skill and school levels one at a time. To access the stat reset system, players will need to obtain an item, the “ancient trinket” which can be found on any monster the player can advance on (i.e. monster level higher than player HP).

These trinkets are a rare drop, starting at 0.033% at monster level 50 and raising to a 0.1% drop chance at level 150. They expire after 2 meridian years (40 days) and disappear, so players will need to actively play if they wish to reset their stats multiple times. Trinkets given by admin cannot be traded or dropped, however those found in loot drops can. All players will receive one trinket in this update.

To use the stat reset system, offer the ancient trinket to one of the three elders: Ran’er Hoth in Marion, Afiera D’xor in Jasper and Rodric d’Stane in Raza.

This will bring up a menu where the player can move points between stats, and also forget levels by reducing the sliders on the spell and skill schools. Intellect cannot be reduced below that required for the current levels known; to reassign intellect points the player must first choose levels to forget.

Lowering stats will also cause % loss in spells and skills associated with that stat; for example lowering mysticism by 10 would cause 20% loss from any spells in Qor, Shal’ille or Faren. Reducing stamina from 50 to 40 would cause 20% loss from Kraanan spells and Second Wind, and if the player is above 140 HP they would be reduced to this amount.

Unfortunately we cannot fix or restore any characters who do not like the results of their stat change; multiple warnings are given and we encourage players to consider the effect of the stat change before performing it. Alternatively, players can log onto the test server (104) via the patcher and attempt a stat change there first to see the effects.

Temporary Guardian Angel

Players can now opt-in to a “temporary angel system”. If an innocent (white name) player is killed in PvP while under 100 HP and does not have a soldier shield, and takes a full death penalty (i.e. no PoL), they will be unattackable by other players for three hours. There is an option in the Preferences menu to opt in or out of this system.

Players can also use the text commands “tempsafe on” and “tempsafe off” to toggle this system.

This effect will come into play when the player takes penalties upon leaving the Underworld. The player will then show on the map as a light-blue dot, and will be unable to pick up tokens or enter guild halls. The player will not be deguilded and can still perform faction loyalty quests, and even obtain a soldier shield (but will be unable to participate in PvP or raise flags until the angel is gone).

There is no way to remove the temporary angel after receiving it except to wait out the three hours, so players who wish to participate in PvP and are lower than 100 HP should turn opt-out of the system.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug causing the text commands for “safety on” and “safety off” to not work.

Fixed a spawn point in Badlands 2 that was causing groundworm queens to spawn inside a wall.

Fixed an animation error with black daggers.

Added success messages when an illusioned player performs a hit side-effect from a monster (e.g. dusk rat poison).

Future Content

This is code and art added in this update but not yet active.

Added new monsters for use in the future: elephant, wolf, bunny, chupacabra and minotaur.

Added apple trees from which players can pick apples.

Code added to start and end rain and sandstorm weather effects.

As always, if you have any feedback on the update or find any bugs, please let us know via tell, gmail, globe post or forum post.

Enjoy!