Publish 16

The following is a list of changes deployed as Publish 16 from July 12-22, 2002. Publish 16 was a very large publish which introduced many fundamental game changes and completely new systems.

New Systems and Fundamental Game Changes

Later Update on 9/26/02:

Vet Rewards: 4th-year, 5th-year, and a skill cap increase!

Resource and Crafting Changes

Several new rewards have been added to the Blacksmith’s bulk order system.
- Prospector's Tool.
- Powder of Temperament.
- Blacksmith Scrolls of Power
- Gargoyle's Pickaxe.
Blacksmith bulk order system changes include:
- The reward value for items with an exceptional requirement has been increased.
- Large bulk orders will now be received for sets of weapons.
- Grandmaster smiths will now have a greater chance of getting bulk order deeds with color requirements.
Players will now be able to collect the following new stackable resource types.
- Spined, Horned, and Barbed leather
- Bones
Players with an appropriate amount of tailoring skill will now be able to craft bone armor.
Players on shards with Siege Perilous or IGR rulesets will now be able to receive bulk order deeds.
Armor crafted with colored ore now yields better armor ratings the more rare the ore type.

Evil-in-a-Can Changes

Champion status shrines to display progress in defeating champion spawns
Addition of an undead creature group to defeat
New, dynamic, Felucca spawn locations in dungeon and Lost Lands servers
Ability to summon the "The Harrower" (super-champion monster)
New paperdoll titles
"Champions of Evil" boss monsters will carry Scrolls of Power (see Scrolls of Power below)

Changes to Combat

Unarmed "to-be-hit" changes (chance to get hit while unarmed is now the better of either Wrestling skill, or an average of Anatomy & Evaluate Intelligence).
Players will no longer be able to "run away" from arrows/bolts.
The dexterity stat will no longer affect at what point in the swing animation a hit or miss occurs.
Mace weapons will now do less damage to armor than before (but still more than other weapon types).
Staff weapons will do the extra stamina damage that "true" maces do (they still do not get the extra armor damage that "true" maces get).
The damage done by the earthquake spell has been increased.
The 8th circle summoning spells will now have a normal spellcasting delay.
Purple potions deal extra damage based upon the thrower's alchemy skill.
Ethereal mounts will now have a 3-second "summoning" delay.
Bolas will now deal damage when successfully dismounting their target.
Bolas will no longer require the tactics skill to use.
NPC archers will no longer be able to shoot from outside the normal range.
Player "bones" will now follow the same rules as player corpses for being looted.
Players will no longer be able to cut up the bodies of players' characters.
Red characters will not be able to gain Virtue, or use any Virtue abilities.
A character that joins a faction no longer receives a reprieve on his murder counts.

Changes to New-Player Quests

A new “quest button” has been added to notify the questor of any quest status changes.
All quest text has been refined, shortened, and updated with links to the Codex of Wisdom.
Several quest steps have been improved and/or simplified.
Quest monster AI has been improved.
All quest gumps have been visually and functionally improved.

Miscellaneous Changes

Furniture dye tubs will now be usable by appropriate players when locked down or when in that player’s backpack.
“Young” characters will no longer be able to travel to Felucca. Young characters logging into Felucca will be sent to Trammel.
Each skill that has its cap increased beyond 100 (which will be achievable with Skill Scrolls of Power) will display its new current maximum appropriately (i.e. using a +10 Provocation Scroll of Power will change that skill’s displayed maximum from 100 to 110).
The bounty system will be removed.
Vet Reward banners, Holiday trees, and Flaming Heads can no longer be locked down. These items do not need to be locked down to keep them from decaying.

Bug Fixes

Sandstone houses will no longer have a “hole” in one of the wall segments.
Items should no longer “fall” through the steps of a log cabin.
All items that can be used for crafting will list their number of remaining charges.
A bug that could result in players being alive on one subserver and dead on another has been fixed.
Players will now receive a message when the archprotection spell fails to take effect on a target in range.
Stablemasters will no longer spam the names of their inventory when the stablemaster is created.
Bolas will now properly dismount players on Unicorns, Ki-rins, and Ethereal Mounts.
Players will no longer be able to use items that are stored on stabled pack animals.
Some misleading messages in the new-player tutorial area have been fixed.
A bug that allowed players to enter houses they were banned from has been fixed.
Players accepting a guild war invitation will now receive the correct message.
Gypsies in Illshenar will no longer report incorrect inventory descriptions.
Players will no longer be able to steal from Guards.
A bug that could prevent locked-down forges from working correctly has been fixed.
Thread will now work correctly when used on a loom.
Players will no longer be able to use items of teleportation to gain unauthorized access to faction strongholds.
Forges will now play the appropriate sound under all conditions.
Some vague Bulk Order Deed text has been clarified.
Players will no longer be able to use health potions unless they are damaged.
Items that are un-equipped while the wearer is already at their item limit (125 items) will drop to the ground.
Various erroneous system messages have been fixed.
Players killed by guards will have their hit points set to zero under all circumstances.
Players will no longer be able to gain the snooping skill by using the skill on barkeeps.
Treasure chests will no longer appear below ground level or upon invalid terrain.
Players with over 100.0 mining skill will be able to use mining specialization books.
Various “rares” that were improperly renamed to seem like normal items will regain their proper “rare” names.

Updates

Update 1

On July 26, 2002, the following was published:

A house trade exploit involving the doorways of houses has been fixed.
An issue earlier this week involving Trammel rules on Siege Perilous has been resolved.
Two issues involving incorrect murder counts were resolved, and all characters were given a one-time murder reprieve to relieve any damage done to characters.
A slow skill gain issue with Discordance, Peacemaking, and Provocation skills has been fixed.
Co-owners can now see house decay status on house signs.
Pets in Delucia or Papua were causing the server to crash — this has been resolved.
Houses and boats on Siege Perilous and Mugen are now 9 times regular shard prices (rather than the previous 10 times or recent 30 times prices). All other items will remain at 3x normal shard prices.

Update 2

On July 31, 2002, the following was published:

Stat Locks will be available on all shards! (Use your character’s context menu to toggle your Stats. Go here for more information.)
The functionality of the “Primary House” button has been temporarily removed from the house sign gump (to be returned with the implementation of Phase 2 for Housing, currently scheduled to begin Monday, August 5th CDT).
An issue involving a character who could not die has been resolved (yes, believe it or not, that person actually submitted his own bug report!).
A “stuck script” issue that trapped some characters in a “teleportation void” has been resolved.

Update 3

On August 6, 2002, the following was published:

Updates for the activation of Phase 2 of Publish 16's updated housing rules

Update 4

On August 23, 2002, the following was published:

A house gump-window issue that made a small number of houses unclaimable has been fixed.
Keys/locks of claimed houses will now update properly.

Update 5

On September 3, 2002, the following was published:

Updates for the activation of Phase 3 of Publish 16's updated housing rules

Update 6

On September 18, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 1 of Scenario 5: When Ants Attack

Update 7

On September 26, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 2 of Scenario 5: When Ants Attack
Vet Rewards: 4th-year, 5th-year, and a skill cap increase!

Update 8

On October 2, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 3 of Scenario 5: When Ants Attack
Several bug fixes:
- The Solen Lair: You will now be able to tame while within this new scenario-inspired area. However, you will not be able to use Recall or Gate Travel to enter the Solen lair on any facet or shard.
- Giant Beetle: Taming any subjugated creature will now properly halve its Stats & Skills, although not all beetles were doing this prior to this fix. Those tamed beetles not yet affected by this halving will now have their original Stats & Skills adjusted, but will be able to keep all trained Stats & Skills that were gained after they were tamed.
- Bag of Sending: You will no longer be able to send containers through Bags of Sending.

Update 9

On October 10, 2002, the following was published:

Updates to facilitate Week 4 of Scenario 5: When Ants Attack

Update 10

On October 16, 2002, the following was published:

An issue that caused large, leather Tailoring Bulk Order Deeds to yield the same rewards, no matter which type of leather, has been fixed. Players should now receive the appropriate rewards when turning in large, high-level Tailoring BODs.
An issue that caused the paints given out in Elwood's Quest to become stuck in an "in use" state has been resolved.
Blade spirits and energy vortices should now properly attack creatures within range.

Update 11

On December 12, 2002, the following was published:

Guards will now be called if a player goes grey for looting a blue corpse in a Feluccan guard zone.
Vorpal bunny corpses should no longer stay in the air.
An issue involving houses not placing correctly was fixed.
We have fixed a bug that caused some spells to do no damage.