Weekly Development Activities: August 21, 2006

Stormreach Under Siege. Now, don’t those three words just make you want to just skip this introduction that took me maybe an hour and and a half to write and go straight to what’s going to a part of the next scheduled update for Dungeons and Dragons Online? Wouldn’t it be nice to get the latest buzz on monsters inside the game like dead and charmed mummies not being able to cause despair to anybody anymore, plus The Warrior of Six now being correctly tagged as the Neutral Evil? Or more details on new and exciting quests that you can take? Or… Okay I’ll shut up now and give you the details. Teasing was fun while it lasted.

Monsters

• NEW – Dead mummies will no longer cause despair.
• NEW – Charmed mummies will no longer cause despair in allied players.
•  NEW – The Warrior of the Six is now correctly tagged as Neutral Evil.

Quests

• NEW – Gwylan’s Stand
• An influx of foolish adventurers into the area surrounding Gwylan’s Stand has allowed the various monsters in the area to accumulate a little more treasure.

• NEW – Necropolis
• Bloody Crypt
• The Lich is now the Black Abbot and not a generic lich.
• Using the levers to open the east and west wings will correctly report that you used a lever, and not a book.
• Salasso now wears the correct robe.

The full article awaits after the jump!

Stormreach Under Siege. Now, don’t those three words just make you want to just skip this introduction that took me maybe an hour and and a half to write and go straight to what’s going to a part of the next scheduled update for Dungeons and Dragons Online? Wouldn’t it be nice to get the latest buzz on monsters inside the game like dead and charmed mummies not being able to cause despair to anybody anymore, plus The Warrior of Six now being correctly tagged as the Neutral Evil? Or more details on new and exciting quests that you can take? Or… Okay I’ll shut up now and give you the details. Teasing was fun while it lasted.

Monsters

• NEW – Dead mummies will no longer cause despair.
• NEW – Charmed mummies will no longer cause despair in allied players.
• NEW – The Warrior of the Six is now correctly tagged as Neutral Evil.

Quests

• NEW – Gwylan’s Stand
• An influx of foolish adventurers into the area surrounding Gwylan’s Stand has allowed the various monsters in the area to accumulate a little more treasure.

• NEW – Necropolis
• Bloody Crypt
• The Lich is now the Black Abbot and not a generic lich.
• Using the levers to open the east and west wings will correctly report that you used a lever, and not a book.
• Salasso now wears the correct robe.

• Bloody Crypt Junction
• Using the waypoint to the burning heart will correctly place you at the side entrance room.
• You can now see Brother Salasso at work on the Heretical Path from the junction.

• Graveyard
• Julia has outfitted her tavern with new tables and glassware.
• The taven now has a mapnote.
• Kai-Teng and Dame Calla have unpacked many of their books and papers.

• Tomb of the Burning Heart
• Fixed several untargettable sarcophagi.
• Fixed a group of inactive wights.

• Tomb of the Crimson Heart
• Several undead will no longer spawn on a wall.

• Tomb of the Immortal Heart
• Only one of each book will spawn.
• Hell Hounds and Earth Elementals will no longer respawn.

• Tomb of the Sanguine Heart
• Fixed a broken trap.

Under Development

• These items are currently in development and are scheduled for some time after the next update (most likely Module 3).

Performance

• Overall bandwidth of the game will be reduced another 1-3%, and certain problematic dungeons and laggy areas will be significantly improved by 20-50% (when your client gets flooded with information about objects in your local area).

General

• Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders.
• We are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet command which can be used to hide your helmet graphic.
• We are improving the combat/damage feedback mechanism. This will not only eliminate “false” hits where the target would flinch but no attack roll would take place, but also give better feedback as to the strength of the hit.

Monsters

• Widow type spiders will once again shoot functional webs.
• Elemental Empathy will work properly on Earth Elementals that have used their Earthgrab ability.
• We are fixing an issue with the death animations of Arcane Skeletons. They will no longer “eat collectables” they should be creating.

Via ddo