Version Notes

05-26-2003: Bug fixes, quick test

• Cob survival trainers should now report ALL the corpses they require. No longer will the go silent when you are assigned one they dont' care to speak of
• A few bugs with click move have been fixed
• A "test" of a new "anti lair farming" technique is present on the Loriapi encounter in Cobrahn. She now respawns quite frequently, but farmers should not be less inclined to want to kill her
• A few more of the "boundless" healing methods has had caps placed on them. These shouldnt normally be noticed (they were made very high)

04-28-2003: More internal fixes

• For about 6 years now, through a misplaced comment, the armor value of one of your inventory slots was not being included. I've corrected this. Please let me know if any funny business
• The latest 24bit FE now has an icon for hiding (not the permanent one, but an available one)

03-10-2003: Nork Alt 2 Changes

• Nork alt 2 is now testing some targeting upgrades for an upcoming scenario. Primarily, users should always see "hostile" creatures as red. What is meant by this, is that if a creature has hostile intent towards you, they should be red (note some evils may still not show up as red until they decide to attack). There are also some bug fixes in movement, as well as a few targeting upgrades to NPCs. You shouldn't notice any game changes, but if something seems wacko let us know.

01-06-2003: First pass at host upgrades

• Today we installed a major host upgrade, to enable us to greatly expand customer gameplay.

  Because of the size of the code changes, live customer useage may produce bugs which will require a complete database rollback. For this reason, we will be taking periodic snapshots of the game data.

  Please be aware that play during this period may be interrupted by rollbacks to the previous days data. Because of the nature of these rollbacks, no items, skills or experience can be restored on an individual basis.

  Thanks for your cooperation and understanding during our period of expansion.

• Most non creature kill experience gain methods will no longer work, please be patient as we continue to work on converting these

• FOCUS and CHI disciplines should now work correctly again

• Some skill rollover bugs should be fixed

12-30-2002: Important upcoming game changes

• Over the next few weeks we will be introducing some major host side game changes that are necessary to enable us to expand the skill and experience system beyond its current limits. These changes are broad, fundamental changes to the way skill and experience are stored on the host side, and will certainly have bugs associated with them. Your patience will be greatly appreciated. Some things you will notice :
  • Certain bottles, questers, scrolls, events that used to grant experience and skill may not function. We have to manually convert all of the old questers, and this will be a tedious time consuming process (that we may wait on fixing until its all in place)
  • Players with over 50th level experience will see their actual experience points change, as we work on scaling issues with the leveling process ( and how old experience will scale to new experience )
  • Players with 3 and 4 times their trained skill ( through bugs, cheats, abuses, fate cards, chit colored traps, etc ) may see their "percentage trained" fluctuate wildly as we scale old system to new system
  • Before going live with the actual host code, we will be implementing a backup process to snapshot the gameevery hour. This way, if a major abuse is discovered, we will be rolling back the entire game to that point. Please be aware of this when playing, its unfortunate but an absolute necessity that the game may have to be rolled back

11-18-2002: Second attempt on alt2

• the 11/11 engine has been patched and replaced on alt2 for testing. see version notes below for info
• Name Change bug from fighting certain nork lair creatures should be fixed on alt2!

11-11-2002: Systemic changes on Nork alt 2

• Nork Alt 2 is running a major systemic upgrade to the drakkar engine. The goal is there be no visible game system changes to the player, but huge changes to the backend enabling us to further the game development in new and exciting ways. To this end, we need some heavy play in this alt for a while, to help us make sure "nothing has changed". Key areas include:
  • At a system level, we have added aditional locking routines when the character enters/exits and moves to a new scenario. How to help test? Play a lot in the game, phone slam, slam with corpses, slam in combat, drink and slam, teleport and slam, ram and slam, slam while slamming, do some slammin'. Please be patient when the game lockups during this phase.
  • Previously, only certain 'slots' in your inventory could have armor values. Now, any slot can. This means any item can give the character an armor class increase. While no changes have been made to creatures, potentially armor could have been in place for a long time that no one realized wasnt working. Please check into this (also applies to players).

   

10-14-2002: Some bug fixes, small content changes

10-07-2002: Bug fixes, etc

• More bug fixes on trainers
• New HP and EP trainers accept "current" charisma instead of permanent charisma
• In response to customer concerns, we have halved the regen time of cobrahn lair creatures that have multiple quests associated with them. Although we consider this a slippery slope, we are trying to reduce some of the frustration factor involved.

09-23-2002: Gold Plan Game Changes (2pm scheduled reset)

• Gold subscribers now receive a 50% skill regain bonus if the skill they are working on is more than five levels lower than they have ever attained in that skill.
• Gold subscribers now receive a 10% skill gain bonus on any skill earned (cumulative with guild hall bonus)
• Gold subscribers now receive a permanent hit point bonus for every month (30 day period) they have been subscribed to the gold plan

(other changes)

• Players wishing to dedicate to fighter/mentalist must now do so before experience level 20

08-26-2002: Fun fun fun!

• A vile new evil has tunneled its way into the nork dungeons
• Another earthquake has struck cobrahn

08-19-2002: Ain't life grand...

• An ancient challenger of the queen's captain of the guard has finally unentombed itself.
• The Steel Flower Tavern has a second floor
• Bug fixes

08-12-2002: Earthquakes continue in cobrahn

• Important Changes:
  • We are working on a major overhaul of the 'creature display list'. During this period, please excuse (but report), any wierd bouncing around of creatures in your critter boxes. We believe we have the foundational code complete, but please drop a note in the forums if you see any issues.
  • You should no longer be able to break, transmute or sell an item you do not own. Please drop a note in the forums if you find a way around this.

   

08-05-2002: Earthquake reported in cobrahn

• The sysops, in an effort to show their true affection, and supportive desire for advancement of all players, would like to hold a "player appreciation" event, on thursday at 10pm eastern time. Fun , excitement and genuine heart felt supportive thanks will be shared with all. (Where: Nork Alt 2 Frore City, town square)

07-29-2002: Bug fixes

• Some patches in cobrahn, some general game fixes also
• Some problems with FINDFRIENDLY have been fixed

07-09-2002: Late Night Fun.. for the whole family (Well perhaps not....)

• Chipuda carefully studied the discipline before him. He couldn't seem to focus
  his mind at the task at hand. "Ahh Loriapi", he sighed aloud. He thought
  back to the times when he had ventured deep into the abyss of the Norkian
  dungeons as one of the mighty Four. He remembered the oath he had pledged
  to himself about his love: "I will return for you, I swear".

  It wasn't Cobrahn he feared. It was the Lanapi, friend of the Empress
  herself, which kept Chipuda from fulfilling his promise. Lanapi and her
  thieving lover, Lazloth. Chipuda remembered...

  When the Four had entered the realm, Lazloth sensed the entrance of the
  mighty mentalist, Chipuda. Lazloth had been jealous of the Four's power.
  He hated them for coming to conquer Cobrahn, Lazloth's home. Yet Lazloth
  did not possess the means to expel the Four. Only Lanapi had those
  abilities at her disposal.

  Lazloth had watched Chipuda from afar; watched him fall in love with
  Loriapi. He had been very careful to keep his identity and existence hidden
  from the Four. Lazloth knew Loriapi didn't know who her true father was.
  That is when the idea had struck him. He would build a castle and hide
  Lanapi from Chipuda. He would fill it with puzzles and creatures at every
  step. The solution to its final puzzle would be what was needed to enrage
  Lanapi against the Four.

  Loriapi hadn't seen her mother in months. "Find her, my sweet, and gain her
  blessing.", she had whispered in Chipuda's ears. For many months the Four
  scoured the lands of Cobrahn in search of Lanapi before they stumbled upon
  the fortress in the air. It was in the last area of Cobrahn they looked.
  Until that point they had met little resistance. They entered,
  self-proclaimed 'Conqueror's' of the realm of Cobrahn, in search of the
  elusive Lanapi. Yet she was no where to be found. Deeper into the Castle
  they searched, solving its puzzles and killing its evil inhabitants.

  They had stumbled upon Lanapi almost by accident. She was weeping. "How
  dare you!", she screamed, when Chipuda entered her chambers. Chipuda
  finally realized what Lazloth's clever plan had been, and how he would
  forever be unable to wed Loriapi. Lanapi summoned guards to destroy the
  Four, conjured disciplines of unimaginable power, and finally cast them out of
  Cobrahn, beaten and battered...

  Chipuda eased back in his chair, closing his eyes. "I will return for you."
  

06-14-2002: Patches (12:30pm eastern time patch)

• Creatures in "that new area" no longer have transmute
• "mama red" has had her fire damage reduced. Please keep in mind its still extremely hot, and you should be very prepared
• In an effort to continue with game rescaling efforts, creatures (and pets, etc using creature brains) who drink normal IH bottles are now subject to the same 1000 hit point gain max that players are. This may make certain creatures and lair encounters too wimpy, I hope players will report this candidly (so we can adjust them). This also means that the panic to remove IH bottles from creature lairs (from slain players) should be reduced greatly.

06-12-2002: New version today

• The sun shines down upon cobrahn, the birds sing a pleasant call, the land is at peace.... This is the lie the dwellers of tree town would have you to believe. Their ancient failure has arisen, their lies have been exposed. The great sin their ancestors attempted to cover up is now a cancerous sore. Whispers of their former glorious city have arisen, where they believed they were masters of their domain, and tempted the dark queen, thinking their deplurium weapons could defeat her.
• They were wrong
• They were so very, very wrong
• Fear the dark

05-14-2002: Quick fix

• Corpses killed by poison should now be lootable
• A bug with the character generator & experience has been fixed

05-13-2002: Changes this version:

• Bug fixes, cleanup for some upcoming features
• Premium guild hall subscribers now receive a 5% skill gain bonus in any scenario