::September 19, 2002 - BUILD NOTES::

We have performed a major update to the AC2 Beta. Please read on for details.

We think we have dealt another crushing blow to the Lag Beast. To try to stir it from its foul lair, we want to load up the Red world to full capacity. For this reason we will not re-open the Blue world until we get Red filled to the point where we start to lag again. The Blue world, as previously indicated, will be character-wiped before we bring it back up, so no use waiting for Blue—jump on into Red! (Remember that Red is now on the Canyon Park datacenter).

Here are significant changes/fixes. These are all the fixes and changes since the last build we had on the Red and Blue worlds.

• We had an error where if you just installed from certain Beta 1 setups and connected, you would get into a bad update state. The symptom would be an error “unable to connect” when trying to launch AC2—you would not ever get to the list of worlds. This is now fixed by changing the update we send out. You must uninstall and reinstall from any Beta 1 Setup in order for the fix to work.
• Monsters substantially above your level should be more difficult to kill. It should be pretty much impossible to solo-kill a monster 4 levels above you unless you exploit AI and pathfinding bugs. A group of characters all the same level should find it pretty much impossible to kill a solo monster 10 levels above the group’s level. This is a first pass at the changes to the advancement curve and we will change it yet further next week, so please be patient as we tune this important aspect of the game. Once the changes are complete next week, we will take detailed feedback about how quickly you are advancing.
• Fixed skills: Shorten Life, Palsy, Weaken Resolve, Emblem of Might, Toughen Hide, Swift Killer, Leaden Weapon, Hunger, Restorative Zone, Release the Swarm, Wax Statue, Volcanic Rift, Exploding Arrow, Hypnosis.
• Fixed quests: Statue Mender, Lodrog the Forsaken, Cleanse the Burial Mound, Slavetaker’s Head.
• Fixed dungeons/Vaults: New Mage Academy, Kydi, Frozen Ravine, Farali.
• Heavy rebalancing of the treasure and craft system. Crafting the lower-end items should be more rewarding or easier to do. But changes like this cannot be made retroactive, so already-existing items will not change.
• Bows have had their base damage reduced. You knew something like this was coming.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /><o:p></o:p>
• Innumerable balance changes to skills: DoTs last longer but less strong; attack speed debuffs nerfed; “cool down” times on some skills longer, and more.
• CC skills ( Stun, slow, root, etc) can no longer be spammed. The target will have 1 minute of immunity to that type of effect. Stun spammers, be gone!
• Item affecting skills buffed up.
• Characters should get regularly saved again! So a crash should not make you lose more than 10-20 minutes of progress.
• Speed improvements to the graphics engine. More to come. Try model detail set to Low to improve frame rate; this had no real effect till now.
• Monsters determine whether they were killed while they were stuck in a situation where they could not move to or fire upon their killers. When monsters feel shafted, they give out no XP, and they tell you so. We realize that in this first try, there will be times when you get unjustly robbed of your XP. We plan to adjust and fix this until only those who are deliberately taking advantage of monster AI bugs will lose the XP reward. Please note that it’s perfectly OK to shoot at a monster far away and kill it before it reaches you, or win a missile fight with a monster—we just intend to stop situations where the monster had no chance to ever pose any threat to you, no matter how much time it spent trying. As with most aspects of the game, as you discuss this and point out its problems, please be as specific as possible: give the exact location and situation so we can try to reproduce it. “It sux!” is not good data for us to work with to adjust this properly.
• Mist Opal Boots all have an AL of 2.
• Shield damage tinkered a bit.
• Combat speed potions not quite so speedy.
• Lots of bugs associated with chat should be all fixed.
• Mangled text issues fixed.
• Cannot type nonpermitted characters when entering character name. You get an electric shock! Just kidding…
• Many fixes to sound glitches and crashes.
• Tumerok females can swim again. Oh yeah.
• Story movies should play more smoothly.
• Cannot enter Vaults anymore by using portal as someone else uses a Glyph on it.
• Vault Shards can be used by multiple people at once.
• By default F8 is Quest panel, F9 Social panel.
• Statue Mender and Blood of the Vermin effects stay with the player after death.
• Poison effects being applied to weapons were having the opposite effect in monster (speeding them up!). They now correctly slow down the monster's combat speed.
• Low-level vermin do not drop potions any more.
• Gambling’s Self-Affecting recipes have a wider level range to allow more choices.
• Transmutation costs are more reasonable.
• Fixed bug that allowed you to click on shortcuts that you cannot see.
• Moneybag easier to drop loot onto.
• You can examine your vitae again.
• Crafted rings yanked out– expect many recipes such as this one to be added in monthly updates.
• By default, “Draw avatar in first person” now sets to “Combat”.
• Outposts in new-player areas have forges.
• Reward from Broth of Tanacha quest lasts longer now-- 6 hours.
• Base melee tree skills can be used with 2 claws or a flail.
• Required level for all skills on main skill trees dropped by 2 levels.
• Level 1 (autotrained) skills have a HUGE bonus to hit.
• Skill panels now have descriptions of what needs to be wielded to use a skill.
• Monsters regen fast like players do if they are not attacking or being attacked. So suicide runs against monsters won’t work so well anymore…
• Armor still reduces damage 1-for-1, but only to a point: you are only guaranteed to be able to reduce the damage by 75%. If your armor is such that you’re taking less than 25% of the damage being dealt to you, you will always take a random amount somewhere between 1% and 25% of the damage.
• Faction Shrines also serve as PK-point rank boards. See who’s on top, then go a-hunting!
• In PK, the vitae level of your target no longer affects the PK rating adjustment you get, and your vitae level has no effect on how much PK rating you lose.
• Everyone starts with a PK rating of 50; PKing someone with a rating of zero gains you nothing.
• Boulder throwing does not have a pause before boulder appears.
• Lugian Berserker “___ of Pain” skills now do multiple hits as described.
• Shout now properly lists Expel as its prerequisite and not Overwhelm.
• Tactician's walls now attack properly.
• Combat speed raised a bit more, but the very weakest weapons slowed down, to keep Your Very First Combat sanely-paced.
• Cannot target mes-type spells at players (they never worked; now they explicitly tell you the target type is wrong). Go mes some mean monsters, why don’t you?
• Regaining vitae is a bit faster, but reduced vitae now reduces your base attack damage. Ouch! Strategy tip: Don’t die.
• Rushed Recovery and similar skills that trade one kind of vital for the other only work as far as the vitals cap allows. No more free vitals.
• Invoker pets cannot be summoned while under the influence of the opposite tree.
• Besiege now makes reference to Devastate instead of Tailswipe.
• Resuscitate and Renewal now can be cast on a target at the same time.
• Reflective damage effects all retuned to not… ya know, HEAL the target...
• Monsters tend to move less in dungeons now.
• Took out text that gave you running total of XP, since it could spam you in fellowships and pet situations, and was not very useful. Unfortunately telling you how much XP you just gained is remarkably tricky because of multiple sources, so we’ll need to work on that part later.

For a list of the top known issues/problems with the current Beta build, be sure to see the Known Issues page http://groups.msn.com/AsheronsCall2BetaCommunity/knownissues.msnw