Ark's Ark

The NDA covering Dungeons and Dragons Online has been lifted!

I will, time permitting, and now I have found a land worth adventuring in again (WoW, sadly kept me interested for about 2 months), hopefully get a bit of life into this site again.

For now, let me say that I took part in the stress test in early December, and found it good. Many a kobold did die by my blades, and yet more from my burning hands. I’m now waiting, in some pain, for the European beta to begin, for surely the gods would not be so cruel as to deprive Stormreach of me!

Anyway, here are the most recent patch notes. It fixes several of my most worrying issues:

Dungeons & Dragons™ Online: Stormreach™ Beta 4 Release Notes 22-Dec-2005

Welcome to Beta 4! The focus of this update is on bug fixes, game balance, and polish items. Highlights include:

We’ve fixed a number of quests that were previously inaccessible or impossible to complete.

We did a bunch of balance work and bugfixing on the enhancement system.

We made some tweaks to the way the game hands out XP rewards.

We added a ton of missing and updated icons to the game.

Happy holidays from everyone at Turbine - enjoy the update!

Content

Performed a major overhaul on the Caverns of Korromar. Please give this dungeon a try and let us know what you think!

Made a number of fixes and adjustments to the Heart of Tempest’s Spine. This dungeon should now be fully playable.

The area of Gwylan’s Stand that contains most of the Hidden Stash containers is now accessible.

Bruku now gives the Cult of the Six quest at the appropriate time.

Fixed some problems with the Ambush at Sea quest. It should now be completable.

There is now a way to get the Necromancer’s Thrall quest from Hargo Kinmare even if you don’t have a high bluff skill.

Fixed a bug that made it difficult to give Corporal Delvascon the crates he requests.

If you abandon the Gwylan’s Stand quest, you will now correctly return to Corelay d’Phiarlan.

Exploding barrels explode again.

The tents in the excavation site are no longer breakable.

Fixed some instancing problems with the Troglodyte Clutch dungeon. It will now behave as expected.

Fixed some instancing problems with Sorrowdusk Island.

Magefire Cannon Crates are now correctly labeled; they were previously called Precious Crates.

The outdoor Threnal Ruins area is now nicely landscaped.

As always, fixed a number of floating and otherwise misplaced objects throughout the world.

Vendors with multiple shops now filter their inventory correctly based on your selection – when you look at one of their shops, you won’t see items that belong to a different shop.

User Interface

Dragging an item from your inventory to your paper doll will now auto-equip it.

The “X” button on the advancement panel now closes the advancement window and cancels advancement as expected.

Saving and loading custom keymappings should now work correctly.

Added a whole lot of new icons.

Completed quests now always sort to the bottom of your quest journal, in order to improve the visibility of underway quests.

Changed the default color of NPC text in the chat window from horrid purple to a pleasant, soothing green.

Fixed a focus orb display issue when viewing warforged NPCs.

Fixed a character generation bug that made it difficult to select wizard spells.

Hitting the Cancel button on the Guild panel will now actually cancel what you’re doing instead of trying to process an empty string.

Guild successor and leader icons now update correctly.

Fixed and updated a number of portal screens.

Fixed and updated a number of maps.

Combat

Increased the speed of some melee attacks.

Untargeted melee attacks will now hit the nearest monster in range, even if other non-monster targets (PCs, crates, etc.) are closer.

Removed or shortened wind-up animations for many combat feats.

The cleave and great cleave feats no longer have counters on them.

Sap should now work correctly, and should now have an animation for human males.

You should now be able to use melee feats unarmed.

If you have the appropriate exotic weapon feat, repeating crossbows will fire three times before reloading instead of just once.

Gameplay

It’s now much easier to run uphill when in water flows.

All XP bonuses are now calculated as a percentage of the base XP. This gives equal weight to a bonus regardless of its position in the XP tabulation.

XP bonuses for destroying all breakables, looting all chests, and finding all secret doors should now work correctly.

The XP penalty for completing a quest multiple times now bottoms out at -90% instead of -100%.

Resting in a tavern will now cure harmful removed-on-rest effects (e.g., temporary negative levels) and will recharge items with limited charges per day.

Bookshelves that conceal secret doors are now much easier to detect.

Weapons will now reappear after performing an action that conceals them (using a lever, emoting, etc.)

Fixed some problems with the way guilds were being stored on the server.

Fixed a bug where the jump animation was not playing correctly.

Fixed some problems with the chat server that would cause guild or party chat to become unavailable.

Improved readability and fixed a number of typos in DM text and NPC dialogues.

Characters

The barbarian fast movement ability now works correctly.

Increased the damage reduction benefits on the barbarian Action Boost enhancement.

The benefits of the Extra Rage enhancement are now properly lost when the enhancement is removed.

Warforged and barbarian damage reduction benefits and feats now stack properly.

The warforged adamantine body feat now correctly applies damage reduction 2/adamantine.

The Dwarven Faith enhancements are now purchasable at the appropriate levels.

Lowered the base attack bonus requirement on some dwarven enhancements (Giant Dodger and Dwarven Cleverness) to a more reasonable level.

Added rogue enhancements for faster sneaking.

Pre-generated clerics now have access to the Summon Monster 1 spell.

The cleric Divine Cleansing II and III enhancements now correctly give +6 and +8 bonuses, respectively, instead of +4.

Changed the name of the Improved Empowering cleric enhancement to Improved Empower Healing, as the enhancement only affects the Empowering Heal feat.

Paladins can select the Extra Smite enhancement at level 1.

Paladin Lay on Hands enhancements no longer have the Cleave feat as a prerequisite.

The paladin Rally enhancement now works as advertised.

Bard music enhancements will now play the correct music and animations.

Fixed a bug that would cause certain damage amplification enhancements (Improved Combustion, Improved Glaciation, etc.) to not appear when they should.

Fixed some ability score exploits in character generation.

Reduced the number of spell points awarded for enhancements that grant extra spell points.

Enhancements that grant skill bonuses should now consistently reward the correct number of bonus points.

Spells

Instead of reducing gravity, feather fall now simply caps your maximum falling speed. While the spell is in effect, you will not take falling damage, but you will no longer be able to jump higher than normal - this is consistent with the 3.5 D&D version of the spell. Please note that items that grant feather fall will receive this fix in a future update.

Cloud spells will now fizzle if cast into water.

Stinking cloud now splatters your screen with green gunk.

Items

Added a number of trinket slot items (ioun stones, etc.)

Weapons wielded in your off-hand no longer add their enhancement bonus to your armor class.

Wands and scrolls are now flagged as one-handed items, allowing you to equip a weapon or shield in your off-hand. You will still be unable to make any melee attacks when wielding a wand or scroll, however.

When casting through a wand, particle effects now appear on the wand instead of on your hands.

Weapons with burst effects now to extra damage when their critical hit damage multiplier is higher than 2x. For instance, a Battle Axe of Flaming Burst has a 3x crit modifier, so it does an extra 2d10 damage on a successful critical hit. This is consistent with D&D 3.5.

Magic bows now apply their bonuses correctly.

Shields can now have energy resistance, spell resistance, and fortification effects.

Added more iconic D&D items to the treasure table.

Restricted some effects from appearing on inappropriate items (for instance, it is no longer possible to find a vorpal club).

Fixed a problem where some helmets would not be visible when equipped.

The treasure system will no longer generate docents with racial restrictions, as docents are inherently restricted to warforged only.

The damage resistance on light shields has been reduced to 1.

Keoghtom’s Ointment now correctly cures poison and disease, in addition to healing a small amount of hit points.

Monsters

Improved monsters’ ability to track you within melee range - this should make it somewhat harder to circle-strafe around them.

You can no longer use bluff, intimidate, or diplomacy on monsters who don’t understand Common.

Trolls no longer take increased damage from acid or fire attacks. Instead, they now lose their regeneration ability for some time after being struck by an acid or fire attack.

Increased the caster level and charisma scores of some kobold sorcerers.

Wraiths spawned by death at the hands of another wraith now have a power level in line with the original monster.

Player and monster attacks should no longer go through doors; they can still go through friendly targets though.

Minotaurs who are killed while charging will no longer cause damage at the end of their charge.

Known Issues

When you log in, there is a small chance that your ranged combat attacks will not be working - you will see your character perform shooting and reloading animations, but no ammunition will be used, no dice rolls will be made, and no damage will be done. If this happens to you, you may resolve the issue by logging out and logging back in. The issue may also resolve if another player enters your current zone.

When you switch armors, your avatar’s appearance does not always update correctly - you may appear to be wearing the old armor, or a mix of the old and new armors.

Characters may show up without any of their equipment on the character selection screen.

Rarely, you may get stuck in an object or fall through the world. If you are unable to get back to where you are, you will have to use the /suicide command and release your spirit to fix the problem.

If you try and initiate a trade with a player who is already involved in a trade transaction, you will not receive any message stating that the player is busy.

Some UI elements might be difficult to move, resize, or close because they are blocked by progress bars.

If you log out while receiving voice chat data, your client may freeze or crash.

I’m doing an art course. And I need a way to get my essay to class, and posting it here seems to be the easiest way. It’s not very good, I’m afraid. Not being able to be flippant or bizarre seriously stunts my writing ability. Anyway, here it is.

People discuss my art and pretend to understand as if it were necessary to understand, when it’s simply necessary to love. - Claude Monet

Claude Monet was one of the primary initiators of the Impressionist movement. It is true that he was more concerned with colour than with form, but those colours were plucked from what lay before him with skill. He was a great lover of nature, spending many hours in the gardens of Giverny, and Argenteuil. His paintings make us feel like we know those places, and we share in the calmness of a pleasant afternoon spent in the continental sunshine. By sharing not only the view, but also the feeling, Monet gets closer to the ideals of naturalism than a painter who religiously copies each and every line and blemish.

He developed a style of brushwork in which he would apply jabs of paint to the canvas, giving his work a wonderful textural quality. By using the texture of the paint itself to add detail, he did not need to copy every line of a leaf in order for our minds to be able to reconstruct the plant. This caused him to use rather more paint than most of his contempories, and indeed his paintings are said to be noticeably heavier than usual. Up close, his work looks far from naturalistic, almost abstractly wild gobs of paint, but should you take a few steps back, those jabs and sworls merge, and, almost magically, the picture forms before you.

Monet mostly painted landscapes, but not the wide, sweeping, landscapes of a Turner or Constable, humbling the viewer with the majesty of nature. Monet’s were more intimate, and usually looked like far more pleasant places to be. Raging storm would have impeded the opportunities for using the rich colours he was so fond of. In fact, it is said that on a rainy day, he would be so upset that he would refuse to get out of bed! Calm waters are a particularly common motif in his work, especially in his later works, paired with water-lillies. (Ironically, he once attempted suicide by throwing himself off a bridge into in a river, but changed his mind on the way down.).

His painting of the Giverny water-lillies are almost the ultimate in naturalism. Placed in a specially constructed building, they provided a 360 degree view of the garden, so the viewer could truly feel as if they were there. An Impressionist virtual reality, perhaps.

Colour is my day-long obsession, joy and torment. To such an extent indeed that one day, finding myself at the deathbed of a woman who had been and still was very dear to me, I caught myself in the act of focusing on her temples and automatically analysing the succession of appropriately graded colours which death was imposing on her motionless face. - Claude Monet

It was about 1905 when Monet began to suffer a loss of intensity in his perception of colour. A cataract has the effect of desaturating colour, and shifting things towards the yellow. Violets, blues and greens are particularly transformed, but every hue is affected to some degree. That different hues are affected to different levels only adds to the strangeness of the view.

While Monet was aware of this gradual change, he was still shocked as to how extent it had become when, upon having surgery on one eye in 1923, he was able to once again percieve colours correctly. He destroyed several of his own works, embarrassed as to how bizarre they appeared to normal vision. He kept his other eye unfixed, and was never again able to use them together terribly well. But one supposes that it did allow him to be able to take two different views of the same subject, which he might have considered useful.

It raises an interesting point. If naturalism is the act of painting what you see, rather than what is actually there, then would someone suffering from wild visual hallucinations be considered naturalistic if he were to paint them?

“La maison vue du jardin aux roses” Claude Monet (1922) - is one of the last paintings Monet painted before his eye surgery. The muddying of the greens of the plantlife is particularly noticeable. Compared with his earlier work, there is also a pronounced lack of detail. Nevertheless, it is still a beautiful picture, with masterful brushwork , and strong use of colour, however shifted, and whatever the cause.

I would advise young artists . . . to paint as they can, as long as they can, without being afraid of painting badly . . . . If their painting doesn’t improve by itself, it means that nothing can be done - and I wouldn’t do anything! - Claude Monet

Well, I said I’d quit if they didn’t stop all this silly exchange nonsense. Apparently my single account didn’t scare them too much. Particularly sad, as I was rather enjoying Norrath, and I wish the best to the guild I leave behind. I shall continue to keep an eye on whats going on in EQ2.

Never fear though, for there are always other adventures! I picked up WoW, and am enjoying it. Something like a dumbed down version of DaoC, but my friends who have been playing a while tell me it has hidden depths. There’s also Guild Wars out on the 28th, which I’ve had on pre-order for a while.

Oh, and I hear the plague has been cured, at least on some servers. Good.

Stolen shamelessly from Lum, Mythic’s CEO has stated his opposition to Station Exchange type antics. Over at Gamedaily.biz

Some highlights:

I think that not only supporting the sale of in-game characters, items and currency, but also taking a ‘cut’ of those sales, is not only a mistake but one of the worst decisions in the history of the MMORPG industry

Mythic Entertainment has turned down a number of opportunities to participate in such ventures, both with the companies that auction these goods, as well as doing it on our own. We remain committed to keeping our games as games and not as opportunities to encourage behavior that runs counter to their spirit of creativity and entertainment. We have no plans to participate in this type of service. We will gladly ‘leave money on the table’ to ensure that whether or not you like our games, that they remain as that, games and not an entertainment version of day-trading

A quick plug, as they deserve it after that! Mythic’s Dark Ages of Camelot, is quite a good game, though I haven’t played it in a while. Certainly, if you’re not wanting to stick around with SOEbay, and want something to do while waiting for Vangard, it might be worth your time checking it out.

A man goes to a casino. He exchanges dollars for chips at the entrance, and heads in. While there he plays a variety of games where the results are randomly determined, gaining and losing chips as he goes. When he is done, he exchanges his chips back for real money, and heads away, richer or (rather more likely) poorer.

A man loads up Everquest 2. He buys some plat with dollars, and heads out into Norrath. While there he slays many beasts, where the reward for doing so is randomly determined. When he is through, he sells his plat and loot for real money, and logs out, richer or poorer.

Does Station Exchange Everquest 2 count as gambling? I must admit, I cannot think of a good argument as to why it does not. I am aware that gambling laws in the US vary wildly from state to state, but I think most of them are somewhat unhappy with allowing minors to gamble. They also quite like to tax it.

For instance, Tennessee law states that “a person commits an offense who knowingly engages in gambling,”defined as “risking anything of value for a profit whose return is to any degree contingent on chance,”(From here). Can that definition ever fit in any possible permitted usage of Station Exchange? If it does, it’s illegal to even sell Everquest 2 in Tennessee.

We all know people who are addicted to Everquest 2, and many of us also know people addicted to gambling, I can’t help thinking that this is a truly undesirable merger of the two. For every one of Moorgard’s college students putting themselves through college, there might be someone who neglects themselves and their children.

In the past, while Everquest addiction was certainly not rare, SOE itself did not profit more from addicted players than non (or maybe less) adicted players. Now they will, and I find that deeply troubling.

Though perhaps I’m drawing parallels with the wrong sort of addiction. Will it be long before someone turns to real life crime in order to fund their plat habit? We’ve already had our first MMORPG-related murder.

So much of the distaste expressed for this service has been because some insist that all it does is enable the botters, the farmers, the slimeballs. That all Station Exchange does is make cheating legal, and that SOE is somehow saying cheating is okay as long as we profit from it. But life isn’t that simple, and neither is this issue.

I don’t know how many of you have been in a situation where you’ve known somebody who has sold an account for cash. I have. Many times, in fact. I was in a high-level guild in EQ for years, and most players who have spent any time in that kind of environment know someone who has bought or sold an account. I’ve had guildmates that I played alongside, adventured with, and whose characters I’ve helped equip sell those characters to other people. Sometimes that fact angered me, in the few cases when it was someone saying “Screw you guys, I’m cashing in.” Other times, there were people I really cared about who couldn’t play anymore and needed cash for real-life emergencies, and they needed the money they knew those characters were worth. Was I happy about it? No. But I could understand it, and I didn’t lose respect for those people as a result of the choice they made.

Likewise, there were times when we found out that someone who applied to our guild was playing a character they had purchased. Most of the time we wouldn’t consider those applications, but if it was someone we knew had played the game before and decided to return, or if they were a good player who had decided to switch to a different class and thus bought a character, we sometimes let them join. After all, the person who bought a high-level character isn’t necessarily less skilled at playing another class than the player who twinks an alt and has their friends powerlevel it.

When I think of an auction service, these are the kinds of issues that hit home for me, because I’ve lived through them. This service isn’t all about botters and farmers; it’s also about real people who have to leave the game for personal reasons or who simply want to get a leg up in a complex kind of game.

I’ve made a number of posts about this subject, because there has been a lot of misinformation and assumptions made that I don’t think are entirely fair. But you’ll notice that in none of my posts have I tried to convert anyone to use this service. I wouldn’t use it myself, and I would have no interest in playing on an Exchange server personally. But to simply paint Exchange as nothing more than a sweatshop enabler simply isn’t true. There are real people who want to sell the right to use the characters or things they’ve justly acquired to other real people willing to buy them. Is it right from a purist gaming standpoint? I’m not saying it is or isn’t. But I’m saying it’s a reality that you can’t ignore, and the thing that Station Exchange does is to provide a safe place where it’s okay for those two honest people to do what they want to do in a safe and secure way. And I’m being completely honest when I say that I don’t see that as a bad thing.

- Moorgard

There’s so much in this post, I’ll probably be nibbling at it for the rest of the day.

1. Moorgard admits to being aware of account/plat selling, and doing nothing about it. So much for SOE’s enforcement of the rules. Assuming such enforcement happens, you needn’t worry if you’re in Moorgard’s guild, I’m sure.

2. Recent dev posts have been liberally sprinkled with college students paying their way through college, and people with real life problems. This is so that anyone critising Exchange can be characterised as lacking compassion. Where were all these people before Station Exchange could make a profit off them? Will people with Real-life emergencies who sell on non-exchange servers still be banned? Is it right that Exchange is extracting a cut from such people on Exchange servers? Should we even be charging them monthly fees?

3. People who “simply want to get a leg up in a complex kind of game.” over the other players. Sometimes called cheats and exploiters. Remind me, why are we banning exploiters anyway? They’re just regular folks, *sniff*. Bobby needs his speed hack to keep up with all the compentent players. Oh the humanity!

I think Moorgard must be emotionally exhausted. They’ve wheeled Brenlo out.

It’s a game not a morality lesson. It is no more immoral than buying a hammer instead of making your own or buying corn rather than growing your own. It is no more immoral than house rules in Monopoly or house words in Scrabble.

And let’s please stop the labeling of anyone who says this isn’t so bad as a plat farmer or a character seller it really diminishes all of the cogent and well thought out discussion. This is not the McCarthy hearings, it is a game.

- Brenlo

Getting a tidgy bit defensive there. “Are you, or have you ever been, a capitalist?”

Buyers and sellers remain completely anonymous. No Station name, forum name, email, or anything else is surfaced anywhere public.

-the mysterious Hammerfel

And I wonder why? IGE is only anonymous because it’s trade is illicit. Ebay is not anonymous.Without names, all the items and money appearing for sale could have been put up for sale by our worst foe, the servers most notorious bot-team, or simply spirited out of the ether.

Developing…

It’s a fait accompli. The press release is out, the website up. It’s going to happen no matter what.

In the past week, one of the things that has hit me most, is how much the devs and mods are sounding like lawyers these days. Sadly, I don’t mean in their cultured use of Latin, but in their use of obfuscatory ambiguous speech, and their unwillingness to answer the tough questions. As Guk-gate has shown us, they seem to have received training in making statements which say one thing, while leaving sufficient wiggle room to backtrack later. When that’s not possible, they say nothing. So there’s not really much of interest to report on the last days Dev posts.

Hmm, except Mr Smedley thinks it’s a lot like selling trading cards. (He rather splendidly uses the rhetorical trick of “Describe the exception, not the rule” there. He also reminds me why I stopped playing Magic. I couldn’t afford it.)

As for the “vote” on how many servers get exchange? My vote is to call in United Nations election monitors. They’ve already done their sums as to how many servers should change, in order to maximise profits.

There is only one way SOE can prove to me that I’m wrong. (Well, two ways, but canceling SOE Exchange isn’t going to happen.)

If Exchange is really coming in for the good of the players, make it free. You don’t need to charge a fee. You don’t need a percentage. And removing the overheads on the the player would truly let Exchange put IGE out of business on Exchange servers, rather than just creating competition which they can and will undercut.

If Exchange was free, we would not have to worry that any changes in the game were to facilitate the greater flow of money and goods through the Exchange system. Yes you deny that will happen. We don’t believe you any more.

If it’s free, there won’t be any pressure to apply it to servers which do not desire it. We would be more inclined to believe the vote count.

Meanwhile, I found a bizarrely prescient comment over at Lum’s. Either TPRJones is the new Nostradamus, he should read his non-disclosure agreements more carefully, or he should sue SOE for nicking not only his ideas but his terminology. Was that post the birth of Station Exchange?

A tense moment at the Sony World Chess Championships

You probably already read this and this. The short summary is that SOE is going to let players sell plat, items and characters, provided they get a kickback.

This attractive model* could be yours for just $500 dollars!
*Hat not included

There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home! There’s no place like home!

*yawn* I had such a strange dream. You were there Malth. And you Tyron. And you Smedley. Smedley?!? Aaaaaaaaaah!

Meanwhile, over at Scotland Yard:

As you know, catching people handling stolen goods is quite tricky. Did you know 40% of our time is spent chasing such activities? We’ve thought long and hard, and decided that’s it’s a bit unfair on thieves who get caught when so many others get away scot free. We also know that many members of the public enjoy the low low prices that only stolen goods can offer. So we’ve decided to legalise it for everyone! The same goes for muggers, providing they pay their bribes on time. A nominal fee, plus a percentage should do it.

- Chief Inspector Smedley of the Yard

This service will be offered only to US players at this time. SOE will be looking to expand Station Exchange to the rest of the world in the future.

So to add insult to injury, only US players can legally have this advantage. If you live outside the US, and seek the same advantages, well you’re going to get hit with the banstick. You can expect that SOE will agressively defend its monopoly on in-game sales. This is massively discriminatory against non-US players. Combined with the built in discrimination against the poor, that leaves us with a change that only benefits rich US players.

I truly truly swear they’re trying to drive every decent person out of Norrath. Speaking for myself, I have been shaken by this news, far more so than I was at being lied to over Frogloks.

When it becomes simple to exchange game money for real money, everything within the game suddenly acquires an explicit real cash value. Need before greed will become history, as everyone will see every item as something of worth to them. Sharing with guildmates, and helping out younglings will become much rarer. In short, Norrath will become a greedier more selfish place, where every action has it’s price.

It wouldn’t be quite so bad if SOE wasn’t taking a cut, but the fact that they are changes everything. There is a lot they can do to subtley encourage the buying of platinum. Increasing the number of money-sinks in the game for instance. Even though money-sinks are needed, now whenever they add one, I’ll think of all the extra revenue it will net them. They have said that they won’t change the in-game economy to favour platinum and item buying, but I’m afraid I just don’t believe them after the last week.

And how do you know that that platinum for sale was offered by another player? It would be very profitable for SOE to put items and plat up for sale themselves. It is the natural progression of the line of reasoning which Mr Smedley appears to be folowing.

Existing servers will only become exchange enabled if the population votes for it. But the votes are being counted by an interested party. Are we really supposed to believe that even if every server has a majority “no” vote, that no servers will be converted? And even if it is done honestly will that be the final word, or will there be another vote every so often until they get the result they want? Given that the voting is to be done on a “one vote per account” basis, doesn’t that tilt the results in the favour of botters, hydras, and other people that don’t necessarily represent the majority of players, even if they might be the majority of accounts?

It’s such a bad idea, even Moorgard’s old website, Mobhunter, thinks it’s a bad idea.

Less surprisingly, EQ Vault’s staff think it sounds “fun”. I look forward to a hard-hitting “Ask SOE” on the subject.

I feel sufficiently strongly about this that I’ve cancelled my account. Chances are, in the absence of something I’d rather play, I’ll pick it back up when my current playtime expires, but at least for the time being it’ll add to the stack of permanent cancellers and give SOE more to think about. That is unless their calculations show that they’ll make more money from Exchange, than they’ll lose from subscription loss. In which case we’re screwed.