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That Which Is Ours |
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| Aluvians | Event Teaser - From the AC Insider There was a sharp crack as her mace struck the carapace of the Olthoi and the creature fell to one knee. As it struggled to regain its footing, Madison raised her mace to strike the Olthoi's skull. It was unable to deflect the blow with its pincers, and her mace shattered the creature's exoskeleton. The insect let out a dying wail and ceased its struggle. Her companion, Gruvlin, glanced over from the creature he was busily looting. "Did you ever think you'd see it?" he asked. She and Gruvlin had been dispatched by the High Queen to determine if the rumors trickling in of creature migrations were true. The number of Olthoi they'd encountered was all the proof Madison needed that at least some of the tales were true. Yet the question of why remained unanswered. "No," Madison said wearily, her voice laden with weight. In every direction she heard chittering and saw the claws of Olthoi. "This makes no sense, Gruvlin." "Sense or no, it's true." Gruvlin smiled as he held up a necklace fitted with a bright fire opal. He thrust the necklace into a pack, reached down to the corpse again, and pulled a key from the gullet of the creature. After wiping it clean of ichor, he clipped it to a ring he pulled from his pack. He slowly stood and said, "Let's continue our patrol." ***** "A raid?" Marvus gripped the strap of his shield tighter. "Good, let them come! We shall spill their blood on the field of battle this day." He snickered. "The Chorus of Mages remains unaware of our new armaments. They shall at last feel the bite of my blade whilst I wade through their hail of summoned fire and acid." ***** As he stroked his beard, Asheron continued, "You see Ciandra, this island was once a place of rest for the ruling Yalain, although it was already steeped in history and shrouded in a great number of mysteries that your people are still discovering." Asheron had arrived at the Temple of Forgetfulness the day before and had asked Ciandra to show him around. He was quizzical and jovial, more so than the last time she had seen him. Now, as he poked into the corners and inhaled the air heavy with pollen, it almost seemed to her that a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "It's been centuries since I have seen this place. Little has changed, other than the baths are shallower and the steam vents are filled with the former caretakers-turned-assailants." He paused for a moment, and turned toward her. "Some day, I mean to gather as many golems as I can and fix them." Then a wry smile crossed his face. "Though there are other concerns, I suppose." He then turned to one of the bookcases on the wall. "Ah, the memories of this place. I don't believe that we ever found the source of the magic here. We of course had our speculations, but nothing was ever discovered. These fountains would rejuvenate my race. We'd feel younger from being here for but a few moments, as if we were bathed in the potency of the very thing that created all that there is." He turned to Ciandra once more. "I wouldn't be surprised if your discoveries here have begun a process that will open your bodies and minds to greater knowledge and ability." His eyes turned, and he seemed to be looking into the distance. "Of course, there is never anything that does not come at a price. I wonder what that price will be." ***** Aerbax's thoughts appeared in the mind of the Master. "Now, subject, you shall be exposed to the source of energy for a period of time. If all goes well, you shall be enhanced as Puppets before you have been. Are you prepared?" The Master's affirmative response was quick in coming. "Puppet, let the exposure begin," Aerbax commanded. The floating slab inched closer and closer to the inky darkness floating in one corner of the room until finally thin wisps of pure black stabbed out of the darkness. The wisps infiltrated the Master's cloak, and Aerbax could see the violet color of the cloak change. As the color shifted to deep maroon and then to the bluish purple of midnight, a shrill squeal tore through the room. Finally the squeal stopped, and Puppet pulled the slab back from the darkness and released the subject. Aerbax nodded in satisfaction. Another success. February Dev Notes - From the AC Insider That Which is Ours Not all that happens in Dereth shakes the world, but even small events can leave mysteries behind them. One such begins in the town of Rithwic… Delton Hardor was surprised by Tamian's sudden interest in challenging him to combat, even if that combat was only with wooden practice swords. Tamian had never shown interest in swordplay or combat before. Nor, in Delton's opinion had Tamian ever shown interest in anything that benefited the community. He did not hunt, did not farm, did not craft items of utility, and certainly did not help defend Rithwic, even from the Drudges. The look on Astara's face seemed to imply she thought his behavior was strange as well. Although his grip on the wooden sword was unsure, Tamian seemed more determined than Delton had ever seen him. Curious to see how he would react, Delton allowed Tamian the first attack. After Delton easily parried his thrust, Tamian hesitated, almost as if he realized how out of place he was. Then the hesitation passed and Tamian swung at Delton's legs. Delton parried this one as easily as the first. "Honestly," Delton thought as he moved in closer to Tamian. "Tamian handles that sword like a farmer swinging a hoe." Delton delivered a swift blow to Tamian's sword arm, throwing him off balance and spinning him around. He followed this with a blow to Tamian's backside. Delton could not help but laugh at how ridiculous all this was. Did Tamian actually think he stood a chance? Tamian's face turned red. He leaped at Delton, swinging wildly. Delton's well-practiced parries blocked the blows, and he swatted Tamian again and again. This worthless cur would learn a lesson today. Listed below are the changes introduced in our February event. We've spelled out specifc changes to game functionality and existing content, but the details on new content are up to you to discover! Speak to town criers, barkeeps, and scribes for the latest happenings in Dereth. For more information on this month's event, please see this month's Letter to the Players. Please submit any bugs you come across to http://bugs.zone.com. New Functionality and Content
Miscellaneous Improvements and Changes
Minor Details
February Letter to the Players - From the AC Insider Welcome to the February edition of the Asheron's Call Letter to the Players. The AC Live team has been extremely busy this past month, and February will bring some interesting changes to Dereth. Monster Redistribution We strongly recommend logging out in a safe area before the February prop-and by "safe," we don't mean your favorite muling spot in the Dires!-Try inside your house or a city. This is going be a multi-prop process; this month you'll see monsters redistributed, and next month they will be going through a rebalancing phase. Housing Issues In addition, this month we have made several small changes that should help the owners of houses with duplicated hooks or storage resolve their situations more easily. Starting with the February update, duplicated housing objects will attempt to synchronize with the house that owns them so that when the house is loaded, the duplicate object has the current owner information. This will fix the problem in which a new owner does not have access to hooks or storage duplicated before he or she purchased the house. It is important that you can access any duplicated housing objects in order to clean them out. Starting in February, duplicated objects will automatically delete themselves, but only if they are empty. The February event will also see some new code that better synchronizes the number of hooks that you have in use at any one time. A few months ago we released information on how to determine if you had duplicate hooks and storage in your house. That information is now obsolete. The information below explains how to tell if you have duplicate housing objects and what you can do if your housing objects have been duplicated. How do I tell if I have duplicated hooks/chests? You can determine if you have duplicated housing objects by using the [ and ] keys on your keyboard to select the items near you. If you have two or more storage chests, for instance, you will be able to flip between both chests using the [ and ] keys, even though you can only see one chest and select one chest with the mouse. Once you have selected one of the duplicated housing objects with the keyboard, use the R key to open the object so that you can remove the contents. How do I get rid of the duplicated hooks/chests? Once you have identified a duplicated hook or chest, empty both instances. When you empty the "fake" copy of the hook/chest, you will see a message explaining that the hook/chest was a duplicate and that it will now be deleted. The hook or chest will disappear a few seconds later. Please note that the duplicated hook/chest will NOT disappear until it is empty, so you must remove all objects-including empty backpacks-from the chest. Once the duplicate hook/chest has disappeared, it will be safe once again to use the "real" instance of your hook or chest that remains. What if I'm not around when my hooks and storage duplicate? Will I lose everything? The primary risk of item loss from duplicated housing objects occurs when you are transferring items to and from your hooks or storage, since you may unknowingly place an item in a duplicated storage object. As a result of the February fix, you can no longer add items to a duplicated hook or chest-if you attempt to do so, you will see a message explaining that this is a duplicated object and that you should empty it immediately. So the risk of losing items due to duplicated housing objects is very small. A special note for villa owners: One model of villa has two hooks located in the same place (in the corner of the room that contains the portal into the dungeon). This is not actually a duplicated hook situation; both of these hooks are legitimate hooks correctly linked to your house. Therefore, one of these hooks will not delete itself when empty. Because these two hooks overlap, there is some potential for strange interactions between the physics of hooked objects. Therefore, we recommend that you only use one of these hooks at a time. Changes to the Queen's Quest That's it for the big changes in February. Of course, that's not all that we have in store for you in the future, but for further updates on content, you'll just have to wait and see… As always, enjoy the game, and thank you for playing Asheron's Call. -The Asheron's Call Team Monster Rebalacing FAQ - From the Community Boards 1) Why rebalance monsters? The Asheron's Call Newsletter - February 20003
Welcome to the Annals of Dereth, the newsletter for the Asheron's Call online role-playing game! We bring you this bulletin every month to give you a wide view on Dereth's evolving community, events, and features. 1 -- FEBRUARY TEASER - THAT WHICH IS OURS There was a sharp crack as her mace
struck the carapace of the Olthoi and the creature fell to one knee. As it
struggled to regain its footing, Madison raised her mace to strike the
Olthoi's skull. It was unable to deflect the
blow with its pincers, and her mace shattered the creature's exoskeleton.
The insect let out a dying wail and ceased
its struggle... 2 -- LETTER TO THE PLAYERS Have you ever seen a Snowy Mattekar in the middle of
the desert? Or a swamp-dwelling Mosswart
hanging out in the snow on a tall mountain? Well,
when the Virindi story arc ended, the creatures of Dereth went through a
shift from their old homes to new ones based off of a more consistent level
structure. While this created more definable areas for players to hunt in,
it also placed creatures in previously non-native areas. For February, we
are revamping the monster generators to create hunting areas that are based
on a more consistent leveling structure but adhere to the history,
background and nature of the creatures that will be used in these areas. 3 -- FEBRUARY DEV NOTES Listed in the Dev Notes are the changes
introduced in our February event. We've spelled out specifc changes to game
functionality and existing content, but the details on new content are up to
you to discover! Speak to town criers, barkeeps, and scribes for the latest
happenings in Dereth. 4 -- HALL OF SHAME The AC "Hall of Shame" has been updated with the
names of some particularly naughty avatars. 5 -- YOUR HOME FOR AC NEWS Current AC1 news has moved to some new pages. Please take note of our new State of the Network, State of the Code and Event News pages. We also have an official, moderated message board. See you there! SEND THIS NEWSLETTER TO A FRIEND, AND LET THEM KNOW TO: PLAY IT ON THE ZONE!6 -- TROUBLESHOOTING
If you have any problems with Asheron's Call or the
Zone, check out our Troubleshooters and Frequently Asked Questions and find
the answer to your problems there. You registered to receive this newsletter on the MSN Gaming Zone. To unsubscribe, do the following: 1. Go to MSN Newsletters:http://g.msn.com/0NL33946/117 2. Log in with your Zone ID (not your AC character name) and password. 3. Uncheck the box that's labeled "Send me the Asheron's Call newsletter every month to: (your e-mail address)." THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication. Because Microsoft must respond to change in market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft and Microsoft cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication. INFORMATION PROVIDED IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED 'AS IS' WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND FREEDOM FROM INFRINGEMENT. The user assumes the entire risk as to the accuracy and the use of this document. This document may be copied and distributed subject to the following conditions: 1. All text must be copied without modification and all pages must be included 2. All copies must contain Microsoft's copyright notice and any other notices provided therein 3. This document may not be distributed for profit. c2000 Microsoft, Inc. |
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