Updated Fri, Jan 02, 2009 by Dalmarus
Isle of Dawn
The Isle of Dawn was separated from the continent
of Kojan during the cataclysm. A village of battle hardened humans and
a band of zealot hobgoblins have warred against each other for
centuries on the Isle. Their mutual hatred for one another runs deep
and even now they are locked in an ongoing struggle. Recently though,
increasing numbers of ulvari have begun to surface on the island - much
to the dismay of both the humans and the hobgoblins.
Weakened by their perpetual war, the humans aren't able to capably
defend themselves. Even now, their villages burn as they frantically
seek aid. The isle is in desperate need of heroes.
Character Model Revamp
Player character models in Vanguard have undergone
a bit of a revamp. Not only have they been optimized for better
performance but they have been given a new, updated look. The revamped
models are now capable of looking much more heroic and contain a lot
more personality. Worry not though, for those players who don't
necessarily want the heroic look, no customization options have gone
away. In fact, we are reintroducing lots of facial customization as
well.
Class Damage
Updates
We have looked at and modified each class's damage capability, ensuring
that each lands in their correct place in the spectrum of classes. We
have looked at many things, from raid wide damage capacity to the
tank's ability to control aggo, to the weak DPS of some healers and DPS
classes. This was a relatively comprehensive pass to ensure that with
GU6 raid targets are still killable. While the effects of these changes
will primarily be felt at the highest end of the game, we are making
sure that all levels of players are still functional. There has been
extensive testing of these changes on the test server for the past
several weeks and we'd like to thank all those players who have sent in
testing logs - your efforts are greatly appreciated! For a more
comprehensive list of class changes and updates, please read the list
below.
Bug Fixes
In an effort to make the launch of the Isle of Dawn
go as smoothly as possible, the Vanguard development team set aside a
good portion of time this update to fix as many existing bugs as
possible. We are pleased to announce that well over a thousand fixes
are included with this patch. While many of them may not be immediately
noticeable, we've included a more detailed list of those that are below.
Patch Notes
Vanguard Build 2152 Patch Notes 9/09/2008
Anvils should now have a more appropriate icon.
Architect's Apron should no longer drop from blacksmith work orders.
Bordinar's Cleft miner's should be wielding the proper tools now.
Cliffstrider Troll should drop the proper tier harvestable now.
Crafted resource bags should now show up under harvesting container on the exchange.
Carvings of Alacrity will no longer decrease spell haste by 95%. They will instead increase spell haste by 5% as intended.
Healthy Necklaces of Countering have had their stats adjusted so that they actually have Countering bonuses.
Items with the Blessing of Might buff will now correctly give Wisdom when the proc is successful.
Items with the effect Blessing of Might have had more information added to their Equipped Effect's description.
Items with the Gift of Might equipped effect have had the description updated to the correct duration on the ability. It was always 30 seconds, but the description said it only lasted for 20 seconds. Now these match at 30 seconds.
Kojani style Flawless Warding Robes should now display as Robes rather than Tunics.
Dranin Silverbeard should properly display assembly recipes now.
Fixed placement of assembly table in Bordinar's Cleft.
Orc crafting racial should properly give finesse now.
The blacksmith forge in the Tentree's Farmstead has shifted position and should no longer be floating.
The chandelier work order item has had its icon updated.
The harvesting instructor on the Isle of Dawn should no
longer offer an invalid training option.
Apostle's Bladestaff has had its stats adjusted.
Bow of the Hero should now work correctly with ranged attacks.
Brainfreeze is now properly labelled as a focus item.
Carmellia Seeds should now be flagged as quest.
Cloaks of Perfection should have the proper stats now.
Coarse fistwraps should now have the proper icon.
Crude Reinforced Weighted Piercing Shuriken should now properly be labeled as Crude - Reinforced Light Piercing Shuriken.
Crusader's Sword has had its stats adjusted.
Darkblade should now look like a sword.
Darkwood Bow should have the proper classes listed on it now.
Griffon Watch Insignia should no longer cancel the Harmonious Body Stance buff when equipped.
Branch of Mint now stacks up to 20 at a time.
Drape of Coalition should now correctly add damage to all appropriate attacks.
Earthstar Greatmaul appropriately looks like a two-hander now.
Fevered Pauldrons of Ambition has been renamed to Fevered Reinforcements of Ambition. The item has always been a Reinforcement.
Fother's Ancient Port now explains what it will do in the item description.
Fresh Fish now regenerates a proper amount of health and energy.
Hassan's Focal Sword has changed. The proc now triggers for the next attack only.
Hyper-Cloth Cap's description has been changed to reflect the cloak's existing power.
Kormstu's Jeweled Warhammer now looks like a Warhammer instead of a Staff.
Mara's Kiss will now proc appropriately, granting group members within 25 meters the appropriate bonuses.
Meteoric Blade of Rending will now have a red colored name. Previously it was showing up as gray or white.
Numerous items that increased Endurance have had that stat removed. If you find an item that does not require at least level 48 with Endurance on the item, please report it.
Ring of Inhibition's activated ability now works at the same level that is required to equip the item.
Several "Pantaloons" from Ancient Port Warehouse have been renamed to "Kilts" to fit the look of the armor.
The attached effects on Bulky Heart of Fire and Bulky Heart of Regeneration have had their names swapped. The effects have remained the same, but the names have been corrected to match the name of the item that they are on.
The Butcher's Blade can now be equipped with the /wear command.
The Gnomish crystal "Prism of Retaliation" will now buff your party members as was originally intended.
Warbow of Ancient Evil should once again proc at any normal range. The proc will now also generate a message indicating how much life was drained.
Xenocite Cloaking Bracelet has had its cooldown added to the item description. The cooldown on the item has been reduced from 25 minutes to 20 minutes.
Anhak's Right Wing has had its reuse timer lowered from 15 minutes to 2 minutes. The item claimed to enable your next spell as instant cast, but it never did. The description is updated to read that it lowers your next spell's cast time by 30%.
Tiny Roseberries have had a refresh timer added to their description. There was already a 60 second refresh, but now the description says so.
Siren's Kiss Darts should only have one description now.
Priest's Knuckle now has stats.
Tattered Mystic Robe should now have the proper icon.
The description for the item "Zewg's Shield" is now fixed.
The item "Ancient Glory" should no longer be equippable as a cloak.
The item "Blessed Lumber" had a typo in its description fixed.
The item "Card of the Skawlra" has had a typo fixed in its name.
The item "Channeler Robe" now has the correct icon.
The item "Crossbow of the Redcaps" now has a sell price.
The item "Fae Dust Robe" now has the correct icon.
The item "Precision Throwing Hammer" should now have its name spelled correctly.
The item "Robe of Desert Suns" now has the correct icon.
Xenocite Cape: The reuse timer has been set to 20 min.
Lokke's Blade of Malice: The Lesser Rage of Ghalnn ability has been fixed, as it never worked before. In addition, this effect has been modified to only work on targets level 50 and below.
Lokke's Greataxe of Hatred: The Lesser Rage of Ghalnn ability has been fixed, as it never worked before. In addition, this effect has been modified to only work on targets level 50 and below.
Broker time limit on items added. Initial time will be 14 days changeable by design.
All Markets combined into one.
Market cap increased to 50 items.
Markets will be reset on patch day or when code gets patched for internal servers.
Time left on a market item will be displayed in short time format on the broker window.
Items that expire will still show up in your item list saying expired. You will have 7 days to relist the item. After that it will be returned through game mail.
A number of options have been removed to help simplify and consolidate the settings interface. The reason for the change was to remove the clutter and to remove settings that were not totally functional or where the settings could hurt the players performance. Most if not all of these settings can still be manually modified in the VGClient.ini but we strongly recommend not changing them.
It is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that players reset their settings by clicking on the defaults option when they first login and then customize them from there.
Added a new Character tab to the settings window that contains character related settings.
Targets target will now always be on by default
Group target symbols will now always be on by default.
Hitting cancel will no longer cause your video device to reset.
The audio distance slider will now save properly.
The setting for Clip Plane now shows in meters instead of centimeters.
Added Offensive Target Windows options.
Fixed numerous incorrect or missing tooltips to the windows settings.
The patcher will now patch down pre-compiled shaders. The client will no longer attempt to compile your shaders at start up.
Additional memory leak fixes at the DirectX level.
Fixed a significant memory leak from Alt+Tabbing
More general memory leak fixes.
The majority of objects will now fade in when they become viewable instead of popping in.
Chat bubbles: When a player switches from 1st person to 3rd person view, their last spoken chat bubble will no longer pop up and display even if they said it minutes ago. Chat bubble timing will now start when the bubble is created, rather than upon first render of the bubble.
Fixed an issue where the min. range on some abilities would show negative numbers on the tooltip.
Fixed an issue where some NPC dialogs would have text in them. They should now properly show the players name.
Fixed an issue where the character sheet was showing the wrong tooltip for the primary harvesting skill.
Unique items can once again be removed from the bank.
Tutorial popups no longer popup in the middle of the screen. They are now displayed as a list of exclamation points.
Fixed an issue with the Pickpocket tooltip not displaying.
Ships will now properly despawn when you sail into a no boat area. This is mainly in the Skawlra Rock area.
The character sheet no longer has a place for your character portrait. The inventory slots have been centered in the UI window. You can still drop items anywhere on the character sheet and have it auto-equip them.
Selling an item to a merchant that is for a quest will now properly update the quest window.
The description for Harvesting Packs has been fixed to show the correct bag type and container size.
Fixed an issue at character select where if you deleted all of your characters, the first slot sometimes would have a phantom character in it.
Unique Items like the Body Bag created through assembly now check to see if the player already has that item before finishing the recipe.
Having multiple stacks of an item will no longer prevent that item from being assembled or resulting in the wrong item being assembled.
Fixed an issue where players were able to get their flying mount in an un-flyable state.
Fixed an issue where players could fall to their deaths when crossing a chunk line.
Player torches now turn off when returning to character select.
Fixed an issue with the required level on ammo cases being displayed wrong.
When using an ability that takes ammo, it will now always come from the container before looking in the range slot.
Fixed an issue where players would sink into the ground when they die on a mount.
Fixed an issue where a player would no longer levitate after crossing a chunk line.
Fixed an issue with the NPC Frazik not properly completing his script.
Merchant prices are now displayed on all items without going to a merchant.
Shadow Step: You can now open combat with this ability.
Fixed an exploit where you could AE unattackable NPCs.
Fixed an issue where casting Necropsy on an already looted harvestable NPC resulted in a level 1 loot.
Ability hotkeys will now automatically be upgraded when you train a higher level version of the ability.
Fixed an issue where hotkeys would not always appear on your main bar when training a new ability (if there was room).
Fix for an issue where training a new ability would sometimes replace a hotkey that had already been deleted erroneously.
Raise the death penalty level to 11.
Added "This item cannot be deconstructed" to all items that cannot be deconstructed.
There will no longer be a 3 sec delay before a corpse with no items becomes harvestable.
Fixed an issue where when harvesting in a group and someone killed an NPC, harvesting would end.
Players can now toggle "Anonymous" status by typing "/anon"
AFK status now properly resets when logging in and out.
Character customizations have been re-added.
All male characters now have the options of being bald.
Character models can no longer have their textures set to lowest setting.
Added Head and Body buttons which changes the camera angle when customizing a character.
Fixed an issue where customization settings were not properly saving if they were set to the far left.
