Weekly Development Activities

August 30, 2006

Check out the latest updates to the "Weekly Development Activities."
The goal for this feature is to give solid expectations on what you can
expect to see in future updates.



In QA

These items are in QA and should be a part of the next scheduled update
- Stormreach Under Siege.



Monsters

• Dead mummies will no longer cause despair.
• Charmed mummies will no longer cause despair in allied players.
• The Warrior of the Six is now correctly tagged as Neutral Evil.

Items

• NEW - The new brigandine armor
  introduced in the Twilight Forge Module will now appear properly on
  Drow.

Quests

• Gwylan's Stand
  
  • An influx of foolish
    adventurers into the area surrounding Gwylan's Stand has allowed the
    various monsters in the area to accumulate a little more treasure.
    
• Necropolis
  • Bloody Crypt
    
    • The Lich is now the Black Abbot and not a generic lich.
    • Using the levers to open the east and west wings will
      correctly report that you used a lever, and not a book.
      
    • Salasso now wears the correct robe.
  • Bloody Crypt Junction
    
    • Using the waypoint to the burning heart will correctly
      place you at the side entrance room.
    • You can now see Brother Salasso at work on the Heretical
      Path from the junction.
      
  • Graveyard
    • Julia has outfitted her tavern with new tables and
      glassware.
    • The tavern now has a mapnote.
    • Kai-Teng and Dame Calla have unpacked many of their books
      and papers.
  • Tomb of the Burning Heart
    
    • Fixed several untargettable sarcophagi.
      
    • Fixed a group of inactive wights.
  • Tomb of the Crimson Heart
    
    • Several undead will no longer spawn on a wall.
      
  • Tomb of the Immortal Heart
    
    • Only one of each book will spawn.
      
    • Hell Hounds and Earth Elementals will no longer respawn.
  • Tomb of the Sanguine Heart
    
    • Fixed a broken trap.

Under Development

These items are currently in development and are scheduled for some
time after the next update (most likely Module 3).



Performance

• NEW - The landscape
  renderer has been overhauled to provide better performance (especially
  load times). In addition, the new landscape engine enables huge draw
  distances that were not possible before.
• NEW - The overall frame rate has been
  improved and ‘hitching' reduced.
• NEW
  - Avatars and monsters are now a bit brighter than other objects (the
  intensity depends upon the environment and lighting conditions).
• Overall
  bandwidth of the game will be reduced another 1-3%, and certain
  problematic dungeons and laggy areas will be significantly improved by
  20-50% (when your client gets flooded with information about objects in
  your local area).

General

• NEW - Phantasmal killer is now a fear
  effect.
• Players will no longer get stuck while dismounting from ladders.
• We are pleased to announce the addition of the /showhelmet |="" off=""> command which can be used to hide your helmet graphic.
• We
  are improving the combat/damage feedback mechanism. This will not only
  eliminate "false" hits where the target would flinch but no attack roll
  would take place, but also give better feedback as to the strength of
  the hit.
• NEW - When you successfully swap a
  spell, you will now get an alert telling you that it worked.
• NEW - Lava Cam! When your camera is in
  lava, it now looks more like it's in lava, as opposed to water.
• NEW
  - Made some small tweaks to our avatar animations. For example, human
  female's wrists won't twist in the dual weapon combo attack, dwarven
  arms won't over-extend when they use an axe to cleave, etc.

Monsters

• NEW - Several bow
  wielding enemies will now shoot various energy arrows like flaming
  arrows or cold arrows. These will do the typical piercing damage (1d6
  and up) in addition to various amounts of energy damage.
• Widow type spiders will once again shoot functional webs.
• Elemental Empathy will work properly on Earth Elementals that
  have used their Earthgrab ability.
• NEW - Female humanoid villains will no
  longer charge into melee range if armed with spells or bows.
• We
  are fixing an issue with the death animations of Arcane Skeletons. They
  will no longer "eat collectables" they should be creating.

Skills & Abilities

• NEW -
  Bards can now activate their singing abilities while moving! The
  activation time on their singing abilities has been reduced
  significantly as well. An animation glitch has also been fixed!
• NEW
  - The description for the Paladin's Lay on Hands ability has been
  corrected to better describe the amount of healing/damage that the
  ability does.

To discuss the weekly development activities visit the official target="_blank" href="http://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=47816">DDO
Forums