Weekly Development Activities
August 30, 2006
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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