The Dragon's Vault

Release Notes Module 1

This
update contains the first content update to DDO, the Dragon's Vault
Module! Can you gain access to the impenetrable Vault of Night?

• Fight in the notorious Tharashk Arena, defeating all other
  combatants to survive.
• Explore the most dangerous prison of all – that of a mind locked
  in torment, in The Prison of the Mind.
• Discover the hideous secret that has ruined the Haywire Foundry.
• Delve into the subterranean depths of the Jungles of Khyber.
• After
  you've conquered all four of those dungeons, the most challenging and
  compelling dungeon experience of all awaits you – the Vault of Night,
  as you face the full array of Kundarak magic and tricks meant to keep
  you out…or kill you.
• If you somehow manage to defeat the Vault of Night, you can earn
  your rich rewards…there remains just one last obstacle…

In addition to the Dragon's Vault chain of quests, there is even more
great content to explore!

• Fight against the first vampire boss in DDO…you'll love this
  challenge.
• Stop a planar invasion in “The Xorian Cipher”
• Explore the immense demesne of the Arzag-Khor…can you acquire the
  Tear of Dhakaan?
• Stop the nefarious plans of the Grave Robber
• Can you uncover all the secrets of Stromvauld's Mine?
• Will you aid the Bounty Hunter and bring down an infamous
  assassin?
• And more!

We've
opened the gates to Kobold Island: a fun and replayable landscape
experience for new players still getting a feel for what their
characters can do in combat.



Changes and fixes to the game include:

• Founders
  commemoration! Check the fountain in Aspirants square to view the
  earliest guilds to arrive in Stormreach and explore the dangers of
  Xen'drik!
• Weapon Sets shortcuts are now in! You can now set up
  a single item shortcut to point to both a main weapon and off-hand
  item. So, for example, you can now equip two daggers, or a sword and a
  shield – all with one shortcut.
  • Drag two different items into
    the “weapon sets” panel in your inventory panel to create a single
    shortcut for two items. Now use that shortcut in your shortcut bar to
    equip the two items.
• Collectibles – Most
  collectible descriptions now tell you not only which collector wants
  that item, but also how many copies of that item they desire (i.e.
  “Goldscuttle desires at least 3 Prayer Beads.")
• When you
  attempt to delete a character, you will now get a confirmation dialog
  that asks you to type in the character's first name before it will
  allow you to delete the character. This should help prevent accidental
  deletion of your favorite characters.
• Potion and Scroll icons
  all now have a mini-spell icon in their upper left corner (just like
  wands) to help identify what spell the item casts. Say goodbye to the
  “I have ten different potions and all of them are blue!” problem.

Performance

• Players should no longer receive falling damage when they are
  simply walking along minding their own business.
• The number of people allowed in each tavern instance has been
  lowered to help performance within taverns.
• We
  have implemented another batch of changes that should help players who
  are experiencing rubberbanding and “glued to spot” issues.
• A
  new tab has been added to the Options Panel, the "Troubleshoot" tab,
  which contains several new options to help tweak game performance.
  These options should help players who are trying to improve their
  dialup experience or players whose video cards are overheating.
  • The trouble shoot UI adds the connection speed setting
    instead of needing to set it in the userpreferences.ini
  • It additionally adds two methods of slowing down graphics for
    systems having graphics issues
• A number of graphics related crashes have been resolved.
• Update to timing code to better handle Dual Core, HT and dynamic
  overclocking setups.
• Network latency now properly measures round trip times, instead
  of one way.
• We
  have implemented another batch of changes that should help with dialup
  performance. If you are a dial-up user, we would appreciate your
  feedback on connectivity performance after the update.

UI Improvements

• The /roll command now simulates dice-rolling and broadcasts
  results to the Party.
• The shop UI now plays a sound when buying or selling an item.
• Chat improvements
  • The enter key will now correctly activate the chat text entry
    field.
  • There is a new (and louder) sound when you receive a tell.
  • Setting
    your outgoing message type to "guild" will no longer generate the error
    "no such command." You will also now be able to correctly chat with
    your guild while on the guild chat tab.
  • Players should now connect to guild chat more reliably when
    logging into the game.
  • /General chat channel no longer appends an ‘1' to the end of
    the user's name.
• Friends List improvements
  • You now receive a message in chat when one of your friends
    goes online or offline.
  • Friends Lists are now specific to a character, not an account.
  • An
    Invite Button has been added to the Friends UI. Simply open your
    Friends list, target the person you want to party with, and click
    “Invite.”
• The Guild list now properly updates members' online status.
• Pawn shops will now be marked on the map with a distinctive
  marker to make locating them easier.
• The mapnotes for Phiarlan, Kundarak, and Deneith have been
  updated for greater accuracy.
• You will now correctly see your own Voice Chat status icon in the
  party display.
• /squelch command is no longer case sensitive.
• The Mic test will now automatically shut off if you close the
  window.
• Your
  avatar will now face the correct direction upon zone entry after
  teleporting while in mouselook mode. The days of zoning in and finding
  yourself facing some crazy direction are over.
• Magical versions of Light Repeating crossbow and Shuriken now
  have the correct blue magic background for their icons.
• Battle Axes and Falchions now have the correct icons.
• If a player is affected by Slicing Blow they will now see the
  correct alert icon.
• Corrected the icon for the Fire Elemental's “Burning Touch” DoT.

Examination Issues

• Many
  spells should now have their damage ranges and bonus types displayed
  when examined. This is part of an ongoing effort on our part to provide
  more detailed spell descriptions.
• Weapons, Shields, and Armor now display their proficiency
  requirement when examined.
• The descriptions of many items have been improved.
• Certain Immunities (for example elemental damage immunities) now
  show up on your character sheet under Resistances.
• Thrown Weapon Damage bonuses on character sheet should now
  display properly.
• Wands now display durability when examined.
• Shields now display their attack penalty if they have one.
• Several typos have been corrected in spell descriptions.

Combat

• Improved
  Feint now works as an instant AOE bluff, performing bluff checks to all
  nearby targets. Bluffed targets are open to sneak attack attempts.
  Please note that the attack animation for Improved Feint is misleading
  and will be fixed in an upcoming patch.
• Sneak attack bonuses no
  longer apply to glancing blows since a sneak attack is intended to be a
  targeted attack and should not apply to collateral damage.
• You
  can now shield bash if you have a shield and thrown weapon equipped,
  instead of queuing up a thrown attack for when you release the block
  button.
• Some improvements have been made to repeating crossbows.

Quest Mechanics

• Some
  very high-level quests now have a “reset timer” (initially this is just
  the Vault of Night sequence). The quest reset timer will activate once
  the quest sequence is completed. You cannot replay the quest sequence
  until the timer finishes.
  • The timer is indicated in your quest journal.
  • You can use the /quest command to view all active quest reset
    timers.
• The Plane of Night has a new loot mechanic for dividing treasure
  from the dragon. For full details please read href="http://%E2%80%9Dttp://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21903%E2%80%9D"
  target="_blank">this thread
• A few different bugs with Encounter XP have been fixed
  • Higher level encounters are now worth more XP than lower
    level encounters.
  • Certain areas had a bug where their encounters were worth
    zero XP. This has now been fixed.
• If
  you are 5 levels or more below the max level of someone in your Party,
  you will see reduced XP, culminating in potentially zero xp.
• Character files now automatically save after completing a quest
  and earning XP, or after receiving a quest reward.
• Completing
  an adventure while at the XP cap will no longer count towards that
  adventure's repetition count (even if you are carrying a death penalty).

Quests

• Completing
  many of the longer quest sequences now presents you with a unique
  reward selection panel where you can choose from a list of special
  items. Previously only the Waterworks had this type of reward system.
• Several adventure areas have had their treasure tables adjusted
  to be more in-line with their level of difficulty.
• Small changes have been made throughout the world to help prevent
  pathing issues.
• Numerous broken traps and control boxes have been fixed.
• Fixed several false danger alerts (warning of traps that were not
  there etc.).
• Some bugs have been fixed that were preventing certain quests
  from being completed.
• Many quests have had a revamp of some sort. More details will be
  posted tomorrow with the update.

Character Abilities & Spells

• We
  have made improvements to many of the spell effects. Also, many
  player-cast spells now contain inherent lighting (cast a fireball and
  you will see the difference).
• Flaming Sphere and Lightning bolt
  have been changed so that they do more damage. Previously, if monsters
  were standing in a line the spell would hit the monster at the head of
  the line and then stop. Now the spells will travel down the whole line
  of monsters with a chance to do damage to any monster it hits.
• Flesh
  to Stone is now permanent but, like Hold Person, now grants periodic
  saving throws to end the effect. Break Enchantment will still remove
  this status effect. Characters with high Fortitude saving throws will
  find the average duration lower than before. Characters with low
  Fortitude saving throws may hope for some good rolls.
• All
  undead will now properly react to Turn Undead. Turned undead will now
  properly flee in terror from the cleric or paladin that turns them
  rather than cower, rebuked.
• When resting, Warforged should now heal at least one point of
  ability damage, regardless of their repair score.
• The Improved Fortification feat now works correctly.
• Mithral Fluidity now works correctly.
• We
  fixed a bug with Fear where it would hit no target if no target was
  selected. It now correctly has a cone radius for its effect, even with
  no target selected.
• Warforged racial paralysis resistance now correctly applies to
  ghoul and ghast resistance.
• Max range of Feather Fall and Mass Cure spells now is consistent
  with other AoEs.
• Flame Arrow spell will now summon 50 arrows.
• Shaken state no longer prevents spells/skills/feats from being
  used.
• Undead are now immune to Blind.
• Spell Resistance no longer affects your susceptibility to Web.
• Feeblemind now prevents spellcasting.
• If
  you're immune to an effect due to racial or feat immunities, you will
  no longer see an irrelevant saving throw roll, but instead just get the
  immune feedback immediately.
• You now get a save vs. Mindfog.
• Blindness spell is no longer affected by the Extend Metamagic
  feat.
• Neutralize Poison's immunity effect duration has been reduced to
  1 min/level to bring it in line with other immunity effects.
• Hand
  Axes have been added to Dwarven Enhancements involving axes (Axe Attack
  and Axe Damage). This is not noted in the tooltips for these
  enhancements.

Monsters

• Many monsters will now heal and buff themselves and their friends
  more effectively.
• Monsters
  should now react more intelligently to inanimate obstacles that are
  preventing them from moving where they desire, with a greatly increased
  chance of being able to navigate around objects that may have been
  impassable barriers to them before. We have also improved monster
  targeting behavior in doorways and other bottlenecks, as well as their
  behavior landscape and dungeon areas.
• Charmed monsters should attack enemy creatures more reliably.
• Monsters should no longer clump up into a mob when encountered in
  large numbers.
• Kobold
  Shamans no longer cast Bestow Curse when playing dungeons on “Hard”
  difficulty level. However you should be wary of their replacement spell
  - you might actually prefer Bestow Curse.
• The Beholder's Scorching Ray eyebeam now functions properly.
• The
  antimagic cone emitted by beholders now properly strips magical effects
  from those caught in its front arc and prevents spellcasting.
• All elementals are now immune to Vorpal effects.
• All vermin are now vulnerable to Vorpal effects.
• Previously,
  there were several instances in the game where using Command Undead on
  specific undead targets would render the quest uncompletable. These
  powerful undead are now immune to Command Undead.
• Slimes unable
  to reach a target will no longer stand in place waiting to die. They
  will now instinctively retreat if peppered by arrows from an
  unreachable location.
• Golems and animals should no longer occasionally disappear when
  attempting to return to their home locations.
• The Aura of Fear of a Thaarak Hound will no longer scare off
  creatures that are non-hostile to the Hound.
• Spectres that have not entered the world will not prevent players
  from moving through their ghostly selves.
• The
  Guardian of Shan-To-Kor will now enter melee combat more often rather
  than staying at range, and should no longer occasionally stand around
  doing nothing.
• The third scorpion in the Warders defense should now spawn
  correctly.
• Zombies should now disappear properly if they explode.

Items

• When you loot an item from a chest, a message is sent to everyone
  in the Party.
• Banishing effects will now only work on critical hits.
• When
  picking up a Bind on Acquire item that is not reserved (for example, in
  a treasure chest from which only 1 pull for the Party is possible),
  there is a confirmation dialogue box opened. Currently this only
  applies to the Plane of Night.
• Wands found in treasure chests
  now start with a random number of charges instead of fixed number of
  charges. This change does not affect wands purchased from vendors.
• Level 4 Bard components have been added to Arcane Reagent vendors
  in Kundarak and Jorasco.
• Named docents have had their durability increased.
• Previously
  items could be generated from chests that had both a temporary damage
  amplification and an inherent spell effect. This has been corrected and
  all items should now have only one effect or the other.
• Ghost Touch bows now successfully impart their magic to the
  missiles they fire.
• Magical
  Shields no longer add their enhancement bonus to attack and damage
  rolls for the shield, they only apply to your AC bonus per D&D
  rules.
• Tower Shields now correctly cap your max dex bonus.
• Scarabs of Absorption and Spell Resistance items can no longer
  affect your own spells.
• Max stack size for throwing weapons is now 50. Throwing weapons
  loot will still be found in stacks of 20.
• Bolts of “X” Bane costs have been reduced to be in line with
  Arrows of “X” Bane.
• Three
  new weapon effects added to treasure generation system – True Law, True
  Chaos, and Pure Good. Each of these effects gives the weapon an
  additional 1d6 damage versus non-aligned targets, and requires the
  wielder to have that alignment. UMD skill of 20 to bypass the alignment
  requirements.
• Hold Person scrolls can now correctly be scribed by Wizards.
• The Chill Shard Weapon will now function properly.

NPCs

• Lowest level pawnbrokers have been moved to the Marketplace.
• Merchant names are now visible in the Marketplace tent.
• Pawnbrokers have also had their dialogue tweaked to be slightly
  more useful.
• The Harbor weapons vendors now carry Exotic weapons.
• Guard Healfdene will now always allow players to return to the
  Newbie Harbor.
• Steppy
  the Barkeep in Delver's Canteen, Ruins of Threnal will now repair all
  types of equipment. Of course, he has to charge a little more due to
  the difficulty of getting parts out in the wilderness.
• Delera will no longer say "The girl was to be spared!" after all
  her "Return to Delera's Tomb" conversations.
• Hargo
  Kimmare will no longer offer to sell you information twice. Instead he
  will proceed with his story arc if you have completed the first part of
  his quest.

Miscellaneous

• Chests will no longer sparkle after they're opened up.
• Control boxes for traps will now highlight with the normal
  selection FX when selected.
• You can no longer jump much higher that normal while pushing up
  against nearly vertical walls.
• Several new light sources have been added throughout the world.
• If
  you log out while in a dungeon you will now find yourself outside that
  dungeon when you log back in, unless you log back in before the
  instance has reset. If you camped in a dungeon the last time you played
  before this update, the first time you log in your character will
  appear in the harbor.
• Graphics performance while swimming has been improved.
• Dead players will no longer pop glass spider eggs while they're a
  ghost.
• Character generation will now look correct in widescreen mode.
• Fixed several collection points that were incorrectly set to
  reward only one player.
• Fixed many places in the world where players were able to get
  stuck.
• Clicking on the Fountain in Aspirant's Square will no longer
  bring up the Stats Portal UI window.