NS4 Change Log

[Apokriphos]

A soul can bear the anguish of the void for only so long. Eventually it must be guided to its point of origin, forcefully or otherwise, for that is the way of Aetheria.


-Players will automatically be respawned if they wait dead for too long. If a minute after being forcerespawned, you still remain inactive (not resting, buffing, or attacking) you will be booted as well.


The conditions work like this:

A random amount of time (between 3 & 12 minutes) until forced respawn if you died with a relic in pvp.
Being in the presence of such a powerful item shortens the time your soul can linger.

20 minutes until forced respawn if you died in pvp.

45 minutes until forced respawn if you died in pve, except when dying from pve in faction territories. Then its 30 min.

Logging in and out will not reset your timer. Only being raised by a spell, scroll, DM blessing, or respawning, forcefully or otherwise, will do so.

A message will appear periodically announcing how much time you have left, and give further warnings about the autoboot if you wait until you have been respawned.

This feature has been rewritten. See change from Oct. 1 2009

[Apokriphos]

The Generals of the Seven Factions no longer voluntarily refrain their troops from entering a cleared area with a dead adventurer. Troop movement is limited, however. After all, only so many men can be moved at once in a short time.

-Faction areas no longer consider dead players alive when deciding whether or not to repopulate the zone. There are limits to this ability.

Feature has been removed

[LinuxPup]

-Control Undead spell: now dominates an enemy NPC undead creature if they fail a will save, making them join your party. Casters can only dominate one undead at a time. Dominating a second one removes the domination effect on the previous undead. Casters can only control undead that are of a level equal to or lower than their caster level. Does nothing vs. undead PCs (e.g. shifter forms). Does not work on undead summons. Resting will release your hold on them, so be careful! Duration is 1 game hour per caster level.

-All associates now use NS4 AI scripts... this should hopefully fix the error messages sent when a player dominates an animal using animal empathy.

-Summon focus wand should now work on all associate types including dominated creatures.

[LinuxPup]

Well folks... its been a long wait!!! 1.69 is here and NS4 is now updated and ready to go!!!

Thanks to cely, we're moving to a new home... a much more powerful machine (Dual Core2 based 2.93ghz Xeons), with MUCH more bandwidth. However, because of the move, everyone starts back at 0.

Because this is such a major update, I encourage you to remove any 1.68 version feat.2da from your override folder if its there (its not there by default, so you if you don't know what I'm talking about, don't worry). Failure to do that could cause some feats to become unavailable (like horse-related feats).

...

...

Long has the battle in Atheria run. Long have the peoples of Neversummer held fast against the invaders of the rift. Long has the war taken its toll upon the original citizens of the Alliance.

No longer....no longer will the people of Atheria abide by these tragedies. No longer will the citizens of Neversummer allow raiders from the rift into their city. No longer will the peoples be complacent or oblivious as to what their leaders are doing.

The stage has been set. Neversummer has refused to participate any further in the recruiting of tainted people from beyond. The city is teeming with activity, a new leader has been found. A new hope to bring the last of the original inhabitants back into power. A new power is being tapped to make Neversummer greater than the other factions that fight over scraps of land.

This war is now about one thing and one thing only. The removal of all outsiders from thier land, an end to the wars. A strong and powerful Neversummer shall now rule the lands.

Additionally...

The dragons of ancient times have come to find some of the newer practices undeserving of their time. They now decree some of the clerical domains not powerful enough to be worthy of their time....so now they are abandoned.

Masters of the stealth are no longer harbored by the homes of sleeth. Distrustful of the people that try to hide from them, AO has determined that Shadow Dancers will no longer be an accepted class on their streets......they might try to steal the stock piles of treasure.

Wizards in their search for more and more arcane power have come to an upsetting conclusion. The powers that lay hidden inside of the dragons is great and useful. Taking it upon theirselves, some of these wizards have taken in and used some of the citizens of AO for horrid experiments. In response to this travesty....wizards were banned from being a part of their faction in order to protect its' citizens. The dragons of Sleeth also prefer a more "pure" and innate form of arcane magic.

In a new accord struck with the members of RK.....the faction of AO will no longer hold slaves of the dwarven or gnomish kind. In addition to this, they will no longer take in refugees from the rift of these races either.


...

...

Here is the list of updates:

-The Last Alliance (LA) is no longer a playable faction. Most of the staff agreed that having so few restrictions was unbalancing, and not having an ally wasn't enough of a deterrent. Additionally, with the server size as it is, 7 factions was quite a bit. In the meantime the city is locked up till further notice. Even when we open the city back up, the faction will not be playable.

-Guild Wipe: Any existing guilds must reapply for their guild status within 2 days or their guild hall will be removed from the module.

-Horses: Don't get too excited yet about horses. Due to Bioware's buggy implementation (sorry, but its true), horses have a known issue of freezing up player's screen for 1-5 seconds when they first see one. The staff will determine how bad of an effect it is, and if its worthwhile to expand horses to other builds besides Paladins, or to remove them if they become too problematic. Please give us feedback. That said... some notes about the current NS4 horse implementation:

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-It's very simple right now.
-The Mounted Combat and Mounted Archery feats do nothing.
-Horse speed is 30% + 10% per 10 base skill ranks in Ride skill.  Does not stack with monk speed.
-Anything in the horses inventory will be destroyed when the horse is mounted, so be careful.
-Only available to characters with 5 Paladin levels.
-Make sure you don't have an old feat.2da override.  Again, if you don't know what I'm talking about, you probably don't need to worry about it.

-Replacing portal system with recall ability. Recall sends you back to your bind point. Accessible via Neversummer Diary or "/recall" chat command. Same restrictions as the former Death Express ability:

1. Cannot be in combat
2. Cannot be near enemies.
3. Cannot use recall ability while relics are under assault.

-New areas:

-The City of Skara: a city of good, once allied with the Northern Coalition, but now cursed. (mid to upper 20s level area)
-Isle of Dreams: an island teeming with machines created by a mad inventor. (mid to upper 20s level area)
-Underdark: redone completely. (levels 5-10, 16-25, and 40)
-Forest Home: a plane of fey, dryads, and animals. (level 30 area)
-Snake Pit: a pit of vipers under the influence of a strange orc. (levels 5-13)
-Dragon Eyrie: The kingdom of Dragons. Ruled by the most ancient and powerful of all creatures in Neversummer.

-Purple Dragon Knight is a unique prestige class of the Northern Coalition. Champion of Torm still remains a unique prestige class of the Northern Coalition as well.

-Purple Dragon Knight abilities changed:

1. Fear: now gives the PDK an aura of fear. DC is 10 + (1/2 character level) + charisma modifier. Duration is 1 round per character level.
2. Oath of Wrath: Now gives a bonus of 1 + (character level / 10) to attack, damage, saving throws, and skills against a selected enemy. Damage type is positive. The bonus is against the enemy's specific alignment and race, so any other creatures with the same race and alignment qualify. Duration is 1 turn + 1 round per character level.

-Many pre-existing areas redone with new/different tilesets.

-Male Drow favorite class is now Wizard. Female Drow favorite class remains as Cleric.

-Svirfneblin now have Keen Sense feat.

-Updated prize room to support new wings, tails, and shield appearances.

-Many item tweaks.

-Racial skill bonuses now applied as a skin so they stack. Note: The bonus will not count toward any feat prerequisites.

-No dwarves, gnomes, wizards, or shadowdancers in AO.

-New cleric domain restrictions. The following domains are no longer accessible to each respective faction:

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1. Ancient ones: earth, plant, water, and trickery.
2. Northern Coalition: evil, and trickery.
3. Ragnar's Kin: plant, air, and sun.
4. Shadow Legion: good, plant, air, fire, and sun.

-All factions gain the travel domain.

-Blinding Speed dodge AC bonus reduced to +2.

-Having both Lingering Song and Lasting Inspiration feats now causes bard song to last 100 rounds. Normally it lasts 10 rounds, and with just lingering song it lasts 15 rounds, and with just lasting inspiration it lasts 50 rounds.

-Earth Genasi ability changed. No longer wears off from damage. Here are the stats:

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Character Level      AC     Damage Power     Damage Reduction

1                    3      no damage reduction
10                   3      +5               5
20                   5      +6               6
30                   6      +7               7
40                   7      +8               10

-Ghostwise Halfling hide bonus reduced to character level / 4 (+10 at level 40)

-Bard Song and Curse Song adjusted for balance:

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Bard Song:

Minimum reqs                             Bonuses
Bard  Perform   Attack  Damage  Will Fort Reflex  HP   AC   Skills
Level   Skill            (Bludg)                      (Dodge) (All)
   1	   2        0        0      0    0     1     *    0      0
   3      6        0        0      1    0     1     *    0      0
   6     10        0        1      1    1     1     *    0      1
   8     13        1        1      1    1     1     *    0      1
  10     16        1        2      1    1     1     *    1      2
  12     20        1        2      1    1     2     *    1      2
  14     22        1        2      2    1     2     *    1      2
  16     24        1        3      2    2     2     *    1      3
  18     26        2        3      2    2     2     *    1      3
  20     28        2        4      2    2     2     *    2      4
  22     32        2        4      2    2     3     *    2      4
  24     34        2        4      3    2     3     *    2      4
  26     38        2        5      3    3     3     *    2      5
  28     42        3        5      3    3     3     *    2      5
  30     46        3        6      3    3     3     *    3      6
  32     50        3        6      3    3     4     *    3      6
  35     54        3        7      4    3     4     *    3      7
  38     58        3        7      4    4     4     *    3      7
  40     62        4        8      4    4     4     *    4      8

                                                  * = Perform skill  
Curse Song:

Minimum reqs                      Penalties
Bard   Perform   Attack   Will  Fort Reflex  Damge   AC    Skills
Level   Skill                               (sonic)(dodge) (all)
   1      2        0        0    0     1     *       0      0
   3      6        0        1    0     1     *       0      0
   6     10        0        1    1     1     *       0      1
   8     13        1        1    1     1     *       0      1
  10     16        1        1    1     1     *       1      2
  12     20        1        1    1     2     *       1      2
  14     22        1        2    1     2     *       1      2
  16     24        1        2    2     2     *       1      3
  18     26        2        2    2     2     *       1      3
  20     28        2        2    2     2     *       2      4
  22     32        2        2    2     3     *       2      4
  24     34        2        3    2     3     *       2      4
  26     38        2        3    3     3     *       2      5
  28     42        3        3    3     3     *       2      5
  30     46        3        3    3     3     *       3      6
  32     50        3        3    3     4     *       3      6
  35     54        3        4    3     4     *       3      7
  38     58        3        4    4     4     *       3      7
  40     62        4        4    4     4     *       4      8

                                      * = Perform skill/2

Introducing chat commands! Not many quite yet, but these are a very useful feature thanks to OnPlayerChat... you can type them from any channel except tell. Here are the ones available to players:

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/a, tells your summon to attack the same target you're attacking exclusively. This currently only works if you're attacking a target physically, not with spells.

/roll <d20 or some other die amount>, rolls a die which displays over your head like the NS Diary.

/worship <some deity optional>, players bows down and worships. If they specify a deity then it mentions that in a DM channel message.

/recall, shortcut to recall ability (instead of using diary).

/buff start, Puts you into buff record mode. All spells you cast (up to 30) are recorded and can be auto-cast.  Also records many non-spell buffs (for example Bard Song).  It can remember the following types of spell targets: yourself, other players, and your summon.  Targets other than yourself must be located nearby when you fire off a buff sequence, so make sure you have any summons you want to buff up already summoned before you use /buff.

/buff stop, Stops buff record mode.

/buff clear, Clears your recorded list of spells.

/buff, Queues up and casts all recorded buffs in the order in which you cast them.

[LinuxPup]

-Put the Devil Angel in the opening Planar Rift area.

[LinuxPup]

-Fixed generic hand axes so they drop now.
-Added a bunch of items to the DB, with more coming (thanks DM Kim)
-Added generic tridents and whips. They can now be purchased at stores. Remember, Tridents are now Martial weapons with 1.69, not Simple.

[LinuxPup]

-Removed Knockdown Immunity and flat +20 spot bonus from Dragon Knight summons. Spot and Discipline now scale with caster level on summon. Spot bonus is 1/2 caster level, and discipline bonus is 3/4 caster level.
-Removed mind spell/effect immunity from the following spells:

Protection from Alignment (same, just no mind immunity)
Clarity (now gives +3 vs. mind effects and fear)
Lesser Mind Blank (now gives +4 vs. mind effects and fear)
Mind Blank (now gives +4 vs. mind effects and fear)
Magic Circle vs. Alignment (same, just no mind immunity)

-The previously listed spells don't stack with each other.
-Death Ward no longer gives immunity to death magic, but a +4 saving throw bonus vs. death magic and effects.
-Negative Energy Protection spell no longer gives ability/level drain immunity.
-Freedom of Movement is now vulnerable to the spell breach spells (Mords included).
-Changed Power Word Stun spell when cast on creature:

Creatures with 100 hitpoints or less become stunned. 125 with spell focus divination, 150 with greater spell focus divination, and 175 with epic spell focus divination.

-Changed Power Word Kill spell when cast on creature:

Creatures with 100 hitpoints or less die. 125 with spell focus divination, 150 with greater spell focus divination, and 175 with epic spell focus divination.

[Lokey]

Started cleaning up the polymorph code.

There's certain gear combinations that would be stacked twice in the old code especially for shifter forms, so expect a bit of pain and tweaking. Constructive criticism would be lovely.

For the wiki maintainers, here's what happens:

Whatever you change into, gets items (some with specific properties like damage on Undead whatever's scythe), stat replacements and usable abilities depending on what type of polymorph it is. Then the properties from your items are added to them:

You'll get a message about items are "kept." These are any or all of weapon, armor (armor, helm, shield) and items (everything else).

- Right hand: weapon (includes two handers) goes to held weapon and claws.
- Left hand: the only thing looked at is shields. The base and enhancement ac are tallied.
- Armor: ac is added to tally, armor properties go to creature skin excepting ac.
- Helm: armor added to tally, properties to skin.
- etc...
- Gloves/gaunts: damage/attack properties are not carried. I did it for NS3, but I wasn't particularly happy with the code. Maybe someday.

Armor is tallied by type: armor (chest), shield (base and enhance), dodge (boots), natural (ammy), deflection (everything else). This tally is then applied as an ac enhancement to the hide (unfortunately the only items a polymorph can have so far as I know are deflection type AC. So there is a cap of 20 that can be reached with a tower shield and +3 items and that 20 will be deflection, meaning it applies to touch attacks. Such is life...and touch attack code is weird anyway.)

[LinuxPup]

-Shadow Shield spell no longer gives immunity to necromancy school or death magic immunity, but a +4 vs. death magic and negative energy. Still gives AC and damage reduction bonus.
-Bigby's should no longer work on plot creatures (like creatures affected by timestop).

[LinuxPup]

-Changed appearance of robes of Skara rogue and ranger to avoid graphics freeze-up due to 1.69 bug.
-Disabled Paladin's horse. It was causing too many problems for other players, so until we can find a workaround for it, they'll be disabled. If you're currently already mounted on a horse, dismount and have your horse killed.
-Changed the autoreset times to every 4 hours due to the heavy load we've been having lately... hopefully this will help with lag. Times are 0:00, 4:00, 8:00, 12:00, 16:00, 20:00 eastern standard time.

[LinuxPup]

Altered terrifying rage:

-DC is now 3/4 of intimidate skill.
-When used by PC barbarians, targets become immune for 2 minutes after being affected by it.

[LinuxPup]

-Added a new map to HoD.

[Lokey]

Polymorph code as above (did nab a crash issue, hopefully it's the one that's been a thorn in our side).

Mass shifter nerf: becoming a 65+ ac, 60 ab immune to a bunch of things beast at level 21 with no stat req no matter what items you possess isn't going to happen. Risen Lord can chill out for a while, see what the vamp and spectre have to offer now

- Most bonuses come from your gear. You get general form specific things of a physical nature, mental immunities are gone.
- All shifter forms and druid elder elemental forms use weapons now. For the most part the weapon is your weapon in that form, some have specific traits.
- Stats and stuff aren't final, a lot of adjustment is needed. Tying more of what you get to your equip and stats is a good thing, don't make a 8/8/8/18/16/8 and expect to own everything anymore. It shouldn't be a doctorate research level project to make a playable shifter though, your input is needed.

[Lokey]

Plunking away on polymorph. How did I forget about damage resistance? I guess the ac is still too high if no one noticed. This one isn't a quick fix: lots to code and test on that.

All polymorph items should be granted now. Much to figure out still since I get an earth elemental with more ac than a fire and equal to air!

Linux snuck two new areas in and did much script work. He did not nerf your Solar any more today.

Edit: damage resist was easier than I thought. So that combines properly now, but needs more rigorous testing to be confidant in it.

Added base shield ac and doubled the dodge ac added to the polymorph. Means my recommended everything character isn't dying instantly to everything--but that won't balance things all in one shot

[LinuxPup]

Further adjustments to Purple Dragon Knight special abilities:

-Rallying Cry: Normally +1 bonus to attack and a 20% bonus to land speed for one round. Now its duration has been increased to 1 turn + 1 round per charisma modifier. Also, speed increase is 40% + 1% per charisma modifier. Also Rallying Cry now grants an extra attack. Shouldn't stack with haste.

-Inspire Courage: Now grants all nearby allies a +5 will save bonus vs. mind effects and fear, a +1 to attack bonus, +2 damage (bludgeoning). Damage scales up with Purple Dragon Knight's character level. Duration is now half the PDK's character level in rounds + the PDK's charisma modifier in rounds.

-Heroic Shield: The PDK can grant an ally +4 AC (dodge). It lasts 1 round per the PDK's character level. The PDK must wait 5 minutes before using ability again. Note: cannot be used on self